gi newsletter 2011 spring

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GLOBAL ISSUESTHE NEWSLETTER OF THE GLOBAL ISSUES SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP

Spring 2011 Issue 26

ISSN: 1026-4310

Price £4.50 Free for GISIG members

Power-Point Presentations and Lecturing in Literature at Higher Education Level — Ana-Karina Schneider

Language Learning after 2010: Making the Collective Unconscious Conscious — Andrea Assenti del Rio

Education and Action in the Classroom and Beyond — Alan Maley

Developing a Research Unit for Simplified English — Bill Templer

English and Development — Hywel Coleman

Work and Pressure — Dana Radler

Global — Xiaobing Wang


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IATEFL Global Issues Newsletter Number 26

2

Welcome to our first newsletter in 2011. First of all, I would like to

express my best wishes for the New Year to

all members of GISIG and to thank our

colleagues who have contributed to this

newsletter with their articles and support. In

this spring issue, we look for new

perspectives to integrate global education

and English language teaching in and out of

classroom.

Hywel Coleman has written a review of

‗English and development‘ conferences

across the world in the last two decades, which makes an interesting

start to explore the relationship between the two. Alan Maley has

kindly brought us the latest report on the innovative programmes and

actions that have been carried out by colleagues in JALT GILE SIG in

Japan. In Europe, Ana-Karina Schneider reflects on the application

of PowerPoint in her university classroom, while Andrea Assenti del

Rio shares her stimulating experience of enhancing students‘intercultural communicative competence through using the culture

kaleidoscope in South America. Bill Templer has made several

useful contributions to GISIG in general and the Newsletter in

particular over the years. In this issue he has made a proposal for

developing a research unit for Simplified English, which will be of

interest to teachers and learners of English as a Lingua Fran ca. In

our regular columns, Dana Radler, offers a recipe to turn a universal

topic on work/life balance into an interactive learning experience; and

I introduce one nominee coursebook for the Macmillan Innovation

Award 2011.

You will also find in this Newsletter the latest news about our PCE at

the IATEFL Conference this year in Brighton.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Brighton in April!

Editor

Xiaobing Wang

[email protected]

Editorial

Copyright Notice

Copyright for whole issue IATEFL 2011.

Copyright for individual contributions remains vested in the authors

to whom applications for rights to reproduce should be made.

Copyright for individual reports and papers for use outside IATEFL

remains vested in the contributors to whom applications for rights to

reproduce should be made. Global Issues SIG Newsletter should

always be acknowledged as the original source of publication.

IATEFL retains the right to republish any of the contributions in this

issue in future IATEFL publications or to make them available in

electronic form for the benefit of its members.

Contents

3 From the Coodinator

4 GISIG Event

Feature Articles

5 Powerpoint presentations and lecturing

in literature at higher education level

Ana-Karina Schneider

8 Language and development

Hywel Coleman

11 Language learning after 2010: making

the collective unconscious conscious

Andrea Assenti del Rio

14 Developing a research unit for

simplified English

Bill Templer

Regular columns

17 GI update: Education and action in the

classroom and beyond Alan Maley

19 Lesson plan: Work and pressure

Dana Radler

23 Materials review: Global

Xiaobing Wang

24 Join IATEFL

Disclaimer

Views expressed in the articles in the Global

Issues newsletter are not necessarily those of the

Editor, of GISIG or of IATEFL.


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3

Dear Colleagues,

Global Issues and Development in language is gaining currency in

Education. No longer can we ignore the importance of content for

values in language and Cultural transmission and we can see how these

issues are picking up pace and

pl ac e in our pr of es si on al

environment.

Included in this Newsletter issue

is an article by Hywel Coleman

who highlights some of his

perspectives and work involved

in English and development,

which will be further explored in

the British Council Signature

event. He will also be speaking at

our Pre conference event on

Friday 15 th April. We aredelighted to have him share his

ideas and work with us on this occasion.

Also included here is an article about JALT (The Japanese Association

for Language Teaching). This is a non-profit organisation dedicated to

the improvement of language teaching and learning both within Japan

and internationally. GI sig would like to connect more with this

association, especially now in view of the recent earthquake and nuclear

crisis, initially rated as a local problem and now regarded as having

wider consequences highlighting economic and environmental

interdependence.

This year we have been a very small committee being made up of only

five active members: Coordinator, Deputy Co-ordinator: Maureen Ellis,

Newsletter Editor: Xiaobing Wang, Assistant Newsletter Editor: Dana

Radler and Discussion List Moderator Muhammad Iqbal. After the

Brighton conference I will be stepping down as coordinator and the

committee would like to expand in order to achieve better their aims.

We would like to fill the following roles: Joint Co-ordinator, Events

Manage, Web Manager, Treasurer and Membership Officer. If you are

interested in taking on one of these roles and would like to know more

please contact Maureen Ellis at: [email protected]

Despite our being very stretched with such a small committee we are

delighted to be able to offer an extremely rich agenda for our PCE this

year. We will be including a speaker from the NGO Oxfam, and if I am

not mistaken, this will be the first time that GI sig is to collaborate with

an NGO in this way. We plan to make this event very far reaching;

sharing Global issues themes, values and knowledge, working together

to produce the basis for teaching materials to be published on line. This

is going to be a very resourceful and inspiring event. Please register for

the GI sig PCE and share with us your experience and knowledge in

these areas: Social Justice, Sustainable Development, Conflict

Resolution, Human Rights, Diversity and Interdependence. You canregister now at:

http://www.iatefl.org/brighton-2011/45th-annual-conference-and-

exhibition-2011

Importantly, I would like to offer my apologies

to readers who showed concerns with the

promotional flavour of an article included in our

last issue, entitled, 'Englishes for all: What?

Who? How?' by David Valente. As Editor of the

last GI SIG newsletter at the time, I accepted theinclusion of this article and advertisement which

is contrary to IATEFL SIGs‘ aims of not

promoting goods and services. My apologies too

go to David, who has contributed excellent

articles in the past and who found himself in a

compromised position.

Just to clarify, we are always looking for

interesting articles describing people's work and

experience and always welcome contributions at

any time. We would also like to encourage

businesses and individuals to advertise their

services in the newsletter, through our

advertising opportunities which are always

available.

Last but by far not least, I would like to thank

the committee for all their very hard work,

engagement and time. Also to you our members

who make Global Issues go forward. We have

had some excellent discussions on our Ning site,

please continue to join in and have your say

http://global-issues.ning.com/

We hope to see you at Brighton for our PCE on

Friday 15th

April, as well as our Open forum on

Saturday 16th April at 16.05.

See you there!

Claudia Connolly

Co-ordinator

[email protected]

From the Coordinator


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4

Global Issues SIG Pre-Conference Event

Global education: From Beliefs to Behaviours

IATEFL Conference Brighton, Friday 15th

April 2011, 10am to 5pm

Social Justice, Sustainable Development, Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, Diversity

and Interdependence are the themes we will be working on in our PCE workshop with you, to create teaching materials

for publication.

Programme:

In the morning, we are very pleased to announce that we have three key speakers in the field of language and development:

Hywel Coleman, Richard Paul King and Fauzia Shamim . They will present the theoretical basis of a global dimension in

education, policies, curriculum and teaching materials in their international experience.

Hywel Coleman is a Life Fellow of the University of Leeds and also Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education

there. He has spent much of his life in Indonesia and is currently resident there, but he has also had consultancy experience in other

parts of Asia, Africa, the Arab World and Europe. His interests include the role of language in development, learning and teaching

in large classes, and the evaluation of development projects. He is a Trustee of the Language & Development Conferences and has

edited the Proceedings of the 6th and 7th Conferences.

Richard Paul King is the Youth and Schools Campaign officer in Oxfam Education (NGO). He will talk about the wealth of

teaching resources and the Oxfam Global Citizenship framework available on the Oxfam Education website.

