This presentation looks at globalisation through superdiversity and supercomplexity and applies these concepts to TEFL. Globalisation is a critical global process that impacts on and refigures English teaching in local contexts. This presentation asks students to take the forces of globalisation seriously as a content based element of English teaching.

1. SUPERDIVERSITY,
SUPERCOMPLEXITY AND
TEFL
DAVID R. COLE
WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

2. WHAT IS SUPERDIVERSITY?
• Superdiversity is a term intended to underline a level and kind of complexity surpassing anything previously
experienced in a particular society. Over the past twenty years globally more people have moved from more
places to more places; wholly new and increasingly complex social formations have ensued, marked by
dynamic interplays of variables, including: country of origin (comprising a variety of possible subset traits such
as ethnicity, language[s], religious tradition, regional and local identities, cultural values and practices),
migration channel (often related to highly gendered flows, specific social networks and particular labour
market niches), and legal status (including myriad categories determining a hierarchy of entitlements and
restrictions). These variables co-condition integration outcomes along with factors surrounding migrants’
human capital (particularly educational background), access to employment (which may or may not be in
immigrants’ hands), locality (related especially to material conditions, but also to other immigrant and ethnic
minority presence), and the usually chequered responses by local authorities, services providers and local
residents (which often tend to function by way of assumptions based on previous experiences with migrants
and ethnic minorities).
• (Vertovec, 2007, p. 1049)

3. WHAT IS SUPERCOMPLEXITY?
• … one is faced with a surfeit of data, knowledge or theoretical frames within one’s immediate situation
… Simply keeping abreast of the field may seem to be nigh on impossible … But, in addition to these
cognitive and operational challenges, [one] is also increasingly faced with challenges of his or her own
self-understanding … professional life is increasingly becoming a matter not just of handling
overwhelming data and theories within a given frame of reference (a situation of complexity) but also a
matter of handling multiple frames of understanding, of action and of self-identity. The fundamental
frameworks by which we might understand the world are multiplying and are often in conflict. Of the
multiplication of frameworks there is no end.
• (Barnett, 2000, p. 6)

4. HOW ARE SUPERDIVERSITY AND SUPERCOMPLEXITY
RELATED TO TEFL?
• What is diversity?
• What is multiculturalism?
• How are diversity and multiculturalism related to TEFL?
• How can we use notions of diversity as a resource for TEFL?
• Who are TEFL students?
• How/by what are TEFL students motivated?
• How can we understand the present day situation theoretically?

5. WHAT IS GLOBALISATION?
• Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and
governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by
information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems,
on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the
world ….
• Q: Is globalisation good or bad?
• How do you fit into/with globalisation?
• How does TEFL fit into globalisation?
• Do you have choices with respect to globalisation?

6. WHAT ARE SUPER DIMENSIONS IN GLOBALISATION
AND EDUCATION?
1) Global forces are those pressures on context that emerge from overarching, often intersecting
structures such as capitalism, modernity, colonialism and imperialism. 2) Global connections refer to trans-
local and trans-national links between people or groups such as migrants, tourists and social movements
and relates to the superdiverse underpinning of the super dimensions. 3) Global imagination refers to the
mobilisation and deployment of meanings about globalisation processes and the power and politics of
such meaning making, and this aspect of research can be understood in terms of supercomplexity
(Burawoy et al., 2000).

7. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I: Super Dimensions in Globalisation and Literacy
• Students as Linguistic Ethnographers: Super-diversity in the Classroom Context.
Jacqueline D’Warte
• Growing up Bilingual and Negotiating Identity in Globalised and Multicultural Australia
Christine Jones Diaz
• Researching Literacy Development in the Globalised North: Studying Tri-lingual Children’s English
Writing in Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish Sapmi
Eva Lindgren, Kirk P H Sullivan, Hanna Outakoski, and Asbjørg Westum

8. EXAMPLE OF SUPER DIMENSIONS
What examples of globalised English can
you think of?
How do you negotiate global English?
What are the TEFL skills necessary for
global English?
How do you teach global English?

10. MIGRATION AND TEFL
• Why do you want to learn English?
• Where do you want to go with your English?
• What can English do for you in the world: e.g. employment prospects?
• Is there a global English?
• Is there a Taiwanese-English?
• What are the basics of English that one needs to know in order to migrate?
• How can you stabilise English-learning in a global situation?

12. WHAT IS TAIWAN’S PLACE IN THE SUPER
DIMENSIONS?
Identity?
Nationalism?
Cosmopolitanism?
Colonisation?
Trade/industry/productivity
Culture?
Connection to TEFL …

13. WHAT IS AUSTRALIA’S PLACE IN THE SUPER
DIMENSIONS?
What is your perspective?
Is it easier to analyse than
Taiwan or your home
country?
Is it possible to compare
countries?
Connection to TEFL?

15. ANALYSIS OF GLOBAL MEDIA
• How is Taiwan represented in the global media?
• How does Taiwanese media represent the world?
• How is migration regarded/presented as a viable option for Taiwanese?
• How are values/perspective presented as ‘fact’ or as part of the reporting on world affairs?
• How do you build a critical approach as a part of TEFL?
• Take 3 examples of global stories and analyse for perspective/bias/values/language
• What is geopolitics?

16. WHAT IS THE FUTURE?
Speculate on the future of
globalisation
Is the population of the world going
to keep on growing?
What are the environmental effects
of globalisation?
How will ‘the world’ respond to
increased globalisation?
What will Taiwan’s place in the world
be in the future

17. GLOBAL ENGLISH AND ADVERTISING
Is language neutral?
How are we affected by the language of
adverting?
Does all language use incorporate the
language of global capitalism?
How can we use this language in TEFL?
Is everything marketed?
What is a marketing cliché?
Analyse the language of 3 adverts …

18. GLOBALISATION AS CBI
Teach the ‘facts’ of globalisation
Relate these facts to the students
personal situation
Emphasize the language features
of globalisation
Structure language interventions
that show how globalisation works
Show how globalisation affects
our everyday lives, i.e. we live in
super dimensions

19. FURTHER READING
• Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
• Barnett, R. (2000). Realising the University in an Age of Supercomplexity (1st ed.). Ballmoor, Bucks: The
Society for Research into Higher Education and OUP
• Burawoy, G., Blum, J.A., George, S., Zsuzsa, G., & Thayer, M. (2000). Global Ethnography: Forces,
Connections and Imaginations in a Postmodern World. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press
• Cole, D.R., & Woodrow, C. (2016). Super Dimensions in Globalisation and Education. Singapore: Springer
• Masny, D., & Cole, D.R. (2014). Education and the Politics of Becoming. London: Routledge .
• Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30:6, 1024-1054, DOI:
10.1080/01419870701599465