TOSH TACHINO

Tosh Tachino
Independent Scholar
toshtachino[at]gmail[dot]com

Language Instruction to Change the World:
Possibilities for Action-Oriented Language
Instruction in Your Classroom
ABSTRACT

Action-oriented language instruction (AOLI) is a teaching approach that aims to make language
learning impactful beyond the classroom and contribute to building a better world. Rooted inthe philosophies of Dewey, Decroly, and Freinet, AOLI now uses Common European Frameworkof Reference for Languages (CEFR) descriptors and focuses on realistic, authentic tasks thatfoster learner agency and embrace complexity. While challenges exist for implementing AOLI inJapan, many teachers are already taking steps to address these challenges. This article reportson those efforts presented at the LD30 Conference and other recent conferences, as well as thebrainstorming session that took place during the author’s LD30 Conference session. Throughdiscussions of these ideas, this article provides additional suggestions for bringing AOLI into ourclassrooms and making our teaching more impactful one step at a time.
Keywords: action-oriented language instruction, EFL pedagogy in Japan, SDGs

Many of us wish to make our day-to-day teaching matter more, not only in terms of helping our students
learn but also in terms of making a better world. This wish was reflected in the LD30 Conference theme“Learning for Change and Action, Making a Difference for the Future,” and I attended many sessions
in which speakers presented their efforts to realize this goal. My contribution to the conference and to
this volume is to introduce action-oriented language instruction (AOLI) and suggest ideas to increase
our positive impact on the world through our teaching. To this end this article begins with a descriptionof AOLI, followed by a report from my conference session, along with instructions on how to implement
AOLI in your classroom. Then, the article addresses challenges to implementing AOLI in Japan throughwhat I learned from this and other conferences about what people are already doing in Japan.

ACTION-ORIENTED LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

Acar (2019) characterizes action-oriented language instruction (AOLI) as having the dual aim ofteaching languages and educating citizens for a democratic society with the emphasis that thefirst aim is subservient to the second. He traces its theoretical grounding to the philosophies ofDewey, Decroly, and Freinet and notes its present practices as most closely associated with theCommon European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The most recent editionof the CEFR companion document (North, et al., 2022) describes AOLI as having the following
seven characteristics: rejection of a grammar-based linear syllabus, objectives inspired by CEFR

9LEARNING LEARNING『学習の学習』31(1)Language Instruction to Change the World: Possibilities and Challenges for Action-Oriented language instruction in Your Classroom

descriptors, realistic and authentic tasks, learner agency, focus on the task rather than language,
authentic materials with scaffolding, and acceptance of complexity by teachers and learners. Whatthese characteristics mean for us teachers is that we need to start with learners’ lives and what’srelevant to them, and align their interests with what the world needs. To the extent possible wewant to let the learners take the initiative in choosing their projects and relevant CEFR “can-do”
statements (Council of Europe, 2020) in consultation with us, the teachers. These descriptors
should serve as both language goals and transparent assessment criteria.
Piccardo (2014) emphasizes the use of “authentic materials” in AOLI, but “authenticity” is a deeply
problematic notion. A grammar substitution exercise is a classic case for inauthentic languageuse, but it can be legitimate in the context of an EFL classroom, thus “authentic.” Pinner (2016)
argues that authenticity should be reconceptualized as “a socially mediated and contextually
dynamic process of investment” (p. 8). He sees authenticity in continua as it relates to motivation
and autonomy, and he argues that the material becomes more authentic if it relates to the learnerpersonally as an individual. Following Pinner’s argument, we should choose “authentic” materials
based on how relevant they are to our learners’ lives and to the projects they choose to undertake.
The above description of AOLI incorporates elements of other approaches, such as task-basedlearning (TBL), project-based learning (PBL), content and language integrated learning (CLIL),
service learning, and experiential learning among others. These overlaps exist because they all
arose out of dissatisfaction in the traditional grammar-based language instruction, and they all
share their roots in communicative language teaching.
In the sections that follow, I report what transpired in my session at the LD30 Conference, and I
show how AOLI offers a particular lens to imagine certain possibilities in our pedagogical practices.

