A postmethod pedagogical approach to teaching Cultural Studies in the EFL Classroom: Re-telling Canada’s colonial history – by Marie Pogerth (Team XII)

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Editor’s note: The featured image shows a small section of the “Witness Blanket“, a large-scale installation by the artist Carey Newman. It is made out of gathered objects from residential schools, government buildings and churches from all over Canada. Every item tells a story of a residential school survivor. Together they “speak to the strength and resilience of indigenous peoples and cultures” (cf. Newman, 2020). It was chosen as the featured image for this article because it underscores the importance of remembering the individuals who make up the history of residential schools, following the research interest of this article.

 

Positionality Statement (Marie Pogerth)

This article is a summary of my Master thesis “A postmethod pedagogical approach to teaching Cultural Studies in the EFL Classroom: Re-telling Canada’s colonial history“, which I wrote in 2022 in the course of finishing my studies at the University of Education Karlsruhe (PH Karlsruhe), where I studied English and German for the teaching degree in secondary education. My supervisors were Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin and Ms Tania Brennan. 
Within the 4 semesters at the PH Karlsruhe I had the chance to reflect my own colonized ways of thinking in seminars about postcoloniality by Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin. My personal interests in Native American culture served as a starting point when I was pondering on possible topics for my Master Thesis – along with the experiences I collected working part time in secondary schools in Karlsruhe.
I enjoyed working on this paper very much, and the knowledge I gained through this is now helping me to keep self-reflecting in my day-to-day work as a regular English teacher in a German secondary school.

 

Thesis Summary

  1. Introduction
  2. Historical Overview
    2.1 Decolonization
    2.2 Post- vs. Decolonization
    2.3 Canada as a colony
    2.3.1 The Indian Act
    2.4 Residential Schools
    2.4.1 “To kill the Indian in the child”
    2.5 Aftermaths of colonialism for Canada’s First Nations
  3. Colonization in the EFL classroom
    3.1 Representation of former colonies’ cultures in German EFL coursebooks
    3.2 Canada in the EFL classroom
  4. Skills aspired by the 2016 syllabus (Bildungsplan) vs. What the textbooks teach
  5. Putting theory into practice. A WebQuest on residential schools in Canada following a postmethod approach
    5.1 WebQuests
    5.2 Analysis of the subject matter
    5.3 Didactic analysis
  6. Conclusion

References

 

  1. Introduction

“The schools that had cemeteries instead of playgrounds (BBC 2015)”.

The findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), presented in 2015, laid bare more than a century of abuse, loss and trauma generated in Canada’s residential schools. Starting in 2007, the commission gathered information about the background and motivation for the implementation of the residential school system and the plight of those involved. However, as investigations and research continue, it has become clear that terms like ‘cemetery’ do not seem to capture the reality of what was happening at more than 130 schools. The discovery of 751 unmarked graves on the premises of a former institution in Saskatchewan in 2021 comes only weeks after the remains of 215 children were located at the site of a residential school in British Columbia (cf. BBC 2021). Regardless of how one chooses to refer to these findings – cemetery, burials, mass graves – one cannot escape the absurdity of the nexus of words like ‘school’ and ‘graves’ within the same sentence. How did it come this far?

Figure1: Former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia remembers their victims by placing children’s shoes and toys in front, 2022″ (Photo: Dennis Owen/Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/remains-of-215-children-found-at-indigen-idJPRTXCVLNK/

Coloniality as the foundation of European ways of thinking and being becomes apparent if only one goes through the world with open eyes: street names and monuments bear witness to this, a visit to the museum leaves open the question of the origin and the actual owner of the exhibit, and the image of the African continent as the ‘land’ of unimaginable suffering can probably be found in the minds of many. Coloniality in everyday life is also felt in its intertwined relationship with English Language Teaching (ELT).

This paper aims to show how the European colonial project is still a huge part of Western culture, and how this is reflected in the ways of what and how we teach the English language in EFL classrooms. Therefore, Canada’s colonial history will serve as one example out of many, and the particular emphasis is on the Canadian residential school system. Then, materials of textbooks used in the German EFL classroom for secondary schools will be examined. The main focus is on how Britain’s colonial history is represented, but also on how Native and Indigenous communities of former British colonies are portrayed. A teaching-unit that I developed following Kumaravadivelu’s postmethod approach presents an alternative to the textbook material examined beforehand.

 

  1. Historical Overview

In the following, “Colonialism” is to be understood “as the conquest and control of other people’s lands and goods” (Loomba 2005, 8). This definition was chosen because it considers the unequal power relations between the colonizer and the colonized. For the European colonial project in particular, the violence and level of ruthlessness they were carried out with, as well as the assumption of the colonizers that they belonged to a superior race, have to be taken into account (cf. Loomba 2005, 9). Another striking characteristic of modern colonialism, distinguishing it from e.g. the Roman or the Ottoman Empire, is the unwillingness of the self-appointed masters to make cultural concessions to the subjugated societies, which is rare in world history (cf. Osterhammel 2017, 21).

The rise and fall of the British Empire spans almost a whole millennium from the first Norman invasion of England in 1066 until 1997 – the year in which the last colony gained independence from the British. An extensive overview of this complex historical subject can be found in the full text of this thesis in chapter 2.

 

2.1 Decolonization

After a phase of militant imperialism, colonizers sensed an era of quiet enjoyment of the colonial fruits on the horizon. An end to the colonial system was inconceivable to most politicians in the metropolises and to the public, which was more eager than ever to indulge in Empire propaganda. However, the declaration of American Independence in 1776 marked the first period of decolonization. The second period extends from the end of the 19th century to the 1920s; a third period followed due to Britain’s rapidly declining status as an economic world power (cf. McLeod 2020, 10). The Empire had become extremely expensive to supervise, it seemed to make economic sense to hand back the costly administration “of colonial affairs to its people, whether or not the colonized peoples were prepared [
] for the shift of power” (McLeod 2020, 10). With Hong Kong being handed back to China in 1997, for the first time in centuries, the number of people living under British rule overseas fell below one million.

