From Roots to Routes: Enacting Self-Identity Pedagogy in English Language Classrooms

The recent decades of English language teaching appear to be more hearing of voices lamenting the byproducts of English language linguistic, cultural, and academic colonization and imperialism. A bold imprint of this academic monopoly can be seen in the wide incorporation of abridged or unabridged British and American literary works in foreign language settings, legitimized as authentic materials authored by native speakers. Going off the beaten track and in a spirit of putting more credit on our local riches, knowledge, and literary heritage, I, under the supervision and guidance of advisors from three disciplines of English Language Teaching, Persian Literature, and History of Islam, set heart on exploring the possibilities of opening spaces for English translations of Persian classic works of literature (mainly mystic and epic literary works) in language classrooms and tracing the language events that are unfolded as a result of acting on such literary arts, and using them as springboards for further teaching/learning moments and actions. The participants of this three-semester long action research were young Iranian women, majoring in various fields at Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. The students, with the encouragements and modeling they received, began to experience different views of language and language learning from the ones conventionally practiced in institutionalized frameworks. Practicing language as collaging, acting, crafting, weaving, visioning, and self-visioning opened spaces for the learners to practice their creative arts and crafts and display their perceptions, feelings, and understandings through more than verbal modes. The blossoming and flourishing of language instances with glittering lights from virtue, spirit, life, and root were among other insightful events of this journey. On another related level, the present research is a self-narrative of moments of epiphanies I, as a teacher-researcher and materials developer, began to experience over a period of eighteen months during which I took the plunge for re-visioning the institutionalized entanglements I had woven around myself as a mainstream practicing teacher, and the struggles I went through (and am still going through) for piercing such threads. In light of interplay of internal driving forces and external forces (my personal struggles, contacts with the students as well as consultations with my advisors) I began to see myself slowly transforming from being a spectator in using materials to a composer and from being an orchestrator in classroom conduct to a self-vocalist. It also involved moving from the domain of words to the realm of non-words and worlds, and from fragmented practices to more interconnected ones. Keywords: English Language Teaching, Academic Imperialism, Non-native Literatures, Persian Classic Literature, Spirit, Vision, Root, Art