Dr Fauzia Shamim is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Karachi, Pakistan. Dr Shamim has vast experience in

training English Language teachers in a variety of settings both in Pakistan and abroad. She has also been invited to present at

numerous national and international conferences including IATEFL 2009. Her current research interests include Professional

development of non-native speaker teachers of English, teaching English in large classes, and models and approaches to teaching

English in higher education settings.

In the afternoon, you will have a choice of workshops on: Social Justice, Sustainable Development, Conflict Resolution,Human Rights, Diversity and Interdependence. Thematic resource materials will be available, but we would invite you to bring

along some which you have created or found useful. We would also encourage you to bring your own laptops. Working in pairs

and groups, we will aim to create ELT / Development materials appropriate for our particular student groups, based on content and

language level. Stationary will be supplied, so that each group can present their lesson plans at the end, giving an outline of

learning objectives based on knowledge, skills and values.

We anticipate a stimulating and productive afternoon of professional collaboration. The final part of the workshop will be a

carousel exhibition of the lesson plans created. The display will be left for viewing for other conference participants. For

discussion about this event, please go to http://global-issues.ning.com/

We look forward to meeting you,

The IATEFL GISIG Committee

Enrol at: http://www.iatefl.org/brighton-2011/45th-annual-conference-and-exhibition-2011


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PowerPoint Presentations and Lecturing

in Literature at Higher Education Level

Ana-Karina Schneider takes a critical look at the

application of Power Point technology in her

university classroom.

T

he teaching of English literature is made both

easier and more difficult by the privileged

status of English as the lingua franca of

scientific, technological and media-based

progress, and by the generous exposure that people

consequently have to it in their day-to-day life. These

realities tear down the walls of the classroom in

unexpected ways, while at the same time, rendering

information so easily available that the very mission of

teaching needs serious revision. Recent changes in the

practice of lecturing in the English class are imbricated

with a new definition of English studies that hinges on the

EU-regulated imperative that all language departments

produce active, marketable language skills. To a large

extent, the shift we witness in the humanities, from

accounts of that domain alternately as a research field or a

set of social graces, to a field offering training in

communicative skills, international relations, and cultural

diplomacy, is also a shift in the definition of literacy. No

longer merely the ability of attaching articulate sound or

even dictionary meaning to graphical signs, literacy is

rather the skill of opening the world up for interpretation,

of establishing cross-cultural, long-distance dialogues, of

communicating across borders of all kinds. As such, it

measures students‘ ability to become alert, articulate,

efficient, critical professionals in their fields of choice, or,

as the New London Group (1996) have put it, to join their

educators in becoming ―active designers of social

futures.‖

The study of English literature constitutes a particularly

relevant illustration of modifications undergone by the

humanities in Romania over the past decade. Increased

staff and student mobility, curricular revision, the

commodification of knowledge, proliferation of higher

education institutions and massification of university

degrees, along with technological progress, have

contributed crucially to changes in student needs as well

as in teaching methods. As the study of English gains an

ever-more pragmatic end in the mirage of the

international job market, literature becomes marginalised

as a contextualising subject rather than the principal

object of interest for our students. Furthermore, the

exchange of information that takes place in the classroom

alters. Fifteen or twenty years ago most literature classes

at university level still took the shape of traditional

lectures (Morell, 2007), in which the professor delivered amonologic presentation – more often than not, a

summative or selective survey of the material at hand –

while the students very diligently strove to take down

every word. Such lectures were geared to offer highly

sophisticated information and generate analytic seminar

discussions, taking for granted the students‘ high

proficiency in English and broad-ranging familiarity with

western culture and civilisation. No formal training in

lecturing was deemed necessary. The survey approach is

still extensively practiced in many of our universities,

being justified by our students‘ relative lack of exposureto the historical and cultural circumstances that have

conditioned crucial developments in literary and critical

thinking in the Anglophone world. Nonetheless, the

delivery method is considerably altered, more interactive

and communicative, and largely reliant on compilations of

texts, readers, handouts, and PowerPoint presentations.

The transition advocated by Paulo Freire (1993), from the

―banking‖ concept of education to a dialogic approach,

would seem to have been effected, but it fails to yield the

expected democratisation of outcomes.

The transition to a dialogic approach

to education would seem to have been

effected, but it fails to yield the

expected democratisation of outcomes.


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Acomplex set of factors, not all of them

academic, have determined this evolution. The

academic factors have to do with changing

teaching methods in the English-speaking

world, brought to Romania mostly by British Council

lecturers and teacher trainers. In much-needed, much-

enjoyed summer schools, workshops and seminars in the

1990s, they introduced student-centred approaches and

activities that have helped do away with the imaginary

border between lectern and auditorium and put a more

collegial face on the professor-student relationship. They

effected what might be called an enhanced awareness that

―what‖ we teach are students, not disciplines, and turned

English departments throughout the country into flagships in

teaching methodology. Resistance to these methods avers

that communicative methods encourage re-contextualisation

of acquired knowledge to the detriment of consolidation of

knowledge. In other words, this shift in stress from the

transmission of information to skill-building-oriented

teaching spurs epistemological relativism.

Other factors include variables and contingencies that pertain

to the students themselves: despite the fact that instruction in

the foreign languages in post-1989 Romania starts in second

form and sometimes in kindergarten (as opposed to the fifth

form before 1989), students‘ proficiency in English is far

from uniformly high nowadays. As this renders uncertain the

extent to which students can follow the flow of information

delivered orally, let alone make notes of it, there has been

increasing pressure on lecturers to make the content of their

lectures available in book format. To a great number of

students, the ready availability of such learning aids has

made note taking superfluous. Subliminally, the absence of

the need to make notes in class glides into the absence of any

pressure to follow the presentation and consequently into

boredom, especially during the lecture type of classes, in

which interaction is still minimal, the lecturer being the

prime actor, while students are expected to be mere

recipients, if not receptacles, of data. The untrained attention

span progressively decreases as a consequence.

Habits of mind induced by too ready a reliance on digital

technology as a teaching/ learning aid are equally significant.

The recent digital boom has resulted in the ever-wider

availability of technology that can be used in the classroom

to replicate the ―multimodal patterns of meaning‖ deployed

by the media (New London Group, 1996, online reference).

Online study guides, blogs, forums, yahoo dialogue groups

have become common tools at the lecturer‘s disposal,

animating the lecture and prolonging the discussion outside

the classroom. However, unlike a book, which requires long-

term commitment to the logical development of an argument

or plot, the internet with its links and shortcuts stimulates

what Katherine Hayles (2007) calls ―hyper attention‖ (187

pass). According to Hayles, this might in the long run prove

to be an irreversible cognitive shift originating, like theattention deficit disorder, in the human brain‘s increasingly

common addiction to multiple and varied stimulation. With

current widespread multimedia technology, enhanced hyper

attention may prove a useful skill in many fields, such as

CCTV supervision. To what extent it may prove apposite in

the humanities remains to be demonstrated. So far it has

resulted mostly in a widespread reluctance to sit down with a

book and mull over it, make notes and write response papers.

It has also resulted in the restiveness that suffuses the

classroom whenever the lecturer‘s voice is the only stimulus

demanding attention for long stretches of time.

Paradoxically, the increasingly popular PowerPoint

presentation, whose versatility seems particularly

calculated to replicate the multimodality of mass

media, has elicited mixed reactions from students.

While answering the need for a high level of cortical

stimulation evidenced by some students, slides prove

distracting and confusing to others, who have not as yet

developed the kind of multitasking skills necessary to extract

the relevant information from the screen while the teacher

points it out orally (Savoy et al, 2009; Mann & Robinson,

2009; Titsworth, 2004). The flow of information that was

once slowed down by the need to write names and dates up

on the blackboard is considerably sped up by OHP facilities,

while students must do listening and reading/ watching all at

once; to many the additional task of making notes becomes

impossible to pursue. While the visual media have reduced

the time span necessary for the brain to recognise and decode

an image from 20 seconds in the 1960s to 2-3 seconds in the

21th century (Hayles, 2007: 191), they do not seem to have

the same effect on the speed with which we recognise and

process letters. My students admit, in both surveys and free

discussions, that PowerPoint presentations can be distracting

rather than conducive to learning and understanding.

