Teaching English is much more than just teaching the syllabus. Teaching English is creating opportunities to widen horizons, to learn about different cultures and different worlds. It is giving our students the opportunity to travel the world and learn about other peoples and their traditions. It is questioning our thoughts and beliefs by exploring the language and its different world visions and communicating with people from all over the world and listening to what they have to say.
I always try to incorporate cultural and critical awareness activities in my lessons, so that my students learn the principles of a critical thinker and become informed and active citizens in the future. My main goal is to create opportunities that make my students question the world around them and learn to raise vital questions and problems and gather and assess relevant information before taking their own conclusions. By overcoming egocentrism and sociocentrism they will be better prepared to act as change agents and to have an important voice in society and in the world.
The project “Friendship across Cultures”, created this school year with students from Agrupamento de Escolas de Carregal do Sal, Portugal, and the schools Groupe Scolaire la Fontaine and Lycée Technique Tighnari from Fkih Ben Salah, in Morocco, (78 students in total), is an example of what can be done in the English classes and the benefits it brings for the students, both in academic and personal terms.
Celeste Simões
Friendship Across Cultures