Research Information System
3rd International Conference on Lifelong Education and Leadership for All (ICLEL), Porto, Portugal, 12 - 14 September 2017, pp.546-555
This article aims at exploring major conflicts and the inadequacies in EFL classes consistent with 'banking education' which was described by Paulo Freire as one of the remarkable thinkers of education. The article criticizes the traditional method of foreign language teaching that is based on teacher domination as it is described in banking education and reveals the limits of banking model of education for I'LL. The pedagogy and the method derived from the pedagogy should be applied for a fruitful FLL is far away from traditional banking education. Learners' attendance and involved in learning English can be increased by means of a different alternative approach - critical pedagogy- in EFL classes. Critical Pedagogy that stresses empowering learners to think and act critically and use their life experiences as tools to foster their learning should be proposed as a suggestion for application of critical thinking in ELT classrooms. Problem posing education was proposed by Freire (1970) as an alternative to the banking model and it leads the development of knowledge by the students themselves. Problem posing education in Critical Pedagogy is more relevant for language learning as because language learning is an active process and cannot be achieved by passivized students of banking education. In the article, basic principles of problem posing education, teacher and student roles, praxis, and dialogue that are major themes of CP in language teaching are analyzed. To clarify the constraints of the present system of teaching of foreign languages, and as a suggestion; CP that should be put into practice in EFL classes is discussed here. For the discussion, available books and articles written on the subject were scrutinized.