So far hyper attention has resultedmostly in a widespread reluctance to sit

down with a book and mull over it,

make notes and write response papers.


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Moreover, Mann and Robinson (2009) show that the use of

PowerPoint slides are ―[t]he most important factor

contributing to student boredom‖ (243). Hence the impasse:

although PowerPoint lectures are initially received

enthusiastically, they often prove ineffectual when they are

discovered to offer content notes or graphs rather than

images. Visual literacy thus appears to be quite as

problematic as listening comprehension.

Nonetheless, the capacity that PowerPoint presentations

have of accommodating, in addition to textual content and

graphs, a wide plethora of cortical stimulants such as

graphics, sound, animation, and even short videos remains a

significant asset. These elements have great potential for

adding structure to the delivery and keeping the students

interested, thus preventing that boredom that is the enemy of

learning; they also correspond to elements that my students

tend to single out as things they like about the use of

PowerPoint technology in class. When cogently deployed,

these features can be more effective than communicative

teaching methods, studies show (Bartsch & Cobern in Mann

& Robinson 2009)

To conclude, PowerPoint presentations should not

be abandoned, just as the practice of note making

and communicative teaching methods should not

be abandoned: they are all conducive to that

literacy that it is our business to instil in our students.

Careful consideration of the use we make of these teaching/

learning methods in the literature class, however, is de

rigueur . Knewstubb and Bond (2009) speak of the need for a

―communicative alignment between a teacher‘s intentions

and students‘ understandings‖ in teaching practice as well as

in studies thereof. In addition to awareness of global

cognitive shifts, delays arising from code switching in non-

Anglophone countries such as Romania, and the currency of

delivery methods and digital gadgetry, teachers must find

ways of responding to the heterogeneous needs of their

students in adapting content and method to each other so as

to produce the desired knowledge.

References

Freire, P. (1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed . New York:

Continuum Books.

Hayles, N. K. (2007) ―Hyper and Deep Attention: TheGenerational Divide in Cognitive Modes‖. In Modern

Languages Association (Eds.). Profession 2007 (pp. 187-

199). New York: MLA.

Knewstubb, B. & Bond, C. (2009) ―What‘s he talking about?

The communicative alignment between a teacher‘s

intentions and students‘ understandings‖. Higher Education

Research & Development , 28: 2, 179-193.

Mann, S. & Robinson, A. (2009) ―Boredom in the Lecture

Theatre: an Investigation into the Contributors, Moderators

and Outcomes of Boredom amongst University Students‖. British Educational Research Journal , 35: 2, 243-258.

Morell, T. (2007) ―What Enhances EFL Students‘

Participation in Lecture Discourse? Student, Lecturer and

Discourse Perspectives‖. The Journal of English for

Academic Purposes, 6, 222-237.

New London Group (1996) ―A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:

Designing Social Futures‖. Harvard Educational Review,

66:1. Retrieved 8 April 2009, from .

Savoy, A., Proctor, R. W. & Salvendy, G. (2009)

―Information Retention from PowerPoint and Traditional

Lectures‖. Computers and Education, 52, 858-867.

Titsworth, B. S. (2004) ―Students‘ Notetaking: The Effects

of Teacher Immediacy and Clarity‖. Communication

Education, 53:4, 305-320.

Ana-Karina Schneider is Associate Professor at Lucian Blaga

University, Sibiu, holding a PhD in critical theory and

Faulkner studies. Her teaching expertise covers English

literature and criticism. She has published widely on literary

criticism, literary translation and contemporary English

prose. She has been Manuscript and Review Editor of

American, British and Canadian Studies since 1999. She can

be contacted at: [email protected]


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Language and Development

Hywel Coleman highlights some of his perspectives and

work involved in English and development, which will

be further explored in the British Council Signature

Event at IATEFL, Brighton.

Introduction

Here is an astonishing statistic from the most recent

Human Development Report published by the United

Nations Development Programme (UNDP 2010). In the 42

countries of the world which UNDP considers to be ‗very

highly developed‘ 8 mothers die in childbirth for every

100,000 live births. Meanwhile in the 23 ‗least

developed‘ countries 786 mothers die for every 100,000

live births. These two simple numbers – 8 and 786 -

illustrate starkly the vast differences in opportunities and

risks faced by people in the most privileged and the least

privileged countries in the world. So what has English got

to do with this? Clearly, not very much, or at least not

directly. But language does have a very important role to

play. One way in which the dreadful maternal mortality

rate in the least developed countries could be reduced

would be by providing far more practical training for

nurses, midwives and traditional childbirth helpers in

language which they can understand and in language which

they themselves can then use with mothers (Wariyar 2010).

This will almost always mean using a local language, quite

possibly a language which has never been written down, a

language which has no official standing.

In this brief overview of ‗Language and Development‘ I

want to describe three activities which have been taking

place over the last two decades. They are the Language &Development Conferences (regular events which began in

1983); a Roundtable Discussion on English in

Development (organised by the British Council in 2010)

and a new British Council publication on Developing

Countries and the English Language (to be launched at the

2011 IATEFL Conference).

Language & Development Conferences

A good place to start exploring the relationship betweenlanguage and development is the Language &

Development Conference series. Since 1993 these

meetings have taken place at approximately two yearly

intervals in different places in Asia and Africa and have

provided opportunities for specialists and practitioners in

development, education and language to exchange

experiences and ideas with each other.

So far 8 conferences have been held; see Table1


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Edited volumes of proceedings from the first seven

of these conferences have already been published

and these can be accessed through the conference

website currently available at

www.langdevconferences.org.

These publications provide an extremely rich resource on a

wide range of issues relating to language in development.

They also enable us to trace how thinking and practice

concerning language and development have changed over a

period of almost two decades.

The ninth conference in the series is planned to take place in

Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 17th to 19th October 2011. The

theme will be Language & Social Cohesion, with the

following sub-themes:

Language and identity : mono-, bi- and multi-lingualism,

national and local languages, world languages

Language and economic development : language for

employability, management, social mobility and the

global economy

Language and education : social integration through

curricula and teaching materials, language pedagogy

Language and the arts: language fusion and inclusion in

performing and find arts.

Further details are available on the website.

The Language & Development conferences are unique in a

number of ways. For example, although the majority of

participants come from an English language teaching

background, the conferences are concerned with all

languages — local, national and international — because each

has its own important role to play in development.

Another unique feature is that the Language & Development

conferences do not ‗belong‘ to any particular institution or

organisation. Each conference is organised by a local

committee in the country where the event is to take place,

usually with the support of the Ministry of Education and

other sponsors. A group of twelve individuals (of whom I

happen to be one), calling themselves the ‗L&D ConferenceTrustees‘, provide an element of continuity between

conferences, give input to the local organising committees

and maintain the conference website.

Roundtable Discussion on English in

Development

The second activity which I wish to mention is the

Roundtable on English and Development organised by the

British Council in January 2010 which was held at theCommonwealth Institute in London. Government

representatives, academics and other stakeholders from all

over the world gathered to discuss the role which the English

language plays in national development.

In order to kick start the discussion the British Council

commissioned a briefing paper (Coleman 2010a) which

surveyed the literature on the relationship between English

and development.

This paper attempted to identify the roles which the English

language has been given (whether successfully or otherwise)

in development. It began with a brief discussion of how the

concept of ‗development‘ has changed over the last six

decades and agreed with Amartya Sen‘s view that

‗Development can be seen … as a process of expanding the

real freedoms that people enjoy‘ (Sen 1999). The paper then

examined four different roles that have been given to

English: for employability, in international mobility, as a key

for unlocking development opportunities and as a neutral

language.

T

he paper concluded that whilst there is evidence

that English is important in these four roles,

some caution is needed as well. This is for three

reasons: English can sometimes be dangerously

overused, it is not the only international language and there

is a tendency to exaggerate its role. However, more research

is needed before we can understand both the real value of

English in development and the risks of using it

inappropriately.