 

2.2 Post- vs. Decolonization

Terminology matters. Therefore, it is necessary to point out why postcolonialism needs to be understood as a more active process rather than a static concept of a new era. The term postcolonialism is debatable due to its prefix ‘post’ referring to an aftermath being both temporal, as in coming after, and ideological as in compensation. Herein lies a misunderstanding: it suggests “the demise of colonialism” (Loomba 2005, 12); further, a country may be both postcolonial (in the sense of being formally independent) and neo-colonial (in the sense of remaining economically and/or culturally dependent) (cf. ibid.). Hence, a “postcolonial” culture might still be politically penetrated by its former colonizers.[1]

Postcolonialism shall then not be defined as whatever comes after colonialism but more flexibly as contesting colonial rule and the legacies of colonialism (cf. Loomba 2005, 16). In this regard, it is also important to keep in mind that such cautious undertakings define the so-called ‘third world’ only be their relation to colonialism. Histories of once colonized nations are then flattened so that colonization becomes their defining feature.

Replacing the prefix ‘post’ with ‘de-’– as in decolonization –, implies a more active and ongoing process rather than the static matter-of-factness of ‘postcolonialism’. Decoloniality manages to include the thought and histories of other cultures of how they were prior to European invasion and serves as a basis for “developing connected histories of encounters through those incursions” (Bhambra 2014, 119).

Editor’s note: In our teaching degrees, we read terms like “Residential Schools” with increasing Critical Language Awareness; words can be used (and names can be coined) to play down or hide crimes against humanity.

 

2.3 Canada as a colony

Long before John Cabot’s first journey to what is now Canada, the land was inhabited by the Iroquois and other First Nations1 communities who, according to bones and other artefacts that have been found, have inhabited the country for at least 12,000 years (cf. Mullen 2020, 2060). In the years between 1604 and 1867 the country passed several phases of colonial inhabitation by France and Britain; including European diseases wiping out large proportions of Indigenous communities, Mourning Wars and the Seven Years War. Finally, the Treaty of Paris declared the four British Canadian colonies – Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario and New Brunswick – into the Dominion of Canada and became an autonomous state within the British Empire.

In many ways, Canada has seen itself and also functioned “as an extension of Europe, as part of the British Empire” (Medina & Whitla 2019, 20). Despite alarming facts like an infant mortality rate double the national average among indigenous children or a life expectancy that is among the lowest worldwide amid them  (cf. Malik 2002, 22:42-22:50), the country has remained mostly outside colonial theoretical discourses. The concerns, issues and social implications are still rarely addressed which reinforces the myth that Canada has little negative colonial past, while the continuing marginalization and denial of First Nation peoples’ experiences of colonialism are often swept under the rug (cf. ibid).

 

2.3.1 The Indian Act

In 1876, a treaty was passed that would profoundly affect the fate of Canada, and especially its indigenous population. The Indian Act equipped the British Crown with wide-ranging powers regarding First Nations’ identity, governance, political structures, cultural practices, and education. These limited the first inhabitants’ freedoms massively and enabled officials to impose indigenous rights and benefits according to their “good moral character” (Parrott 2020).

The bill substituted traditional governing structures for the election of band councils. Hereditary chiefs – leaders who acquired power through descent rather than election – were no longer acknowledged. Women were barred from Band Council politics. The Act also prohibited First Nations from performing religious ceremonies and various cultural gatherings. In 1884, the potlatch – a gift-giving ceremony practiced by Native Americans of the Northwest Pacific coast – was banned, and in 1895, every festival, dance, or other ceremony, including powwows and the Sun Dance, were outlawed. An additional amendment in 1914 disallowed off-reservation dances; in 1925, dancing was banned entirely (cf. Parrott 2020). Another adjustment of The Indian Act from 1927 made it illegal for First Nations people to seek legal assistance.

The Indian Act targeted the systematic oppression and subordination of Canada’s aboriginal population in all aspects of social life. First Nations children were obligated to attend Residential Schools from 1894 on. The pass system made it illegal for aboriginal peoples to move outside of their reserves; a permit system ensured they would not sell their goods anywhere else but within their reservations. Individuals lost their official Indian status if they graduated from college, married a person without status (if they were a woman), converted to Christianity or became a doctor or lawyer. This was a process known as ‘enfranchisement’ (cf. Parrott 2020). It was not until 1960 that aboriginal peoples could vote in elections without having to give up their Indian status. The Indian Act has had lasting and long-term impacts on indigenous cultures, economies, politics, and communities. It has also generated intergenerational trauma, especially in relation to residential schools.

 

2.4 Residential Schools

Between 1831 and 1996, 130 residential schools operated in Canada. The schools were government-sponsored, and church-run institutions designed to assimilate indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture. The goals of ‘civilization’ and ‘assimilation’ which served as the driving purpose of the facilities, were to eliminate indigenous cultures from Canada and continue to dispossess First Nations of their territories (cf. Woolford & Houndslow 2018, 206).

The early origins of the system can be traced back to the 1600s with the implementation of the mission system; brought to the country by its colonizers who felt the ‘need’ to civilize Canada’s First Nations (Hanson 2020). Nicholas Flood Davin, who suggested the idea of Residential Schools after the American example stated: “If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young. The children must be kept constantly within the circle of civilized conditions”, he wrote in his Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half Breeds in 1879 (cf. Hanson 2020).

Students at residential schools did not benefit from the same education as the rest of the general school population as the schools were heavily underfunded (cf. ibid.). Instruction focused mainly on practical skills: girls were prepared for domestic duties and learned how to wash clothes, sew, cook, and clean; boys were trained in carpentry, tinsmithing and agriculture. Many pupils would attend classes part-time and work for the institution the rest of the time (cf. ibid).

By disrupting their families for generations, the residential school system systemically eroded Aboriginal communities, as well as MĂ©tis and Inuit cultures, “severing the ties through which indigenous culture is taught and sustained and contributing to a general loss of language and culture” (Hanson 2020). The residential school program is viewed widely as a form of genocide since the government and church intentionally sought to extinguish every aspect of indigenous cultures and lifestyles (cf. ibid.).

 

2.4.1 “To kill the Indian in the child”

The moment children arrived at their assigned residential school, staff began to assault their native identity: braided hair, often from spiritual significance, was cut, traditional clothing was taken away from them, names were replaced with numbers and new, Euro-Canadian ones (cf. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015, vi).
The following experiences by residential school survivors will only be commented and interpreted to a minimum to allow them to speak for themselves. This is what survivors remember of their first time at the residential school:

When I first went to residential school, it was like tearing my heart out. [
] That school in Port Alberni was worse than I ever could have imagined. They took away our clothes, cut our hair, gave us a number. The abuse began as soon as I got there. It seemed like the perverts on the school staff knew how to pick the most vulnerable (Fournier & Crey 1998, 66) – Willie Blackwater, survivor of Alberni Indian Residential School.

