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Critical Pedagogy


The duality of our psychology speaks to how each of us as learners, teachers, and researchers act together to educate. We each bring our independent individual variables to any teaching and learning situation, yet work interdependently to learn from each other and create new connections and meanings.

Language learning and teaching are at once highly personal and individual, while also social and embedded in an ecology of inter-relationships. Independence and interdependence cannot exist without each other, so how should this tension and integration inform our academic enquiry into language learning research and practice? Research in self-regulation, self-determination, learner and teacher autonomy, and motivation for language learning is one of several ways to approach these questions.

The psychology of language learning provides opportunities to explore psychological, theoretical and practical aspects of language learning. Whether one’s focus is the impact of technology or the integration of emotions into the classroom, we can and must all rely on each other to best serve students and support them in becoming autonomous, independent language learners who can be successful in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world.

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