Teaching for discussion

Under the influence of CLT, pair- and group- discussion activities have become such an established feature of foreign language classes that there is perhaps a risk of FLTs overlooking their full potential in terms of citizenship education. Indeed, Parker and Hess (2001) observe that although teachers of all subjects routinely teach with discussion as a means of enriching students’ understanding of content, typically less attention is paid to teaching for discussion, where “discussion is not an instructional strategy but a curricular outcome” (p. 274).

The ability to engage in discussion was recognized in the Crick Report as a skill that needs to be addressed in citizenship education:

The [citizenship] curriculum should … cover practical skills that enable young people to participate effectively in public life and prepare them to be full citizens. It should enable children and young people to develop

discussion, communication and teamwork skills. It should help them

learn to argue cogently and effectively, negotiate successfully and co-

operate with others. (QCA 1998, p. 19, my emphasis)

Although Crick and his colleagues appear to have largely overlooked the contribution FLTs can make to citizenship education, teaching for discussion falls well within their remit. This is reflected in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001), which, for example, calls for FLTs to teach language to enable the expression of opinion, agreement and disagreement, and also interaction strategies such as taking the floor, turn-taking, and asking for clarification. Although little research has been done on the effectiveness of teaching for discussion (Nanni & Brown, 2016), a recent study by Bardovi-Harlig, Mossman and Velleng (2015),

conducted with students of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in Canada, provides empirical evidence of the value of teaching formulaic discursive expressions. They found that compared with a control group, students who had been taught expressions for agreement, disagreement and asking for clarification were significantly more likely to use this language in discussion, and that this resulted in clearer contributions from those students.

Preparing learners for discussion also allows FLTs to address procedural issues and values associated with democracy. Starkey (2005) recommends that students be reminded regularly of ground rules for discussion, especially where sensitive issues are being addressed. He cites examples of rules agreed by pupils in the UK, such as “Listen to each other”, and “Make sure everyone has the chance to speak”. He suggests further rules that promote respect for human rights: for example, “Discriminatory remarks, particularly racist, sexist and homophobic discourse and expressions are totally unacceptable at any time” (Starkey, 2005, p. 33).

As Starkey and others have argued, then, communicative language teaching affords FLTs a potentially important role in what Tardieu calls “education for dialogue” (as cited in Starkey, 2005, p. 32). And where communicative activities

focus on the sorts of citizenship-related topics discussed in 2.4.1, the foreign language classroom can become what Palmer (2005) considers an “ideal context” for teaching citizenship. Indeed, Palmer argues that language teaching and

citizenship education are complementary: “Citizenship, which is both personal and controversial, relating to who we are and what our beliefs are, is ideally suited to task-based learning and the development of meaningful discourse or communication in a foreign or second language” (p. 123).

2.4.3 Intercultural competence

A third way in which FLTs can contribute to education for citizenship is in developing learners’ ability to interact successfully with people from different cultural backgrounds. Ongoing globalization and the increased interdependence of states, along with international migration and growing ethnic diversity within nations, have made interaction with people with different cultural backgrounds a fact of everyday life for many, if not all, citizens. As Bennett (1998) observes, for most of human history, people have tended to react negatively to difference – with suspicion, avoidance, hostility and, often, violence. Overcoming

ethnocentrism and prejudice, and promoting values of openness and tolerance, have become integral aspects of teaching for citizenship in multicultural societies.

Reflecting these developments, the past few decades have seen a realignment of the goals of foreign language education in what some have referred to as an “intercultural turn” (e.g. Holmes, 2014). Advocates of an intercultural approach (e.g. Byram, 1989; Kramsch, 1993; Risager, 2007) have re-asserted the centrality of culture to language teaching, arguing that the preoccupation among language teachers with communicative competence has often meant culture being marginalized. CLT has tended to focus on

transactional concerns (Corbett, 2003; Starkey, 1991). Thus, according to Byram and Guilherme (2000),

FLT has remained concerned with the indoctrination of ‘skills’ and, in its focus on technical issues, forgotten that communication is not just a matter of passing information or obtaining goods and services, but of

interacting with other human beings in socially complex and rich environments. (p. 71)

Writing with reference to increased migration in Europe, Byram and Zarate (1996) argue that FLTs must embrace objectives which go beyond developing learners’ communicative competence, and which extend to helping them become “intercultural speakers” with the ability not only to interact directly with people from other linguistic and cultural backgrounds, but also to act in a mediating role. Such a role demands a complex set of competences which include not only foreign language skills but also knowledge of cultural practices, the capacity to recognize any cultural differences that may impinge on effective communication, and the willingness to try and negotiate them. As Maley (1994) observes, “These are educational issues that reach out well beyond mere language teaching. Cultural awareness-raising is an aspect of values education. As such it offers a welcome opportunity for transcending the often narrow limits of language teaching” (p. 3). This expanded role for FLTs has been formally recognized in Europe. According to the Council of Europe (2007), “language teaching, the ideal locus for intercultural contact, is a sector in which education for democratic life in its intercultural dimensions can be included in education systems” (p. 36).

Perhaps the most influential theorist of teaching for intercultural communication is Michael Byram, who, with his framework for intercultural citizenship (Byram, 2008a), provides a comprehensive account of how FLTs can contribute to education for citizenship, particularly in its intercultural dimension. Contrasting his approach with Osler and Starkey (2005), who emphasize the importance of fostering citizen identities, Byram (2008a) focuses on the

competences citizens need at any level where mediation between different

cultures is called for. Drawing upon his earlier model of intercultural competence (IC), Byram (1997, 2008a; Byram & Zarate, 1996) outlines competences – or

savoirs – in five areas. As shown in Table 2.1, these savoirs embrace the three

dimensions of learning: knowledge (for example, of cultural products and practices), skills (of interaction, interpretation and so on), and attitudes (such as curiosity and openness). Note that Byram often distinguishes between

intercultural competence (IC) and intercultural communicative competence (ICC), of which IC is a component. The distinction is not important for this

study, and throughout the thesis I use “intercultural competence”/IC to refer to Byram’s model.

