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May 2009- Globalization and English Language Teaching

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Saved by Shyam Sharma
on May 2, 2009 at 8:59:45 am
 

 

Globalization—or the flow of economic, educational, cultural, and other entities across national boundaries—has radically changed people’s lives and societies around the world. Most often, those entities flow across borders in the form of things we can sell/buy, create/transfer, and use to exert social/cultural power. In the case of education, globalization involves the flow of products of knowledge—ideas that take the form of learning materials, of teaching methods, of attitudes about what counts as legitimate knowledge, of subjects in school, and so on. This commodification and flow of knowledge makes the knowledge of some societies flow into others and not so much vice versa. In the case of ELT, English language flows from centers of global political and cultural power into societies whose languages and knowledge are less economically and culturally valuable. That is why a vast majority of people in the developing world, along with a lot of well-meaning English teachers, believe that there is such a thing like English education (as if knowledge speaks in one particular language). Also, it is because English language is commodified that many people think there are no alternatives to buying it and then selling it at a higher price to others.

No one would have to worry if the commodification of English did not intensify the divide between people who can and cannot afford to buy it. Nor would even just that be a big problem if the supermarket of English didn’t also destroy the small bazaar of local products of knowledge. One argument or underlying assumption many English teachers fall victim to is that if we can teach English to everyone, then everyone will be better able to sell their knowledge for their own progress as well as survival. Well, the problem with that simple-minded dream is simply that if you don’t acknowledge that your supermarket is neither buying from the local farmers of knowledge nor selling them anything at affordable prices, the idea of the market has to be regarded more critically. That is where national governments, local entities, and professional organizations intervene for justice for all.

In this issue, we have two scholarly articles, one teacher anecdote, and some humor. We are in the process of posting the conversation.

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