Leadership through Language Learning and Teaching: The Case of Gandhi

May 11, 2010

In February I presented a paper called “Leading through Language Learning and Teaching: The Case of Gandhi” at the “Interdisciplinary Language Research: Relevance and Application Series” at the Language Research Centre at the University of Calgary.

I talked about a study I conducted of Gandhi’s autobiography, An autobiography or the story of my experiments with truth.
My purpose was to uncover and analyze Gandhi’s experiences as a second language learner. Here’s what I found:

1) Gandhi learned 11 languages throughout his life, including his native Gujarati.

2) He used his knowledge of other languages to connect with others on a deeper level, helping them fight for human and civil rights.

3) He believed that all children should learn more than one language.

He says, ““It is now my opinion that in all Indian curricula of higher education there should be a place for Hindi, Samskrit, Persian, Arabic and English, besides of course the vernacular.” (Gandhi, 1948, p. 9)

For Gandhi, language learning and leadership were intertwined. He saw language learning as a way to communicate with others in his own country, to connect with others on a deeper level, understanding their human condition from a compassionate point of view.

While not everyone who learns another language may go on to have a profound effect on the world to the degree that Gandhi did, any person who learns a new language grows as a human being because they can communicate with others in new ways. This helps to develop a more profound curiosity about the world around us, which leads us to learn more about that world. Learning more about the world and those who live in it leads to deeper understandings of other cultures, other values and other ways of understanding life, love, politics, spirituality and all that is important to humans. Learning other languages opens up new possibilities for personal and professional growth, new opportunities to do meaningful work and ultimately, to value others more deeply because we can communicate with them better and understand them.

The presentation included a practical classroom activity for students.

The full-text paper is publicly available on the ERIC data base.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED508664

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

1 Comment | Communication, languages, leadership, Multiculturalism, research, second languages, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Leadership Book Recommendation: Good to Great

April 29, 2010

One of my goals for 2010 is to read one leadership book per month. I’ve been able to meet that goal and of the books I’ve read so far, the work of one author stands out. Jim Collins’ Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t (2001) is an insightful read into why “good is the enemy of great” (p. 1). He shares insights such as:

  • “When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy.” (p. 13)
  • “There’s a huge difference between having the opportunity to have your say, and the opportunity to be heard.” (p. 74)
  • “The essence of profound insight is simplicity.” (p. 91)
  • “You can’t manufacture passion or motivate people to feel passionate. You can only discover what ignites your passion and the passions of those around you.” (p. 109)
  • “It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life.”

After studying businesses, Collins did a short companion book called, Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer: Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great (2005). This is a thought-provoking little gem that helps us wrap our brains around the struggle that education and non-profit organizations face to be more like businesses. Collins makes a compelling argument that they shouldn’t try. He challenges us to think in new ways when he claims, that “most businesses are mediocre. Why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?” (p. 1)

He talks about “organizational greatness”, as opposed to business as being something to aspire to. He urges us to consider that, “A great organization is one that delivers superior performance and makes a distinctive impact over a long period of time”. It’s easy to see how that could apply either to a business or a social sector organization.

Collins goes on to say that he suspects, “we will find more true leadership in the social sectors than the business sector” (p. 12). That’s quite a claim from a former faculty member of the Standford University Graduate School of Business.

Good to Great and the companion monograph, Good to Great and the Social Sectors are thought-provoking and insightful books on organizations and leadership. Well researched. Well written. Worth the read.

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Revenue-Generating Language Programs at Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions: Emerging Themes from a Documentation Analysis

April 24, 2010

I wanted to share a research paper with you that has been published in the ERIC database. It’s from a conference I did a couple of years ago. It talks about my thesis research that was in progress at the time of the conference. My research focussed on the marketing of revenue-generating ESL programs at a Canadian post-secondary institution. It started out as a documentation analysis and then evolved to include powerful interviews with program directors. This paper, done at about the halfway point of my program, shows some of the major themes that were emerging in the research. Here’s a quick overview:

Title: “Revenue-Generating Language Programs at Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions: Emerging Themes from a Documentation Analysis”

Presented at: Canadian Society for the Study of Education, annual conference, Vancouver, Canada, 2008

Abstract: This presentation identifies emerging themes in a study combining documentation analysis (Atkinson & Coffey, 2004) and interviews that examine policy statements, promotional materials and various institutional documents from selected English as a Second Language (ESL) programs at one Canadian University. It looks at how and why ESL programs are perceived to be tools for revenue generation and some of the implications this has, both at the program and institutional levels. The philosophical, ethical and practical challenges of international marketing of educational programs that generate revenue are explored.

Full paper is available in .pdf format from ERIC: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=Eaton%2C+Sarah&searchtype=basic&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=au&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&objectId=0900019b804095aa&accno=ED508999&_nfls=false

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Comments Off on Revenue-Generating Language Programs at Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions: Emerging Themes from a Documentation Analysis | education, ESL, languages, leadership, marketing, recruitment, research, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

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