English Learning in the 21st Century: Its Trends in Curriculum Challenges to Face the Acean Economic Community

Abstract

INTRODUCTION
Learning English in the 21st Century is more challenging than ever before and its
developement can be seen in the English curriculum in the widest sense—its intention, plan,
practice and outcomes. The challenge has been posed by the life context which can in fact
been seen as layers with their own dynamic. This leads to another challenge posed by the
educational paradigm shift, which allows more people and student participation and more
research on learners, which has in turn necessitates the change of theories of teaching and
learning and all related factors. The new view of learning and thus teaching has changed the
role to be played by teachers’ role as learning facilitators, which is getting more and more
challenging in this knowledge era. However, their role can be played more efiiciently adn
effectively with the support of the advancements of information and communication
tehcnology. All of this is illustrated in Figure 1.All of this will have some implications for the
teaching of English in the context of facing the ASEAN Economic Community in which one
of the agreements already reached is concerned with the free flow of skilld labour in seven
professions.