Conflict, Militarization, and Their After-Effects: Key Challenges for TESOL

Abstract

Skyrocketing military spending, ongoing military conflicts, and human displacement worldwide have significant consequences for the teaching and learning of English. TESOL increasingly requires a robust research base that can provide informed, critical guidance in preparing English language teachers for work in and near conflict zones, for teaching refugees and asylum seekers, and, more broadly, for teaching English in highly militarized times. This investigation, which takes the form of a transdisciplinary, translocal literature review, consolidates and extends TESOL's peace-conflict studies through a close examination of two areas that are connected but rarely considered in tandem: TESOL's multiple involvements and entanglements in armed and militarized conflicts and their aftermath, and the challenges of teaching English in a conflict zone or for students who have escaped or been exiled from one. Implications for pedagogy and further research are suggested. The argument is, in short, that the dialectical relationship between TESOL and conflict is in urgent need of collegial scrutiny, that teachers need to be equipped to facilitate critical and creative engagement with English not apart from broader sociopolitical realities but in relation to these, and that the implications of conflict for language learning are relevant across the wider TESOL community, given world developments.

TESOLas a Professional Community: A Half‐Century of Pedagogy, Research, and Theory

“…If this is a knowledge economy of tertiarization in industries (beyond the prior two stages of foci on raw materials and production), with communicative resources for marketing and product development gaining more importance, language is central to geopolitics (see Duchene & Heller, ). More importantly, English comes with the mixed blessing of serving ideological domination by the developed communities or empowerment of marginalized communities; shaping enterprising subjects for neoliberal governmentality or giving hope to refugees caught in conflict zones (Nelson & Appleby, ). ELT practitioners are required to navigate this complicated terrain to advocate more ethical and inclusive language learning and use.…”

Educational Needs of Adult Refugees’ Educators: A Greek Case Study

“…However, according to a recent research by Proiou (2019), adult refugee educators need training on intercultural issues and the basic principles of adult education. At the same time, according to international literature, it appears that educators need to be ready to manage deviant behaviors due to traumatic experiences (Gagné, Schmidt & Markus 2017;Richardson, MacEwen & Naylor, 2018), but also to be able to be equipped to facilitate critical and creative engagement with the language of the host country (Nelson & Appleby, 2015).…”

Trauma in English learners: Examining the influence of previous trauma and PTSD on English learners and within the classroom

“…Nelson and Appleby (2015) mentioned the importance of community and belonging for ELs. Furthermore, they argued that using visual, performing, screen, and literary arts within the classroom could help refugee and immigrant students use that space for rehumanizing (Nelson & Appleby, ). In other words, creative assignments, in which poetry can be included, can allow students the freedom to process their experiences and present them to the class in a way that is healing.…”

“…Allowing, and aiding, a student in telling his or her story promotes language learning and community building while also boosting truthfulness and motivation. The story that a student tells could be presented as poetry, as was suggested in Iida (), through creative forms, as was recommended by Nelson and Appleby (), or by the language experience approach , in which a student dictates stories based on his or her own experiences while the teacher acts as a scribe (Allen, ). No matter the level of the language learner, there are activities that can both enhance language proficiency and promote personal healing after experiencing trauma.…”