Domesticating the Foreign: Globalization's Effects on the Place/s of Languages

Foreign language education is deeply affected by globalization, destabilizing some of the central ideas that have helped form national languages, and, by contrast, foreign languages. This article traces the economic origins of contemporary globalization and the deep communication effects that arise. Migration of peoples, instantaneous communication technologies, and new modes of imagining relationships in the context of vast flows of population, ideas, goods, and communication mean that teachers of different languages need to make multilingual and multicultural realities, rather than national and foreign ones, central notions in curriculum, teaching, and language choice. Professional dialogue between teachers of English, traditional foreign languages, heritage/community languages, and other categories of language interest are required to foster a new overall understanding of the enterprise of language education, suited to the altered world context of contemporary globalization.