ABSTRACT

In this article, I present a thought experiment highlighting some lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic for language education. I focus on two characteristics of the pandemic and the English language teaching (ELT) industry. First, during the pandemic, humans appeared to grapple with the ancient problem of killer viruses, with modern medicine initially offering little beyond basic advice; and ELT seems to deal with old problems like teaching vocabulary with little real progress in decades. Second, Asia was the epicenter of COVID-19 that later spread worldwide and caused social consequences in addition to health disasters; and the history of English as an additional language started in Asia before spreading to other places and creating sociocultural challenges. Departing from this tentative analogy, I argue that traditional ELT theory and research trends need to be revisited, and sociopolitical concerns should be considered as crucial aspects of the essence of ELT.

摘要

在本文中，我提出了一个思想实验，重点介绍了 COVID-19 大流行对语言教育的一些教训。我专注于大流行和英语语言教学 (ELT) 行业的两个特征。首先，在大流行期间，人类似乎在努力解决致命病毒这一古老的问题，而现代医学最初提供的只是基本建议。而 ELT 似乎在处理一些老问题，比如几十年来几乎没有真正进展的词汇教学。其次，亚洲是 COVID-19 的中心，后来传播到世界各地，除了健康灾难外还造成社会后果；英语作为另一种语言的历史始于亚洲，然后传播到其他地方并造成社会文化挑战。脱离这个试探性的类比，