Some Ideas on EGC: Credits/Abstract

Some Ideas on Education for Global Citizenship
for Adult ESL Educators

by Lisa Braley
M.A. TESOL, SJSU (completed 12/07)

For ANTH 187 – Global Citizenship

Suggested Audience:
ESL Teachers, Teachers, people working with Immigrants

Interconnected Topics:
ESL, Global Citizenship, Immigration, Citizenship, Immigrant Rights, Diversity, Social Policy, Leadership and Training, Social Consciousness, Political/Cultural Identity, the Internet and civic engagement, Poverty, Education, Ethnic Community Groups, Terrorism, Welfare (TANF), Government Resources, and more.

Abstract Draft
Immigrants’ connections back to home countries may be more important than we think. Whether immigration gives people a safer existence or greater opportunities, those who teach to English-learners should try to prepare them for a new future. However, ESL students will never forget their home countries. Just as these hereditary links, maintained so devotedly, are one kind of substantiation of our interconnected globe, simple classroom exchanges may also have further implications. What if what happens in an ESL classroom could also offer prospects toward educating and creating a new global citizenry with a capacity for change agency in their present community or home nations?

If today’s English lesson may one day travel forward to a student’s home country associations, what should Adult ESL Teachers be teaching, and adding to their daily lessons? This paper explores the idea that when teaching English to Adult students in ESL classes, educators could also be shaping global citizens. This paper discusses the possibility that immigrant ESL education may have more long term effects and be more far reaching than is currently imagined today. It also looks at what student needs might be and what areas, topics, and lessons could be included. (182 words)