Description
This work seeks to offer a new perspective on language teaching by placing moral issues – that is, questions of values – at the core of what it is to be a teacher. The teacher-student relation is central to this view, rather than the concept of language teaching as merely a technical matter of managing students’ acquisition of language. The message is that all language teaching involves an interplay of deeply held views, but in each teaching situation these values are played out in different ways. Bill Johnston does not tell readers what to think, but only suggests what to think about. The text explores the complex and often contradictory moral landscape of the language classroom, gradually revealing how teaching is not a matter of clear-cut choices but of wrestling with dilemmas and making difficult decisions in situations often riven with conflict. It examines the underlying values that teachers hold as individuals and as members of their profession, and demonstrates how those values are played out in the real world of language classrooms. Matters addressed include connections between the moral and political dimensions in English language teaching, and between values and religious beliefs, relationship(s) between teacher identity and values; the meaning of professionalism and how it is associated with morality and values; the ways in which teacher development is a moral issue; and the marginality of English language teaching. All the examples are taken from real-life teaching situations – the complexity and messiness of these situations is always acknowledged, including both individual influences and broader social, cultural and political forces at play. Examples come from teaching contexts around the world, including Brazil, Thailand, Poland, Japan, Central African Republic, Turkey and Taiwan as well as various settings in the USA.
