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Each of these trends, social scientists suggest, are likely to become more evident in the years ahead. Whether they are good or bad depends, of course, upon your own individual point of view. What is clear, however, is that there are dangers. The increasing dominance of electronic media, globalisation and the dominance of multinational organisations, all pose dangers for democracy and individual freedom. Similarly, the spread of the ‘market’ may also pose dangers for the integrity of social services such as education, where economic efficiency may not always be compatible with educational goals. What this suggests, then, is that we need to be aware of what is happening so that we can make the future as we would like it to be, and not simply drift forward.

2. What should we be doing now to prepare our students for the future?

Language teaching practices today

The description of emerging characteristics of a future society may seem very remote from the day to day moments of language teaching. In reality, however, language teaching is a part of society as much as anything else. It is not difficult to see, therefore, signs of a ‘post- modern’ society already present in contemporary practices in language teaching. A survey through published coursebooks for school-aged students, for example, can identify some significant characteristics. The following are based on my own observations which you may or may not agree with.

Language learner as consumer
The content of language exercises may be centred around performing commercial transactions (e.g. ordering hamburgers and cola in a restaurant) or expressing preferences about consumer items (e.g. fashion clothes, pop music, pop stars, and videos).

Fragmented, eclectic content
A ‘unit’ of materials may be composed of seemingly random content – linked together perhaps by an underlying grammatical thread. A newspaper article about a protest may be followed by a listening passage on UFOs, which may in turn be followed by a role play to solve a murder – all intended to present examples of the Past tense. (‘Expect anything!’ being also suitable advice to a language student.)

Significance
Meaning has long since been important in language teaching, but beyond this there is also the matter of significance. On the one hand, much of the content of language teaching tasks appear to focus on what is essentially trivia. On the other hand, the true significance of something may be disregarded in the pursuit of a syllabus item. A text about the first tests of a nuclear bomb, for example – potentially one of the most significant events in modern history – may be made the focus of classwork simply for the form it exemplifies (‘What were the journalists doing when the bomb exploded?’).

Standardised lessons
Although teaching practices and teaching materials have become much more interesting for the learner in recent years, one element in this has been the growth in standardisation of teaching practices. Superficially, part of the cause of this has been the emergence of global coursebooks, which propose similar content for classroom work in diverse situations and cultures. Additionally, global teaching qualifications are potentially leading to a standardised view of what ‘good teaching’ is. I say, superficially, however, because it is not the fact of globalisation that is important here, but what coursebooks and teaching qualifications may actually propose. My own view is that there is increasing tendency towards (and danger of) ‘scripting’ lessons – standard lessons and lesson formats that are re-enacted all over the world. This means, for example, that students and teachers on opposite sides of the planet, in widely differing contexts, can end up working with exactly the same language, through the same standard closed tasks, producing more or less the same standardised outcomes.

A ‘futures curriculum’ in language teaching

I said earlier that I think that it is important that we are aware of how society is evolving so that we can try to make the future as we would like it to be. As an educational activity, there is thus a particular responsibility for language teaching. On the one hand, we need to think about how we can help to prepare our students for the very different demands that the future will make – the need to be able to make rapid decisions and adapt, for instance. On the other hand, we also need to look beyond the concerns of the language syllabus, and not simply drift with the flow of post-modern development. A futures curriculum, then, needs to take into account the content and significance of our materials, the values and attitudes we project, the kinds of ‘mental states’ we are fostering – how, indeed, we contribute to the way the people see themselves, and how we shape the way we wish to live. This is of course a very subjective matter which will vary from individual to individual, culture to culture, but to end this article I would like to set out six principles that I think could underpin developments in language teaching. As a set of ‘desirable’ characteristics, they may also function as a means of evaluating what we are doing now, so for each one I have added a question which we can use to review our present practices.

Some characteristics of a ‘futures curriculum’

Coherence
The use of themes, topics, projects to bind lessons together and provide coherence and a deeper focus and understanding.

Significant content
The selection of content that is worth learning and thinking about, dealt with in appropriate ways, which does not, on the one hand trivialise significant issues or, on the other hand, make trivial things seem important. A key topic could itself be ‘the future’ – attempting to raise students’ awareness of future developments and discuss their own hopes, aspirations, worries and personal action.

Decision-making in the classroom
A structured plan for actively involving students in making decisions in the classroom, taking on more responsibility for what happens in their lessons.

Use of students’ intelligence
The use of types of exercises which require thinking, beyond memory retrieval or repetition, for example, and involving students in hypothesising, negotiating, planning, and evaluating, and open-ended tasks which allow different students to contribute in different ways.

Cultural understanding
Tasks and texts which require students to look through the eyes of others, to learn the relative nature of values, to understand why people in different contexts think and do different things.

Critical language awareness
To view all language use critically – that is, to look beyond the surface meaning and ask oneself questions such as ‘Why are they saying that?’ ‘What is not being said?’ and ‘Who benefits from what is being said?’ We might, for example, ask students to think about deeper reasons for why the passive voice is used in a newspaper headline or why particular adjectives are used to describe a consumer product.

1. Is there a coherent topic over a lesson or series of lessons?
2. Is the content worth knowing or thinking about? Is significant content treated appropriately?
3. Are students required to make decisions? How do they help to shape lessons, such that each lesson is unique?
4. Do classroom tasks require thought?
5. Do texts and tasks promote cultural understanding?
6. Are students asked to think about why language is used that way?