Disrupting education

Abstract

Recently, at two different events, I listened to well-known speakers discussing the notion that present-day education has to be ‘disrupted’. Disruption was described as a mechanism for generating a personalised education system for all students, as well as a means by which to align education with the 21st-century realities in operation in most industries. Disrupting education in these two ways has important implications for the English language classroom, especially since, as Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson point out, not all of the 1.5 billion learners of the language globally are benefiting from a personalised learning experience that hones their skills, capabilities and attitudes in such a way as to make their respective countries’ economies prosperous and competitive.