Language Ideologies in Language Teaching

Language ideology as a theoretical concept has been increasingly used in critical educational linguistic research to investigate how it shapes one's teaching and their choice of differentiating which languages to normalize, stigmatize, emphasize, and make invisible in the classroom. Yet, the term language ideology takes on a multiplicity of views, theoretical stances, and fuzzy terminological choices, erecting a labyrinth of interpretation. This chapter first provides a historical overview of how language ideologies have been conceptualized and adopted in language education across three overlapping orientations: Ideology-as-theory, ideology-as-critique, and ideology-as-practice. This overview is followed by a discussion on how these conceptualizations have been applied to language teaching. Afterward, the chapter delves into the methodological choices that have been used to explore language ideologies in critical teacher education and suggests methodological directions to further engage in this ideological work. Lastly, we outline a roadmap for future directions that have been underexplored.