The Language Teacher

New Trends in Global Issues and English Teaching

Education is a bridge to reach success.  It is also a factor to define who are the people in the society. It is also defining our culture. That’s why educational system are searching, improving and making new trends that will help the teacher and the student to have a purposeful teaching and learning experience in our educational system.

I will focus this new trends in four specific areas where the influence of global education has made itself felt: (1) new thinking about the aims and mission of the English teaching profession; (2) new ideas about the content of English language teaching (ELT); (3) out-reach efforts by ELT associations to global issue speakers and organizations; (4) the formation of global issue interest groups within the English teaching profession.

Rethinking Aims

One key trend in the English teaching profession linked to the growing interest in education is a rethinking of basic educational goals, the "why" of English education. Many people said that TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is just teaching TENOR (Teaching English for No Obvious Reason). Meaning we teach English without purpose. We just teach it because it is in the syllabus. We just teach grammar, literature and communication with the daily routine of classroom, textbooks and test and the English teacher forget the fundamental question, What is his/her purpose in teaching English.

An American educator H. D. Brown (1990), phrases this in terms of the mission of the profession:

What are we doing for the Earth? What are we doing to save it? What are the issues? And what on earth does this have to do with you as an ESL teacher? It has everything to do with you as an ESL teacher. Global, peace and environmental issues intrinsically affect every human being on earth. These issues provide content for your content-based humanized teaching of the 90's. We teachers have a mission, a mission of helping everyone in this world communicate with each other to prevent the global disaster ahead. The 90's are in your hands.

Educators aim fostering a sense of social responsibility in students. This idea came from William Kirby, Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency. What good is it to teach our students to read if they only read degrading pornography? What good is it to teach students to write if they use their knowledge to write racist graffiti? What good is it to teach students arithmetic if they use their skills only to embezzle others?

The implication is this we cannot call our English teaching successful if our students, however fluent, are ignorant of world problems, have no social conscience or use their communication skills for international crime, exploitation, oppression or environmental destruction.

Rethinking of Content

In addition to a rethinking of goals, the "why" of English teaching, the new interest in global issues has also led to a rethinking of content, the "what" of education. This is related to the growing interest of the profession in content-based language teaching (Silver, 1991).

Content-based teaching argues that language is most effectively learned in the context of relevant, meaningful, motivating content which stimulates students to think and learn through the use of the target language.

Content educators stress that language is a means of learning about the world and recommend the use of motivating themes and authentic materials in classroom teaching. But the question, is this content is worth teaching? Does it help to meet the need for more meaningful content and address the lack of educational relevance of English in the school.This view has been voiced, among others, by the British educator Alan Maley (1992):

Global issues are real issues: the spoliation of the rain-forests, the thinning of the ozone layer, acid rain, nuclear waste disposal, exponential population growth, the spread of AIDS, state violence and genocide in Kurdistan, Tibet and Bosnia, ecological disaster compounded by war in Ethiopia and Somalia . . . the list is depressingly long. What has this to do with the teaching of EFL? English language teaching (ELT) has been bedeviled with three perennial problems: the gulf between classroom activities and real life; the separation of ELT from the main stream of educational ideas; the lack of content as its subject matter. By making Global Issues a central core of EFL, these problems would be to some extent resolved. (p. 73)

Global Outreach

In order to bring real world content into the classroom, teachers must step outside the field of English language teaching to access materials and information from outside sources.

The English teaching organization promotes global education through a series of conference workshops which introduce English teachers to experts, resources and ideas from global issue fields. and instructed English teachers on how to integrate global issues into their teaching; for example the "TESOL Day at the Carter Center" (TESOL'93, Atlanta, Georgia) where teachers attended workshops on conflict resolution by peace experts from former President Jimmy Carter's staff; and "TESOL Day at the Rainforest" (TESOL'94, Baltimore) at which English teachers were shown how to integrate ecology themes into their lessons by environmental experts. Similar initiatives have taken place in Japan where experts in areas such as peace education, human rights issues and environmental problems have addressed English teachers at JALT conferences about how best to teach these global issues in their classrooms (Casey, 1994). This outreach can also be seen in the kinds of featured speakers invited to international conferences. JALT's recent 1996 international conference in Hiroshima, for example, featured UNESCO expert Felix Marti speaking on Linguapax, language teaching, and world peace. Featured speakers at other international conferences have included US civil rights leader Andrew Young (TESOL'93), international educator and human rights advocate Mary Hatwood Futrell (TESOL'94), Vietnamese peace activist Le Ly Hayslip (TESOL'95), and cross-cultural expert Milton Bennett speaking on tolerance and intercultural understanding (Korea TESOL'95).

The invitation of international speakers to ELT conferences underscores the commitment of English teaching organizations to link English education to the outside world, raise awareness of global issues, strengthen commitment to socially responsible teaching and remind teachers of the wider social context of their classroom work.

Special Interest Groups

A final trend within the profession is the formation of global issue special interest groups within major international organizations. Its aims were defined as (1) to promote the integration of global issues, global awareness and social responsibility into foreign language teaching; (2) to promote networking and support among educators dealing with global issues in language teaching; and (3) to promote awareness among language teachers of developments in global education and the related fields of environmental education, human rights education, peace education, and development education. Through this aim other organizations around the world. Like Peace and Health Education Interest Group in TESOL Italy (1994), a Global Issues SIG within the Korea TESOL organization (March, 1995), a Global Issues SIG in the UK-based IATEFL association (April, 1995), a Global Education Study Group in the Japan Association of College English Teachers (April, 1996), plus ongoing efforts to establish a Global/Peace Education interest group within the US-based TESOL organization.In organizing these groups has enabled English teachers around the world who are involved with global, peace and environmental education to receive funds, begin projects, issue newsletters, hold workshops, obtain conference time to share their research and teaching experience, and to further promote global education within their organizations. The existence of these groups serves to validate global education as a legitimate goal of English teaching and to highlight the social responsibility of the profession.

Conclusion

The rapid growth of interest in global education within the field of English education over the past decade has helped to stimulate the profession in many ways. It encouraged a reconsideration of the basic aims of English teaching, sparked a debate about the mission of our profession, and promoted a healthy discussion about meaningful content and educational relevance.

It is a challenge to us as future teachers to get out of the box or old way methodology. English teachers must have a broader perspective about the content so that he can easily relate and put ideas, principles into a real life situation. We are facing a very challenging task. This is an eye opener to the next generation English teacher that our task is not an easy task we need to think, to explore and expand our horizon so that we can effectively teach the content purposefully.

Note:

This thoughts came from Kip A. Cates of Tottori University.

This article copyright © 1997 by the author.
Document URL: http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/files/97/may/cates.html
Last modified: 29Å@Jan, 1998
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