| This dissertation examines how an adult English as a Second Language (ESL) program, which attempted to implement the principles of critical pedagogy, originated, operated, and evolved at La Gente, a community-based organization. The study centers on critical approaches to the teaching of English---specifically the participatory approach---and offers a fine-grained description of one attempt at its implementation. My investigation is guided by the following questions: (1) How do critical approaches find translation into concrete educational practices? (2) How do classroom events and the behavior of students, instructors, and administrators influence the development of curriculum in a critically oriented program? (3) Given a particular implementational reality, what theoretical parameters need to be reformulated, and how?; The study draws primarily from thirteen months of participant observation and practitioner-research carried out between September 2003 and November 2004, followed by less intensive fieldwork in subsequent years. To help gain insight into critical pedagogy, I describe and interpret the activities of the adult ESL program from three perspectives.; One view offers an account of the classroom; it details the operational practices that the participatory approach was rendered into and the modifications that resulted from contingencies of the instructional context. Another view explores the adult ESL program from an organizational perspective. It compares competing definitions of empowerment that program planners and participants brought to the learning of English, and examines how the events of the classroom were related to pressures operating outside it. The third perspective focuses on three women learners enrolled in the program. Taking a gendered stance, I describe the nature of their lives and the constraints that influenced their participation in language instruction.; An analysis of narratives from these perspectives highlights the challenges of putting critical pedagogy to work. From descriptions of this empirical context, it is possible to identify the conditions that need to be in place for the implementation of an effective, critically-oriented adult ESL program: (1) a preliminary assessment of the learner community; (2) a coherent framework of pedagogical principles; (3) a clear statement of curricular objectives and; (4) a dynamic elaboration of instructional practices. |