POSSIBILITIES FOR ACTION-ORIENTED LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

During my conference session, I invited the participants to discuss how they could incorporate AOLI in
their current environment in Japan, and they came up with several themes. Peter Chin and Jennie Roloff
Rothman started a lively conversation on fair trade as a theme. Buying decisions are certainly somethingthat contemporary Japanese university students can relate to in their everyday lives, and fair trade isconnected to larger issues of fair pay, labor, and capitalism. But the present practice of fair trade itself
is also problematic, Rothman argued, since the farmers still receive very little of the fair-trade price. A
theme on fair trade within an English class or a CLIL class on business or economics has the potential
to engage learners and transform them to become more critical and responsible citizens, and theiractions could contribute to addressing the problem in the long term. To make the class action-oriented,
however, I suggest incorporating an assignment where the learner must make at least one conscious
buying decision and reflect on that choice: Why did they choose to spend their money there? Where dothey think their money will go? What do they hope that their money will contribute to in the end? The
act of spending their own money would make them realize that our lessons are relevant outside theclassroom and that they can act upon the world through seemingly mundane choices.
Richard Walker raised charity as another possible theme, which also can be taught as a CLIL class inbusiness or economics. Like fair trade, charity is a complex issue, and simply giving money to charity
does not solve all the problems. One can also argue that the root cause of poverty is capitalism or its
present manifestation of it, and charity is a tool used by the beneficiaries of the system to placate theeconomically oppressed and distract their attention from systemic reforms (like wage reforms) or anoutright revolution against capitalism (Ashford, 2018). We can hope that such a discussion may spark
learner interest in charity and help learners think about why charity is needed in the first place andwhat we could do to address the fundamental problems. To make the class action-oriented, I suggest
requiring the learner to donate something, be it money, goods, labor, or time. This assignment canlead to a further discussion on their choices: Why did you choose this charity? What did you choose
to volunteer and why? What did you learn as a result of your action? Would you consider doing it
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again? Why (not)? I agree with William James (1890), who conceptualized a person’s character as anaccumulation of all the small choices throughout one’s lives. By making our students actually performthese actions that are consistent with their values, we are helping them become the people they
aspire to be.
But how can we design an action-oriented language class for our particular learners who may have
limited language proficiency and perhaps limited world knowledge? North et al. (2022) suggest thefollowing steps:
1. Identify learners’ real-life communicative needs by considering the contexts learners are likely toencounter.
2. Establish clear and specific goals for the lesson and use the CEFR descriptors to define these goals.
3. Work with learners to create a scenario that simulates a real-life situation.
4. Incorporate specific language skills (e.g. vocabulary, grammar, communicative strategies).
5. Set conditions and constraints for the task.
6. Incorporate assessment tools using CEFR descriptors.
Starting with the learners’ needs and contexts is the key to making the task relevant, but teachers
should consider pushing the learners a little both in terms of their language and their world
knowledge. The CEFR descriptors are often the most useful starting point because they have“can do” statements at all levels. For the sake of example, the following tables are given to show
different “can do” statements for informal and formal discussions for learners in the B2-A2 range.

INFORMAL DISCUSSION (WITH FRIENDS)
Descriptor
Numbers

Levels Descriptions

462

B2

Can account for and sustain their opinions in discussion by providing
relevant explanations, arguments and comments.

465

B1+

Can explain why something is a problem.

471

B1

Can express beliefs, opinions and agreement and disagreement
politely.

473

A2+

Can exchange opinions and compare things and people using simple
language.

FORMAL DISCUSSION (MEETINGS)
Descriptor
Numbers

Levels Descriptions

495

B2

Can contribute, account for and sustain their opinion, evaluate
alternative proposals and make and respond to hypotheses.

B1

Can take part in routine formal discussion of familiar subjects which
is clearly articulated in the standard form of the language or a familiar
variety and which involves the exchange of factual information, receiving
instructions or the discussion of solutions to practical problems.

A2

Can express what they think about things when addressed directly ina formal meeting, provided they can ask for repetition of key points ifnecessary.

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Finding the level-appropriate descriptors allows us to find Krashen’s (1985) “i + 1,” the kind of
language input that learners can manage with scaffolding, and these descriptors should guide us indesigning the language components of the task.
A similar approach can be used for learners themselves. We may lament our learners’ limited life
experience or world knowledge, but we still have to take them as they are. Our job is to push thema little, expose them to the world but only to the extent they can handle. That may not be much, but
we are still helping the learners to push their limit to become what they can be for the time being.
More detailed instructions on how to teach AOLI can be found in the handbook From
Communicative to Action-Oriented (Piccardo, 2014), and a lesson plan template is available online(Piccardo & Hunter, 2021).

