I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world. - Socrates
For many people, the term "world citizenship" has a very modern feel. Yet, as Socrates' quote shows, this ideal has a long pedigree. The idea that people should have a loyalty to the human family above and beyond their national citizenship has been advocated throughout history by people as diverse as Einstein, who called nationalism "the measles of mankind," and by Pablo Casals who declared, "The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But, why should love stop at the border?" Writers such as Ferencz and Keyes (1991), and Nobel Peace Prize winner Joseph Rotblat (1997) argue that, just as historically we learned to extend our loyalty to our family, community, and nation, we must now take the final step and develop an allegiance to humanity as a whole if we are to solve the many global problems which face us all.
Education aimed at promoting world citizenship began after World War II and has developed under various names since then: Education for International Understanding (1947), Education in World Citizenship (1952), World Studies (1980s), and Global Education (1980s). Within these fields, various educators have attempted to sketch out what an education for world citizenship might entail and how it might best be taught (Fisher & Hicks, 1985; Kniep, 1987; Pike & Selby, 1988).
English language teachers are in a unique position to promote the ideal of world citizenship through their work. The rationale for doing so rests on a number of points:
- the emerging role of "English as a global language" for communicating with people from cultures around the globe (Crystal, 1997);
- the growing interest in content-based instruction focussed on meaningful communication about real-world issues (Mohan, 1986; Brinton, 1989);
- appeals by UNESCO's Linguapax Project and by Ministries of Education for foreign language teaching to more effectively promote international understanding (UNESCO, 1987).
For teachers interested in promoting a sense of world citizenship among their students, three key content areas can be identified: geographic literacy, world themes, and global issues (Figure 1):
Figure 1: World Citizenship Model
Geographic Literacy
In this era of global interdependence, it is imperative that students gain an understanding and awareness of the world, its countries and cultures. - Wheeler (1994, p. iv)
The first content area of education for world citizenship is geographic literacy: promoting a knowledge of the countries and regions of the world. This is no simple task.
If, as people say, we live in a "global village," then many EFL learners are lost on the outskirts of town. Most of us have encountered students who think the language of Latin America is Latin or that Brazil is in Europe. Various surveys show that one in four American youth can't find the Pacific Ocean on a world map or that 80% of Japanese high school students can't locate South Korea (Cates, 1990).
Luckily, geographic illiteracy is a curable disease and a growing number of language teachers are working to address this. Some have designed language courses around world regions. Fisher (1996), for example, surprised at his Japanese students' lack of familiarity and negative images of the Middle East, designed a 12-week course on Middle Eastern countries. This had students role play tourists who "visited" Turkey, Syria, Israel, Egypt and Morocco, "bought" Middle Eastern souvenirs from the teacher's collection (jewelry, prayer shawls, carpets), and studied films such as Lawrence of Arabia.
Other teachers have designed survey courses on "nations of the world" in which students practice English while deepening their interest in and understanding of foreign countries. Shang (1991, p. 39), for example, had students each choose one nation and give an oral presentation using Culturgram country profiles. McHugh (1992, p. 12) used a computerized database to have EFL students discuss statistics on health, literacy, and GNP in different nations. Others, such as Retish (1992) and Vanyushkina (1997, p. 80), advocated a multicultural approach, claiming that when students see films of a country, taste the food, read literature, try on ethnic dress, look at posters, listen to music, and write to pen pals, that country comes alive for them.
There is no lack of resources for teachers who wish to promote geographical awareness among their students. Meloni (1998) has shown the potential of the Internet for promoting world awareness and lists a rich variety of World Wide Web sites with information about world countries. Teaching resources include books such as Games for Global Awareness (Asch, 1994), Passport to Understanding (Gray, 1992), and Countries and Cultures (Wheeler, 1994) which feature games, readings, and other activities on world countries and cultures. Cue Cards: Nations of the World (Clark & Mussman, 1993) contains country profile cards specifically designed for language teaching. (See "Teaching Resources for World Citizenship" in this issue by Cates, Higgins, & MacConville for specific references.)
Language textbooks are also beginning to touch upon world countries and cultures. High school EFL texts in Japan now contain lessons on countries ranging from Kenya to Korea while recent commercial texts include titles such as Big Cities of the World (Ishiguro, 1991), Jiro Goes to Europe (Someya, 1995), and Changing Asia (Walker, 1995).
World Themes
Teaching (world) cultures by themes gives students a more complete picture of what cultures are, helps them make productive comparisons, and shows how we share basic aspects of living that each culture expresses in a different way. - Kepler (1996, p. 3)
The second area of education for world citizenship is world themes: a knowledge of topics such as world religions, world flags, and world languages. Not much has been done yet to develop courses or materials in this area, though some writers have included world themes in their EFL texts. Examples include Speaking Globally (Grohe & Root, 1996), The Global Classroom (de Cou-Landberg, 1994), and Go Global (Tokiwamatsu, 1998).
For the past several years, I've experimented in my Japanese university EFL classes with this kind of international themework aimed at practicing language skills while promoting global awareness and world citizenship. The one-semester, four-skills course I've designed includes the following 12 themes: world names, world religions, world flags, world languages, world writing systems, world money, world education, world festivals, world music, world gestures, world newspapers, and world place names.
Each 90-minute lesson has two sets of aims--a set of language learning aims and a set of global education aims. Language learning aims revolve around vocabulary expansion, four skills development, oral fluency and communicative practice. Global education aims revolve around acquiring knowledge of world themes and skills for world citizenship.
