Hershey, Pennsylvania
New York, New YorkBeijing, China

Call for Chapters: Pioneering Socio-Critical Approaches in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Research

Editors

Pedro Férez Mora, University of Murcia, Spain
Yvette Coyle, University of Murcia, Spain

Call for Chapters

Proposals Submission Deadline: March 10, 2025
Full Chapters Due: May 1, 2025

Introduction

Recently, the traditional conception of the teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL) as the acquisition of a set of grammatical rules to be learned in a safe, ahistorical, apolitical void (Safari & Rashidi, 2015) has been widely challenged and not only by researchers but also by educational laws all over the world (from Spain to Australia and Canada). This challenge has been articulated for most of its part around the maxim that EFL, in addition to a linguistic agenda, should also encompass a socio-critical function, more specifically to develop students’ personal growth, critical awareness, self-empowerment, and engagement with social justice. The growing interest in socio-critical EFL has crystallized in several approaches, including critical applied linguistics (Crookes, 2021; Pennycook, 2014), critical FL literacy (Ajayi, 2015; Férez Mora, Coyle & Dorado Otero, 2022), the four resources literacy model (Huh, 2016; Lau, 2013; Luke & Freebody, 1997), and multiliteracies pedagogy (Kalantzis et al., 2016). With little pedagogical and empirical investigation available, the field of socio-critical EFL is clearly in its infancy (Bland, 2023, Férez Mora & Coyle, 2023). This, in turn, hinders the perception of socio-critical EFL as an effective instructional approach, thus making its full incorporation into classrooms ostensibly more difficult.

Objective

Against this background, the present book aims to advance the field in three main directions by: (i) exploring the state of the art research and theory in the field to define an agenda for further investigation; (ii) providing pedagogical guidelines on how to conduct socio-critical EFL through comprehensive and practice-oriented teaching units; and (iii) reporting empirical evidence of the usefulness of the approach in improving students’ linguistic and civic competences, critical thinking, and awareness of issues of social justice. In addition to generating pedagogical know-how and empirical research in socio-critical EFL, available research within a broad range of educational levels (primary, secondary, and university education) and textual typologies (literature, cinema, songs) is also targeted. This adds further relevance to the book by advancing research in the growing field of cinema-, literature-, and song-based EFL.

Target Audience

The scarcity of pedagogical and empirical research in the field of socio-critical EFL is guaranteed to make an impact on the research community by presenting pioneering results, thus paving the way for future research. Furthermore, the theoretical, pedagogical, and research-based orientation of the book makes it appealing for academics, educators, and university students alike. Depending on the reader’s needs and interests, the book can function as an instructional guide and/or as a source of food for thought from which to generate cutting-edge scholarly debate.

Recommended Topics

• Socio-critical onto-epistemologies in EFL and their pedagogical implications in primary, secondary, and university education. • Impact of socio-critical EFL on students' linguistic performance (both monomodally and multimodally) in primary, secondary, and university education. • Effect of socio-critical EFL on the development of primary, secondary and university students’ conceptions of alterity-related topics including, for example, gender, sexual orientation, race, social class, ableness, age, and humans’ relationship with nature. • Affordances of literature, cinema and song to articulate socio-critical EFL in primary, secondary, and university education. • Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of socio-critical EFL in primary, secondary, and university education. • Examples of pedagogical socio-critical classroom practice in primary, secondary, and university education.

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before March 10, 2025, a chapter proposal of 1,000 to 2,000 words clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors will be notified by April 3, 2025 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines.Full chapters of a minimum of 10,000 words (word count includes references and related readings) are expected to be submitted by May 1, 2025, and all interested authors must consult the guidelines for manuscript submissions at https://www.igi-global.com/publish/contributor-resources/before-you-write/ prior to submission. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-anonymized review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

Note: There are no submission or acceptance fees for manuscripts submitted to this book publication, Pioneering Socio-Critical Approaches in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Research. All manuscripts are accepted based on a double-anonymized peer review editorial process.

All proposals should be submitted through the eEditorial Discovery® online submission manager.



Publisher

This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), an international academic publisher of the "Information Science Reference" (formerly Idea Group Reference), "Medical Information Science Reference," "Business Science Reference," and "Engineering Science Reference" imprints. IGI Global specializes in publishing reference books, scholarly journals, and electronic databases featuring academic research on a variety of innovative topic areas including, but not limited to, education, social science, medicine and healthcare, business and management, information science and technology, engineering, public administration, library and information science, media and communication studies, and environmental science. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit https://www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2025.



Important Dates

March 10, 2025: Proposal Submission Deadline
April 3, 2025: Notification of Acceptance
May 1, 2025: Full Chapter Submission
May 20, 2025: Final Chapter Submission



Inquiries

Pedro Férez Mora University of Murcia paferez@um.es Yvette Coyle University of Murcia ycoyle@um.es

Classifications


Education; Social Sciences and Humanities
Back to Call for Papers List