New Publication on Developing

Countries and the English Language

Following the 2010 London Roundtable on English in

Development, the British Council commissioned an edited

collection of papers to explore the relationship between

English and development in greater detail. At the time of

writing, the editing of this book is approaching completion.

It is planned that the book, to be called Dreams and

Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language,

will be launched at the British Council‘s Signature Event

during the 2011 IATEFL Conference in Brighton.

The book attempts to remind readers of the realities which

developing countries face in terms of poverty, health care,educational provision, gender equality, government spending

on education, health and the military and so on. It also

reminds readers of the Millennium Development Goals. In

the light of these realities and ambitions, then, where does

English fit in?

Contributions to the volume fall into four major categories:

language policy planning and implementation; perceptions of

English (positive, negative and neutral in different parts of

the world); the way in which English influences social and

geographic mobility; and the role of English in fragile

contexts. Case studies come from thirteen different

countries in Asia and Africa. The authors do not take it for

granted that English is necessarily able to make a positive

contribution in every developing world context; rather, they


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undertake careful and critical analysis in order to identify

precisely where and how the English language can support

development. In doing so, they also identify the dangers of

an unthinking implementation of English language policies.

Conclusion

I would like to end with another statistic from UNDP‘s 2010Human Development Report. In the 42 ‗very highly

developed‘ countries, the average adult has spent 11.3 years

in full-time education. In the 23 ‗least developed‘ countries,

on the other hand, the average adult has spent only 3.7 years

in full-time education. Members of society in the least

developed countries, then, are unlikely to be able to make

optimum contributions to their communities if they have been

educated for only one third of the duration that adults in the

most developed nations have experienced (even assuming that

there is no difference in the quality of the education available

in the most and least developed countries – an assumption

that seems unlikely to be accurate). So once again we can ask

what role English has, if any, in reducing this huge

differential. Well it seems possible that in some

circumstances English may actually be contributing to the

problem. It has been demonstrated that in many developing

countries children are more likely to drop out of school if the

school language is not the home language (Pinnock 2009) yet

there is a growing trend in some countries (Pakistan,

Indonesia and elsewhere) for English to be used as the

medium of instruction even in the earliest years of primary

education (Coleman 2010b). In other words, in certain

contexts if English is used as the medium of instruction

children are less likely to complete their primary education.

The study of Language and Development has a

history going back less than twenty years. During

that time considerable progress has been made.

There has been a clear movement away from simple

descriptions of English language teaching projects in

development contexts (which tended to characterise someof the early L&D conferences) towards a more critical

perspective.

There is now a greater understanding that English is not the

only language that plays a role in the development process.

There is increased awareness that ‗development‘ does not

necessarily mean just economic development at a national

level. Development has a much broader meaning.

There is increased willingness to question some of the

claims that have been made for English as a means to

development.

But we still need to learn much more about how development

economists, human rights lawyers, educationists, other than

language teachers and other development specialists, look at

language as well as working with language. We need to

venture out from the cosy and comfortable world of ELT and

ask ourselves some really challenging questions about the

value of what we are doing.

References

Coleman, Hywel. 2010a. English in Development. London :British Council. Available online at

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/transform/books/english-

language-development

Coleman, Hywel. 2010b. Teaching and Learning in

Pakistan : The Role of Language in Education. Islamabad :

British Council. Available online at

http://www.britishcouncil.org/pakistan-ette-role-of-language-

in-education.htm.

Pinnock, Helen. 2009. Language and Education : The

Missing Link. Reading: CFBT Education Trust and Save the

Children.

Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2010.

The Real Wealth of Nation: Pathways to Human

Development. (Human Development Report 2010.)

Basingstoke & New York : Palgrave Macmillan for UNDP.

Available online at

http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/

HDR_2010_EN_Complete_reprint.pdf.

Wariyar, Unni. 2010. Mbarara University Hosptal, South

Western Uganda: Project Report. London : VSO.

Hywel Coleman is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the

School of Education, University of Leeds, UK. He is a Trustee

of the Language & Development Conferences. Recent

consultancies have been concerned with language in

education policy in Pakistan and education management for

madrasahs in Indonesia where he is based. He can be

contacted at: [email protected]


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Language Learning after 2010:

Making the Collective Unconscious

Conscious

Andrea Assenti del Rio shares her innovative

work of improving learners’ intercultural

communicative competence.

L

earning languages at this time in world history

seems to be much easier and meanwhile much

more difficult than many years ago. Our world

today poses challenges and complexities in acontext in which there is unprecedented contact between

people both face to face and virtually, but it also offers a

myriad of opportunities for creative work and the

expression of world views.

Our story is simple: a group of people teaching languages

in accordance with certain theoretical tenets leading to a

set of pedagogic practices. The theoretical tenets: the view

that language teaching does not have to do only with

developing communicative competence, but intercultural

communicative competence (Byram, 1997). The pedagogic

practices: new ways of integrating materials and new

technologies in order to develop new literacies. The way:

integrating global and local issues, doing ethnographic

work, going out of the classroom (outwards, to the street,

to explore signs and symbols, to ask questions; through the

computer, to explore just the same things but in other

places all over the world), exploring the simple things that

make us different and those that make us simply human.

Intercultural CommunicativeCompetence

As Byram (1997) claims, communicative competence is

not enough and an extension was necessary. Developing

communicative competence succeeded in achieving

communication, but it was a view of communication that

needed to take more dimensions into account: the native

speaker was paramount within this framework as well as

the achievement of successful communication in one

language within any given social group. The learner was

seen as an ‗incomplete native speaker‘ (op cit.: 11) and theaims of learning resulted in much frustration because ‗an

impossible target‘ (ibid.) was created.

Developing Intercultural communicative competence aims

at fostering different types of knowledge, developing

certain attitudes and generating different skills, the five

savoirs. This is a seemingly more complex endeavour, buta very natural one whenever two people from different

backgrounds meet in order to communicate in real life.

As Corbett (2003) suggests, extending communicative

competence to intercultural communicative competence

means to add an intercultural gap to the information gap.

When that gap is generated, the five savoirs come

naturally into play and the new roles of the learner

proposed in the approach (ethnographer, semiologist) take

a practical stance.

Since, as Phipps and Gonzalez (2004) poetically tell us:

Languages are signs of belonging. Learning another

language is an exploration of the multiple experiences and

cultural resonances that are embedded in and accrue to

other languages and their cultures. Picking up a new

language is not picking up a pristine, untainted, or

ahistorical object. Nor is it, to employ a different

metaphor, an empty desert – any more than any given

culture is an empty space, or any learner is an empty

vessel. It is an already peopled territory of social being in

which, like the territory we ourselves have come from,

there are pre-existing constraints, stories, struggles, tastes

and smells. (...) In order to understand another world, to

be intercultural, to language, it is not sufficient to know

your own world only, that world must be changed and

challenged and enriched by others.

(Phipps and Gonzalez, 2004: 27)

Intercultural Resource Pack: Latin American

Perspectives

After attending Hornby Summer School 2006 (Hornby

Trust and the British Council) in Brazil, with a team of

four other language professionals from Brazil, Venezuela

and Argentina, I developed a free resource for language

teachers from all over the world which targeted at


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12

developing intercultural communicative competence.

Importantly, we took a regional perspective, but this was not

limiting or exclusive. We were Latin American English

teachers talking to people in our region and other regions in

the world. Our work was based on the proposals made by

Corbett (op cit.) regarding work in the four skills with

intercultural communicative competence as the main aim,

an extra, or at best a fifth skill. Intercultural communicative

competence lies at the centre of the curriculum, and, in

order to language, new dimensions in the four skills must be

defined and different kinds of work must be done.

