Global Issues in Language Education: Issue 28. Sep. 1997. (p. 5)|
Movies in the Language Classroom: Dealing with Problematic Content by Elisabeth Gareis |
In this article, the author lists techniques for teaching English through popular movies which contain sex, nudity, violence, profanity or controversy. She advises teachers to preview movies, consider students' cultural and religious backgrounds, and fast forward past problematic scenes, if desired. Alternately, she suggests, scenes which touch upon sex, nudity or violence can stimulate productive class discussions about cross-cultural differences, morality and ethics, movie ratings and censorship. Creative teaching can link sexual themes in movies to discussion of topics such as sexual harassment while violent movie scenes can stimulate class study of conflict resolution skills. Similarly, movie profanities can lead to a class activity where students categorize "bad words" into racial, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation slurs, then discuss prejudice and stereotypes in the US and in their own countries. (TESOL Journal. Vol 6. No 4. Summer 1997)
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Residence Abroad Within Language Study by James Coleman (University of Portsmouth, UK) |
In this state of the art survey, the author gives a comprehensive overview of residence abroad, analyzes the factors (motivation, attitude, personality, gender...) that influence it, summarizes key research in this area, and discusses the linguistic, cultural and personal benefits that living in a foreign country gives to foreign language learners. While stressing that living overseas can promote international understanding and broaden student perspectives, the author also notes how some students reinforce stereotypes of "foreigners" and come home with negative views of the target culture. The article concludes that over a million people study abroad each year and calls for more research in this area, for clear objectives to be specified for overseas residence programs and for effective pre-departure preparation. (Language Teaching. Vol 30. No 1. Jan. 1997)
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English Only Worldwide or Language Ecology? by Richard Phillipson & Tova Skutnabb-Kangas |
This article discusses the dominant position of English in the world today and describes the two main language policy options which face Europe, the United Nations and other regions round the world: a diffusion-of-English paradigm characterized by triumphant capitalism, science and technology with a monolingual view of modernization and internationalization, and an ecology-of-language paradigm which respects linguistic diversity worldwide, promotes multilingualism and foreign language learning, and grants linguistic human rights to speakers of all languages. The authors explore the assumptions of both these paradigms and urge linguists and language teaching professionals to support the latter. (TESOL Quarterly. Vol 30. No 3. Autumn 1996)
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Watching World English Grow by David Crystal (President, IATEFL) |
In this article, the author describes the growth of English as a global language and discusses the implications for English language teaching. He notes how the rise of English has only happened in the past 50 years and estimates that about 2 billion people, a third of the world's population, are routinely exposed to English. This includes 400 million who have learned English as a first language, up to 350 million speakers of English as a second language, and an estimated 1 billion people who will be learning English as a foreign language by the year 2000. The author predicts that teachers in future will teach "World Standard Spoken English" rather than British, American or another regional variety. (IATEFL Newsletter. No. 135. Feb-Mar 1997)
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ELT Online: The Rise of the Internet by Michael Carrier |
In this comprehensive article, the author gives an overview of the Internet and explains in a practical step-by-step manner each facet of this new medium and its relevance to English teaching: e-mail, mailing lists, newsgroups, netiquette, the World Wide Web, search engines, computer assisted language learning (CALL), creating homepages, multimedia, virtual reality, video-conferencing and computer equipment. The author concludes that the challenge of English teachers is to embrace Internet technology, tame it with pedagogy, harness its motivational power and make it relevant to our teaching goals. Included is a 6-page listing of useful Internet web sites for English language learning and teaching. (ELT Journal. Vol 51. No 3. Jul. 1997)
| Journals Referred To |
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ELT Journal, Oxford University Press, Walton St., Oxford OX2 6DP UK IATEFL Newsletter, 3 Kingsdown Chambers, Tankerton, Whitstable, Kent CT5 2DJ England Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, Edinburgh Bldg Shaftesbury Rd, Cambridge CB2 2RU England TESOL Journal, TESOL, 1600 Cameron Street, Suite 300, Alexandria, Virginia 22314-2751 USA TESOL Quarterly, TESOL, 1600 Cameron Street, Suite 300, Alexandria, Virginia 22314-2751 USA |