FKIP UT Brings in Sunway University Expert to Explore Critical Pedagogies in Southeast Asian ELT

Tangerang Selatan, 22 October 2026 — The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP) of Universitas Terbuka (UT) held a Visiting Lecture on the theme “ELT Critical Pedagogies in Southeast Asia” on Thursday, 22 October 2026, from 14.00 to 16.00 WIB. The event took place in hybrid mode, on site in the Meranti Room, Wisma 3 Universitas Terbuka, and online via Zoom and YouTube.

The lecture brought together students and lecturers of the English Language Education Study Program (PBIS), FKIP lecturers, tutors, and educators from various regions, with a total of 125 participants. The forum connected international academic perspectives with the preparation and professional development of English teachers in Indonesia.

On behalf of the Dean of FKIP UT, the Vice Dean for Student Affairs, Learning Services, and Cooperation, Dr. Mukti Amini, M.Pd., delivered the organizing committee’s report. She explained that the hybrid format reflects UT’s commitment to accessible and inclusive higher education. “May today’s discussion inspires us to develop English language teaching that is not only effective and creative, but also critical, reflective, and responsive to the needs of learners,” she said.

The event was officially opened by UT’s Vice Rector for Academic and Student Affairs, Prof. Rahmat Budiman, S.S., M.Hum., Ph.D. In his remarks, he invited participants to reflect on what it means to teach a language well. “Language is never just a set of rules. It carries memories, identities, aspirations, and relationships,” he said.

Prof. Rahmat noted that for UT, as an open and distance higher education institution, technology extends learning opportunities far beyond a physical campus, but access alone is not the whole story. Quality also depends on interaction, meaningful feedback, a sense of belonging, and the opportunity for every learner to contribute. He encouraged prospective teachers to leave with at least one question that would change the way they plan a lesson, choose a text, respond to a learner, or design an assessment.

In the first session, Professor Dr Tamas Kiss of the Centre for English Language Studies, Sunway University, Malaysia, presented “Situating Critical Pedagogies in Southeast Asia”. He stressed that language teaching is never neutral. Every choice of topic, reading text, or discussion prompt implicitly signals what is considered important or acceptable.

Kiss pointed to global ELT textbooks that tend to avoid sensitive topics and fill their pages with safe themes such as holidays, shopping, and hobbies. Drawing on Paulo Freire, he described critical pedagogy as reflection and action upon the world to transform it, an approach that is still not widely used in Southeast Asia.

He identified four barriers: sociocultural norms of respect for authority and maintaining harmony, curricular limits that lead teachers to self-censor, teacher socialization shaped by years of passive learning, and high-stakes examinations that drive “banking” education. As a way forward, Kiss introduced the Critical Orientation Model (Joseph Jeyaraj, Kiss, & Perrodin, 2025), which moves in stages from a critical attitude in the classroom to critical action beyond it.

The practical strategies he offered included low-risk questions about who wrote a text and whose voices are missing, critical analysis of videos and advertisements, internet meme analysis, and micro-actions such as rewriting a biased story. Kiss emphasized that critical pedagogy must supplement, not replace, core English language skills. It is not about imposing Western political doctrines, but about honouring local realities and empowering learners.

The second session was delivered by Dra. Suci Madiarti Isman, M.A., Ph.D., a lecturer in the PBIS program at FKIP UT, under the title “Beyond Access to Agency: Critical Pedagogy and Assessment in Online English Language Education”. She opened by comparing two learners who read the same claim about AI in higher education. The first could accurately summarize the text, while the second evaluated the claim, weighed other perspectives, and expressed a justified position.

According to Dr Isman, assessment can be designed to move learners from comprehension to critical engagement. Online learning widens access, but it also brings challenges such as unequal connectivity, learner isolation, varied readiness, and the difficulty of observing students’ thinking processes.

To address this, she proposed the CARE framework (Critical Assessment for Reflection and Empowerment), built on four pillars: critical engagement, agency and voice, responsiveness and fairness, and evidence and reflection. The framework is put into practice through four learner practices: Question, Investigate, Justify, and Reflect. Dr Isman illustrated its application with the Opinion Exchange task in the Contextual Speaking course (SPBI4201). She also presented a proposed Critical Engagement Speaking Rubric (CESR) with four performance levels. She closed by inviting educators to choose one task, redesign it using the CARE framework, and observe its impact on their learners.

The Visiting Lecture was organized by FKIP UT together with the PBIS program as part of efforts to strengthen academic exchange and networking with international scholars. The recording of the event is available on YouTube at https://sl.ut.ac.id/VLFKIP-UTTV.