The Culture Kaleidoscope

How can a set of pedagogical practices be carried out if it is

not in a classroom? We gradually began using De Matos et.

al. (2007) in our lessons in the language school I work in in

La Plata, Argentina, and new dimensions of learning began

to emerge. Problems we had never encountered before

appeared – languaging is never neutral and that involves newchallenges and dangers, but we never thought language

teaching, or any kind of teaching could be neutral. We had

to find new solutions.

Most of us in our team had been working on

action research projects in the different

skills and we thought all those projects had

to become intercultural, even if we were

teaching people of the same nationality. In fact,

intercultural means not only nationality, but also cultural

groups, regional groups, professional groups, gender, sexual

orientation, and social class. How could language learning

possibly go along without addressing those issues before?

Most of us in our team had worked in other disciplines and

were already thinking multi-disciplinarily inside our minds

(History, Sociology, Anthropology, Literature, Social

Work); some had also taught other languages, including

minority languages. We therefore decided to continue with

our action research and invite people from other disciplines,

particularly the Social Sciences and the Arts to join us for

shorter or longer projects and interaction. We gave the

group a name: The Culture Kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope isto see all these new different colours integrated, mixed, and

then separated, because not even shades of gray are enough

to account for new realities.

Kaleidoscope Work, Everyday Teaching

and Learning

Many changes were necessary at our school it seemed:

1) Change of decoration. How could we teach

interculturally if all you could see on classroom walls

were photos of English-speaking country sites? We

filled our walls with images of many different places

in the world and people DOING things, hanging

clothes on a line, cooking, celebrating, dancing, eating,

etc.

2) New materials. We started developing new materials

for our classes, which we used as additional materials

providing material to explore the approach in a

thousand lessons.

3) School linking. As suggested in Corbett (2010) and

O`Dowd (2007), Online intercultural exchange is a

wonderful way to make the intercultural dimension

real even when living in a monolingual community

like ours, which has already become more varied as a

result of the increasing tourism. Findings of

ethnographies and work on global and local issues are

shared on the net, or through PPT files attached in

email. Chats are scheduled and realities are contrasted.

Our worlds are inevitably changed and challenged: we

are languaging. Our first and permanent school linking

project has been being part of the Intercultural

Connections Project (directed by John Corbett, Alison

Phipps and Wendy Anderson, in The University of

Glasgow) which has generated lots of meaningful

dialogues among students, and members of the team.

4) Living languages. We believe that formal learning in a

classroom is not enough. We have organised immersion

events around our city, which take the Tourism

dimension of language learning into consideration. One

example is our New city-eyes events, which intend to

look at the history of our city in the context of the

history of our country and that of the world.

5) New assessment procedures. Assessment would not

have been valid if we had failed to take into account the

new methodologies when carrying it out. New oral tests

have been developed along intercultural lines, with new

procedures, themes, and descriptors. We have also been

developing new written tests to assess new themes and

sub-skills. Work is still in progress and new additions

and changes are made after each test administration

period.

6) New languages. The intercultural dimension could perhaps not be fully addressed if we were teaching a

single language, even if that language is a lingua franca

in the world today. Accordingly, we started developing

Spanish and Portuguese courses for people visiting our

country (which have offered us the chance to teach

multilingual classes) and to observe our own culture

through new eyes. This year, courses of French and

Italian will be added. The richness of perspectives

achieved is deeply fascinating.

7) Critical stance. Our work has never been neutral, evenwhen teaching communicatively. We have always

been aware of the possibilities of looking at language

and teaching from a critical perspective. Hornby

Summer School also gave me the chance of meeting


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13

Vanessa Andreotti and her OSDE methodology, which

we have used in some of our classes with wonderful

results. The methodology offers ways in which the

discussion of extremely controversial topics can be

respectful and fruitful. Also it has formalised aspects of

what we were already doing in a less formal way.

8) Virtual school. We are beginning to offer online

courses in all different languages we teach, which willinevitable expand the scope and the opportunities for

intercultural exchange.

Being challenged and changed: global

and local issues

Can we hope for a better world? Can the world be changed?

Can education contribute to that change? We certainly

believe it can.

Work in the Kaleidoscope means abandoning certain clichés

and seeing reality in a more realistic light (though it sounds

tautological). Perhaps the world as such cannot be changed,

but our little worlds can. The intercultural approach cannot

be divorced from analyses, discussions and work on global

and local issues of importance to people. Our work has

therefore involved:

1) Working with newspapers in a way that is sufficiently

critical and informed, in order to discuss topics of

current relevance to us as people who live in this

world.

2) Promoting the discussion of global and local issues in a

way that is meaningful, but avoids falling into the trap

of considering topics as fashions or things that must be

discussed just because everybody does.

3) Discussing global issues locally and globally (online)

in a way that is truly intercultural, and which takes into

account the five savoirs, respectful of the fact that

perhaps more needs to be known about specific

problems which are sensitive for those people.

4) Truly caring about the local within the global. Our

teaching includes instruction and immersion, by

teaching languages through living them. We invite

people to leave the classroom and enjoy dances, foods,

customs available in the different communities

inhabiting our country. Besides, we also invite them to

explore what they take with them when they go to a

new country, what they have left behind and how their

worlds have been changed (Jack & Phipps, 2005).

People are encouraged to ask questions, to interview

others, to go out, to observe, to take ‗field notes‘ andshare them in class.

At the moment, our country is seeing a

wonderful flourishing of many cultural, artistic

and collective activities. Perhaps in a world

where many people seem to be more and more

aware of the need to work for increased justice and ways of

caring for the environment and each other, new paths to

make the unconscious collective conscious could be found.

Maybe we will not achieve a better world as a whole, but I

am sure we will find better lives.

References

Byram, M. 1997. Teaching and assessing Intercultural

Communicative Competence Multilingual Matters.

Corbett, J 2003 An Intercultural Approach to English

Language Teaching . Multilingual Matters.

Corbett, J. 2008. Developing Intercultural language

Awareness: New Routes. Brasilia: Disalhttp://

www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/

InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdf

Corbett, J. 2010. Intercultural language Activities.

Cambridge: C.U.P.

De Matos, A., A. Assenti del Rio, N. Aparício Medina, T.

Martins and S. Mobília. 2007. Intercultural Resource Pack:

Latin American Perspectives. Rio: British Council.http://interculturalvoices.googlepages.com/home

http://interculturalvoices.wordpress.com

O‘Dowd, R. (ed.) 2007. Online Intercultural Exchange.

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Phipps, A. and M. Gonzalez. 2004. Modern Languages.

Learning and Teaching in an Intercultural Field. London:

Sage Publications.

Phipps, A. and M. Guilherme (eds.) 2004. Critical Pedagogy. Political Approaches to language and

Intercultural Communication. Clevedon: Multilingual

Matters.

Websites

OSDE Methodology: http://www.osdemethodology.org.uk/

Home Intercultural Learning:

www.homeenglishcourses.com.ar

Andrea Assenti del Rio is working as a DOS at Home

Intercultural Learning. She holds a MA TEFL from Reading

University, U.K. She worked as a Cambridge Oral Examiner

for 8 years. She can be contacted at:

[email protected]

http://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdfhttp://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdfhttp://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdfhttp://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdfhttp://interculturalvoices.googlepages.com/homehttp://interculturalvoices.googlepages.com/homehttp://interculturalvoices.wordpress.com/http://interculturalvoices.wordpress.com/http://www.osdemethodology.org.uk/http://www.osdemethodology.org.uk/http://www.homeenglishcourses.com.ar/http://www.homeenglishcourses.com.ar/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.homeenglishcourses.com.ar/http://www.osdemethodology.org.uk/http://interculturalvoices.wordpress.com/http://interculturalvoices.googlepages.com/homehttp://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdfhttp://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdfhttp://www.cambridge.org/elt/intercultural/InterculturalLangAct_ART_JohnCorbett.pdf


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14

Developing a Research Unit for

Simplified English

Bill Templer proposes a new orientation of

English as a Lingua Franca, aiming at the

social majority across the globe.

