Going glocal: Where in the world is participatory ESOL?
Location
Auditorium
Description
As I prepare to retire, I wonder what a lifetime of commitment to participatory ESOL adds up to. We live in a world of increasing domination by the forces of globalization – greater income inequality, control of democratic processes by big money, and corporate influence on education. How can teachers and learners possibly hope to become agents in shaping their own lives in this political and economic context? What does this context mean for the hopeful participatory initiatives of the past twenty-five years? In this talk I’m going to focus on looking backward and looking forward: I’m going to talk about key lessons that I’ve learned in trying to forge an activist model of language pedagogy, and how I see this model evolving. I’ll look at both the limits and the possibilities of participatory ESOL, examining the tension between “globalization from above” and “globalization from below” – and where we fit in this dialectic. I’ll present examples of initiatives that frame language and literacy instruction in service of analysis, skills, and practices to enable people to participate in organizing for change as part of global networks, in what has come to be called ‘glocalized’ action for change. Finally, I’ll reflect on some core guiding principles that I’ve come to embrace in walking this road.
Going glocal: Where in the world is participatory ESOL?
Auditorium
As I prepare to retire, I wonder what a lifetime of commitment to participatory ESOL adds up to. We live in a world of increasing domination by the forces of globalization – greater income inequality, control of democratic processes by big money, and corporate influence on education. How can teachers and learners possibly hope to become agents in shaping their own lives in this political and economic context? What does this context mean for the hopeful participatory initiatives of the past twenty-five years? In this talk I’m going to focus on looking backward and looking forward: I’m going to talk about key lessons that I’ve learned in trying to forge an activist model of language pedagogy, and how I see this model evolving. I’ll look at both the limits and the possibilities of participatory ESOL, examining the tension between “globalization from above” and “globalization from below” – and where we fit in this dialectic. I’ll present examples of initiatives that frame language and literacy instruction in service of analysis, skills, and practices to enable people to participate in organizing for change as part of global networks, in what has come to be called ‘glocalized’ action for change. Finally, I’ll reflect on some core guiding principles that I’ve come to embrace in walking this road.