Byram (2006, 2008a) demonstrates how the educational objectives addressed by the five savoirs either align with or complement many of those identified by the Council of Europe, and by scholars such as Gagel and Himmelmann, whose work is in the German tradition of politische Bildung (political education). Indeed, Byram (2006) argues that FLTs can address aspects of citizenship education that these writers tend to overlook:

Political/democratic education as presented by Gagel and Himmelmann seems to assume a common language among all those learning

democracy. They do not address the practical linguistic skills necessary in international political engagement, even though Himmelmann’s list of contents refers to globalisation and foreign cultures. … A foreign- language education perspective can complement and enrich this element of ‘democracy learning’…. (p. 124)

FLTs’ role in developing “practical linguistic skills” is well-established, but is given a new urgency in being linked explicitly with education for democracy.

For Byram, it is teaching for the final competence in Table 2.1 –

savoir s’engager: “the ability to critically evaluate aspects of other cultures

and one’s own” – that constitutes a particularly distinctive role for FLTs in citizenship education. One of the principal tasks of FLTs in schools, he argues, is to “introduce young people to experience of other ways of

thinking, valuing and behaving” (Byram, 2003, p. 18). In doing so they can help foster a degree of criticality among learners about their own society and their own cultural assumptions: “by comparison and contrast with what other people do, say and think, you’ll get a different perspective, an outsider perspective on what people around you take for granted” (Byram interviewed in Porto, 2013, p. 154). Byram sees FLTs as contributing to a process of “tertiary socialization” which can transform the narrower perspectives acquired through primary socialization in the family and secondary socialization in the local community and schools.

Heater (2004) underscores the importance of FLTs helping learners become aware of their own prejudices, especially in societies where ethnic and religious allegiances can work against the development of a common sense of citizenship. He also stresses the importance of encouraging “rational and flexible thought … a willingness to be critical and a capacity to question information” (p. 345), along with tolerance and respect for other people’s values. Byram’s work on intercultural citizenship maps out a clear role for FLTs in nurturing the reflexive criticality and tolerant attitudes that Heater argues are essential to citizenship in culturally diverse nations.

At the same time, Byram (2008b) argues that FLTs can promote a sense of citizenship that transcends national boundaries. He maintains that citizenship education has tended to focus on the national sphere: “The perspective remains essentially inward looking, whereas the perspective of foreign language teaching is outward looking” (p. 129). Aligning himself with Starkey (1999) and Cates (2000), Byram (2003) frames foreign language teaching as a political project, which “can and should be a challenge to the isolationism of the nation-state” (p. 20).

I’m not saying that we should suppress national identity by any means, but what foreign language teachers … can contribute to, is to extend the

perspective to the international, and to find ways … in which an international perspective, and an international identification, can be created through cooperating and working with people of another country.

(Byram interviewed in Porto, 2013, p. 154)

Byram (2008b) argues that FLTs can play a key role in the development of international civil society, not only by encouraging learners to look beyond national attachments, but in practical ways, by cooperating with colleagues internationally to engage learners in joint projects. A recent book published by the Cultnet group of intercultural educators and researchers details various international initiatives which aim to infuse language classrooms with

intercultural citizenship teaching (Byram, Golubeva, Hui, & Wagner, 2017). Byram is sceptical about the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship, however, at least in the sense advocated by strong cosmopolitans (see 2.2.4), who see global citizenship as supplanting national citizenship identities. For Byram, national identities are “very tenacious” and make it difficult for individuals to identify only with global society. What is possible, however, is the cultivation of knowledge, skills and attitudes that facilitate international, intercultural cooperation:

What we’re trying to do is move beyond the national borders and the restrictions in thinking that that creates into some kind of international citizenship rather than cosmopolitan citizenship.

(Byram interviewed in Porto, 2013, p. 154)

Although he distances himself from the term “cosmopolitan citizenship”, I see Byram as aligning with the “new cosmopolitans”, who view global citizenship as being rooted in national cultural attachments, and with the cosmopolitan citizenship envisaged by Osler and Starkey (2005), which embraces citizen identities at multiple levels – global, national, regional and local.

The three areas outlined above are not an exhaustive list of ways in which FLTs might conceivably contribute to citizenship education. Recent work has also

explored the potential of linking foreign language teaching and service learning, for example (Rauschert & Byram, 2017). Together, however, the approaches described in this section – teaching with content related to citizenship, nurturing skills for dialogue, and teaching for intercultural competence – constitute a distinct role for FLTs.

However, while there is a growing body of research linking the work of FLTs with teaching for citizenship – particularly in the area of intercultural competence/intercultural citizenship, where numerous projects are underway (e.g. Byram et al., 2017; Byram & Wagner, 2018; Porto, 2018) – studies to investigate the links between citizenship education and English teaching in Japanese secondary schools have been lacking. It is this gap in the literature that my study seeks to address.

The literature reviewed above strongly suggests that Japanese teachers of English may have an important role to play in educating young Japanese for citizenship in the context of globalization and increasing cultural diversity. On the other hand, literature presented in the next section also suggests that any contribution JTEs could make to citizenship education may be severely limited by the prevailing culture of English teaching in Japanese schools, which prioritizes preparation for university entrance exams, and teacher-fronted, grammar-translation pedagogies.