Starting in English Language Teaching (ELT)

Teaching language might seem straight forward. If you've ever studied another language like French or Japanese, how much extra did you learn about France or Japan? What if you don't intend to ever go to these countries? What if you don't even like France, but you prefer to do voluntary work in Africa? Wouldn't you think it's kind of presumptuous of the French teacher? Well, I've had students from Asian countries who, are not racist, but still have very good reasons for not wanting to take on American cultural ideas and values.

It's been argued in some South East Asian countries that MTV and Hollywood have degraded their countries culture, and in some cases, some unique SE Asian cultures have been partially replaced by images of what is seen on movies. Some SE Asian youth do, in my experience, go on to believe what they see in the movies, that America is the nicest and most peaceful place to live in the world. Despite facts to the contrary, regarding murders per capita and domestic violence (which occurs less in some SE Asian countries than America), for instance.

How does this relate to English Language Teaching (ELT)? We do it too, in a sense, being as some writers would say, us being the tools of propaganda ourselves. Just look at the textbooks we use. How many references are there to London or some American city, especially compared to SE Asian cities? That is one theory, and I'm not a follower of it, but I don't believe I know enough to say anything against it.

However, I have seen new teachers tell their students about their home city or home towns. This might seem fine; I do it too. Although I don't talk about my home city as if it were better than the one my English students are from. I don't attempt to portray it as though it were the centre of the universe, and so I attempt to avoid having any arrogance about where I'm from. Unfortunately, this seems to be the habit of some people from certain cities (these don't need to be mentioned).

This also goes on to specific elements of culture. In some countries, women want to be the 'perfect house wife', and in western countries it is viewed as being of old ideals, and so the student's culture is viewed as being inferior by the teacher. The teacher would then go on and encourage the female student to do things that she doesn't want to. This is one example of what I've been guilty of myself in the past, and have seen the consequences; I've also seen other teachers do it.

In all, I've learnt, from my own experiences, not to interfere with students and their cultural values and beliefs. I let them learn those from their families, friends and community. It's probably better to allow a variety of ways of doing things and thinking to continue to exist in the world, rather than 'homogenising' the world into one culture. Besides, what has evolved and adapted for our culture, may not be able to be taken on by another culture without causing conflicts.

Read and discuss more on this on the forums: Ethical Linguistics