The Comment Factory

TESL (Teaching English as a foreign language) books always try to be cool and update and reflective of the latest educational doctrines. But they are obviously composed by a bunch of middle aged didactic experts sitting in a room trying to figure out what the youth will like and and to find “cool” topics to discuss, completely forgetting what they used to think of people their age when they were young.

The rise of high-tech and the importance of scientific subjects such as physics, chemistry and biology now means that English is often just being taught in order to serve the future ability of a student to read scientific, instructive books in English. English is perceived as an obstacle that a person must overcome or a mere functional tool to understand other subjects, as it is the lingua franca of our times. English is being taught not because it is a subject in of its own. But his is travesty. As Charlemagne said, “To speak another language is to possess another soul”,

Now English is just the default choice so you can progress in monetary or career terms and it is this approach to the use of language that writers of TSL books are catering to. At the same time they are facing a generation that was raised not to think too much of the future because everything is always changing, as are our  perceptions of “true” “right” and “wrong”.

For the average teenager it is how he or she fits in with the rest of their age group that is important and they don’t really care about government or world-historic events. This is not because they lack values but because governments come and go and wars happen with depressing regularity. They have to deal with their own local-level problems as these seem more important to them at that certain phase of life. What will be in ten to fifteen years is not a matter of interest nor are moralistic texts about drug abuse, drunk driving, or historic personalities who changed the world.

With these factors in mind one can understand why teaching literature within the teaching of language is being casted aside. Literature is not important in the eyes of the educators because they are trying to prepare their students for the world of science, and scientific functionality does not require the knowledge of poetry, playwriting and novels. These are seen as esoteric and redundant. We are raising the next generation of nuclear scientists so they will never hear of Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson, or will ever attend the theater to watch Brecht.

But above all we are starving the emotional intelligence of this generation. One does not need to search novelties to find a “cool” discussion topic for his or her classroom. Popular culture is still based in large part on past masters and the best we can do is demonstrate how nothing has really changed from Shakespeare’s times and how the same questions have been raised over and over again and are still being raised now. Maybe by admitting to our students we don’t know everything and we don’t know everything best will we be able to find the people who will ask the right questions in the future. To posses a soul and own a language is to be tuned to the culture from which it is driven. This can be only achieved by teaching literature through an open class discussion.