Language Curriculum Planning for the Third Millennium: A Future Perspective

Abstract

The evolution of language knowledge continues, as does the inquisitive nature of human beings. But the explosive growth of knowledge in the third millennium seems to herald a new era in language teaching. Deepened insights into philosophy have betrayed the poverty of structuralism to account for language learning. The shift from structuralism to poststructuralism has brought about inevitable, though controversial, trends, e.g., the World Englishes and standards movements. Media proliferation of the “mass-age” (McLuhan & Fiore, 2001) of the globalized era has led to a context where appealing terms such as computer-assisted and Internet-assisted language teaching might get blurred sooner in view of more sophisticated advances. Could the future witness virtual reality or expert systems-based language teaching? Language curriculum development in the third millennium should accommodate a recognition of the interdisciplinary knowledge and dynamicity and multimodality of concepts. Starting with the educational philosophy and moving on to related topics, this paper aims at envisaging the putative future of language curriculum development. Each topic in this article has been investigated followed by its effects on its succeeding topic attempting to provide a coherent framework. Glocalization has been introduced as the lost piece of puzzle linking topics coherently.