Abstract:

John Dewey’s influence on education is undeniable in the modern age. The notion that learners’ experience should be an integral part of classroom pedagogy and that content should reflect their lives in some way has entered mainstream education theory and practice. As universal as these progressive concepts may seem to teachers educated in the West, much of the curricular design in schools in East Asia still follows the traditionalist orientation Dewey and others fought to dislodge in America a century ago. With the transnational migration of Western language educators to Asia, there has appeared a curious conundrum in local schools: bastions of progressive teaching in an otherwise top-down, teacher-centered system. This paper presentation recounts the major tenets of progressive education and how they influenced second language teaching methods and their movement to Asian schools through foreign-born language teachers. How these teachers and their methods have come into conflict with the indigenous models is also examined.

Keywords:

John Dewey, progressive education, second language teaching, East Asia, Confucian model of education.