In Knowledge,
Competence, and Communication,
author William H. Walcott debates the meaning of
creating equitable and critical instructional
practices by exploring diverse representations of
knowledge. He covers both historically important
topics and current issues, such as, colonialism,
multiculturalism, gender and language learning, and
popular culture. He then presents a systematic and
painstaking assessment of Chomsky's, Freire's, and
Searle's theories of knowledge and their educational
relevance.
In the
end, Walcott makes his case for the Freireian
approach--conscientizacao--and
illustrates how this approach might be applied in
concrete language teaching situations. It is this
approach, the Freireian, with its sociological
connection (necessitated by the global context of
inequality), which, he believes, needs take
precedence as a pedagogical practice.
"Walcott's
superb critique of the Chomskyian underpinnings
of communicative language teaching goes beyond
the careful treatment of the philosophical
sources of Chomsky's framework to take on the
imperialist and racist circumstances that have
made English as a Second Language an industry of
colonial domination."
--James L. Heap, Professor and Dean of Education,
Brock University
"An insightful
and highly relevant analysis of the limitations
of communicative approaches to language teaching.
Drawing of Paulo Freire's work as foundational
for a redefinition of teacher-student
relationships in language learning, Walcott
proposes a communicative approach to language
teaching that is embedded in radical democratic
multiculturalism. Significantly advances the
debate on language teaching approaches for the
practitioner and theorist alike."
--Jim Cummins, Professor of Education, Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education
Table of Contents
WILLIAM
H. WALCOTT was educated in the Caribbean, England,
and Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Arts (London, England), and holds a Ph.D. in
Education from the University of Toronto. He is
currently a professor in the Division of Liberal Arts
and Sciences, Humber Institute of Technology and
Advanced Learning, Toronto, Canada, where he teaches
Sociology and Humanities.
256
pages, 6x9, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-286-7 $24.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-287-5 $53.99
Education & Teaching / Cultural
Studies
November
2006
