Make Your Learners Aware Of Issues Faced By Marginalized Groups

By Author: Jordon
Total Articles: 91
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The majority of students who come to English classes do so because most i their basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy have been met and they are now aiming at more social respectability and higher levels of self-actualization In other words, they mostly belong to the middle or upper classes of their society. Such learners, by virtue of their social position, are unaware of the way the majority of their society's citizens negotiate their day-to-day lives c even their survival; CP can provide the needed insight for such learners s that through social activism they can transform the lives of those who an marginalized and help them attain better economic and social conditions

The majority of coursebooks used for English instruction have been anesthetized to make them politically and socially harmless for an international audience. Most publishers advise coursebook writers to follow a set of guidelines to make sure that controversial topics are kept out of thei books. One such set of guidelines is summarized as P AR S NIP (Gray 2001 which stands for Politics, Alcohol, Religion, Sex, Narcotics, Isms, and Pornography. As a result, ...
... most coursebooks deal with neutral, apparently harmless topics such as food, shopping, or travel. However, there are man groups in any society which are driven to the margins exactly True Religion Jeans because their political, behavioral, or belief systems are in conflict with those of the mainstream groups and they are consequently denied certain rights or opportunities.

In addition to some guidelines (or maybe we can say 'redlines') provided b; publishers, some coursebook producers and writers either intentionally o unintentionally set themselves restrictions in refusing to recognize and represent certain groups of people who might not fit in exactly with the expectations of their middle and upper class language learning clients. Fo: example, poverty in the learners' immediate society is not normally treated and if poverty is dealt with in a coursebook, it is usually with respect to a far away country or continent and groups of people with whom the learners can hardly identify. Missing also in most coursebooks are people who are invisible due to their psychological or physical abnormalities; one can hardl) find any lessons dealing with the plight of amputees or the disabled, and collaboration with the Red Crescent Society, has decided to offer a special crash course on landmines and safety measures needed in dealing with them for students living in affected areas. This course is offered as an extra to the curriculum and is not integrated in any Calvin Klein Jeans subject area students study in their regular programmes. From a CP perspective, it would have been advisable and possible to include the landmine topic in the English lessons or instruction students receive in their curriculum and in this way come up with a content that is both relevant and transformative to the immediate lives of the learners.

As an example, students in this situation can be exposed to a reading passage which makes them familiar with landmines, places they are planted, and cautionary measures that must be taken in contaminated areas. As a follow-up communicative activity, the learners can be divided into groups of two and, in an information gap exercise using maps, help their partners get home safely while negotiating their way through farms dotted with landmines and suspicious objects.