Priscila Leal

(Mis)understandings are part of everyday life. Whether we are at
home, work, school, church, or during customer service situations;
interaction has the potential for misunderstanding. We frequently take the act of comprehension and understanding for granted and only take notice of understanding when we feel something has gone ‘wrong’ – someone has misinterpreted something we have said or has responded differently to our expectation, or vice-versa. In a language classroom, the potential for misunderstandings to happen is surefire. his study reports on how Hoshihiko, a Japanese university student, and I, his Brazilian English language teacher, worked together through a gap in understanding between task instruction and task interpretation (Ohta, 2001).

The question of use of second language speakers’ personal narratives-in-interview as data has been widely debated in the applied linguistics field. I subscribe to scholars before me who argue for an analysis beyond content but one that also takes into consideration context and form. Bamberg’s positioning theory (1997; 2004) guides this analysis as I examine the storied world, the storytelling world, and the existing discourses in the personal narratives-in-interview by a woman from the island of Chuuk residing in Hawaiʻi. I discuss the linguistic, rhetorical, and interactional properties of her narratives, how she positions herself in relation to ideologies of language and identity that have value in her spaces, and juxtapose them against sociolinguistic and socio-historic contexts in which they were produced. I argue that by looking at the interdependence between all positioning levels (i.e., context, content, and form), it is possible to understand how the narrator positions herself with regards to societal discourses on language and identity both in the micro and macro contexts of the interview space and of Hawaiʻi.

This article investigates the potential benefits of using children’s literature in adult second language (L2) classrooms. A short-term, intensive university course for English reading and writing was designed incorporating children’s literature into the curriculum. The author describes the course and discusses how children’s literature can be used to improve students’ linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills. Both the teacher’s and students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the use of children’s literature in such a context are addressed. The author concludes that, with adults in the L2 classroom,
children’s literature can be used as a model for student writing, can engage students in critical thinking, and can be a  springboard for meaningful discussions and creative composition. Finally, the author provides suggestions of how language teachers can integrate reading and writing instruction, as well as critical thinking, using children’s literature with adults in L2 classrooms.

What do teacher and students do when they sense a misunderstanding? In this presentation I share my experience as a language teacher in a moment of sensemaking practices that are seemingly misfiring between a Japanese, university student and me during a “task-in-progress” (Breen, 1989) in a critical pedagogical language classroom.

Critical Language Teaching (CLT), based on Critical Pedagogy, sees teaching as a cultural, moral, social and political practice. Its goal is to engage students in questioning taken-for-granted worldviews, becoming aware of their role in society, and of their potential as agents of change. CLT aims at teaching languages through questioning dominant ideologies, re64258;ecting on these questions and on individual’s roles in society and potential action (Chun, 2016).
However, the nexus between critical pedagogical theories and L2 classroom practices is underresearched (Crookes, 2013). Thus, this presentation hopes to be a space where critically oriented
researchers and practitioners can dialogue and bridge theories and actual approaches.
I share my experience teaching English to Japanese students in Hawai’i within a critically oriented curriculum, which included potentially controversial topics (i.e., the attack on Pearl Harbor). Tasks were designed to prepare students to engage in and develop linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills. Students were asked to take pictures during a fieldtrip to USS Arizona Memorial (aka Pearl
Harbor); these student-generated pictures were used as springboard to explore students’ knowledge, beliefs, and emotions related to this event. Classroom audio recordings and students’ journals indicated
feelings of guilt for home country’s past actions, questioning of country’s current stance, and desire to never forget.
Implications include using student-generated pictures to engage students in critical thinking, and to facilitate meaningful, authentic discussions. In addition, student-generated pictures can ” help create
dialogic spaces for students to explore and create newer ways to make meanings, enabling their agentive roles as knowledge producers in their own right.” (Chun, 2016, p. 3)