The nightmare began as soon as Emily and sister Rose, then eleven years old, stepped on the small boat that would bear them away. ‘I clung to Rose until Father Jackson wrenched her out of my arms,’ [Emily] remembers. ‘I searched all over the boat for Rose. Finally, I climbed up to the wheelhouse and opened the door and there was Father Jackson, on top of my sister. My sister’s dress was pulled up and his pants were down. I was too little to know about sex; but I know now that he was raping her (Fournier & Crey 1998, 47).

Psychological and emotional abuse were constant and widespread at the schools; physical abuse as punishment, but also sexual assault was commonly used. Survivors recall being strapped and beaten or shackled to their beds (cf. Hanson 2020). Many of the students had little or no understanding of English or French when they first arrived at the school where teachers and supervisors typically had no understanding of the children’s indigenous languages (cf. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015, 47). Not being able to understand what was asked of them and being punished if not, the first few weeks and months must have been frightening and disorienting for the children. When trying to communicate to one another in their mother tongue, “some had needles shoved in their tongues” (Hanson 2020). Poor sanitation, overcrowding, inadequate diet, and lack of health care caused an alarmingly high death toll among the students. The Alberni school reported a mortality rate of 11 percent among its students, 17 percent as for the Saskatchewan Crownstand school, and an average of 24 percent in 15 prairie schools (cf. Fournier & Crey 1998, 58).

Schools also arranged marriages among their students (cf. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015, 96). A survivor of the St. Joseph’s Residential School in Fort Resolution, Northwestern Territory, Violet Beaulieu, remembers, how school officials had tried to make her marry numerous men suggested by them:

They had to get rid of me, I guess. [
] They had to set up a marriage for me, somebody I didn’t know. [Six days later] my sister-in-law come, a wedding gown, veil, everything, and she was, oh, the whole set of clothes, helped me dress up now. And she must have knew by my expression that, I didn’t say nothing to her, but she must have known I didn’t want to. She kept saying, ‘Don’t say no, don’t say no,’ she kept saying to me. [
] I don’t remember going in there. I know the church was full. I don’t remember nothing. Only one time I came to when the priest asked me, ‘Will you take Jonas for your husband?’ I woke up, and just like I woke up, not a sound, and they’re waiting for my answer, and then, like, in the back of my head I could hear my sister-in-law saying, ‘Don’t say no, don’t say no.’ I said, ‘Yes’. [
] I didn’t want to, and I still got married (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015, 97).

Another survivor, who attended a residential school in Ontario in the 1960s, was fifteen when she got married: “I didn’t know anything. I was sixteen when I had my first child. No one ever told me what to expect. I didn’t feel connected to my parents or anybody. I wasn’t told anything, I wasn’t told anything about how to raise, raise my children” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015, 98), she remembers. Generally, puberty-recognition ceremonies were held among First Nations’ communities, at which women counselled the girls and men spoke to the boys about what was to expect as they come of age (cf. ibid). Residential schools, however, did not offer any form of sexual education.

Alphonsine McNeely remembers:

’I don’t know, I must have cut myself down there because I’m bleeding now.’ My pyjamas is full of blood, and my, and my sheets, and I was so scared. I thought this time they’re gonna kill me. And then she laugh at me, and she told me, ‘Go tell Sister. She’s not gonna tell you nothing.’ I was scared. Told her, ‘Come with me.’ She came with me. And then I told her what happened. I showed her my pyjamas. She started laughing, and I start crying more, because why, why are they laughing?’ (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015, 98).

In order to “kill the Indian in the child” – a statement that most likely originated from an American military officer (cf. McDougall 2018) – Christianity was imposed onto the students. Religious training was an essential part of Indian residential schools. The days at school were highly regimented; following strictly set times for church services and prayers (cf. Marshall & Gallant 2012). At Kuper Island residential school, students were punished with public whippings or forcible confinement if they expressed their spiritual identity or religious beliefs (cf. Fournier & Crey 1998, 59).

Even if, at the beginning of the system, many parents simply hoped for a good, ‘western’ education for their children, it was by no means easy for them to send their children off to residential school. However, once residential school became compulsory for Indigenous children, parents faced fines and jail time, should they resist this policy (cf. Lemay 2021, np). Officials feared that parental interference would only encourage children to relapse into ‘savage ways’, and that students would forget everything they had been taught at the residential school (cf. ibid.). School staff felt that parents were a negative influence on their children in general, and often, they prohibited the children from going home for summer vacation.

The residential school system may serve as an example of how decisive the role is that children play in the development of a society and culture. Through the constant absence of children in indigenous communities’, parents were denied their pursuit of mother- and fatherhood. Parental grief as the shared experience that it was for many First Nation parents, shaped the further development of their culture (see chapter 3.4).

Aboriginal communities in Australia have suffered a similar dehumanizing fate. The concept of ‘White Australia’ marginalized People of Color (PoC) systematically, but the country’s aboriginal people in particular. Australian aboriginal children were taken from their families in a similar way to Candadian aboriginal children and put into white foster families, orphanages and church missionaries run by whites: “We have the power to take any child from its mother, at any stage of its life” (Malik 2002, 17:47-17:52). The degree of their unwantedness within their own country becomes clear in the Commissioner of Native Affairs, A.O. Neville’s referral to the Aborigenes as a “problem that will eventually solve itself. [
] They are not getting enough food, and they’re being decimated by their own tribal practices. In my opinion, no matter what we do, they will die out” (Malik 2002, 16:43-17:04).

A number of former pupils have positive associations with their time in the institutions, and some were certainly treated with kindness by the nuns and priests who ran the schools, as best they could under existing circumstances (cf. Hanson 2020). But even those ‘good’ experiences happened within the context of a system designed to destroy indigenous cultures and assimilate indigenous students. Similarly, 22 Greenlandic Inuit children were subjected to the “Little Danes Experiment” in 1951.

