English for Liberal Arts: Towards a New Paradigm for University Language Teaching

The paper attempts to articulate a novel approach to English language teaching in which language reproduction itself is not the ultimate goal of instruction, but rather the ultimate transformation of the learner in the pursuit of understanding what it means to be human. This goal has long been a feature of liberal arts education, and the authors believe that it should not be limited to students in liberal arts colleges in the West but can form the basis for a dynamic approach to language teaching at the university level. The authors observe that East Asia is an attractive venue for challenging and enriching students with the values and educational goals of the liberal arts through the teaching of English as a foreign language, and they illustrate some of the pedagogical implications of an English for Liberal Arts approach they advocate in several common course types and traditional skill areas.

 

本研究は、言語を再現する事自体ではなく、人間である事の意味を理解しようとする中で、学習者を変革していく事を究極の目標とした新しい英語教育についての言及を試みたものである。この目標はリベラルアーツ教育にとって重要課題であり、欧米のリベラルアーツカレッジで学ぶ学生にのみ課せられるべきものではないと筆者は考える。東アジアの英語教育機関は、リベラルアーツの価値観と教育目標を確固たるものにするための又とない現場なのである。