Jeffrey Gil

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ELT today: From dilemma to professional responsibilities

(The Australian Council of TESOL Associations, 2009) Gil, Jeffrey Allan ; Najar, Robyn Lee

In order to develop individual and community identities in a globalising world, pedagogies of connection are compelled to move beyond a ‘method’ approach to English language teaching (ELT). A postmethod pedagogy looks to facilitate context-sensitive, location-specific pedagogy which is based on an understanding of the local linguistic, sociocultural and political context. In this paper, implications of globalisation for ELT are discussed. Globalisation is defined and the ways in which it can be examined from a language perspective are explored. This exploration reveals that globalisation presents English language teachers with a significant dilemma: the domination of culturally based methodologies, such as communicative language teaching (CLT), which have accompanied the spread of the language itself. This paper argues that if this dilemma is seen as a professional responsibility we can derive some guidelines for an informed approach to ELT in a globalising world. The overarching goal of such an approach is to develop ways of teaching English that lead to additive bilingualism. In order to accomplish this goal, the researchers argue that English language teachers have three professional responsibilities to fulfil: 1) adopt a nuanced view of English as a global language; 2) focus on context; and 3) proceed in small steps.