 

2.5 Aftermaths of colonialism for Canada’s First Nations

A dual character can be attributed to the nation of Canada: functioning as an “extension of Europe” (Medina & Whitla 2019, 16) through the British Commonwealth, it is a colonial power on the one hand. On the other hand, Canada is a colonized nation as well, since it has always been an object of colonial desire for both Europeans and US Americans. Contemporary Canada as a nation, therefore, cannot be understood without considering its deep entanglement with colonialism. However, these days this country enjoys a very high reputation regarding the welcoming of otherness and multicultural ways of living; especially in comparison to its neighbors in the South who enforced their Jim Crow Laws well into the 20th century.

In many cases, Canada is seen as a country with no negative colonial history. This assumption, however, is problematic for different reasons. The “umbilical cord” (ibid., 23), linking the country to colonialism, is one of the reasons for the ongoing marginalization and denial of First Nations’ realities. Nevertheless, it should not go unmentioned that Canada has taken some important steps towards hospitality and immigrant friendliness, which has always made the country one of the most popular destinations for emigrants and refugees (cf. Schmidtke, 2009). These moves, however, are by no means the fruits of changing attitudes toward the foreign, but rather the result of years of demands and efforts by Canada’s indigenous peoples to resist pervasive structures of discrimination (cf. Medina & Whitla 2019, 24).

In order to achieve the two essential goals of the 1988 Multicultural Act, namely tolerance for ethno-cultural difference and the imperative of equal opportunity, they have been supplemented by comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that is also significant for the integration of the labor market. Thus, a broad social and political consensus has emerged in Canada that immigration is desirable, and the successful integration of immigrants is an essential normative commitment of Canadian society. In view of this, however, one cannot help but consider the paradox of these efforts against the backdrop of the systematic oppression of the country’s own indigenous population. The last federally funded residential school in Canada closed in 1996 (cf. Marshall & Gallant 2021).

“Survivors of residential schools carry trauma. But the trauma is also intergenerational. When the caregivers of children are hurt by a genocidal, the trauma is passed on to that child” (Stewart Philipp, Grant Chief of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs). Transgenerational traumata resulting from the atrocities caused by the residential school system can be seen both as a direct consequence of settler colonialism, and as evidence that this is an “ongoing experience” (Woolford & Hounslow 2018, 205), or, in Loomba’s (2005, 13) terms “that nothing is post ‘about’ [First Nations’] colonization”.

To this day, Canada’s First Nations continue to suffer from loss of culture and traditional teaching, dispossession of land as well as from insufficient access to housing and healthcare, employment, and education (cf. Fairweather 2009, 157). The last mental health and illness report of Canada was carried out in 2006 and found that suicide rates among First Nations are twice the national average (see figure 3); youth with a parent who attended residential school were more likely to have suicidal thoughts, compared to their non-native peers (cf. The Government of Canada 2006, 167). A United Nations report from 2005 states that “in every case, these disparities can be linked directly or indirectly to land loss and to the absence of cultural and political self-determination” (Fairweather 2009, 157).

Suicide rates of First Nations compared to non-indigenous Canadians (Government of Canada 2006, 167)

Editor’s note: Just to remark that over the last two decades, the subject of naming losses and renaming identities has emerged in Canadian art installations, picture books, paintings, films, videos, podcasts, and other artistic ways of reclaiming voices, as one way of initiating healing. Also, seminal decolonial scholarship has been spearheaded by notable Canadian academics. (This, however, was not the subject of the author’s thesis.)

 

  1. Colonization in the EFL classroom

“Where the empire spread, so too did English” (Pennycook 1998, 20).

The establishment of the English language as a Lingua franca was one of the most powerful echoes stemming from the age of the British colonial project, and is felt every day in the 21st century (cf. Pishghadam & Zabihi 2012, 1). Within the globalized world, English gained importance in almost every aspect of life: technology and business, politics, and media as well as education. A number of core ideologies of contemporary English language teaching originate in colonial ways of thinking (cf. Hsu 2017, 112). The dominance of English generates a hierarchy of languages in which linguistic diversity is put at the very bottom. As a consequence, social experiences get lost, individual forms of knowledge wasted, and “lived multilingual experiences of Indigenous peoples” and other marginalized groups erased (Phyak 2020, 226-227). De Sousa Santos (2014) refers to this as epistemicide; a concept which upholds inequalities of multilingualism and colonial mentalities.

Still, language learners should be taught about the cultures and societies associated with them in addition to the language. In order to answer the question of which and whose culture should be taught – global culture? Internet culture? National or religious and ethnic culture? – textbooks have received much attention.

 

3.1 Representation of former colonies’ cultures in German EFL coursebooks

The following will be an attempt to analyze English textbooks used in EFL classrooms at comprehensive and secondary schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. The analysis is guided by three main considerations to keep in mind while discussing the material:

  1. Is it mentioned under which circumstances Britain acquired a former colony?
  2. Are the results following the occupation of a culture dealt with (critically)?
  3. Are the indigenous people of the country mentioned, and if so, is their oppression addressed?

English 5 Lighthouse 5 (2016) from Cornelsen deals with the overall topic of Australia. However, it does not mention to the learner why he or she is confronted with Australia in the first place. Therefore, the first of the three criteria is not met. The first pages describe “Life down Under” (Abbey & Donoghue 2020, 8) and offer visual input to the topic. Uluru is mentioned as an “Important place for Aboriginal Australians” (ibid.); however, there is nothing more to be found that points to an Australia before European colonization. On the next page, readers will find several newspaper articles, one of which has the headline “Ban on climbing Uluru draws closer” (ibid.). The mountain is described as a popular attraction. Only in the last third of the short text it is mentioned that Uluru is more than a tourist site, which must be considered problematic as this formulation suggests the place would have only so much function; its true meaning is portrayed as rather subordinate. Also, the term ‘ban’ and the dramatic choice of words (“draws closer”) carry a rather negative connotation and transport a hidden message. The ‘ban’ is an unwelcome consequence affecting Australians and tourists instead of being seen as a success for Aboriginal Australians and the preservation of their culture. The headline implies something being taken away from Australians by the Aboriginal population.

