Intercultural language educators for an intercultural world: action upon reflection

Abstract

Bearing in mind that learning a new language is much more than acquiring a new code, but a new way of being in the world, the aim of the article is to briefly raise and discuss relevant issues relating to language teacher education in these contemporary times, especially in the area of English Language Teaching (ELT). Emphasis is placed on the importance of teacher education responding to the new demands of this globalised world, proposing among several aspects, new political and pedagogical postures which are to lead into preparing students to become more critical of their own realities and more sensitive to the intercultural encounters they are supposed to engage with this highly complex and ever increasingly intercultural world.

Keywords:

• Globalisation
• language learning
• interculturality
• critical pedagogy
• intercultural teacher

Notes

1. Though most assumptions discussed in the text are applicable to any language which holds the status of an international means of communication, our choice for English is due the fact that never before has a natural language expanded and traveled so far throughout the planet like English, and it is exactly this expansion and all its inherent implications that comprise our main research interest in Applied Linguistics.

2. The term ‘glocalization’ is a neologism resulting from the combination of the words globalization and localization, and refers to the presence of the local dimension in the production of a global culture; the term dates from the 1980s, and has its origins in Japanese business practices. It derives from the Japanese word dochakuka, which means ‘global localization’. The term was first introduced in the Occident by Robertson (1997), and according to this author, the concept has the merit of restoring the multidimensional reality of the current globalization movement. Adapted and translated from https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glocalizacao, Accessed 11 November 2015. See also Robertson (1994).

3. According to Mühlhäusler (2010), the first use of the ecology metaphor in linguistics is found in a paper by Voegelin and Schutz on language varieties, where there is a distinction between intralanguage and interlanguage ecology. The metaphor was introduced in 1971 by Haugen in a paper titled ‘The Ecology of Language’, in which he defines the term as ‘the study of interactions between any given language and its environment’ (325).

4. Source: www.socialbakers.com/blog/1064-top-10-fastest-growing-facebook-languages, Accessed 12 October 2015.

5. Check TIME Magazine cover story, Get Ahead! Learn Mandarin!, 6 June 2006. Available at:http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2047,305-2,00.html, Accessed 12 October 2015.

6. La interculturalidad describe relaciones simétricas y horizontales entre dos o más culturas, a fin de enriquecerse mutuamente y contribuir a mayor plenitud humana.

7. […] compreensão do que é possível, no emaranhado das diferenças e choques culturais que estão em jogo no mundo contemporâneo... pontes, diálogos inter/entre culturas individuais e coletivas, de modo que possamos conviver mais respeitosamente, mais democraticamente.

8. […] respeito à diferença, numa perspectiva de educação para alteridade e na compreensão do diferente que caracteriza a singularidade e a irrepetibilidade de cada sujeito humano.

9. […] privilegia o respeito às diferenças e dá visibilidade aos traços de identidade como construtores de uma política de solidariedade.

10. Não há encontro entre culturas ou entre povos distintos sem que esteja presente uma intricada rede de forças e tensões que são provenientes do embate de diferentes visões de mundo. Não há encontro de diferenças sem conflito.

11. […] mais do que objeto de ensino, a ponte, a dimensão mediadora entre sujeitos/mundos culturais, [cujo] enfoque se dá nas relações de diálogo, no lugar de interação.

12. Uno de los objetivos de la interculturalidad consiste en la convivencia pacífica entre los seres humanos, diferentes grupos, naciones, civilizations y religiones.

13. Referring specifically to English Language Teaching (ELT), Rajagopalan (2004, 113, 114) argues that many of the practices that have for long been in place need to be reviewed drastically with a view to addressing the new set of challenges being thrown at us by the phenomenon he calls World English (WE). For the author, ‘up until now a good deal of our taken-for-granted ELT practices have been threatened with the prospect of being declared obsolete for the simple reason that they do not take into account some of the most significant characteristics of WE’.

14. Original in Portuguese: As relações interculturais, em certa medida, perturbam a visão hierarquizada e purificada das culturas, do poder e do conhecimento.

15. The complete quote by Toffler (1990) is: ‘The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn’.