Description: 

What I mean by this, is that within ELT in Japan and Korea, there are competing ideas of Selfhood and Otherness. In Korea, for example, "Selfhood" (Koreanness) is generally imagined as a largely stable monolithic thing, contrasted with a western, native English-speaking "Otherness." This ideology has been challenged by people who say that the world is diverse and complex, and so is "Korea." (note: some people, for example ELF scholars, discuss diversity and complexity outside South Korea, but fail to discuss South Korea, and thus perpetuate the idea of homogeneity. I would imagine this as a variation of the first view). Anyway, these two ideas result in very different ways of approaching things such as language-related theory, research, teaching, curriculum development, policy-making, assessment, and hiring practices.

 

I discuss this topic with undergraduate students in my classes here in Japan, using Japanese society and language education here for my examples. I could do the same thing at HUFS (so that students have that added experience, and so they can draw on their own experiences in our dialogue).