Deconstructing Imperialism in English Language Teaching with Alter-Globalization Community in Education

Abstract

The positioning of the English language as the world’s lingua franca has led to the prioritization of an English monolingual ideology, which has, over the years, promoted the English language as a product to be manufactured, sold, and continuously promoted in capitalistic spaces and neoliberal markets as a tool of upward mobility. This paper presents a university teacher-educator project that is continuing to implement an alter-globalized framework in language education. The project focuses on utilizing translingual practices to create more context-based and liberating learning environments for students and teachers, with a recognition of how these practices can empower people beyond schooling. The paper maintains that by shifting away from globalized perspectives rooted in imperialism in language education, the English language can be repositioned as one tool among many for international cross-cultural communication.