78 EMPOWERING NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKING TEACHERS THROUGH CRITICAL PEDAGOGY Nur Hayati (noer_du@yahoo.com) Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia Abstract: Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach that aims to develop students’ critical thinking, political and social awareness, and self esteem through dialogue learning and reflection. Related to the teaching of EFL, this pedagogy holds the po- tential to empower non native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) when incorpo- rated into English teacher education programs. It can help aspiring NNESTs to grow awareness of the political and sociocultural implications of EFL teaching, to foster their critical thinking on any concepts or ideas regarding their profession, and more importantly, to recognize their strengths as NNESTs. Despite the potential, the role of critical pedagogy in improving EFL teacher education program in Indonesia has not been sufficiently discussed. This article attempts to contribute to the discussion by looking at a number of ways critical pedagogy can be incorporated in the pro- grams, the rationale for doing so, and the challenges that might come on the way. Key words: critical pedagogy, teacher education, non native English teach- ers During the 1980s, researchers and practitioners began to recognize that second language (L2) learning entails much more than developing language proficiency (Hinkel, 2005, p.891). They started to examine the complex rela- tionships between social identity, culture, and power, and how these relate to the L2 learning (ibid, 2005). English language teaching is no longer seen mere- ly as the language for international communication and commercial purposes as how it has been viewed in many non English speaking countries for quite a