Words are one of the means through which we communicate. If we try to live in a civil society and respect people who have different values than ours, dialogue is essential. This is why the teaching of foreign languages has become increasingly vital in both pedagogical and ‘intercultural’ terms. This applies not only in a global perspective, but also in a local or national one. Unfortunately, we live in a historical period when non-violent interaction with those near to us who seem/are told different from us seems to having become difficult. Dialogue cannot be built only on a technical or theoretical knowledge of foreign words, sounds or grammars. Rather, it presupposes the formation of a personality able to exert at the same time emotional participation and critical awareness which is built on "knowing ourselves": “we” as a product of the historical and personal processes that left on ourselves an infinite number of traces, accepted without the benefit of inventory (Gramsci). Foreign Language Teachers can contribute through the teaching and learning of the Japanese language, to the growth of more conscious, empathic and therefore dialogic relations between ourselves and others, for the purpose of a citizenship global and peaceful, because “inclusive”. Through re-positioning our Foreign Language Teaching perspectives (e.g. questioning how we ‘read/select’ teaching materials and examinations, how we ‘see’ FL learners, how we ‘perceive’ our and others multi-layers individualities) we might become able to creatively “find oneself within the cultural lives of others” (Holliday 2017), beyond any artificial/political construction of simplistic border-lines that would otherwise reduce our complex contemporary society to an un-real monolithic one, denying and hiding reality itself, and the very aim of pedagogy.

Including ‘Whom’? Including ‘in Where’? Foreign Language Teaching as Deboxing System

Marcella Mariotti
2020-01-01

Abstract

Words are one of the means through which we communicate. If we try to live in a civil society and respect people who have different values than ours, dialogue is essential. This is why the teaching of foreign languages has become increasingly vital in both pedagogical and ‘intercultural’ terms. This applies not only in a global perspective, but also in a local or national one. Unfortunately, we live in a historical period when non-violent interaction with those near to us who seem/are told different from us seems to having become difficult. Dialogue cannot be built only on a technical or theoretical knowledge of foreign words, sounds or grammars. Rather, it presupposes the formation of a personality able to exert at the same time emotional participation and critical awareness which is built on "knowing ourselves": “we” as a product of the historical and personal processes that left on ourselves an infinite number of traces, accepted without the benefit of inventory (Gramsci). Foreign Language Teachers can contribute through the teaching and learning of the Japanese language, to the growth of more conscious, empathic and therefore dialogic relations between ourselves and others, for the purpose of a citizenship global and peaceful, because “inclusive”. Through re-positioning our Foreign Language Teaching perspectives (e.g. questioning how we ‘read/select’ teaching materials and examinations, how we ‘see’ FL learners, how we ‘perceive’ our and others multi-layers individualities) we might become able to creatively “find oneself within the cultural lives of others” (Holliday 2017), beyond any artificial/political construction of simplistic border-lines that would otherwise reduce our complex contemporary society to an un-real monolithic one, denying and hiding reality itself, and the very aim of pedagogy.
2020
Proceedings of the 25TH Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/3723698
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