Globalization

FOR ME, WHAT IS GLOBALIZATION?

"The process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale”, is the definition of globalization that I could find literally in Oxford University dictionary. Nevertheless, from my point of view globalization is more than all of this. Globalization is an inevitable process that has been happening many years ago. It is a process where every country is communicated and interacting among the others. The entire world is interconnected and interdependent, as we are always interchanging different aspects. With globalization process we could see what people of other parts of the world think and what their points of view are. We can share opinions, ideas, products, thoughts, traditions and culture, breaking down barriers that sometimes people build between people from different countries.

Globalization means economic and financial movements, where countries are communicated among them. As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2000, there are four basic aspects that determine globalization: trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movements of people and the dissemination of knowledge. As we could see, with globalization we are transferring capital, goods and services to other countries; but we are also sharing opinions, ideas and cultures. Countries are not only economically interdependent, if not we are also connecting our religions and cultures, sharing with other people our ways of life. As far as I can see, this is a positive aspect that globalization provides us. As I will explain later, I think that as future teachers we must take benefit from these advantages, carrying out different activities with the main aim of joining pupil’s cultures and points of view.

In my opinion, globalization process gives us lot of advantages, but sometimes it also provides us any disadvantage. For example, economies interconnection might damage smaller, fragile or local economies, as they cannot compete with big companies that have conquest part of the territory. Globalization increases competition, making that small enterprise cannot face the biggest one. For example, this fact can be exemplified with village shops and shopping centres. As the last one are bigger and can provide more commercial things, local and small shops cannot deal with them.

On the other hand, globalization process universalizes the specific characteristics of a group, making them global and general. Although I think that sharing opinions and knowing new cultures is a very positive aspect to increase our personal experiences and to be more open-minded; we do not have to forget that each of us has something special, something that nobody in the world has. Each person is something more than culture and, although we have lots of similarities and common aspects, everybody cannot be equal. That’s why I think that we must not forget our personal and individual identity, keeping our local culture but accepting, respecting, integrating and meeting new cultures and people from around the world.

However, it is true that during the last decades, globalization process has been increasing; highlighting that nowadays it is very important to take into account international integration. For the advances in transportation and in telecommunications infrastructures, such as Internet, actually it is easier to travel around the world and to communicate with other people from different countries. Today, the world is connected, so we can be informed of what happens in other countries in seconds, even though the country is far away of our home.

For all these reasons, I absolutely agree with Anthony Giddens’ quote, as I think that with the increasing of globalization, the world becomes more interconnected and interlinked, where different countries from around the world join their forces to decide and discuss important aspects for our daily life. I agree when he said that facts that happen in countries many miles away, affect us. Most of the events, decisions happenings, actions and measures that occur in the world will change our local area. For instance, lots of countries are discussing together to solve climate change problem, joining their forces and walking together in the same way.

Living in that global and interconnected world, we, as future teachers, must take into account the migration and the movement of people around different countries. Nowadays, it is usual to have a classroom where there are pupils from different nationalities. As I could see in different schools of my country, our challenge is to integrate these children into the daily class development, encouraging them to participate and to get involved into the lesson. Sometimes, it is very difficult to do it because the new child does not understand the language, because he/she only knows his/her mother tongue. Nevertheless, we must teach to the international students our language, or find another language where all pupils in the class can communicate with, for example, English. Furthermore, as teachers we can plan different kind of activities where every child of the class can participate. For instance, with mime, gestures, movements, body communication, crafts, manual activities or games, we can promote pupil’s contribution.

On the other hand, it is also important that each child of the class feel comfortable and important. They must get involved into their own learning process, taking into account their opinions and feelings, and finding where they are good at. Moreover, it is important that all children know each other. That’s why it is a very positive idea to carry out different activities where pupils can explain to the others their own culture and traditions. They have to learn that is enriching to meet people from other countries, comparing, knowing, respecting and accepting other cultures. Planning intercultural weeks where each week is based on a different country or carrying out international lunch where pupils must bring typical food for their own country, are some of the ideas that I have picked up in my country. It is important to ask family’s participation, in order to include all members of the community.

To sum up, I consider that globalization process help us to feel closer to people that live many miles away, giving us the chance of sharing opinions and point of view. We are more and well communicated considering that actually most parts of the world are connected among them. Nowadays, the world tries to join our forces, walking together to the same direction. As I have said, there are lots of advantages for living in a world that is becoming more global and universal. However, as future teachers we have the big challenge of teaching international and universal pupils that will become globalized citizens without forgetting that each child is like a very little world, because each child has their own identity that makes him unique.