ABSTRACT

While there is a growing body of scholarship on the neoliberal content of global English textbooks, the ways in which these commercial materials come to life in teaching and learning practices are still under researched. Drawing on a critical ethnographic account of two English courses for unemployed students in a private language school in Serbia, this paper examines the beliefs and actions of teachers and students in regard to English language education and the global textbooks they use. The results suggest that many views about the English language courses and their textbooks in this case study are deeply shaped by the broader socioeconomic context of neoliberalism. Furthermore, the neoliberalism featured in the textbook motivates students to learn English and to transform themselves into suitable citizens and workers for the current economic order. In this way, the global textbook becomes one of the many tools that neoliberalism uses to reproduce itself. This paper argues that the present state of affairs is not an inevitable and desirable one and calls for implementing alternative approaches to the dominant neoliberal conception of English language education.

摘要

尽管有关全球英语教科书的新自由主义内容的学者越来越多，但仍在研究这些商业材料在教学实践中的实现方式。本文以塞尔维亚的一本关于为一所私立语言学校的失业学生开设的两门英语课程的人种志为基础，对教师和学生在英语教育以及他们使用的全球教科书上的信念和行为进行了考察。结果表明，在这个案例研究中，关于英语课程及其教科书的许多观点都受到新自由主义更广泛的社会经济背景的深刻影响。此外，教科书中的新自由主义激励学生学习英语，并使自己转变为适合当前经济秩序的公民和工人。这样，全球教科书就成为新自由主义用来自我复制的众多工具之一。本文认为，当前的状况不是必然的和可取的，并呼吁对主流的新自由主义英语教育观念采取替代方法。