Part 1: The Beginning - Some Ideas for Global Citizenship

“A global citizen is adaptable,
open to new ideas,
able to be productive
in a variety of environments,
understands major events,
thinks globally on a daily basis,
and can converse
in foreign languages.
(Gundling, 2003, p.335).”

As an educator, you may be asking what does this “Global Citizenship” thing have to do with you? Or you may instinctively know – this means you! You know you are a Global Citizen. Then again, maybe you’re not exactly sure...?. Still at some level you must know “Global Citizenship” is important for your own education and our field of teaching and preparing students to live in a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected. Hopefully, after reading this you will start to see connections with your special teaching situation whether it’s here and now on this campus or in your home country teaching EFL.

This topic resonates across all education, K-12, universities, tech training, etc. here and around the world. However, in this paper I practically try to concentrate on my particular audience which is Adult ESL Students in Fremont, California. While my class might not be representative of all ESL classrooms, the ideas generated for this report can be changed to meet the needs of many other ESL situations.

Part of my becoming a Global Citizen is that I must communicate and be an advocate for new perspectives in ESL Education. So I am compelled to share my findings on the aforementioned topic with you. My goal here is to present my understanding of the concepts of Global Citizenship and apply it to the world of teaching English as a Second Language to Adult Immigrants in the U.S. And to show how I think this could benefit immigrants and society.

I also hope you will also begin to see how the concepts apply to you as a lifelong learner and as an educator. I believe incorporating Education for Global Citizenship concepts into your present circumstances can help remove barriers and explicitly recognize what immigrants, international students and even generation 1.5* students can bring to our educational institutions and communities. (*Generation 1.5 students are those that graduate from high school and enter college while still in the process of learning English.)

Why do educators need to know about Global Citizenship?

1. Educators need to respond to the needs of a new student-body in a globalizing world.

The speed and impact of globalizing forces is driving the need for a new lens on the world. In some sense, borders are becoming irrelevant. In another sense, borders are becoming more critical. Approximately one in eight people living in the United States are foreign born, that’s 37.5 million people nationwide. This is the highest level in 80 years. Well, interestingly, California’s entire population is 36 million. With one of the highest percentages of immigrants, more than 26% of Californians are foreign born. And some sources say that 43% speak a foreign language in California homes. (SF Chronicle, Sept 07)

2. The burden of immigrant integration is falling on education system and workplaces: English language is seen as the key. (The caveat here is that there is limited funding, support and resources for this catch-all!)

The U.S. has only “a patchwork system of immigrant integration services,” i.e. little or no formal immigrant integration policy. Such a casual policy has many risks: So is it an immigrant problem or a failure of government leadership? The government has consistently increased immigrant allowances (now 800,000 yearly), yet they don’t back up their entry allowances with positive immigration messages and support. New immigrants are not automatically eligible for Federal support, some functions related to new immigrants are “operationalized at the local level,” and there is increased spending in education (NCLB, Adult ESL, EL Civics). Programs and resources are not necessarily comprehensive, nor are they applied or available consistently. They are but small band-aids to address problems growing yearly in both depth and breadth.

3. Without some kind of integration outreach, there are unintended consequences that affect everyone.

A societal mismatch occurs. Immigrants are allowed legal (or illegal) entry but society doesn’t treat them well. In fact, we seem to be a nation of immigrants who don’t value immigrants. There’s a lot of blame on immigrants for economic and social problems. But the reality is our immigrant population is often underutilized, underserved, and undervalued. The following is just a list of risk possibilities, not necessarily the current reality. Is there something more you could add here?
Although, the USA has been “relatively successful” at integration in the past, it doesn’t mean we will be in the future. If an immigrant doesn’t become connected to the community, they will become a burden. If they are still thought of as separate and other, they will continue to think of themselves as separate and other. Recall what has been happening in the Clichy Subois area of Paris, France. If we leave integration to chance that could be us in the future. If we hope to one day avoid silos of immigrant communities connected by disenfranchisement, isolationism, and home grown terrorism, we need to do a better job of showing a constructive way forward for immigrants to exist and thrive in a new environment. We need to help them productively extend their existing skills locally, and provide them with important knowledge tools so they can affect sustainable change long term, either here or long distance, in their home countries.

Question:
Why do educators need to know about Global Citizenship?

Answer:
Education for Global Citizenship is one way to reach out to immigrants, value them, help activate ideas of civic engagement, to mitigate unintended consequences, and ensure a positive future outcome.

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)

Interconnected Topics

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

List of Ideas

1. Find ways to encourage students’ environmental interests on issues that are personally meaningful to them

2. Include classroom activities that create a framework for learning global citizenry skills

3. Identify skills that require students to grow to be global citizens, name them and their applications.

4. Ask them to define their own cultural identity and share that with other students

5. Find a way to ask students to share pertinent non-western perspectives to intercultural communication activities, incorporate “culturally responsive teaching”

6. Help students understand general workplace language, skills and dynamics as foundation skills that will assist them anywhere on the globe.

7. Introduce key vocabulary (sustainability, waste, excess, green, recyclable, trade-offs, long term, short term, consumption, consumer, social responsibility, fair trade)

8. Ask them to make an environmental pledge (I will put all plastic bottles in a recycle bin, not a garbage can)

9. Ask them to make a list of services we get for free from the environment

10. Learn how to be a wise consumer, spend with a conscious

11. Encourage some kind of action as a new production of knowledge

12. Study the city or school’s recycling policies

13. Help make the classroom more efficient for recycling and energy

14. Have the class design an informative display/bulletin board about their learning on recycling

15. Encourage welcome groups for new students

16. Promote activities that encourage student leadership
Living and working only within their own ethnic community or not integrating means that they don’t take a leadership role in the community. It could take one or more generations to understand roles and civic responsibilities. Ethnic community groups don’t know how develop leaders that can take a role both inside the group and outside to the larger community. Hence a diverse city needs to understand global citizenship leadership qualities and build consensus with other minority ethnic groups in the community to get their issues heard and understood rather than continue to be marginalized.

17. Discuss choices people/government/and communities make about the environment, the tradeoffs and connections

18. Elicit information from the class and write about something from a totally different point of view than people are used to

19. Have a group of students try to point to places on a map with a pencil. Each person has a string attached to the pencil. Do it with a rubber band. Do it blindfolded. Do it with your hands tied behind your back. This really shows how we must try to act in concert. (Idea from Dr. Reckmeyere.)