Chapter 3: Critical Teacher Education for Global Competence in Brazil

One of the more sensitive issues in global-minded teacher education for social justice is the role of language in the classroom. Linguistic diversity tends to parallel socioeconomic and cultural diversity, and academic discourse has been shown to be alienating to many language learners, creating further inequalities in schooling and significant challenges for classroom teachers invested in social justice (Gee, 2004). Language study and use in education plays a crucial role in perpetuating inequality (Bartlett, 2007). At the same time, English, in part as a result of its being the language of the Internet, has become the newest global lingua franca, with nonnative speakers outnumbering their native counterparts (Dewey, 2007). While the nature and extent of globalization are constantly debated, Edwards and Usher have demonstrated the effects of these large-scale processes on pedagogy (2008). It stands to reason that given globalization’s impact on academic practices, the increased prominence of English and multilingual contexts will also affect teaching practices across the curriculum. What’s more, policy shifts for basic education teachers in modern democracies indicate the new responsibility of educating “global citizens” (Duncan, 2013; Gil, 2013)—demanding the elaboration of new skill sets without reliable precedents, producing a sensation of “disorientation and dislocation” in the rapid reconfiguration of educational objectives and practices (Edwards & Usher, 2008, p. 2). How can teacher educators prepare teacher candidates for these creative challenges of the profession? Furthermore, how can teacher educators provide teacher development that stimulates awareness of the connections between language, globalization, and social justice?