Cornelsen’s Lighthouse 6 (2017) introduction to their South Africa unit is debatable for several reasons. Apart from focusing on landscapes and wildlife in the first few pages of the unit, special attention is given to “Multicultural South Africa” (Abbey & Donoghue 2017, 10). A short text describes the country as the Rainbow Nation due to its diverse population, which was colonized by the Dutch in the 1600s “followed by the British in the 1800s” (ibid.). Although the country’s colonization is mentioned here explicitly, it is portrayed as a rather neutral historic event, where people “came” to South Africa and “brought” (ibid.), among other things, new languages. This neutralization of events applies to some examples in the present textbooks. Repeatedly, formulations such as “come” or “settle” are used to describe European takeover, implying a rather peaceful coexistence of the different cultures and therefore romanticizing history. Not one of South Africa’s many tribes is mentioned in the entire unit.

Unit 3 of Red Line 6 takes a closer look at New Zealand. Also here, visual impressions are used as introduction. Four out of five pictures show landscapes and/or the country’s flora and fauna. Neither the introductory photographs nor the tasks referring to them, deal with New Zealand’s (colonial) history. However, the Maori are mentioned as the country’s indigenous people underneath a picture showing the national rugby team performing the traditional Maori dance ‘haka’. Two questions arise here: Why are no Maori shown here, but white New Zealanders performing the dance? The photograph’s caption also tells about the Maori language and a Maori TV station.

In their research regarding pictorial material in Norwegian ELT textbooks, Brown and Habegger-Conti (2017, 8) found that the illustrations of First Nations people disproportionately depict them referring to their traditional background only. This finding applies here as well: instead of the haka, would a reference to the Maori TV station, mentioned in the info text underneath, not have been possible to create a less stereotypical image? Both questions are complex to give an answer to. The picture shows a traditional Maori heritage – the dance – which may certainly find mention in relation to the Maori. Albeit, on the picture it is performed by Whites, whereby an undertone of cultural appropriation cannot be denied. However simply exchanging the rugby players with Maori dancers will increase the risk of students associating indigenous people being “unable to assimilate with the modern world” (ibid.). An image creating a reference to the Maori TV station instead in order to introduce indigenous people outside their traditional setting, will produce a strong element of Othering, creating a certain distance between the Maori and white New Zealanders.

Using photos and images in order to make students curious about new topics or general language material is a popular method in foreign language classrooms. However, visual texts, even more so than written ones, always have a way of communicating within mutually agreed social conventions about what looks beautiful, frightening, interesting, and so on. In all of the examined textbooks, images of First Nations and Aboriginal People portray these cultural groups predominately in a one-sided, static, and rather superficial way, just as the “Young Maori Dancer” is shown in Figure 2. Additionally, unlike white characters guiding through the textbook, individuals often remain unnamed and “serve as representative of an entire culture, way of life, or particular concept that students are learning” (Brown & Habegger-Conti 2017, 23).

Figure2: A “Young Maori Dancer” portrayed in Red Line 6 (Caridia, C. et al., 2019)

It is striking that visual representation of Native Americans, Canadian First Nations and Australian Aborigines are heavily stereotyped, rareley shown in modern settings and thus linking the individual to their traditions only. This increases a “them vs. us” divide.

“Though much of the research on English language instruction advances a positivist framework and presumes English to be a neutral language” (Hsu 2017. 115), history shows us that English is in fact far from being a neutral language. Too often, the design of ELT is taught and considered in isolation from its historical setting of colonialism and its present-day context of globalization as they are linked to white supremacy, British dominance, and the appreciation of Western culture and modes of knowledge (cf. ibid). It is therefore of utmost importance to invite change within curricula toward an epistemic turn. As Kumaravadivelu (2016, 80) states, “merely tinkering with the existing hegemonic system will not work; only a fundamental epistemological rupture will”.

 

3.2 Canada in the EFL classroom

Scenery, wildlife, open spaces, cleanliness, and environmentalism, cities, multiculturalism, and diversity are Canada’s flagship subjects when it comes to the country’s representation within the EFL classroom (cf. Doff 2006, 119). It does not come as a surprise that German students’ impressions of Canada are often overly preconceived images of “endless plains”, “the beaver”, “snow” and “the lumberjack living in a log house” (cf. Merkl 2005 np.). This romanticized image may also be influenced by European-centered perceptions shaped by novelists like Karl May (Winnetou), Disney’s interpretation of Pocahontas or Hollywood’s Dancing with The Wolves, which all contributed in the creating of the ‘Imaginary Indian’ in the 19th century (cf. Grimm 2006, 102). The two extremes left no room for in-between interpretations, and conveyed romanticized relationships between the ‘Indians’ and whites (cf. ibid.). The coursebooks selected for this analysis are no exception to this rule.

Red Line 6 devotes one unit to “Schools in Canada” in which four different teenage characters report on their school life. Also, residential and First Nations schools are referenced here and even dealt with in a critical manner as Nuna Johnson tells about herself being sent to a residential school to “adopt European customs” where she was forced to “eat awful food, and [
] had to have a cold shower every night” (ibid., 29). Whereas the featured characters are given more identifiable narratives like being homeschooled and therefore missing to hang out with classmates in their breaks or a female student with Down’s syndrome attending a public school, it is different with the residential school survivor. Much like with Australian Aboriginal people, she, too, is pictured in traditional aboriginal clothing, passively gazing into the distance (cf. Figure 3) . This visualization makes it harder for learners to identify with Nuna Johnson. Furthermore, the other portraits all depict young adults whereas she is of adult age, talking about her granddaughter. Choosing a character much older than the learners’ age who is talking about her difficult past not only bears the risk of pupils concluding indigenous people belong in the past (cf. Brown & Habegger-Conti 2017, 28), but also make their experiences in the residential school their defining feature so that they become the ‘residential school survivor’ only. More complex and individual storylines are not attributed to them.

Figure 3: A “Canadian Residential School survivor” in Red Line 5 (Caridia, C. et al., 2017)

In Lighthouse 6, Canada is introduced as a “damn big” (Abbey & Donoghue 2017, 136) country that is “full of different landscapes” (ibid.). The double page also provides information in the form of two texts about the country’s history and people. Regarding the history, there is a strong focus on John Cabot’s “arrival” in 1497 and the subsequent settlement of Europeans; the part about Canada’s people mainly addresses Canada’s image as a multicultural destination for immigrants. Although both texts deal with contexts in which indigenous Canadians play a crucial role, they are only mentioned in one sentence, which stated that “Aboriginal Canadians (First Nations, MĂ©tis and Inuit) today make up about 4.3% of the population” (ibid., 137). Besides using words like “arrival”, the information about the country’s history is presented from a severely Westernized perspective and is omitting large portions where First Nations’ people have been critical to Canada’s development. It is addressed that French settlers created a business of hunting beavers for their fur, which led to “more and more Europeans [coming]” (ibid.) to Canada. The fact that this business was only made possible due to the cooperation with the indigenous is left out completely.

