ECOSPIRITUALITY IN PUBLIC FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF A TRANSFORMATIVE WORLD LANGUAGE LEARNING APPROACH

Abstract

This critical instrumental case study examines a transformative world language learning approach to a unit on culture in an introductory Japanese class in a public high school. Couched in recent post-9/11 language “policy” debates, which strikingly lack mention of religion, spirituality, or environmental issues of climate change and sustainability, this study examines how a transformative world language learning approach develops and identifies students' environmentally based spirituality and how students articulate such “ecospirituality” in their emerging, standards-based Japanese writing. Critical analysis of written, interview, and classroom data reveals that a transformative world language learning approach may be effective in bridging traditional written literacies with “ecospiritual literacies” in the world language classroom. It also provides a lens for students' socio-dialogic learning of environment-related vocabulary and their subsequent use of it in their Japanese writing. Finally, this study suggests that while students rejected identities of religiosity, they embraced and articulated identities of ecospirituality.