Using ICT to Enhance Learner Agency and Inclusive Participation: Dismantling Ideological Dominance and Advancing Justice in Nepalese EFL Classrooms

The conventional practices and the politics of dominant cultural ideologies historically situated and reproduced in practice still prevail in education, and they can still be observed in the Nepalese English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. In this regard, this study explores the potential of ICT for enhancing learner agency and inclusive participation in the EFL classroom with special reference to Nepal. Grounded in critical pedagogy, it seeks to suggest ways to bring about changes in students’ learning engagement and classroom participation. It illustrates how the use of ICT in the EFL classroom contributes to improving learning through the enactment of a praxis of equality and justice. It shows how the dominant cultural ideologies prevalent in Nepalese society are directly and indirectly reproduced in the EFL classroom, which are historical constructions of systemic injustice to benefit privileged students. Using autoethnographic reflection, this study explores how the use of ICTs can prepare marginalized learners to amplify their voices, agency, and engagement to create a participatory classroom to challenge the hierarchical classroom practices where only the dominant groups prevail in the classroom. It is grounded in the critical reflection of qualitative analysis of classroom interaction. The findings suggest how ICT enhances students' learning competence as a means of dismantling ideological barriers and the prevalent practices established on the prejudiced grounds of the sociopolitical system and ethnic subjugation and othering, to a majority of disadvantaged and silent students. This paper proposes that critical EFL teachers can use ICT to activate, motivate, and stigmatize the majority of less participating and ignored students to build their agency and explore a just and democratic classroom where all students participate and contribute in classroom activities for learning. Teachers, teacher educators, and policy makers can benefit from the findings of this study by adapting the findings in their contexts.