This talk posits a simple question: how can languages be taught so that they challenge rather than reinforce social inequalities? Even now, language learning in the languages classroom is mostly taught as a technical process of decoding and encoding. However, as research from critical sociolinguistics has demonstrated, language use is rarely neutral: for example, it can be used to legitimise and perpetuate social inequalities and to marginalise minority groups. This talk draws on my new edited volume, Critical Pedagogies for Modern Languages Education, which seeks to transform languages education by putting the politics of language teaching and learning at the centre of its analysis. Overall, the volume covers 11 languages (Modern Standard Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Levantine, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Tamazight) across 13 countries and regions (Austria, Brazil, China, France, Italy, the Levant, Morocco, the Netherlands, Palestine, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the USA). Informed by interdisciplinary theories, such as critical discourse analysis, activist pedagogies, culturally sustaining pedagogy, linguistic justice and translanguaging, this talk will discuss a case study from the volume in areas directly relevant to classroom contexts in languages education