Rethinking Established Approaches in the Language Classroom and Beyond

Lisa Marie Brinkmann is a research assistant at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and holds a PhD in Learners’ Investment and Portfolio Work in the French language classroom.Franziska Gerwers is a doctoral candidate and research assistant at the University of Hamburg, Germany.Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer is a full professor and researcher at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hamburg, Germany.Claudio Vicente Millacura Salas holds a degree in Spanish from the Universidad de la Frontera in Temuco (1990), a Master's degree in Linguistics from the National School of Anthropology and History of Mexico (1997), and a PhD in Ethnohistory from the University of Chile (2012).

“This volume offers a profound emotional and intellectual shift, moving beyond the pain of colonial wounds toward a future of connection. By centering Indigenous wisdom and noncolonial creativity, the editors curate a vital space for healing. It is an essential guide for educators seeking to restore dignity and humanity to language learning.”- Angel M. Y. Lin, The Education University of Hong Kong“This edited book is an invaluable resource for creating inclusive, equitable learning environments. Moving beyond critique toward a "pedagogy of hope," it brings together diverse global voices to challenge coloniality. A must-read for educators wishing to support relational, creative, and non-hierarchical pedagogical spaces.”- Jasone Cenoz, University of the Basque Country“This excellent, innovative volume on critical language education by Brinkmann, Gerwers, Melo-Pfeifer & Millacura Salas moves us beyond a simple critique of colonial logic and structures. Instead, it documents the creative practices and pedagogies that have always moved, and continue to move, local communities with epistemologies of hope, care and co-creation outside of colonial domination.”- Ofelia García, The Graduate Center, City University of New York“On occasion provocative, this volume primarily aims to strip decoloniality of its unhelpful associations — some putative — establishing rather the foundations for its reconfiguration as a rechristened, noncolonial framework, one that allows for untethering the critique of language education praxis from its rootedness in an exclusive colonial matrix, without, however, denying the political economy of colonialism.”- Bassey E. Antia, University of the Western Cape“This powerful book sets the tone for a timely and necessary intervention in language education. Moving beyond reductive and de-historicized accounts of decoloniality, the authors offer a critical lens of noncoloniality that highlights both the enduring structures of coloniality and the possibilities for transformative pedagogical practice. With intellectual clarity and reflexive depth, this book not only interrogates the field but also reimagines it, advancing a pedagogy rooted in creation, responsibility, and hope.”- Sender Dovchin, Curtin University, Australia

• Preface, Ryuko Kubota, Introduction: Rethinking established approaches to language education, migration and Indigenous learning contexts, and language teacher education through noncolonial perspectives, Lisa Marie Brinkmann, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer, Franziska Gerwers & Claudio Millacura Salas, Part 1: Theoretical contributions to coloniality and non-coloniality, 1. How the coloniality of power works in our daily lives: Reviewing the language learning environment in Indigenous and migrant contexts, María Guadalupe Rivera Garay, 2. Interconnections for the decolonization of teaching, Claudio Millacura Salas, 3. Towards Deliberative Education – A Critical Reading of Critical Applied Linguistics' Take on Assessment, Andreas Bonnet, 4. The continuous minoritisation of social groups in educational contexts: the colonial and modernist burden in day-to-day interactions, Gilberto Rescher, 5. From Translanguaging to Transknowledging as Emergent Entretejidos: Advancing the Non-Colonial Possibilities of the Heritage Language Classroom, Josh Prada, 6. Investigating with (and not about) Research Participants: Ethnography with Young Migrants in Brazil, Daniel Gordillo Sanchez, Part 2: Noncolonial approaches in practice, 7. Brota la lengua: (Re)membering, storytelling and revitalizing in language teacher education, Maria Cecilia Schwedhelm Ramirez, 8. Beyond Portuguese: Toward a decolonial perspective on language policies for students with migrant backgrounds in Brazilian schools, Yara Carolina Campos de Miranda & Leandro Rodrigues Alves Diniz, 9. The impact of colonialism on English accents' perception: A comparison of students' attitudes in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Freeha Anma & Md. Sadequle Islam, 10. Using and Teaching the Language of the Land: Indigenous Alaskan Teachers' Perspectives, Angela Lunda, Amber Frommherz, Chelsee Cook, Barbara Dud, Naomi Leaska & Roberta Littlefield, 11. "I Have to Find Stories That Speak to Their Experiences": Incorporating Indigenous Nigerian Sociocultural Context in the L2 Writing Classroom, Chisom Nlebedum & Wisdom Nemi Otikor, 12. Insights on Indigenous conceptions of language: "Languages are people, people are the land", Lisa Marie Brinkmann & Claudio Millacura Salas, Part 3: Textbook and curricular analyses, 13. Depicting Colón and the descubrimiento de las Americas in Spanish textbooks in Germany: a multimodal and comparative analysis against erasure and epistemic injustice, Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer, 14. Raciolinguistic constructions of immigrants: Linguistic deficit, racialized professions and foreignness in a Norwegian language textbook, Vander Tavares & Shahrzad Nouri, 15. Teachers' professional standards and initial teacher education. An intercultural comparative perspective, Verónica Muñoz-Rivero, 16. Topics, geographical examples, linguistic variations and cultures (not) represented: A case study analysis of the current curriculum of foreign languages in Hamburg, Franziska Gerwers & Lisa Marie Brinkmann, Postface: Non-Colonial Relations as Ontological: A Vision, Suresh Canagarajah, Index