Cultivating critical global citizens through secondary EFL education: a case study of mainland China

Abstract

This paper examines the enactment of critical literacy pedagogy in secondary English language teaching in the face of globalisation. This qualitative case study signals that global citizenship education (GCE) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching can converge through offering equitable and globally contextualised learning opportunities. The overarching themes presented here challenge the dominance of instrumentalist orientations of EFL education in mainland China today while mobilising pedagogical choices that affirm students' local and lived experiences in relation to international socio-political issues. Findings provide EFL educators nuanced insights into how critical global literacies are extended through critical understandings of literacies, interconnections from a personal to a global level, and opportunities for social actions on multicultural issues, thus fostering globally competent and bilingual learners who critically engage with the contested terrain of an increasingly globalised world.