Abstract

There is a dire need to develop English language proficiency among the students in comfortable environment especially in Pakistan. Which would surely contriute in the personality development, character and personality building. It requires to search the role of an appropriate peace curriculum integrated with lesson plan. Quantitative data collected through random sampling were analyzed via SPSS analysis tests. The participants of this study were the students of graduate level and ESL Teachers. Experimental and Controlled group had 20 students. The controlled group was taught by the Traditional Lecture method. While the participant of Experimental group were taught by the lesson plans designed with the integration of peace curriculum. The proficiency skills of Writing and Speaking were enhanced due to the increase in the interest and motivation level of the student. This study provides a helping hand to the parents and teacher to control the aggressive behavior of the students and teaching them peace and harmony.                

Key Words

ESL- Peace Curriculum, Traditional Lecture, Proficiency Skills

Introduction

Language is a system which makes human beings able to communicate with each other. Language learning is a process which starts in the infancy of a person. Acquisition of language begins when a child hears his parents speaking whether it is some specific sound or words which usually parents speak to their children. Learning English language is a craze these days. Point to ponder is that why is it become so important to learn English? English is an ‘Official’ language of about 53 countries of world. So, to become a global communicator one has to learn it. English has become a global lingua franca. As the combat starts in the thoughts of mankind and it is in the thoughts of mankind that the resistance of peace must be built” (UNESCO, 2001).

Peace education is actually all about the awareness of the inner conflicts and violence and finding the solutions of that conflicts to win the war of mind that we can say the presence of harmony, proportion, understanding, balance, calmness, accord and patience. ‘It is a process of humanization, humanizing one and others. That system in which a person is imbued with such values as compassion, dignity, human rights, justice, solidarity, (cross) cultural understanding and who apply such ideals in everyday (inter) actions’ (Francis Gomes de Matos, 1996). At early 20th century i.e. 1912 almost every state of United states School Peace League had content that was endorsing justice and fraternity with the help of schools (Scanlon, 1959). In early 20thcentury most of the leading leaders of peace were females, Jane Adam and Maria Montessori, American and Italian respectively were contemporaries at that time. The former one won Noble prize in 1931 and the other emphasized that a teacher’s method may contribute in constructing a world full of Peace (Montessori, 1946, 1974).

According to the point of view of many biologist and anthropologist human nature carries the attributes of violence, particularly violent Inter-group competition. Eve Chimpanzees emolument “wars” between the embracing neighborhood that result in constant causalities when different persons from different communities are trapped and knackered to death.  Chimpanzees infighting is similar to human infighting (Kelly, 2005; Wrangham & Glowacki, 2012).

According to Francis Gomes (1996) peace and language are always coexisted as the two juxtaposed concepts; he felt a big gap to apply it practically so to integrate them he created a term communicative peace. What if one learns other attitudes as well with learning of a language? Obviously, it will make him/her a better person of community, emerging positive vibes by the use of language with peace. According to Banta (1993) Behind constructing peace the ideas and practices have however descents in all nations. Anthropologist have situated minimum Forty Seven relatively peace civilizations. Possibly the most basic written records of rules that communicate others about how to get peace comes from the world’s prodigious religions. These religions- ensuing the education of such prophet as Budhha, Hazrat Mus (A.S) Bha’u’llah, Jesus Christ, Lao Tse and Hazrat Mohammad (SAW) have specific  scriptures that advance peace, or the slightest they do is spreading internal Peace among the believers of Islam.

Therefore, it is justified to look briefly at the role of religion for peace in modern societies. When a composite measure of religiosity is formed from four questions in the World Values Survey (2009), a Gallup World Poll (2010) question about the importance of religion in the respondent’s life, and (reverse scored) proportion of atheists from Zuckerman (2007), the correlation of this measure with log-transformed homicide rates is .473 (N = 157 countries).

According to Huseyinhaci et al., (2016) the development of a nation is based on the quality education. Many countries have now become aware of the importance of early education. They developed a syllabus with the help of peace curriculum and then divided it into further five types; peace with animals, peace with environment, peace with others peace concept and peace within oneself. The study showed how the use of peace curriculum makes students focused and brings a positive change in them towards education.

In 2013 Clive Harbor and Noriko Sakade conducted a research on “How does peace education differ from normal schooling?” They contrast both of these with different point of views like project workers, pupils and teachers and they concluded these contrast and conflicts have existence and this also raises serious questions about the compatibility of formal education and peace education. According to another study which was made by Gavriel Solomon (2003) to investigate that “Does a peace education make a difference in the context of intractable conflicts?” and the result was positive it proves itself worthy of preventing any critical situation from worsening. It also made the participants fell in love with each other.

