Book Critique: Michael Byram’s From Foreign Language Education To Education For Intercultural Citizenship: Essays And Reflections: Exemplar Book Review To Follow

The encompassing theme of the book is the practice of teaching foreign languages at schools or to a community. Byram first defines the basic purposes of teaching a foreign language, and then uses research conducted across various countries in order to provide data to back up his theories. He theorizes that due to the globalized world, it has become more vital for people to know different languages, and his basic message is that foreign language teachers are vitally important for the advancement of society. He pulls most of his research on Europe, which has encouraged vast intercultural knowledge due to the structure of the European Union. European citizens are able to travel anywhere in Europe, and the political focus in the region pushes an agenda for governments to support foreign language classes in schools.
A major theme in the book is about the political environment surrounding foreign language learning. Byram’s examples and studies are meant to draw comparisons between a society that is culturally and globally competent and one that has no focus on foreign language learning. He draws most of his comparisons between Europe and the United States, as well as East Asia. What he lacks in his analysis is sufficient research in other parts of the world. A globalized world has pushed for English and Chinese as the most important business languages. But he does not have data to look into how other regions in the world, such as the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, are handling the globalized world. In short, there is a void of information that may be beneficial in proving his points. If his points are to stand, then an overall understanding of the political environments in these regions may be helpful in looking as to how regions that do not possibly support intercultural knowledge or lack the resources to do so have adapted to a globalized world.
Byram also discusses the most helpful teaching methods that make the best impact on intercultural competency. Considering that his main goal is to show readers that foreign language teachers are necessary today to the advancement of democracy, Byram also does well to discuss these methods. He also places importance on how teachers should relate to and communicate with their students. Intercultural cooperation, according to him, starts with education, and outlining good behaviors and habits, and providing training references for aspiring teachers is necessary to drive his point home.