A Greek Tragedy: Understanding and Challenging ‘the Known’ From a Complexity Perspective

This chapter reports on a case study set at a language school in Greece, with a view to unsettling established conceptualisations of Foreign Language Education (FLE). Using complexity theory as a theoretical backdrop and empirical data as illustrative examples, the chapter presents a critical description of FLE as practiced locally, and makes the case for more empowering forms of pedagogy. This chapter begins with an overview of complexity and an argument for its relevance to FLE. The second section of the chapter uses empirical data to instantiate established pedagogical practices (‘the known’). The complex interplay of factors that give ‘the known’ its distinctively transmissive form are analysed, and they are followed by a reconstructed ‘prototypical’ lesson. Finally, a suggestion is put forward for using the insights of complexity theory to reconceptualise FLE and reorient practice as a means for ‘resisting the known’.