Critical language awareness as decolonising tool for a unifying ecology in teacher education in South Africa

Abstract

This article determines whether transliteracy practices can be employed as a basis for introducing decoloniality into teacher education. The aim of the project was to devise ways of turning learning spaces into critical areas of enquiry. Discursive spaces were created to strengthen cross-cultural interpretive sensitivities, and to develop a stronger sense of voice and reflexivity among student teachers. Examples are provided of various collaborative tasks devised and implemented in this process. Evidence from student course feedback, suggests that a transliteracies framework can interrupt the discourse of coloniality; enacting epistemological and social change.

Keywords: transliteracies, critical language awareness, decoloniality, preservice
teacher education, South Africa, transculturality