Another example of how indigenous people and their language are only mentioned as a sidenote is shown in Figure 4:

Figure 4: Red Line 6’s introduction “Discover Canada” (Caridia, C. et al., 2019)

The textbook material discussed above deals with topics in which colonization plays a huge part, but fails to implement this. The examined material is, among others, developed by authors from Western cultures and societies, namely Ireland and Great Britain. This becomes apparent in the underlying notions of the authors’ Western modality, philosophy and logic which perpetuate injustices, bypassing colonial spheres and preventing a holistic understanding of non-western worldviews, dilemmas, experiences, and futures (cf. Keles & Yazan 2020, 3). Since representation is always a matter of selection, “what is not selected becomes invisible or negated” (hooks 1992, 117). This way, textbook content manages to establish prejudices about entire cultures from afar and to maintain corresponding power relations. Thus, colonialism is firstly tangible very well into the spheres of our everyday lives. Secondly, these portrayals prove that its consequences shape our understanding of the world which in turn affects indigenous cultures negatively.

 

  1. Skills aspired by the 2016 syllabus (Bildungsplan) vs. what the textbooks teach

Article 2 of the School Law of Baden-Wuerttemberg states that schools are especially required to educate their students in responsibility before God, in the spirit of Christian love of neighbor, to humanity, love of peace, love of nation, and homeland, to respect for the dignity and conviction of others (cf. §1 Abs. 2 SchG). In addition, the 2016 syllabus for English emphasizes that through the process of learning foreign languages, students shall develop an understanding of foreign patterns of thought and action, as well as an awareness of their historical context (cf. Ministerium fuer Kultus, Jugend und Sport 2016, 3). In the course of this, respect and understanding for the “foreign” should be developed and misunderstandings avoided (cf. ibid.). These objectives are listed under the guiding perspective of “Education for tolerance and acceptance of diversity” (Bildung fĂŒr Toleranz und Akzeptanz von Vielfalt (BTV)). According to UNESCO’s 1995 Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, the term is defined as “the respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human”.

Having had a look at how textbooks for the EFL classroom implement those aspirations, certain contradictions become apparent. These contradictions and the messages they imply are what is called the hidden curriculum by Giroux (1988) or the implicit curricula according to Eisner (2001, 87). The terms refer to the unspoken norms, values, and beliefs that are communicated to students by the underlying pattern of a specific instructional framework. Eisner (2001, 93) elaborates “it is important to realize that what schools teach is not simply a function of covert intentions; it is largely unintentional. What schools teach they teach in the fashion that the culture itself teaches”. Relating to ELT textbooks, this suggests they have an underlying function as a medium which spreads Western worldviews, as they are based on Western culture and designed by Western-educated developers. As those materials are used in other parts of the world as well, they circulate these cultural values (cf. Rashidi & Meihami 2016, 15) and thereby uphold colonial ways of thinking that we are supposedly thinking to have overcome. Additionally, materials for ELT have a reputation of representing a complete curricula themselves, “suggesting that they are not only teaching language but also conveying different hidden agenda” (Rashidi & Meihami 2016, 2). The dilemma that comes with this is that much of what young adults learn in school is at least influenced, if not shaped by the hidden curriculum (cf. Giroux 1988, 51; cf. Eisner 2001, 95).

The juxtaposition of standard textbook materials used in classrooms across Baden-Wuerttemberg (and probably large parts of Germany) with the competences aspired by the 2016 Curriculum lays bare the need to decolonize the EFL classroom.
One cannot establish an open, welcoming culture toward minorities of all kinds if one uses the same means which helped to establish the status quo in the first place. In the words of Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (Lorde 2017, 91).

Editor’s note: German secondary pupils have access to the Internet and Social Media almost 24/7 and are comparatively more politically aware than the teenage generations before them. Team XV worked with them in “Critical Language Awareness” lessons in the summer of 2025 and were surprised. Their reports will follow next year. 

 

  1. Putting theory into practice. A WebQuest on residential schools in Canada following a postmethod approach

I would now like to explain how the theoretical considerations outlined above could be turned into practice. I therefore designed a cultural studies unit, following Kumaravadivelu’s (2001) postmethod pedagogy approach. With a temporal scope of approximately four 45-minute lessons, focusing on the topic of residential schools in Canada, the unit is developed for the German 9th to 10th grade on a Realschule or Gemeinschaftsschule level (lower secondary).

Moving away from Eurocentric ways of thinking and presenting, the developed material shall serve as an example for decolonial classroom practices which recognize the real-world impact of coloniality in our everyday lives. To achieve these learning objectives, a WebQuest will be used.

 

5.1 WebQuests

The WebQuest is freely accessible online here.

 

5.2 Analysis of the subject matter

The main subject of my teaching unit (developed as the last part of my thesis) is Canadian residential school survivors’ reports. The era of residential schools in Canada is sometimes called a ‘dark chapter’ in the country’s history. However, this terminology suggests it to be a matter of the past. Similar to the difficulty of the term ‘postcolonial’, here as well, the crux lies in the assumption that (Canadian) society has moved on from their past by simply ‘turning a page’, although the victims of the residential school system continue to suffer from their experiences.

The testimonies given by more than 6,750 residential school survivors in the course of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, represent a crucial part of the shared history of Canada. In June 2015, the final report of the TRC was presented in Ottawa. Residential school survivors and their families, as well as dignitaries, and journalists, were joined by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to “mark a new beginning for relations between Indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians” (National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation 2022). Before the TRC’s final report, the victims of the residential school system were spoken for and about, ascribing a passive role to them. Turing them into active subjects of their experiences and handing them back the power of telling their own story is vital in the ongoing process of collective healing.

 

5.3 Didactic analysis

This teaching unit’s goal is for learners to become aware of residential school survivors’ experiences and deepen their empathetic skills or awareness towards the other. They do so by assembling a mood board, mirroring their reactions and associations to (audiovisual) texts dealing with Canada’s history of residential schools and their survivors. To achieve this goal, students work through a WebQuest designed particularly for this scenario. As mentioned above: The WebQuest is freely accessible online here.

