Alan Marsh
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How do I see this Blog?

  • Sharing practical teaching ideas and discussing issues with teachers in Malta and elsewhere
  • An opportunity to tell people about Malta and the Malta TEFL scene
  • A learning experience for me
  • Critically thinking about ideas and issues and also about my/our role(s) as teachers in society and the world

Go to ...

honour and peace ... and  resistance

12/8/2013

2 Comments

 
In my previous blog, I saluted Nelson Mandela and wished him peace, using the Maltese words sliem ghalik. As I write this, Mandela is receiving tributes from around the world, mainly for his achievements in helping to end apartheid and in delivering his country from the brink of civil war. He will be remembered and honoured for making reconciliation, forgiveness and social justice the central themes of his political career.

He wasn't always such an icon, of course. There was a time when certain governments in the west were quite happy that Mandela was in jail, and in many ways they explicitly or implicitly supported the apartheid South African government. Otherwise, how else
could the government in Pretoria have kept him imprisoned for 27 years?

Mandela was a resistance fighter, let us remember. He and the African National Congress
resisted a government who would not embrace democratic principles. Sometimes that resistance included armed struggle. The British newspaper The Independent of 8th December 2013 reminds us:

An opinion article in the Daily Mail on the day of the concert to mark Mandela's 70th birthday in 1988 encapsulated their views [of certain MPs in the British Conservative Party]: "The ANC and its leader Nelson Mandela have no more claim to be saints or heroes than do the Provisional IRA with their lynch mobs and car bombers." In the mid-1980s, Thatcher herself had described the African National Congress as a "typical terrorist organisation" and – in defiance of many among the black South African opposition –refused to apply more than minimal sanctions against apartheid.

How is this relevant to English Language Teaching, you may wonder? Well, consider these topics: how many of them ever appear in our coursebooks?


Multinationals: are they criminal organisations?

Democracy: is it democratic?

Social media: how have they changed the way people protest?
Women's Day: How men keep women in their place
My school education: why it doesn't/didn't work - and how to make it better
Terrorists or freedom fighters: is it ever legitimate to take up an armed struggle?

Fashion: is it murdering women?

My country: the worst things about it
- and how to make it better

Of course they don't appear in coursebooks. Nor, as a general rule,  do pictures of same-sex couples, people with disabilities, or homeless people. Publishers need to keep things generally bland and to avoid offending sensibilities - otherwise, they argue, their books and materials won't be adopted by schools, regions or entire countries.

But just now and again don't you get the feeling that your students would really like to get their teeth
into something controversial, less middle of-the-road - and just possibly related to the things they might be concerned about outside the classroom, concerns they address and are confronted with in their everyday lives? Why not ask them?

If this sounds intriguing to you. and you are interested in giving space to learners' voices in areas of social criticism, check out this e-book by Lindsay Clandfield and Luke Meddings:
52: a year of subversive activity for the ELT classroom
You can sample it on The Round website and if you want to buy it (it's just a few euros) you can get it from Smashwords (you just need to register and call up the book) or go to
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/133783


As the authors say, however, be warned: you may be shocked and you may find some of this material shocking. There will be learners and classes you can't use this with. But how refreshing if you can.

Nelson Mandela was a champion of peace and reconciliation, true. But he also resisted oppression and was ready to die for his principles. Should we banish such topics from the ELT classroom?
Or can we and should we give a voice to our learners to engage with concepts of social awareness, inclusiveness and social justice amongst our learners?

2 Comments

Honour and peace

12/8/2013

0 Comments

 
A few days off now. And so I went off for my usual walk/jog - a bit of one, a bit of the other, but not always easy to spot the difference. The route takes me past Selmun (in the north of Malta) and the views are stunning, especially when the sun comes out after several days rain and Malta looks green again. Lovely hues of green and blue. Really exhilarating. And as I passed an elderly man he looked up at me, smiled and nodded and said 'Sliem ghalik' (the 'gh' is silent). Nobody has ever said that to me here in Malta. It's usually 'Bongu' (good morning') but this was 'Peace to you' and perhaps also 'I salute you' (the Maltese version of the Catholic prayer 'Hail Mary' begins with 'Sliema ghalik, Marija). So perhaps a mixture of both. Common in Arabic as As-salam alaykum (السلام عليكم) And I thought, goodness, I'd like to say that to somebody, sometime. It's so beautiful, and so unusual. Perhaps archaic, I'm not sure.

But the morning had begun sadly. Switching on the telly, Nelson Mandela. I remember marching in the streets of London and chanting, Free, free Nelson Mandela!' And dancing to a song of the same name (was that The Special AKA?). And that profoundly moving moment when Madiba was at last freed, and Apartheid belonged to the past. For many of us he was a role model. He showed that it IS possible to make a better world, through our actions and commitments.

And so, there you go. I can say it. Madiba, we hail you and may peace be with you. Sliem ghalik.
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