Teachers’ awareness of critical pedagogy: A case study of Iranian EFL teachers

Abstract

The concept of critical pedagogy (CP) has been around for some time in education. However, not much research has been conducted on implementing the basic tenets of CP into the ELT classrooms. Acknowledging the significant role of teachers as the cornerstone of education system in every context, the main reason behind this study was to examine the extent to which Iranian EFL instructors in English institutes in Iran apply approaches and principles of critical pedagogy. This study investigated 200 Iranian EFL instructors’ points of view in English Institutes. The questionnaire developed by Azimi (2007) which examined teacher’s attitude in critical pedagogy with reference to their age, gender, educational level and work experience. Results revealed that there is a significant difference between age, gender, educational level and work experience. Compared to males, females had better mean in responding to critical pedagogy items in this study. Also, responses to critical pedagogy items represent a positive relationship with respondents’ age. Additionally, the higher the educational level, the bigger the mean for the responses toward critical pedagogy items was reported. Finally, the teachers with less experience had a lower level of agreement with the principles of critical pedagogy. The results of this study can also be regarded as an implication for policy makers in the field of TEFL to revise their policies related to the ELT issues.