This is of relevance due to several reasons:

  • The topic is transferable to students’ everyday lives, as they too are confronted with a variety of cultures, spiritual beliefs, and ways of thinking on a daily level.
  • Classrooms themselves are heterogeneous settings where difference is an essential part to its very definition: confrontation with diversity is inevitable.
  • Political headwinds of the 21st century confront learners with attitudes that seemed to belong to the past. It is of utmost importance to guide them through these minefields and establish awareness and initiate thought processes questioning the status quo.
  • Identity formation is a major part of students’ current developmental psychological phase – encountering alternative concepts of culture and identity sensitizes learners to future confrontations and supports them in their process of dealing with their own identity.

Competences fostered through the teaching unit presented:

Establishing Intercultural Competence (ICC) is considered the main objective of the German EFL classroom. The lesson plan outlined  fosters components which ultimately work towards:

  • Reading comprehension
  • Audiovisual listening
  • Speaking skills
  • Giving a presentation in front of others
  • Ability to work in a team through groupwork
  • New vocabulary
  • Media competences and media literacy: skills necessary to use digital resources
  • Enhancement of sociocultural knowledge
  • Intercultural sensitivity required and further developed
  • Creativity
  • Social skills: communication, willingness to compromise, working in a team environment

The online material is structured in eight different subpages: Home, Introduction, Task, Resources, Evaluation, Finished?, Early Bird and Further Reading. Each of these provides sequential content ultimately leading to a discussion about residential schools in Canada and therefore, achieving the teaching unit’s goal. Unlike in a standard methodological analysis, the timeframes given here are to be understood as rough guidelines only. Thus, the learning process cannot be phased to the extent that it could be in the more regular analogue teaching setting. However, at least four 45-minute lessons should be planned for the realization. This does not include content that needs to be addressed in advance.

Figure 5: Teaching Unit “Residential Schools in Canada”, following context-sensitive pedagogy by Kumaravadivelu, 2001

A thorough and detailed lesson plan for this teaching unit including ideas for further development, possible cross curricular activities as well as challenges and limitations to the format, can be accessed in the full text of this thesis.

 

  1. Conclusion

In June 2008 Canada’s former Prime Minister Stephen Harper followed suit to his Australian colleague, Kevin Rudd who, in February of that same year, made a formal apology to the country’s Aboriginal peoples for the assimilation of their children. The apology in the name of the Canadian Government was delivered in the House of Commons and included the following:

The government [of Canada] recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation. Therefore, on behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to aboriginal peoples for Canada’s role in the Indian residential schools system. [
] We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions, that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this. [
] The burden is properly ours as a government, and as a country. [
] We are sorry (CBC 2008).

Not long after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada got its work under way, Prime Minster Harper spoke at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and stated: “We are one of the most stable regimes in history. [
] We also have no history of colonialism. So, we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother” (Ljunggern 2009, emphasis added). With his address, Harper delivered the very reason why the mission of the TRC is so utterly important.This thesis focused on Canada’s colonial history, however, as for colonialism, it is not just Britain having to come to terms with their past but equally every other country that was involved. Harper’s words at the G20 summit and the lack of a profound apology to Britain’s former colonies by the Crown is proof that decolonization is a much-needed endeavor for whole cultures and one that must be dealt with individually as well. The establishment of a commemorative culture is important not only because it is owed to the suffering to process collective trauma but also to point out what must not be repeated. In Germany, this is all the more important in view of this country’s past. The Holocaust or the genocide of Herero and Nama in Namibia under German colonial rule should be sufficient justification for this.

The past cannot be undone, ever. Yet, with history comes the responsibility to repay. The educational value of English as a foreign language is reflected, among other things, in the fact that learners are confronted with initially unfamiliar linguistic but also cultural orders of the world (cf. Ministerium fĂŒr Kultus, Jugend & Sport 2016, 3). These new orders are encountered as alternative interpretations of the world; the task of teachers is now to make learners understand that mere tolerance and acceptance is not sufficient. The added value associated with these interpretations is to be discovered as well. Therein lies the responsibility for teachers to make the young aware of the past and re-tell it if necessary. Decolonized classroom practices equip them with the skills needed for peaceful communities.

The Canadian residential school system has shown what great of an impact education can have on a culture. It has also shown the potential effects of interpersonal relationships – if one wants to refer to the teacher/student interactions in residential schools as ‘relationships’ at all – between teachers and their students. The well-being of society rests with the relationships built with our children today. It is important to  The experiences of residential school survivors are an unparalleled negative example. However, their stories also teach the importance of passing on values like acceptance, respect, empathy and esteem; so essential to the growth of young adults’ personalities – as it is in the interest of both the present and future generation that no one ever again must use the words ‘graves’ and ‘school’ within the same context.

 

Text by M. Pogerth

Illustrations and rights by their respective authors and publishers (cf. quoted in captions)

Featured Image: Newman, C. “Artist Carey Newman welcomes you to the Witness Blanket. https://witnessblanket.ca, accessed 14.12.20

 

Note

[1] There are many terms relating to a land’s first inhabitants, some of which are controversial. To avoid any misunderstandings and because terminology matters, this is how indigenous peoples will be referred to in this thesis: Indigenous is the hypernym including the variety of aboriginal groups. Canada’s Aboriginal peoples are the MĂ©tis and Inuit; First Nations include every other aboriginal group who are ethically neither Inuit nor MĂ©tis. Indian is only used to refer to a First Nation’s person whose legal Indian status is registered under The Indian Act (1876) (see chapter 3.2). Outside of Canada, this term is considered outdated. The United States’ aboriginal peoples are described as Native Americans, other countries prefer the term Aboriginal or Indigenous over Native (cf. Indigenous Foundations 2009). In terms of capitalization, I have decided to capitalize these designations as a sign of respect except for when using the term as an adjective.

 

References

Primary Literature

BiederstĂ€dt, W. & Donoghue, F. (eds.) (2017). „English G Lighthouse 6. Lehrerfassung”. Berlin: Cornelsen.

Caridia, C. et al. (2017). In : Haß, F. (ed.). “Red Line 4”. Stuttgart: Klett.

