SoSe 23: (S) Entwicklung, Forschung, Evaluation. Variante 1: ohne Vorbereitung MA-Arbeit
Christian Ludwig
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Talking about (mental) health in English language teaching
In 2019, a group of A-level students initiated an online petition addressed to the Bavarian state minister Michael Piazolo. In the petition, which was supported by more than 40,000 people, they requested the integration of mental health-related topics into the school curriculum, arguing that schools had not yet recognized and acknowledged the alarming impact of mental disorders on the lives of many adolescents. Consequently, the petitioners demanded schools to take action and become spaces of prevention and intervention, rather than silence.
While, so far, the petition is the only one of its kind in the German educational system, it’s call to action seems most relevant and timely. According to the World Health Organisation, by now one out of seven young people between the age of 10 and 19 are afflicted by a form of mental disorder. Among these disorders, depression and anxiety present the most prevalent ailments in teenagers’ lives, as they are increasingly becoming “the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents” worldwide (WHO 2021: n. pag.). Mental disorders, in other words, have become a most prominent influence on how young people experience their everyday lives and, thus, mental health education indeed appears most necessary (Trumm 2014). In this enterprise, schools play a particularly important role, since they accompany teenagers through a most vulnerable time of their lives (Bagnell/Santor 2015). Thus, it is the responsibility of each school subject to make its individual contribution to fostering mental health competences that students need to productively participate in an ever-accelerating, stressful and highly dynamic global society. Yet, as the petition shows, not much has happened in that regard. This course takes this as a starting point to explore to what extent English language teaching (ELT) can support the integration of mental health education in the school curriculum. It examines the relationship between mental health issues and the English as Foreign Language (EFL) classroom from a variety of theoretical and practice-oriented perspectives.
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