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTING ACTION-ORIENTED LANGUAGE
INSTRUCTION IN JAPANIt is true that there are challenges to implementing AOLI in Japan. Hirose (2022), for example,
argued for the existence of a number of challenges, which can be summarized as the following:
Japan is a high-context, collectivist culture with strong top-down power relationships, and theJapanese are uncomfortable with dialogue-style discussions. In particular, they lack the skill to ask
good, probing questions, fearing that such questions disrupt group harmony.
Whether or not these stereotypically Japanese characteristics are overstated, many of us, language
teachers in Japan, already recognize the need to address these issues, and we are alreadydoing many things to overcome these challenges. At a recent CUE SIG conference, Christopher
Modell (2023) presented little tricks he uses in his classroom to prod his learners to speak up andmake positive contributions, and at our LD30 conference, Dexter da Silva and Ted O’Neil held alearning café to explore how to ask good questions. Adrienne Johnson and Cecilia Smith Fujishimapresented project-based learning that emphasizes developing learners’ critical thinking, especially
their ability to recognize the divergent perspectives of multiple stakeholders (see their chapterin this volume). Many presenters discussed their work grounded in SDGs. Neil Cowie (see hischapter in this volume) presented his work on coordinating an international SDG Master’s programthat involved international students visiting local Japanese organizations and reflecting on SDG
practices that could be applied in their home countries.
Also at the LD30 Conference, social activist Taichi Ichikawa narrated his personal journey of finding
his mission to turn the world into one big school and how he set up his organization called World
Road Inc. His most recent book, We Have a Dream (World Dream Project, 2021), is a collectionof aspirations by young people around the world, intended as a textbook on SDGs to be used bylearners around the world. He told us about a global youth movement called “One Young World,”
through which many young people today are trying to make meaningful changes for the better.
Another language textbook that uses SDGs was recently put together by Goodmacher (2023), whoincorporates AOLI. In his chapter on food waste, for example, he asks the learners to make a list offood and drink items they typically throw away (e.g., apple cores) and look into ways to use them (p.
65).
At another recent conference on “Peace as Global Language,” Paul Duffill (2023) inspired us with theidea of teaching peace studies as a CLIL class, and Tom Fast (2021, 2023) described his involvementwith the Japan University English Model United Nations (JUEMUN), which is “an annual, collaborativeand student-organized conference held in the Kansai region of Japan” (Japan University English
Model United Nations, n.d.). Fast’s students researched gender inequality in Japan, and they
drafted resolutions as themselves, i.e. concerned young women who would have to live withgender inequality in Japan. They submitted their resolutions with recommendations to theOkayama prefectural government, they testified in front of the government officials, and many ofLEARNING LEARNING『学習の学習』31(1)12TOSH TACHINO

their recommendations were actually adopted as prefectural laws in Okayama. This is a perfect
example of AOLI in action.
All these examples show that Hirose’s (2022) obstacles are not impenetrable walls, and at theLD30 Conference Sylvain Bergeron invoked Parker Palmer’s (2007) “Courage to Teach” to discuss
what it takes for us, teachers, to take the lead in changing the world by involving our students inSDG projects and encouraging them to go further on their own.

CLOSING THOUGHTS“Language instruction to change the world” is a grand proposition, and there are certainly great
programs we admire that live up to that label. But those big programs may discourage us, thinking
we cannot possibly mount such a grand project. On the other hand, modest and achievable actions
may seem too small to make a difference. When dealing with big issues like helping the world, Iagree with popular author Colin Beavan (2016), who wrote How to be alive: A guide to the kind ofhappiness that helps the world. What’s most important is taking the first step, no matter how small.
The question you should ask is not whether your action will make a difference but whether youraction will make you happy. A simple lesson on giving directions can be turned into a lesson inkindness by assigning a task to actually help someone who looks visibly lost on the street. I know
there are a lot of people who are looking for directions in Tokyo not only because I see them all
the time but also because I am one of them. Think about the times in which you wished someone
had offered you a hand. Could you make an assignment out of that? It will make a difference to that
person—and perhaps to the student too.

REFERENCES

Acar, A. (2019). The action-oriented approach: Integrating democratic citizenship education intolanguage teaching. English Scholarship Beyond Borders, 5(1), 122–141.
Ashford, E. (2018). Severe poverty as an unjust emergency. In P. Woodruff (Ed.). The ethics of giving:
Philosophers’ perspectives on philanthropy (pp. 103-148). Oxford University Press.
Beavan, C. (2016). How to be alive: A guide to the kind of happiness that helps the world.
HarperCollins.
Council of Europe. (2020). CEFR descriptors. https://rm.coe.int/cefr-descriptors-2020-/16809ed2c7
Duffil, P. (2023, October 29). The “Introduction to peace and conflict studies”: EMI course for theEnglish language classroom: Utilising a combination of broad and deep standard “content”
disciplinary foundation, Japanese peace tradition, teacher’s practitioner experience, local andinternational case studies, and CLIL scaffolding techniques [Paper presentation]. Peace as a
Global Language International Conference 2023, Akabanedai, Tokyo, Japan.
Fast, T. (2021, January 9). 2020 Model United Nations year in review. Gakka Blog. https://www.ndsu.
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Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. Longman.
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