Conceptualizing Teaching as a Joint Action: Learning Together in the English Classroom

This is an English Capstone from a seminar class taught by Professor Gillian Johns at Oberlin College called “Literary Cognitive Linguistics” in the Fall of 2021. The paper focuses on how theories of Cognitive Linguistics can be applied to teaching teachers to become aware of linguistic racism and promote critical thought in their classrooms. The project asks teachers to confront their linguistic biases and have meaningful conversations with students about linguistic racism and the sociolinguistic order of the world. This paper is intended to implore teachers and schools to implement the practice of Critical Language Awareness in their classrooms. I use Cognitive Linguistics to explain why it is important to view teaching as a joint action rather than a depository act. The paper leans on concepts from Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” in order to describe the traditional conception of teaching as “banking” or an “act of depositing,” which I found to be similar to a conceptual metaphor developed by Michael Reddy called the conduit metaphor. Using Herbert Clark’s theory of joint action which claims that both the listener and the speaker in an interaction should be actively participating, I argue that teaching should be seen as a joint action rather than a passive transfer of knowledge. This is significant because teachers often ask students to accept the world as it is and adapt themselves to that world’s standards instead of providing students with the tools they need to think critically and enact social change