TESOL at Twenty-Five: What Are the Issues?

Four major themes appear to be running through ESOL teaching and research efforts at the present time: (a) In our focus on learners, we are attempting to capitalize on their intrinsic motivation to learn English as a means to their empowerment; (b) sociopolitical issues have us focused on English as an international language and on language policy issues in many countries, including the U. S.; (c) efforts are being made to make curricula more content-centered and task-based, with an emphasis on pressing global issues; (d) our methods are, in turn, increasingly oriented toward cooperative, learner-centered teaching in which learner strategy training plays a significant role.