ELT: Reverse Geneaology

According to J. Krishanamurti, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for us to be free from our past and to be able to see our present as it really is, for, as the observers, we cannot completely distance ourselves from our experience. This is also what people working in science are now starting to understand. In other words, the experimenter/scientist is also part of the experiment anyway – and truly objective observation is actually impossible.

Following Brennan’s work on a reverse genealogy of school reform (2002), this paper offers another view of/for looking at ELT today through what we expect to see ourselves in the future. Essentially, this paper examines what is represented as the future of ELT from policy documents, research papers, magazines and newspapers, as a means of constructing the desired ELT at the present moment. The future in this view is the mind of the present or another performance of the present.

This paper looks at what is represented in the present, in the future, not in the present but in the future, not in the future but in the present, both in the present and in the future, and neither in the present nor in the future. In particular, it reports the status and roles of English as a global language of the 21st century. It addresses various relevant ELT issues e.g. teacher- student power relationships, materials, language learning principles, and measurement under the context of the new challenges of globalization driven by new information and communication technologies.

This reverse genealogical view can be regarded as a means that enables us to enhance our understanding of ELT present situations, so as to adjust ourselves in such ways that can make ourselves/do you mean “us”? relevant and meaningful both at present and in the future.