ESP or EAC: teaching Media Literacy in the war time

This session by Oksana Torubara took place at the online Future of English Language Teaching Conference (FOELT), organised by Trinity College London and Regent’s University London. You can learn more about the annual event at The Russian war against Ukraine has drawn attention to the critical role Media Literacy and critical thinking play for fighting massive propaganda and disinformation. Many of us believe that manipulation is so obvious, primitive and ridiculous that it is not a problem for us. But current state of things in the world reveals the vulnerability of human civil sanity and demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid to it. In this talk I share my experience of transforming ESP syllabus due to unprecedented circumstances and the needs of university students in the war time. I reflect on the ways in which language education could incorporate the teaching of Media Literacy as a core life skill from acquiring military and war-related vocabulary to recognizing verbal manipulation techniques, fake news and hate speech in the media. The presenter, Oksana Torubara, is a PhD holder in the field of Professional Education, a certified Business English trainer and a specialist in English for Specific Purposes. As an Associate Professor of Foreign Languages Department, she teaches English at Taras Shevchenko National University “Chernihiv Collegium”. Having received special training as an on-line learning facilitator, she has been successfully implementing main principles of blended learning into her teaching practice. Oksana published “English for Media Literacy” MOOC guide, introduced a brand new same-name academic course, organized and participated in a number of conferences on Media Literacy.