Speaker
Description
This ongoing research explores how student–teacher partnerships can foster open communication and critical reflection in Japanese university classrooms. Drawing on Freire’s dialogic pedagogy and Cook‑Sather and Alter’s (2011) student consultant model, I examine a new liaison role that bridges peers and instructors. The liaison facilitates discussion about bias, privilege, and intercultural understanding, creating psychological safety while sustaining challenge. Preliminary outcomes suggest enhanced trust, dialogue, and shared responsibility for learning.
Special scheduling requests
Saturday is preferred, but Sunday morning is also possible. I will need to travel Sunday afternoon.
Abstract
Japan’s increasingly polarized discourse around immigration and diversity has made open classroom communication both more urgent and more complex. Within this context, educators must consider how to construct learning environments that allow students to confront bias and difference safely, while still being challenged. This ongoing research draws on Freire’s concept of dialogic, problem posing education and Cook Sather and Alter’s (2011) model of the student consultant—a liminal partnership in which students collaborate with teachers to reflect on classroom processes and foster mutual learning.
Using this framework, I examine the development of a student–teacher liaison role in a Japanese university’s English program. The liaison acts as a bridge between peers and instructor, collecting feedback, clarifying intentions, and mediating dialogue around issues such as xenophobia, privilege, and intercultural communication. This structure aims to create psychological safety while maintaining the productive discomfort necessary for critical engagement.
Preliminary findings from classroom observations and discussions indicate that the liaison role encourages more open dialogue, strengthens trust, and increases students’ willingness to engage with difficult topics. Both majority and international students show early signs of enhanced critical awareness and ownership of learning. While conclusions are still emerging, the project illustrates the potential of student–teacher partnership to transform the classroom into a site of mutual inquiry, communication, and critical consciousness.
Short summary
This ongoing research explores how student–teacher partnerships can foster open communication and critical reflection in Japanese university classrooms. Drawing on Freire’s dialogic pedagogy and Cook‑Sather and Alter’s (2011) student consultant model, I examine a new liaison role that bridges peers and instructors. The liaison facilitates discussion about bias, privilege, and intercultural understanding, creating psychological safety while sustaining challenge. Preliminary outcomes suggest enhanced trust, dialogue, and shared responsibility for learning.
Keywords
critical pedagogy
dialogue
inclusivity
student consultant
References
Allen, R. L. & Rossatto, C. A. (2009). Does Critical Pedagogy Work with Privileged Students? Teacher Education Quarterly, 36(1), 163-180.
Cook-Sather, A., Alter, Z. (2011). What Is and What Can Be: How a Liminal Position Can Change Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 42, 37-53.
Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Barr, R. R., Trans.). The Continuum Publishing Company, New York.
Freire, P. (2005). Chapter 2. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Bergman Ramos, M., Trans.). (30th Anniversary Edition, pp. 71-86). The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. https://libcom.org/article/pedagogy-oppressed
Graeber, D. (2015). Dead Zones of the Imagination: An Essay on Structural Stupidity. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House.
Greene, M. (2022). Toward Wide-Awakeness: An Argument for the Arts and Humanities in Education. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 79(1), 119-125. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146817707900105 (Original work published in 1977).
Kubota, R. (2016). Neoliberal paradoxes of language learning: xenophobia and international communication. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(5), 467-480, DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2015.1071825 6). The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. https://libcom.org/article/pedagogy-oppressed
Seider, S., Graves, D., El-Amin, A., Kelly, L., Soutter, M., Clark, S., Jennette, P. & Tamerat, J. (2023). The Development of Critical Consciousness in Adolescents of Color Attending “Opposing” School Models. Journal of Adolescent Research, 38(1), 3-47, DOI: 10.1177/07435584211006466
| Scheduling preference | Anytime on Saturday |
|---|---|
| Title | Dialogic Pedagogy and Student–Teacher Partnership in Japan |