I-CHUNG KE (YUAN ZE UNIVERSITY)

A HISTORICAL STUDY OF GLOBAL EDUCATION IN TAIWANESE ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS FROM 1970 TO 2022 : GLOBAL ISSUES IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION

This study investigates Taiwan’s English textbooks in the past six decades in terms of global education. A corpus keywords analysis was first conducted to identify what and how many keywords appear in the textbooks. Subsequent collocation analysis further reveals how these keywords are used, followed by a qualitative analysis of key global education lessons. A total of 42 textbook editions from 1970 to 2022 were analyzed. The results indicate that the 2 keywords world and global are used more after the 2000s, which reflects the changing roles of English from a foreign language to a window to the world. A significant increase in environmental lessons in textbooks, particularly those for elementary and junior high schools, shows a shifting discourse to construct cosmopolitanism based on survival needs. 4 main types of global education lessons are identified: cross-national comparison, environmental, globalization, and NGO missions, in the order of frequency. The glocal lessons in recent textbooks increasingly project Taiwan as a responsible contributor to issues of global sustainable development and a diverse society welcoming foreigners and accepting different cultures. The results imply an embrace of the environmental liberal ideology of global education in recent Taiwanese English textbooks.

I-Chung Ke is Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Applied Linguistics, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan. His research interests include Global English, Curriculum and Textbook Studies, Intercultural Communication, Online Intercultural Exchange, and Translanguaging in Education.