For our lesson on "world names," students read about naming customs from places such as Korea and West Africa, write explanations of their own Japanese names in English and learn to identify ethnic origins from first and last names. At the end of the class, students have not only improved their English but have acquired the understanding that last names ending in -escu are Romanian, the suffix -opoulos designates a Greek name and the name Lagstrom denotes a Scandinavian background.
For "world religions," students master vocabulary, strengthen language skills, and develop fluency as they acquire a basic understanding of world religions, a knowledge of their history and traditions, respect for the religious beliefs of others, and an interest in the world's faiths. Students start with a vocabulary game, working in groups to fill in a chart with the English names of the founder, by which name they refer to God, what their adherents are called, the names of their holy book and place of worship, and holidays for Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. They next read capsule profiles of these five world religions, then reinforce their knowledge through oral comprehension questions. The lesson finishes with a world religion quiz and a class discussion about religion and students' lives.
The lesson on world flags has students study the 180+ flags of the world, listen to the stories behind individual designs, and learn to recognize common world flags. For homework, students research one nation's flag or design a "world flag" and explain its meaning.
The lesson on world money introduces students to the history of money, the names of world currencies and a money analysis game where they learn to infer cultural information about nations such as Vietnam, Egypt and Russia by analyzing images on actual bills from these countries.
In "world writing systems," students study the history and features of 10 world alphabets, and learn to identify scripts such as Russian cyrillic, Korean hangul and Hindi devanagari. As homework, they try writing Arabic, Thai, or Egyptian hieroglyphics, and write an English report about the experience.
For "world languages," they study language families, then read basic information (history, number of speakers, places spoken, unique features) about seven world languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Korean, Russian, and Spanish. After hearing tape-recorded examples of these languages being spoken, students are given a language recognition quiz to see if they can identify the language from the sound alone. They then practice basic expressions (Hello, How are you?, Fine, Thank you, My name is..., Good-bye) in all seven languages until they can greet each other in simple French or hold a short conversation in Chinese. As homework, they research a particular language or try their conversational ability in seven languages on our university foreign students and describe the experience in English.
All these topics are studied in English and students work hard to acquire the vocabulary and language skills for each theme. At the same time, they come away from each class with a greater awareness of world cultures, a knowledge of such topics as world religions, and with world citizenship skills such as the ability to identify world flags, languages or writing systems.
Global Issues
If young people are to be truly informed about their world, their education must engage them in inquiry about the causes, effects and potential solutions to the global issues of our time. Kniep.(1987, p. 69).
The third area of education for world citizenship is global issues: helping students develop an understanding of world problems such as war, human rights, world hunger, and the environment. The rationale for dealing with this in language teaching is explained by Provo (1993, March 18, p. 12):
"Global issues" and "global education" are hot new buzzwords in the language teaching world. Global education is the process of introducing students to world issues, providing them with relevant information and developing the skills they will need to help work towards solutions. Those who support global education usually defend it in this way: we all need to use reading passages, dialogues and discussions in our teaching, so why not design these with content that informs students of important world issues and challenges them to consider solutions?
Interest in global issues as language teaching content has exploded during the past decade, with Global Issues interest sections now established in JALT (1991), Korea TESOL (1995), and IATEFL (1995). Global education handbooks such as Pike & Selby (1988) and Fisher & Hicks (1985) are now being read by language teachers and have recently been translated into Japanese (Fisher & Hicks, 1991; Nakagawa, 1997). Initiatives concerning global issues can be seen each year in the rich variety of classroom activities, curriculum design and language texts introduced at international language teaching conferences. Among the 50+ existing EFL texts dealing with global issues are titles such as Global Views (Sokolik 1993), Environmental Issues (Peaty, 1995), and The World Around Us (Hoppenrath & Royal 1997). Even Japanese high school texts now feature English lessons on topics as diverse as Martin Luther King, tropical rainforests, African famine, and war in Sarajevo.
Conclusion
What are the benefits of teaching about geographic literacy, world themes and global issues? One benefit concerns relevance, excitement and student motivation. The countries, themes and issues taught each morning in an "English for world citizenship class" appear each night on the TV news--a daily lesson in relevance. The knowledge about world nations, topics and issues, and the ability to discuss these in English, translates into a feeling for students of becoming international cosmopolitans. All this leads to a degree of excitement and interest that is hard to compare to more traditional classes.
A second benefit is the promotion of international understanding. Japanese students often have little incentive to meet foreign people or adequate world knowledge to interact effectively with them. Some feel, "I know nothing about foreign countries or global issues, so what's there to talk about?" Others, more proficient in English, may try to strike up conversations but end up angering their foreign friends. Linguistic proficiency, after all, has no inherent relation with international understanding. It doesn't matter how good your English (or your intentions), if you alienate a friendly Muslim student by persistently offering him alcohol because you are ignorant of Islamic taboos.
Once students have studied world regions, themes, and issues in English, however, they have a base of knowledge and awareness from which to expand. A direct result is the warm response of foreign people at meeting Japanese youth who know something of their countries and world issues, and who can communicate this in English. This not only leads to friendlier relations between individuals (and increased English use), but improves the reputation of Japan from a country ignorant of world affairs to a nation of people interested and knowledgeable about world countries, cultures and problems.
By designing language learning activities, materials and curricula around geographic literacy, world themes, and global issues, English language teachers can truly contribute to promoting world citizenship. When done effectively, this can lead to both improved language proficiency and to the development of global knowledge and skills. The final result is the development in students of the philosophy espoused by William Lloyd Garrison: The world is my country, all men are my brothers, to do good is my religion.
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