English for Liberal Arts: A New (Re)Vision of the ELP

This paper argues that the English Language Program (ELP) at International Christian University has a unique historical opportunity to identify itself as an English for Liberal Arts program and to promote a new paradigm of language teaching. It locates the ELP within the institutional mission of International Christian University, provides both broad and narrow definitions of what that identification means, and undertakes a paradigmatic archaeology of the ELP to explore the sedimentary layers of language teaching—such as the audio-lingual method, the content-based approach, and the EAP model—that underlie its curriculum and self-conception. The paper identifies aspects of an English for Liberal Arts approach to language teaching already present in the curriculum, and points to areas where pedagogy and curriculum should be re-defined or re-formulated in this new light. This paper was originally presented as an address in the Lectures on Language and Linguistics Series at International Christian University on January 24, 2006 and has special significance as the English Language Program (ELP) will be renamed the English for Liberal Arts Program (ELA) in April of 2012.