M

y prime thesis here, in the spirit of Hill‘s

question(2006, p18), is that the TEFL

profession is faced with an evident need it

is not adequately addressing. We have to

experiment with and research in empirical depth and new paths toward a more sustainable and more easily learned

and retained ‗clearer, plainer‘ English among the world‘s

social majorities, and non-privileged learners from working

-class, rural and poverty backgrounds everywhere. Too

much orientation in our field (and in global education more

generally, shaped by the ethos of ‗cultural elites‘ and their

‗meritocracy‘) is toward teaching middle-class learners, too

little toward ―educating working-class children in their own

interest‖ (Finn, 2009; see also Willis, 1982; Christopher,

2009).

The upshot of this is growing inequality in the effective

teaching of EFL as a tool of international communication,

and the increasing conversion of English language

proficiency into a badge of class privilege, inequity and

‗cultural capital.‘ There is a widening chasm between small

islands of so-called privileged middle-class learners of EFL

across the developing world, the EFL haves, and the masses

of working-class learners and ordinary poor folks, the EFL

have-nots. ‗Money talks English,‘ generating vast

topographies of inequity in global discourse (Templer,

2008c). In the interest of ‗discourse democracy‘ and a

TESOL of equity and solidarity in the 21st century, we need

strategies to resist and counter that.

1. Proposed Research Unit

I wish to propose the establishment of a ―Research Unit for

Simplified English‖, needed especially in the Global South,

for investigating, in empirical term, alternatives to the present English language syllabus in the schools, and a

simpler version of English for Academic Purposes (‗EAP

Lite‘). One concrete aim is to test specific models of

simpler, more sustainable and significantly ‗less complex‘

English as a lingua franca (ELF) for instruction to the social

majorities in many developing countries, and the working-

class majorities in the so-called developed economies. To

our knowledge, there is no such research unit/center

anywhere at present, Global North or South (Templer,

2009).

2. Furthering Working-Class

Pedagogies of English as a Lingua

Franca

My guiding thesis suggests that ideally, all individuals on

this planet should have the right to learn an efficient,

compact lingua franca for inter-cultural communication, in

effect reclaiming the commons of discourse through

pedagogies for plainer talk, as applied in the teaching of

English as an additional language (Templer, 2008a;

Solomon, 2010). Such a proposed research unit/center is in

the interest of average people learning a simpler English to

communicate across borders and social boundaries, a

globalization ―from the bottom-up‖ for the Multitude, not

the small stratum of a transnational elite, generally drawn

from the social and economic middle classes.

―English as a lingua franca for the Social Majorities‖ is

often neglected in linguistic and pedagogical research and

practice, and in national syllabi for teaching English across

the planet. In many countries, especially in the Global

South, only a relatively small minority of learners of

English achieve a mid-intermediate level proficiency in

English. At present, little more than 1% of the world‘s

What influence can critical librarians,

information workers, cultural workers,teachers, pedagogues have, in working

towards a democratic, egalitarian society/

economy / polity?

— Dave Hill


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15

population goes on to tertiary education, and far less to a

completed degree. The ELF teaching across much rural and

working-class education in the Global South (and many

lower-income social ecologies of language learning

elsewhere) faces formidable challenges: a lack of qualified

teachers & materials resources, low levels of pupil

motivation and achievement among non-privileged learners.

And as Ivor Richards pointed out in promoting BASIC

ENGLISH decades ago: there are millions of ―largely wastede boy/girl hours‖ in the ELF classroom.

In SE Asia, experience in Thailand is a striking

example of this low level of achievement (Tayjasanant

& Barnard, 2010, esp. 303-304). As Graham (2008)

notes, ―The problem occurred when moving to

secondary school. A cloud of depression seems to set in as

students are confronted with a foe so great as to make them

hate English for the rest of their lives.‖ Mackenzie (2008)

comments on basic problems in TEFL in the Thai state

school system, ―very low English and teaching skills

proficiency levels of teachers; 60-80% of English teachers

being non-English majors; poorly resourced schools; shortfall

of 50,000 English teachers nationwide.‖ Brown (2011)

echoes this concern. We should think more ―laterally‖ about

what teachers and most learners need as a solid basic skill. If

we strive toward ―putting the brakes on

complexity‖ (Templer, 2008c), we can work to forge a more

sustainable TEFL pedagogy in the interest of average

working-class learners worldwide.

But extensive fresh research is needed on what kinds of more

‗downshifted,‘ simpler English for the Multitude can actuallywork. Can it mesh better with individual learner styles,

strategies, motivation and self-confidence, which are key

components in a focus on the learner and the ―personal

baggage‖ and social background they bring to the learning

process (Cohen, 2010) among non-elite ELF acquirers from

the working social majorities?

3. Focus Areas of the RU

The proposed Research Unit can concentrate on several focusareas:

BASIC ENGLISH. There is need to initiate an array of

pilot projects to test the efficacy of teaching a revitalized

mode of Ogden & Richards‘ BASIC ENGLISH, grounded on

1,000 key words/word families within school systems in a

spectrum of language-learning ecologies, both as a ‗first

stage‘ and as a ‗target plateau‘. It is also far easier to train

teachers who concentrate on educating learners intensively in

BASIC ENGLISH, as was done in Yunnan in China 1939-

1945 (Templer, 2007; 2005, 2006, 2008c).

BASIC GLOBAL ENGLISH. There is interest and need

to develop pilot projects to test outside Germany a model of

easier English developed by German linguist Joachim

Grzega, Catholic University, Eichstätt in Germany

(www.basicglobalenglish.com). In this experiment,

Joachim‘s model is grounded on 750 high frequency words/

word families, with a further 250 chosen by the individual

student. Spoken communication is emphasized from the start.

BGE has had success in trial projects in adult education and

in early primary education in Germany. Broader empirical

research and experimentation is needed.

VOA SPECIAL ENGLISH. I am convinced that we

need to significantly spur classroom and academic research

on VOA Special English (www.voaspecialenglish.com) as a

second tier of simplified clear English, at the level of 1,500

higher frequency headwords. This can be promoted as a

target plateau level , with a large corpus of materials for

reading (Templer, 2009). This can involve workshops for

primary and secondary school teachers in the use of VOA

Special English as a resource for a simpler ‗Scientific and

Academic English Lite.‘ especially for supplementary

comprehensible reading and extensive listening (Templer,

2008a, 2008b). Syahro‘s investigation (2009) indicates

statistically and significantly better scores on the IELTS

reading exam among an experimental group using VOA

Special English texts for exam preparation.

PLAIN ENGLISH. The ‗Plain Language‘ movement is

burgeoning, promoted by the US government (http://

www.plainlanguage.gov), the New Zealand government and

many professionals (especially in law, medicine and

government administration) in many countries around the

world. The goal is discourse simplification (European

Commission, 2010; O‘Flavahan & Rudick, 2010; Cutts,

2009), as exemplified in The Netherlands in the work atwww.texamen.com. What implications does a concern with

―clear, plain language‖ have for ELF teaching for the social

majorities?

4. Possible Links

As it develops, the proposed Research Unit will seek to forge

links to individuals and research institutions with analogous

interests elsewhere, in particular:

Basic English Institute (www.basic-english.org). The

principal online resource center for BASIC ENGLISH of

Ogden/Richards, revitalized for the 21st century.

Simplification Centre, University of Reading

(www.reading.ac.uk/simplification/). A unique initiative in

the UK, and it focuses on how to make overly complex

information clearer, through a program of research, training

and consultancy.‖

Lexitronics (http://lexitronics.edublogs.org/). The RU

intends to develop a corpus project with Lexitronics on VOA

Special English.

Center for Plain Language, based in Maryland.

(www.centerforplainlanguage.org). Its work is highly

relevant to the research agenda of the RU.