Peace has not been considered universally desirable in all societies. Warlike societies, in general, educated their youth for war, not for peace. Many Roman writers, for example, approved of bloody arena games because of their educational value in presenting examples of valor and other martial virtues and because they familiarized young men with the cruel realities of war (Wistrand, 1992). Even today, many people consider war a moral imperative supporting deadly violence as a matter of principle rather than an instrumental means for achieving a good end (Ginges & Atran, 2011).

However, this positive relationship disappears in regression models that include development indicators such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and intelligence, indicating that religiosity has no independent effect on homicide. Results are very similar when the Global Peace Index (GPI) is used as the outcome measure. The GPI is a composite indicator that measures both internal and external peace (Vision of Humanity, 2015). General cognitive, economic and social developments are the factors that promote peace. Countries at higher levels of social, economic and especially cognitive development (i.e., “high-IQ countries”) are less religious (Meisenberg, 2012). These observations suggest that peace education does not need to be based on religious teachings. With the formation of new international universities, in the countries that are non-English speaking English as a medium of instruction is increasing quickly (Coleman, 2006; Costa, Coleman, & Bialystok, 2012; Nurlu, 2015). Same thing is happening in Pakistan in which is a non-English speaking country.  But there is a main problem In Pakistan that the English teachers are not efficient in schools  which lead to not let students’ base in English as strong as it has to be. According to a study in Pakistan mostly the teachers came from the tracks who are teaching in different category schools. Coming to the qualification of teachers most of the teacher teaching a subject do not have a relevant degree.

According to people those who can speak English can also teach. Which is not correct? The situation contrary the teachers who are selected to teach English they themselves don’t know how to speak English correctly (Shamim, 2008). English teachers do not focus on the speaking competency of language they focus only on grammatical structure and rule of language (Ghafoor, 1998). A research made by Oplatka (2007) and Barrs (2005) expressed for Pakistani females’ family is the one who decide a profession for them. Their parents make them attend teaching programs that soothe main reason to choose this teaching profession is by chance not by choice. They don’t get opportunity to choose any other field. To overcome this problem government has taken different measure like different training sessions are arranged to make teacher capable of teaching English properly. But the need is to teach students peace with language which is not happening in Pakistan.

In Harris (2008) gave his opinion in a comprehensive publication regarding the global leaders who are communicating peace, Comenius was one of the first Europeans who used writings to advocate peace Education(1642/1969). He was the Czech educator who in the 17^th century saw that universally shared information could offer a road to peace. Hamman (1996) said, Bert con Suttner, we wrote novel against warfare and organized a peace congress on international level, was an Austrian who helped out to influence Alfred Nobel to establish a peace prize.

There is a dire need to develop English language proficiency among students in a comfortable environment especially in Pakistan. The current study is  specially designed not only to provide a helping hand  to teach language to ESL students but would surely aid in the personality development, character building, creating harmony and sense of proportion by overcoming the problems of conflicts, anxiety, hyper tension, anger, aggression which are the obvious personality trait of growing children at the age of 18-22.

1.        To what extent ESL learners are taught peace and harmony skills in their academics at graduate level?

2.       What is the impact of teaching English through peace education on language learners’ ESL proficiency skills?

3.       How does peace education curriculum enrich learners’ character building and personality development process?

4.       What is the impact of Peace curriculum on the interest and motivation level of ESL learners?

Research Design

Researcher adopted both research paradigms including qualitative and quantitative. Moreover, current study was experimental in nature and the researcher conducted the experiment for checking the impact of teaching English language through peace curriculum at graduation level.

Population

As this study aim at investigating the need of peace curriculum for both teachers and students that’s why the population of the study comprises of all teachers teaching in The Islamia University of Bahawalpur and students studying at graduation level.

Sample of Study

The participants of this study were selected from the above stated university. The participants were belonging to different linguistics families like Punjabi, Balochi, Srailki etc. But they were all multilingual. All of them were having problem in pronunciation and the mental conflicts which usually the students of that age have, because they have been learning English since the start of their education therefore 40 students were selected through convenient random sampling; the participants were divided into two equal groups. One of them was selected as Controlled group and the other one as Experimental group.

All 40 students were selected through random sampling techniques. Before the conduction of research, the consent was taken from the participants, whether they wanted to be the part of study or not. All were agreed. Most of them were so excited to participate. Finally, the sample was divided into two equal groups. 20 students were selected for Controlled group and 20 were chosen for Experimental Group. Additionally, 40 teachers were also selected including the equal number of male and female teachers. Teachers’ sample was deliberately chosen thick in order to determine their views about this newly proposed syllabus and teaching approach.

Data Collection Tools and Analysis

Test and questionnaire were used as data collection tool.  Data were analyzed by using SPSS and paired sample t-test was used to analyze the data collected from test. However, frequency, percentage and mean score were applied to the data from questionnaire.

