Including Global Citizenship in Our Planning Framework

At our sixth meeting, we analysed Oxfam’s Global Citizenship Guides in order to determine how the key elements described in the guides fit into our planning framework based on TBLL and CLIL principles.

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We read two of these free guides. In the first one, Education for Global Citizenship: A Guide for Schools, the Oxfam’s Curriculum for Global Citizenship is outlined in terms of three key elements: the knowledge and understanding, the skills, and the values and attitudes which are believed to be needed in order for young people to develop as global citizens.

The guide suggests several participatory activities (e.g. discussion and debate, role-play, ranking exercises, and communities of enquiry) applying a global perspective to help students learn “how decisions made by people in other parts of the world affect our lives, just as our decisions affect the lives of others” (Oxfam Development Education Programme, 2006: 2). It also shows how the global citizenship syllabus can be implemented at different levels within the British education system in a progressive and cross-curricular fashion (ibid.: 4-7).

Next, we analysed what, what for and why can be borrowed from Getting Started with Global Citizenship (England). This guide is actually meant to be used by teachers working in England. So bearing in mind our particular teaching context(s), we suggested some relevant ways to adapt the materials. Then we thought of some possible activities to help our students foster intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in order to develop global citizenship (GC) as described in this previous post.

In a nutshell, the knowledge and understand element of the Oxfam’s Curriculum for Global Citizenship (OCGC) roughly matches the knowledge (savoirs) component in Byram’s ICC model (Byram et al., 2002: 11-13). The skills element in the OCGC roughly matches the skills of interpreting and relating (savoir comprendré) and discovery and interaction (savoir aprendre/faire) components in Byram’s ICC model (Ibid.). The values and attitudes element in the OCGC roughly matches the intercultural attitudes (savoir être) and cultural awareness (savoir s’engager) components in Byram’s ICC model (Ibid.).

It’s easy to notice that despite some overlapping, all these components have especially to do with the 4^th C, Culture, in the 4 C’s Framework put forward by Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010: 41-42, 53-55) as discussed in this previous post. That is, when planning a project along the lines discussed in this course, especially if you’re applying this framework for project planning, we should analyse contents and resources in terms of both Byram’s ICC components and the GC elements.

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To so doing, Baker (2008: 6) puts forward a framework for global learning that involves five elements in which students play an active role asking questions, making connections, exploring viewpoints and values, responding as active global citizens and assessing learning. Do you see how Baker’s framework can be integrated into the Culture component of the 4 C’s Framework? If you don’t, you can read more about this framework here.

Besides, Baker states that the only real difference between the global dimension (GD) and GC is that GD usually refers to a set of key concepts in education (e.g. social justice, human rights, conflict, diversity, values and perceptions, sustainable development and global citizenship), whereas GC is about the outcomes in the individual (Ibid.: 2).

Going back to the mindmap on this previous post, now I can expand on what I tried to say there. In the mindmap, GD is thought to be a means to an end. That is, in order to develop GC at the individual level, we should include the GD in our teaching practice at a social level.

Finally, I’d like to share the resources I got via Prof. Rubén Mazzei. Click on the links below. These resources are meant to help students (who are living in Buenos Aires Province) develop their ICC and eventually become global citizens.

English Language Workbook for year 1 of Secondary Education.

Intercultural Studies Workbook for years 5 and 6 of Secondary Education with specialism in Foreign Languages.

You can find resources for year 4 of Primary Education here and here.

More resources (years 5 & 6 of PE, and years 2 to 6 of SE) might be published soon on cuadernos de trabajo.

References

Baker, R. (2008). Getting Started with Global Citizenship (England). Oxfam’s Education and Youth Programme. GB: Oxfam House. Available at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/~/media/Files/Education/Global%20Citizenship/GCNewTeacherENGLAND.ashx retrieved 18.05.2013

Byram, M., B. Gribkova and H. Starkey. (2002). Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching. A Practical Introduction for Teachers. Language Policy Division, Directorate of School, Out-of-School and Higher Education, DGIV. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Available at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/source/guide_dimintercult_en.pdf retrieved 21.04.2013

Coyle, D., P. Hood and D. Marsh. (2010). CLIL. Content and language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oxfam Development Education Programme. (2006). Education for Global Citizenship: A Guide for Schools. GB: Oxfam House. Available at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/~/media/Files/Education/Global%20Citizenship/education_for_global_citizenship_a_guide_for_schools.ashx retrieved 18.05.2013