In one of my early MA TESOL courses, I was challenged to read and respond to D. I. Smith's (2008) article "On Viewing Learners as Spiritual Beings". In the article, Smith describes the superficial nature of many curricular materials and his concerns that they depict a very limited view of human experience. Smith describes how the characters depicted in the majority of language teaching texts:
do not suffer, do not die, do not face difficult moral choices, do not mourn or lament, do not experience or protest injustice, do not pray or worship, do not believe anything particularly significant, do not sacrifice, do not hope or doubt. They represent a consumer culture to which we have become all too inured, and from which many central human experiences have been quietly marginalized... (p. 39)
I found Smith's article inspiring, and it has impacted the way that I design course content ever since.
This site is dedicated to encouraging like-minded teachers, by providing lesson plans, worksheets, anecdotes, and thoughts on the subject. Do you have a suggestion for a topic that is insufficiently addressed in the language classroom? Let me know.
References
Smith, D. I. (2008). On viewing learners as spiritual beings: Implications for language educators. Journal of Christianity and Foreign Languages, 9, 34-48.
do not suffer, do not die, do not face difficult moral choices, do not mourn or lament, do not experience or protest injustice, do not pray or worship, do not believe anything particularly significant, do not sacrifice, do not hope or doubt. They represent a consumer culture to which we have become all too inured, and from which many central human experiences have been quietly marginalized... (p. 39)
I found Smith's article inspiring, and it has impacted the way that I design course content ever since.
This site is dedicated to encouraging like-minded teachers, by providing lesson plans, worksheets, anecdotes, and thoughts on the subject. Do you have a suggestion for a topic that is insufficiently addressed in the language classroom? Let me know.
References
Smith, D. I. (2008). On viewing learners as spiritual beings: Implications for language educators. Journal of Christianity and Foreign Languages, 9, 34-48.