Critical Consciousness

Critical Consciousness is a focus on understanding the world socially and politically, and how to fight against social injustices. Critical consciouness is a strategic translanguaging pedagogy and a necessity in bilingual education. ‘Your teaching will acquire a higher purpose - advancing social justice - ensuring that bilingual students, especially those who come from language minority groups, are instructed and assessed in fair and equitable ways.’ (García et al., 2017, p. 157)

Representation and Cultural Stereotypes

To further students critical consciousness, TEDx has a plethora of Ted Talks that are presented by adolescents from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. For an individual assignment, students will be provided a list of videos to choose from to watch, summarize, and answer questions. Here is an example of questions for the videos to promote students understanding of bilingual representation and its importance.

Preguntas - Bilingual and bicultural latina

What are the differences mentioned among Latin American and American culture? ¿Cuáles son algunas de las diferencias mencionadas entre la cultura latinoamericana y americana?

How do hispanics greet eachother? How does the latina explain how it feels when she walks into an American home? ¿Cómo se saludan los hispanos? ¿Cómo explica la latina lo que se siente cuando entra a una casa americana?

What do you think it means to 'flip a switch' between your cultures? ¿Qué crees que significa "activar un interruptor" entre tus culturas? 

Are you bilingual? Do you treat your cultures separately or act different around different people? What changes? ¿Eres bilingue? ¿Tratas tus culturas por separado o actúas de manera diferente con diferentes personas? ¿Que cambios?