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16

5. Moving Forward

Such a Research Unit can speed comparative research in the

field with simpler models for ELF pedagogy, conduct

workshops for teachers, and begin to reshape more

sustainable, ‗lower -energy‘ curricula. Now is the time. The

cost of establishing the RU can be very modest, its potential

impact exponential. Important is a formal attachment to a

university somewhere in Europe or the Global South. Thecore aim is to further teaching of English as a ―people‘s

lingua franca‖ (Templer, 2005) and a ―TESOL for social

justice‖--forging ‗counter -hegemonic‘ strategies for teaching

ELF in the context of economic globalization ‗from the

bottom-up,‘ and a more ―human, egalitarian, socially-just,

economically- just, democratic and socialist society‖ (Hill,

2006), by grounding this on solid empirical investigation in

the world‘s ordinary classrooms.

References

Brown, D. (2011). ―A Need for Better Thai Teachers of

English‖ in The Nation, 6 January. Retrieved 20 January

2011, from: http://tinyurl.com/46kjhb

Cohen, A.D. (2010). ―Focus on the language learner: Styles,

strategies and motivation‖ in Schmitt, N. (ed.), An

introduction to applied linguistics. 2nd

ed. (pp. 161-178).

London: Hodder Education.

Christopher, R. (2009). A carpenter’s daughter. A working -

class woman in higher education. Amsterdam: SensePublishers.

Cutts, M. (2009). Oxford guide to Plain English. New York:

Oxford UP.

European Commission. (2010). How to write clearly.

Retrieved 20 January 2011, from: http://tinyurl.com/4aq4za

Finn, P. (2009). Literacy with an attitude: Educating

working-class children in their own interest . 2nd rev. ed.

Albany: SUNY Press.

Graham, S. (2008). Why Thai students do not like learning Englis. Retrieved 20 January 2011, from: http://

tinyurl.com/699axv

Hill, D. (2006). ―Class, capital and education in this

neoliberal/neoconservative period‖ in Information for

Social Change, 23. Retrieved 20 January 2011,

from: http://tinyurl.com/4avdcc

Mackenzie, A. (2008). ―CLILing Me Softly in Thailand:

Collaboration, creativity and conflict‖ in Onestopclil.com,

February. Retrieved 20 January 2011, from:;http://

tinyurl.com/4sddqt

O‘Flahavan, L., & Rudick, M. (2010). Plain Language song.

writing.matters. Retrieved 20 January 2011, from: http://

tinyurl.com/484b8ch

Solomon, J. (2010). ―Reappropriating the neoliberal

university for a new putonghua (common language)‖ in Edu-

Factory webjournal . January, 42-52. Retrieved 20 January

2011, from: http://tinyurl.com/4ay6hg

Syahro, S. S. (2009). ―VOA Special English as a tool for

intensive reading program‖ Master‗s project paper,

unpublished. Faculty of Education, U of Malaya.

Tayjasanant, C., & Barnard, R. (2010). ―Language teachers‘ beliefs and practices regarding the appropriateness of

communicative methodology: a case study from Thailand‖

in Journal of Asia TEFL , 7 (2), 277-311.

Templer, B. (2005). ―Toward a ‗People‘s English‘: Back to

BASIC in EIL‖ in Humanising Language Teaching, 7 (5).

Retrieved 20 January 2011, from: http://www.hltmag.co.uk/

sep05/mart05.ht

Templer, B. (2006). ―Revitalizing ‗Basic English‘ in Asia:

New directions in English as a lingua franca‖ in TESL

Reporter 39(2), 17-33.

Templer, B. (2007). ―Less is more: Reconfiguring

‗simplified‘ models for English as a lingua franca‖ in The

New English Teacher 1(2), 11-25.

Templer, B. (2008a). ―Pedagogies for plainer talk:

Reclaiming the commons of discourse‖ in

Reflections on English Language Teaching, 7 (1), 1-20.

Retrieved 20 January 2011, from: http://

tinyurl.com/6dgum6

Templer, B. (2008b). ―VOA Special English– A neglectedmultimodal resource‖ in International Journal of Foreign

Language Teaching , fall issue. Retrieved 20 January 2011,

from: http://tinyurl.com/5tbbkdn

Templer, B. (2008c). ―Putting the brakes on complexity‖ in

Global Issues SIG Newsletter , IATEFL, No. 23, Sept. 2008,

6-10.

Templer, B. (2009). ―A two-tier model for a more

simplified and sustainable English as an international

language‖ in Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies,

7 (1). Retrieved 20 January 2011, from: http://tinyurl.com/5sw7ze8

Willis, P. (1982). Learning to labor: How working class kids

get working class jobs. New York: Columbia University

Press.

Bill Templer is a Chicago-born educator with research

interests in English as a lingua franca, literature in the ESL

classroom, and critical applied linguistics. He has taught in

many countries in North America, Europe and Asia. He is

currently unaffiliated but active in the Roma community in

northeastern Bulgaria. He can be contacted at:

[email protected]

http://tinyurl.com/5tbbkdnhttp://tinyurl.com/5tbbkdnhttp://tinyurl.com/5sw7ze8http://tinyurl.com/5sw7ze8http://tinyurl.com/5sw7ze8mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://tinyurl.com/5sw7ze8http://tinyurl.com/5sw7ze8http://tinyurl.com/5tbbkdn


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17

Education and Action in the Classroom

and Beyond

—A Report on the JALT Global Issues in

Language Education SIG Panel

Alan Maley reflects on what a significant

difference we could make to global issues if we

wanted to.

J

ALT is one of the IATEFL Affiliates, though

sadly, there is little genuine contact between the

two associations. The lack of contact is

particularly sad for GISIG, since JALT has been a pioneering leader in the promotion of Global Issues, under

the inspired leadership of Kip Cates. The Panel at last

year‘s conference, organised by Kip, was an eye -opener

for me, and a demonstration of just how much we can do

if we so choose.

Kip Cates started the proceedings with an account of a

course he teaches at Tottori University, entitled Global

Issues and International Cooperation. The course covers

the usually topic areas: war and peace, human rights,development, environment, etc., from which students have

to choose one for further study. Its originality lies in the

fact that students are asked to take some action in relation

to their issue, not simply to study it. Essentially, this

involved students in raising money for their chosen

organization – by skipping lunch, selling possessions,

soliciting donations from family and friends. The results

were impressive: in 2002, 31 students raised a total of

some 47,000 Yen. In 2004, 34 students raised nearly

57,000 yen. Contact: [email protected]

The second panellist was Pania Lincoln, who works with

the NGO, Peace Boat. She described the fascinating work

of the Peace Boat organisation in organising round-the –

world voyages for paying passengers with an interest in

Global issues. Peace Boat works to promote peace,

human rights, equal and sustainable development andrespect for the environment. It is a non-profit, self-funding

organization. Each year there are three global voyages

and one shorter trip in North-East Asia. The ship stops at

15 to 20 ports, and passengers participate in educational

workshops, discussions, and visits. In addition, up to 50

guest educators (including some language teachers –

English, Spanish and Japanese) accompany the passengers

on the voyage and offer sessions related to the aims of

Peace Boat and help brief them on the places they are to

visit. On each voyage, the 900-odd people on the ship

forma close-knit community, with effects thatwww.peaceboat.org

Chuck Sandy was influenced by the Hope Clubs ideas of

Kiran Bir Sethi into setting up Hope Clubs in schools in

Japan. ‗A Hope Club is a group of students who believe

they can change the world.‘ Chuck emphasized how

important it was for the students to discuss and decide for

themselves the issue they wanted to work with. He cited

one example of students really fed up with the amount of

plastic garbage in their school, and how they managed toeliminate plastic from the school completely, and how this

had a knock-on effect on the local community and on

other schools, until a major impact was achieved from a

very small initial action. It is important for students to

find something small and do-able, and to organize their

project themselves, with teachers on hand to help only

when needed. Contact: [email protected] and

www.designforchangecontest.com

Michele Steele works at Gunma University,Japan and has been active in promoting

Global Issues within JALT. (See for

instance, Michele‘s ―Letters for Peace‖

The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT)

is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the

improvement of language teaching and learning both

within Japan and internationally with nearly 3,000members and affiliates across Japan as well as members

abroad. Affiliated with IATEFL and TESOL, JALT

holds annual International Conference and two main

publications: 'The Language Teacher' and 'JALT

Journal'. The last JALT conference was held from 19 to

22 in November, 2010 in Nagoya.

