This workshop explores the need to use English, with above beginners, as a global language to examine global issues through the practice of critical, comparative, and creative thinking skills related to social values. The framework is based on Robert Fisher’s language learning model of the inter-relatedness of reading, writing, listening, speaking, input, output and metacognition. In this awareness raising session the basic tenet underpinning the action is We are all the Same, We are all Different with the emphasis on teaching for diversity. Questioning ourselves comes before questioning the students, and changing our perceptions is a necessary first step. There will be some theory and plenty of activity.

1. Teaching for Diversity
Susan Hillyard
hillyard@ciudad.com.arAbstract
This workshop explores the need to use English, with above beginners, as a global
language to examine global issues through the practice of critical, comparative, and creative
thinking skills related to social values. The framework is based on Robert Fisher’s language
learning model of the interrelatedness of reading, writing, listening, speaking, input, output
and metacognition. In this awareness raising session the basic tenet underpinning the action
is We are all the Same, We are all Different with the emphasis on teaching for diversity.
Questioning ourselves comes before questioning the students, and changing our perceptions
is a necessary first step. There will be some theory and plenty of activity.
Handouts
Why ?
Questioning yourself.
Reflection By Shel Silverstein
Each time I see the Upside Man
Standing in the water,
I look at him and start to laugh,
Although I shoudn't oughtter.
For maybe in another world
Another time,
Another town,
Maybe HE is right side up
And I am upside down.
Some Quotations:
"You need to take a look at your culture, what your idea of normal is, and realize it is quite
limited and, in fact, just reflecting a particular experience."
" If you don't take multicultural education or antiracist education seriously, you are
promoting a monocultural or racist education. THERE IS NO NEUTRAL GROUND ON
THIS ISSUE.
"Bring the voices of silenced groups into the classroom and examine your own attitudes
toward those excluded from power"
" You have to realise that what you consider as universal is, quite often, exclusionary"
Maybe teachers don't have this big vision all the time. But I think those things are what a
democratic society is supposed to be about" Enid Lee ( an Afro/ Caribbean)

2. Part A
1) What is your definition of "Education"?
2) What sort of education did you receive ?
3) What is your definition of "The Educated Person"?
4) What does "Your child is very well-educated" mean in Argentine English?
Part B
1) What is the "curriculum"?
2) What is the "Hidden Curriculum"?
3) To what extent do you feel empowered to change the curriculum?
What?
Diversity as a concept.
" Oh, we're not prejudiced. We don't have any BLACK people in Argentina"
Does this mean that all Argentines are the same? Is there a clearly defined IDENTITY?
Do people like to belong to CLUBS?
Are people SQUARE?
Do people like ECCENTRICS?
Are you permitted to be CREATIVE?
Are you permitted to be CRITCAL?
Are you bothered about YOUR FAMILY? THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR? ON THE
OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD?
Do you have a VOICE?
Are you EDUCATED?
Two opposing views of diversity in the Developed World
1) That minority groups needed to be equipped with the language skills and the cultural
knowledge of the dominant group in order to be assimilated into the societal values of
that group.
2) That the whole of society would be enriched by social pluralism and policies of
diversity.
New Concepts.
NOW there is a stress on social and economic FUNCTIONALISM so that diversity
is seen not as a PROBLEM to be eradicated or a RIGHT to be guaranteed ( the patronising
attitude ) but rather as a RESOURCE to be cultivated.
+Opening up,
+raising awareness,
+building empathy,
+developing compassion
*THINK GLOBAL- ACT LOCAL
*WE ARE ALL THE SAME -WE
ARE ALL DIFFERENT

3. IMPLICATIONS
1) Take baby steps before giant strides.
2) See the world through eyes other than your own.
3) Start with yourself and examine your beliefs, aspirations, capabilities, situation and
context.
4) Write your own journal of your developing awareness.
5) Work on the student- self before the bigger issue of the group, the community, the city,
the country and the world. Start with the person as a thinker. If self esteem is low it is
unlikely you will get a positive response to issues which go further afield.
6) Look at Local issues in relation to World issues. Don't expect students to immediately
see the point.
7) Become informed: watch the news, buy the Economist, National Geographic, GEO,
read TIME or Newsweek, read an English Language Daily paper.
8) Garner poems, short stories, quotations, songs, music which will help you get your
point across.
9) Make picture banks, word banks, think-time problem banks……get your resources
together before you start.
10) Ask the students what they want to talk and learn about?
11) Read, read, read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Model your values
Remember DEP:
1) Democracy versus Dictatorship
2) Egalitarianism versus Elitism
3) Process rather than Product
You must model these values in the classroom in your everyday BEING so that your
students will respond positively.
Bibliography:
SampedroR and Hillyard S (2004) Global Issues OUP Oxford UK
Kreidler,W.J: Creative Conflict Resolution, Good Year Books,
1983
Trovato,C.A: Teaching Kids to Care, Scholastic 1993
Kalantzis,Cope, Noble and Poynting: Cultures of Schooling, The Falmer Press
1990

4. Bernbach Evans, F: A World of Diversity, Multicultural Readings in the News,
Herald Int. Tribune 1996