Caridia, C. et al.(2019). In : Haß, F. (ed.). “Red Line 6”. Stuttgart: Klett.

Donoghue, F. (2013) (ed.). “New Highlight 5”. Berlin: Cornelsen.

Secondary Literature

Bhambra, G. (2014). „Postcolonial and decolonial dialogues”. Postcolonial Studies, 17 (2) https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2014.966414 (accessed May 31, 2022).

Brown, C. & Habegger-Conti, J. (2017). “Visual Representations of Indigenous Cultures in Norwegian EFLnTextbooks”, Nordic Journal of Language Methodology, 5 (1) https://doi.org/10.46364/njmlm.v5i1.369 (accessed May 31, 2022).

Doff, S. (2006). “‘The First Nation of Hockey’ and ‘the Best Part of North America’ – Introducing Canada to the EFL Classroom”. In: Delanoy, W. & Volkmann, L. (eds.) Cultural Studies in the EFL classroom, 119 130. Heidelberg: UniversitĂ€tsverlag Winter GmbH.

Eisner, E. (2001). “The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs”. New York: Macmillan.

Fairweather, J. (2006). “A common hunger: land rights in Canada and South Africa”. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Fournier, S. & Crey, E. (1998). “Stolen from our embrace: the abduction of First Nations children and the restoration of aboriginal communities”. Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre.

Giroux, H. (1988). “Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning”. Westport, CT/ London: Bergin & Garvin.

hooks, b. (1992). “Black looks: Race and representation”. Boston: South End Press.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). “Toward a Postmethod Pedagogy”. In: TESOL Quarterly, 35 (4), 537-560.

Loomba, A. (2015). “Colonialism/Postcolonialism”. New York/London: Routledge.

Lorde, A. (2017). “Your Silence will not protect You”. London: Silver Press.

McLeod, J. (2007). “The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies”. London/ New York: Routledge. Medina, N. & Whitla, B. (2019). “(An)Other Canada is Possible: Rethinking Canada’s Colonial Legacy”. In: Horizontes Decoloniales / Decolonial Horizons 5 (2019), https://doi.org/10.13169/decohori.5.1.0013 (accessedMay 31, 2022).

Medina, N. & Whitla, B. (2019). “(An)Other Canada is Possible: Rethinking Canada’s Colonial Legacy”. In: Horizontes Decoloniales / Decolonial Horizons 5 (2019), https://doi.org/10.13169/decohori.5.1.0013 (accessed May 31, 2022).

Merkl, M. (2005). “Introduction. Images of Canada: From a Eurocentric Perspective to Multiperspectiveness”.In: Revue LISA/LISA e-journal [En ligne], 3 (2), http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/2675 (accessed May31, 2022).

Mullen, C. (2020). “Contemporary Canadian Indigenous Peoples on Tribal Justice as Decolonization: Not all Narratives begin in 1867”. In: Papa, R. (eds) Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education, 2041-2067, Cham: Springer.

Osterhammel, J. (2017). “Kolonialismus. Geschichte, Formen, Folgen“. MĂŒnchen: C.H. Beck.

Pennycook, A. (1998). “English and the discourses of Colonialism”. London: Routledge.

Phyak, P. (2020). “Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de)coloniality in language education policy”. In: International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 267-268 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl 2020-0104 (accessed June 1, 2022). Pishghadam, Z. & Zabihi, R. (2012). “Crossing the threshold of Iranian TEFL”. In: Applied Research in English, 1 (1), 57-71.

Woolford, A. & Hounslow, W. (2018). “Criminology’s Time: Settler Colonialism and the Temporality of Harm at the Assiniboia Residential School in Winnipeg, Canada, 1958-1973”. In: State Crime Journal, 7 (2), 199-221.

Other References

BBC. “The schools that had cemeteries instead of playgrounds”. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine 33099511 (accessed June 3, 2022).

BBC. “Canada: 751 unmarked graves found at residential school” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada 57592243 (accessed June 3, 2022).

Hanson, E. “The Residential School System”. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/ (accessed June 3, 2022).

Keles, U. & Yazan, B. (2020). “Representation of cultures and communities in a global ELT textbook: A diachronic content analysis”. In: Language Teaching Research  (22)

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). “Toward a Postmethod Pedagogy”. In: TESOL Quarterly, 35 (4), 537-560.

Loomba, A. (2015). “Colonialism/Postcolonialism”. New York/London: Routledge.

Lorde, A. (2017). “Your Silence will not protect You”. London: Silver Press.

Marshall, T- & Gallant, D. “Residential Schools in Canada”. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools (accessed June 4, 2022).

Ministerium fĂŒr Kultus Jugend und Sport. “Gemeinsamer Bildungsplan fĂŒr die Sekundarstufe 1. Bildungsplan 2016. Englisch als erste Fremdsprache“. http://www.bildungsplaenebw.de/site/bildungsplan/get/documents/lsbw/export-pdf/depotpdf/ALLG/BP2016BW_ALLG_SEK1_E1.pdf (accessed June 4, 2022).

Parrott, C. “Indian Act”. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indian-act (accessed June 4, 2022).

Schmidtke, O. “Einwanderungsland Kanada – ein Vorbild fĂŒr Deutschland?“https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/31674/einwanderungsland-kanada-ein-vorbild-fuerdeutschland/ (accessed June 3, 2022).

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. “The Survivors Speak. A report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada”. https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp content/uploads/2021/01/Survivors_Speak_English_Web.pdf (accessed June 4, 2022).

Documentaries

Malik, A. 2002. The British Empire in Colour. Acron Media. Documentary  in 3 parts, original footage (2 hours 30 min.)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0823159/
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xDqsNfX_lQ
Part 2: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32diai
Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT56kYuDgMM
Short version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkMkaFS89-U

Red Haircrow. 2018. Forget Winnetou: Loving in the Wrong Way. VTape. https://forgetwinnetou.com

Further Reading

Martin, Isabel & HĂ€user, Nora (2024). “Decolonise your mind. Critical language awareness: Machtstrukturen und KolonialitĂ€t in der Sprache aufdecken’”. Der Fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch (190): “Critical Language Awareness”. Guest ed. Kohl-Dietrich, Dorothee. 39-45. https://elibrary.utb.de/doi/abs/10.5555/fue-190-2024_07

A complete list of references can be found in the full version of the thesis.

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