GI update


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18

at: http://jalt.org/pansig/PGL2/HTML/Steele.htm, which is

a series of letters written by her students to George Bush at

the opening of the Iraq War.) In her presentation, she

described a project undertaken by her students to clean up

the whole campus of her university as part of their English

programme.

A Witness in Palestine (Paradigm books 2007) was written by Anna Baltzer, an American-Jewish woman who now

spends her life advocating on behalf of Palestinians

(especially women) in the Israeli-controlled parts of their

country. She spoke passionately about her work in

organising meetings, protests and other events in support of

human rights for the Palestinians. The book bears eloquent

testimony to the cause she has taken up. Contact:

www.annainthemiddleeast.com/

I was tail-end Charlie in this distinguished group, and

wondered if my modest contribution, compared with what I

had heard by then from the others, justified my presence as a

panellist at all. I was speaking from the point of view of an

active retiree with no institutional support, and what such a

person could do to contribute to thinking and action on

Global Issues. I mentioned just four small things: making

sure that I add my voice to campaigns, such as those

organised by www.avaaz.org in regard to Global Issues;actively involving myself with a group of Asian teachers

who write creative material for Asian students, and in the

process form a network of better understanding in the region;

using my regular column Over the Wall , in ETP, to

encourage teachers to read on topics outside their narrow

pedagogical concerns – topics which often touch on Global

Issues; and using any opportunity I get as a plenary speaker

at conferences to deal with Global Issues.

Alan Maley is Visiting Professor at Leeds Metropolitan

University, and a freelance writer and consultant, with over

40 books published. He worked for the British Council, and

set up and ran the graduate programme in ELT at

Assumption University, Bangkok. He also taught in

universities in and out of UK. He can be contacted at:

[email protected]

Kip Cates (far left) hosted the Global Issues in Language Education GILE SIG

Symposium at the 2010 JALT conference.


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Lesson Plan

LEVEL:

upper intermediate (adult learners)

CLASS SIZE:

recommended maximum 15

LESSON TOPIC:

Work and Stress

TYPE OF LESSON:

combined

TIME:

60 minutes

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS:

vocabulary, listening actively, providing feedback

LESSON AIMS:

to understand the concept of stress

to find arguments pro and against the effect of stress on employees

to learn about stress at work

to elicit implications of various types of work where stress affects individuals

SKILLS:

listening, speaking, writing

METHODS:

conversation, observation, discussion, role play

TEACHING AIDS:

Downloaded articles, working sheets , role-play cards

ORGANIZATION OF THE CLASS:

individual and group work

Work and Pressure

Dana Radler designs an interesting lesson on

this universal topic, and it can be adapted to a

variety of class context wherever you are.

Lesson plan


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Stage Description Key instructions Interaction

/Time

Skills

I

Instruction

Greetings

— Good morning everyone!

— How are you today?

— Fine, thank you

— Rather tired, etc.

T — S

2 minsspeaking

II

Warm up

Ss fill in the questionnaire and work out their score

and discuss the implications.

Ss present their scores (see

Appendix1).

T — S

S — T

6 mins

reading

speaking

III

Introducing

new topic

1.Ss read the BBC article ―Work stress changes

your body‖ at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7203088.stm

2. Ss try to work out a common definition of stress.

Ss identify the concept of stress.

Ss give definition of stress with

example.

S

6 mins

S — S

5 mins

S — T

4 mins

reading

speaking

IV

Listening

A) Pre-listening

T tells students the context information and hints

about the listening material:

What kind of stress may affect you daily?

What kind of effect they have on us?

When do such stressful cases happen?

B) While-listening

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/StressOverview/

story?id=4672752

C) Post-listening

T asks Ss to summarize the material. Ss are divided

in two groups: One is asked to think of other

examples which cause stress: the other focuses on possible effects on their body and mind.

Ss answer the guiding questions

and then listen to the tape.

Ss find the main ideas and more

details, taking notes of key words/

useful phrases.

Ss summarize the speech. Each

group has 2 mins to report their

findings to the other group.

T — S

5 mins

S

10 mins

S — S

7 mins

speaking

listening

writing

speaking

V

Freer activity

In threes, S1 plays the employer, S2 the stressed

employee, and S3 the rep of NASW

Role-play: Minimize Your Stress S — S

S — T

12 mins

speaking

VI

Wrap-up

T recaps the concept of stress and the key elements

identified together. T gives feedback on Ss‘

performance.

Ss are encouraged to present their

own views.

T — S

3 minsspeaking

Teaching Procedure


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Appendix 1: Workplace Stress Test

Take this short test to find out if your job is leading to stress.

It will provide you with a short assessment plus lots of useful

guidance and links to get further information. Students get

the printed questions as handouts, while the score is

addressed for teachers to discuss it with students at the end of

this activity.

1. How do you manage your time at work?

My time is fairly flexible and I can decide when I work

and when I need a short break (1)

I have some say over the way work is planned in my office,

but would like more (2)

I don‘t have much control over my work (3)

2. How do you get on with your colleagues at work?

We always support each other and manage get things being

done together (1)

I have some colleagues on whom I can rely, but they are

not a majority… (2)

My work and my workload cannot be delegated / shared

with others, so I feel rather lonely in this respect. (3)

3. What is the position of your line manager about your

work and your workload?

When things are tight and busy, my boss always discusses

that with me and we find ways to deal with that. (1)

I sometimes manage to persuade my boss that I need

someone to help or tasks being delegated to someone else. (2)

My boss thinks I have to deal with my tasks and my time

management, so there‘s not much flexibility around that. (3)

4. Are any of the following causing you problems?

Many colleagues use unkind word and never show

willingness to help (3)

There are often frictions and arguments with other

colleagues (2)

There are certain difficulties with some of the colleagues

(1)

Not really (0)

5. Do you worry about any of the following? You can pickmore than one.

Different people ask for different things and the tasks are

difficult to combine (3)

I have impossible deadlines because I have too much to do

(3)

I work very intensely so I have to shorten up my breaks (2)

The multitudes of daily tasks make me sometimes stay

overtime, perhaps two or three times a month (1)

I have a clear job role and have sufficient time to do my job

(0)

Score results:

1-7 points:

Your work has an acceptable level of stress, which means it

is intense yet you are able to carry it and will not be

negatively affected physically or mentally

7-12 points:

Your work is quite stressful; you manage to complete your

tasks yet this asks for more either more time or finding

alternative solutions (e.g. colleagues willing to help/

negotiating deadlines)

13-18 points:

Your work is incredibly stressful; you are already feeling

constantly under pressure, tired and unable to perform well

and find very little support from your organisation to

complete your tasks; you need to find a way out of this to

reduce the current level of stress.


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Appendix 2: Minimise Your Stress:

Role Play

Students are divided in groups of three:

---Student 1will act as the Employer

---Student 2will act as the Stressed Employee

---Student 3will act as the representative of the National

Agency for Stress at Work (NASW)

Students get their instructions as follows:

Wrap up with the whole class:

The rep of NASW will report on the case and recommend

what type of action will be taken.

Dana Radler is a freelance reporter and trainer after

working on different education projects with the British

Council for 10 years; she has a B.A. in Foreign Languages

and a M.A. in International Relations. She is the author of

various articles about creative writing, European writers and

international matters. She can be contacted at:

[email protected]

Employer:

You have noticed he/she does not manage to meet tasks

and deadlines in the past two months but are not

convinced if this person has a real issue, or tries to find

some excuse and avoid more complex duties.

You are firm, but need to ask lots of questions to find out

the truth, such as:

1. How often have you been on time in the morning?

2. Have you reported overtime to your line manager? If

‗yes‘, how often was the case?

3. How do you get on with other colleagues in your

team?

4. In the past two months, were your duties th

gi newsletter 2011 spring

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