English Language Teacher Education Through the Kaleidoscope of Global Citizenship: Japan and Vietnam in Comparative Perspective

Introduction

Behind the glamour of revolutionary breakthroughs of humankind are myriad thorny problems such as famines, malnourishment, crimes, which have led to millions of people in less fortunate situations being trapped in a vicious circle of suffering. Once individuals realize that they are part of the global community to act as a voice for the voiceless and a change agent to transform a community in a positive manner, they are deemed “global citizens”. In the contexts of Vietnam and Japan, there has been much dispute over the question of whether “global citizenship” is merely “a linguistic fancy” about “a fiction” that the political powers yearn for (Davies, 2006, p. 5). If education is widely perceived as an effective tool to raise awareness of the general public about the importance of educating people as “citizens of the world,” another growing concern is raised over the matter of how and who should enjoy those curriculum reforms (Evans, 2016). In such a globalized and internationalized world, universities are not alien to such striking changes, of which English language itself has transformed into a sustainable bridge to seemingly connect all the nations together and reinforce their cooperation in numerous facets such as economics, politics and society. Thus, much attention has been drawn to how to effectively integrate global citizenship education (GCE) into curriculum of English language teacher education over the past decade. Moreover, albeit some discrepancies in educational approaches and trajectories, most of the global citizenship-related initiatives share an overtly common goal of laying firm foundations for students to develop indispensable competencies, skills, and values with an eye towards shaping future global citizens. In the scope of this study, Japan and Vietnam were two typical countries in Asia taken for investigation.