Rethink ELT: from linguistic competence to global competence

[sgtowns]

Thanks for a great question, Sachiko! I agree with you that the Global Competence theory sounds good, but it's not always easy to apply that theory to the real world. But as I was teaching my LNG 107 class yesterday, I realized that the lesson was doing exactly what Sachiko asked about:

For example, what can we do with our LNG students if we want to "equip students with the means to analyse a broad range of cultural practices and meanings"?

The reading from the textbook was about how different cultures attach different meanings to things like colors and other design choices. For example, in the US, the color green is related to business and money because all of our money is green. We use red to show monetary and other kinds of losses. Chinese, on the other hand, see red as being lucky and positive. Since this was an English class, the lesson was focusing on learning "academic vocabulary" such as universal, context, emphasizes, etc., and we were talking about how to read and write about graphs and statistics. But we were doing it in the context of cultural differences. The lesson was (hopefully) "equip[ing] students with the means to analyse a broad range of cultural practices and meanings" through the use of academic English.

The textbook that we use for LNG 107 (Pathways) seems to make an effort to cover the kinds of issues raised in Sachiko's bullet point list. A lot of the readings we have done are about "global developments", "critical worldviews", and "intercultural relations", at least on a surface level. This is in stark difference to the book that we use in LNG 600 which doesn't seem to consider any of these issues.

I'd be interested to hear other's experiences in the other LNG courses. I don't think that Global Competence is a part of the learning outcomes of any of our LNG courses, but maybe it should be.

[Woravut]

I think some elements of global competence are covered in general education (GenEd) courses (e.g. Miracle of thinking, Beauty of Life). And in fact, basic LNG courses are considered under GenEd.

By the way, would it be a good idea to have 'national competence'?

[sgtowns]

By the way, would it be a good idea to have 'national competence'?

That depends on your definition of "national competence". Can you explain more?

[Richard]

The term 'global competences' refers to the fact that these competences are applicable across many contexts and situations (i.e. are applicable globally), rather than being limited to specific contexts. I don't think it's intended to mean 'international competences' and therefore it doesn't contrast with 'national competence' (the opposite is probably 'specific competence').

That said, I do think that the issue of 'national competence' is overlooked when teaching intercultural communication. Most teaching of intercultural communication tends to focus on gaining an understanding of the culture of the 'other'. Thus teaching often focuses on things like understanding how different cultures use greetings, use proxemics, or perhaps eat. This is fine, but, to me, people need to understand the assumptions, biases and practices of their own cultures before looking at the cultures of others. As many intercultural miscommunications occur because of a lack of awareness of one's own culture as occur because of a lack of awareness of another's culture. If (God forbid) I was ever required to teach intercultural communication at KMUTT, I would probably start by raising students' awareness of their own Thai cultural norms. Intercultural communication courses are often taught by non-Thais, supposedly on the basis that they are more familiar with the cultures of 'others', to me, their main advantage is that, as outsiders, they may have greater awareness of Thai cultural norms (it's really difficult to become aware of your own cultural biases). Could awareness of one's own culture be considered 'national competence'?

[Woravut]

Part of what Aj. Richard says is very much similar to what I read yesterday.

"We are rarely taught how to identify our values, set boundaries, or determine what sends us into an emotional tailspin and why. Yet all three of these skills directly impact our success at work, at home, and in our relationships" (Book: The power of curiosity; Year: 2015; Page: xix; Authors: Kathy Taberner and Kirsten Taberner Siggins)

Understanding one own's values, biases, beliefs is critical to understanding those of others. However, to understand ours, we need to see, understand, or be exposed to others. This is not sufficient, however. The answer can be given from part of another book I read. That book talks about differences between 'tourist' and 'traveler'. Put this in my own word, a tourist is someone who still sticks to his/her own cultures, and is not open/not ready/or not willing to embrace the novel experience, knowledge, or insights while visiting other places. Opposite of this is a traveler.


While tourists and travelers may visit other countries, tasting new tastes of food, seeing different architectural styles, being exposed to different lifestyles, they may have different levels of understading their own values and others' values. Now when it comes to teaching, there is no guarantee, although more preferably, that foreign teachers who have lived in Thailand for a number of years or Thai teachers who have studied abroad, will be in a better position to teach intercultural communication than some Thai teachers who may have just travelled to other countries in a short period of time.

However, understanding other cultures is not easy. I'm now in Singapore, and in fact I have come here probably about 6-7 times. Last night I talked with Daron about my revised perception of Singapore.

[Woravut]

After thinking more about the question posed by Aj. Richard, I think "awareness of one's own culture" could be one of "national competences". But I still have several questions e.g. how can we develop awareness of our own culture? what is the difference between "understanding' and "awareness"?


But what is clear to me now is "perception" should be seen as something dynamic rather than static. But it seems we are all prisoners of our perception.

[sgtowns]

After thinking more about the question posed by Aj. Richard, I think "awareness of one's own culture" could be one of "national competences

But the problem is that if "national competences" are taught by your own culture, they will probably be taught as positive values. We have the tendency to want to view our culture as being better than others. It seems to me that this is the problem that global competencies are trying to solve. (Which means that global competencies assumes that this is a problem in the first place.)

But I still have several questions e.g. how can we develop awareness of our own culture?

By learning about other cultures and by thinking critically about our own. It's difficult (impossible?) to learn about something without comparing it to something else. I personally have learned more about American culture by living in Thailand and comparing/contrasting Thai culture to American culture. But thinking critically about my own culture is still difficult (and sometimes painful, especially in the last two years).

What is the difference between "understanding' and "awareness"?

I have an awareness that Brexit is a mess, but I don't have much understanding about why it is happening or what the real problems are. So I would say that awareness is superficial knowledge, while understanding is deeper knowledge. This goes back to a recent discussion here about learning in general. I had an awareness of how difficult getting a PhD and publishing academically is, but I didn't have an understanding of it until I went through the process. And someone like Richard with many more years of experience has an even deeper understanding of the issues.

[Woravut]

Thank you, Stuart. I agree with your about the tendency to view one's own culture more positive than the other.

For your explanation about 'awareness' and 'understanding', I'm still not sure about that, but I will keep thinking about it. For now, however,

Can awareness be view as a state of the mind rather than knowledge? (Knowledge is what we learn which can be remembered or forgotten. However, awareness already exists and is what we need to practice, otherwise we cannot use it to its fullest potential. It is not about learning or forgetting. Or viewed from technological perspective, awareness can be seen as part of operating system, which in itself has nothing, but knowledge is the content.)

[linhai]

In my view, global competence is a necessity in language teaching industry. For one thing, communication is not simply a bunch of symbols that can be employed to pass information from one person to another, but also it is a way of integrating one’s identities, values, beliefs into the current context. For another, inequality is both prevalent and inevitable with the advent of globalization. I do believe that where there is a community / organization / institution, there is an unequal distribution of power. With global competence in mind, our society is perhaps moving towards a more just and harmonious one.

[Richard]

With global competence in mind, our society is perhaps moving towards a more just and harmonious one.

Nice to see Harris being so optimistic, and perhaps global perspectives can help promote justice and harmony. Having just read Age of Anger by Pankaj Mishra, however, which attempts to explain current movements towards being insular, nationalistic, right-wing and intolerant, unfortunately I'm not very convinced.