Ahhhh, TESOL. TESOL, TESOL, TESOL, TESOL.

From my posts here, I sound like I'm a basher of TESOL or TESOL teachers. I'm not, really. I'm a basher of the failed TESOL paradigm and its band-aid approaches. Approaches that try to cover up the shortcomings in TESOL.

We need new ideas in this business, ladies and gentlemen. I'm tired of all the "peer-review" journals that spew the same old ideas, ideas that haven't changed since at least the 1970s. I'm tired of the "quick-fixes" such as the "bozo technique".

When I rail on a teacher who uses "fun and games" in his classroom, I'm really just trying to get him or her to see the light. I'm trying to get him or her to see that he or she is in the same hole I am. The system is broken, not US. TESOL teachers are mostly not to blame. Our students the systems, and reality itself are pretty much solely to blame for our students not wanting to learn English.

So. How do we get 'em interested? By tackling the following "realities", which most of you have already thought about many times already, I'm sure.

1. TESOL students don't care about learning English, but this is because they don't have any incentive to care. So what if they learn English. What do they get for their efforts? This isn't the west. There is no "reward" for them later. If they aren't planning on going to live in the west, they believe they don't have to know English that well. They just need to know enough to pass with the almighty "D".

2. TESOL students aren't "Americans in brown skin". No, most Asian students' view of the world is entirely different from ours. They see mortal life more as a "dress rehearsal", and hedonism as something that distracts them from their ultimate purpose--readying themselves for the next life. Most parents view their kids learning of English means they are turning away from this view and accepting a more western view.

3. Individualism is squashed in Asia. As goes the herd, so goes the individual student. I see lots of immature students who are merely colorless copies of each with no individual personalities. Students' study habits reflect this reality as well. If a student "breaks off" from the pack to spread his wings, he will be very soon pressured to return to the fold.

4. TESOL students are suspicious of why we TESOL teachers are here. TESOL students suspect we intend to put English in their heads to turn them into more efficient laborers and their countries more efficient "colonies" of the west.

Can we overcome these "realities" and create a new paradigm in TESOL? Or are we going to keep relying on the same ol' worn out techniques that are obviously working very ineffciently at best, not at all at worst?