Summary of Findings from Test

Summary of findings from pre and post-test was given in detail in this section. Both tests were administered to evaluate the performance of both groups control and experimental in order to know the impact of treatment given to them. At first pre-test was administered to both groups and researcher evaluated their performance and found that in all the sub skills of writing and speaking both groups has same competency level. The findings also revealed that control group and experimental groups almost scored same in grammar, vocabulary, logical reasoning, critical thinking and extensive writing. Moreover, the study also found that their speaking fluency as well as the accuracy, accent, confidence level and syntactical patterns were same at pretest level.

After administering the pretest control group was taught by using traditional method whereas the experimental group was taught by using ‘Peace curriculum’ and the findings of post-test revealed that experimental grouped performance was changed significantly. Their performance was improved after getting the treatment. Additionally their score in all the aspect of writing skills were improved and they performed much better in speaking with accuracy, fluently and with confidence. Statistical analysis of the results from pre and post test was conducted by using paired sample t-test. Paired sample t-test was applied in order to compare the mean score of both test and findings revealed that overall performance of experimental group was significantly improved as compared to control group.

Comparison between the mean score of both groups showed that the mean score of control group at pre-test level in total (M=10.9500, SD=0.21120) and control group at post-test level in total (M=2.1000, SD=0.30153) conditions; t (19) =-8.107, p=0.000. The overall results suggest that control and experimental group had same proficiency level. the mean score of control group at post-test level total (M=11.3500, SD=.40572) and experimental group at post-test level total (M=21.6000, SD=.23396) conditions; t (19) =-20.860, p=0.000. The overall results suggest that control group had same proficiency level as they were having at pre-test level whereas experimental showed great improvement at post-test level. To sum up the whole discussion it is stated that experimental group showed great improvement at post-test level as compared to control group.

Summary of Findings from Students’ Questionnaire

Questionnaire was used as a second data collection tools in this study which was administer in order to know the students’ perspective about the treatment given to them. Moreover, the students were asked to share their views about impact of treatment on their English writings and speaking skills. Additionally, they also shared the perspective about the impact of treatment on character building and personality development along with increase in their motivation level and interest level in ESL classrooms. Students share their views and they stated that they felt great change in their attitude after the treatment and now they were happy.

Before the treatment they never pardon others when they misbehave with them and they never accept the challenges of life moreover, they mostly try to avoid trivial and meaning-less speech but now they take a deep breath to change and get control of emotions.at first, they want something and at the same time they do not want it but now they understand the problem distressing their mind therefore, they like to watch a tree with a silent mind. Before the treatment their attitude leads to hostility and frustration and they were jealous of their brothers and sisters but now they felt great change in their attitude.

Before the treatment they never allowed others to win and lose them but now they discuss the problem and find an agreeable solution because every failure is blessing in disguise. Before their behavior is egoistic now they believe that Trust begets trust. At first they were unable to buy thing that their education demands and they think that the only way for them to win is to defeat other but now they know about the conflict and they are their own master.

Students were also asked to share their views about the impact of treatment on the interest and motivation level of the ESL leaners and they discussed that treatment has positive impact on them and they like to attend my ESL class regularly and show interest in learning English. Now they feel comfortable while speaking English but before the treatment they feel little shy to answer the question. Now they participate in debates and feel more confident in speaking English and give more importance towards learning English Language. Moreover, they never study for the study’s sake.

Leaning by peace curriculum helps them in understanding English movies and books and they think that learning English leads to more successful Life. Additionally, it also determined to learn English so that learning English make other people respect them and it is useful for their practical life. Treatment affect their  likings as well and now they like writing very much and now they do not considered themselves as confused ESL Learner as they know that they are studying not only for passing the  exams rather they know it is Global Lingua Franca and they thought learning English Language helps them in their future.

Summary of Findings from Teachers’ Questionnaire

In this section the summary of the findings from the teachers’ questionnaire is presented. Teachers’ questionnaire was used to gather information from teachers in order to know about their perspective about using peace curriculum for teaching English language to the students at graduation level. This questionnaire was sub divided into four section the very first section tells information about the awareness and next section tells about the difficulty faced by teachers while using peace literature at graduation level whereas the third section discusses the needs of peace curriculum and the last section collects their perspective about textbooks.

This section tells about their awareness about the utility of peace literature in the classrooms and findings revealed that both male and female teachers share different viewpoints about using peace curriculum in ESL classrooms. Both male and female teachers were strongly agreed that it is necessary to teach peace education as the mean score 3.8 and 3.6 showed. A large number of teachers also shared their views that it was required to control aggressive behavior. Moreover, Peace education is needed to change students’ behavior as the mean score 3.3 and 3.6 showed and implement strategies to prevent and reduce students conflicts. However, some male teachers disagreed that it develop an awareness project for students as the mean score 3.5 showed. Some of them were of the view that it cultivate awareness among parents on conflict and violence. Therefore, it is mandatory to organize a counseling service to prevent students from drug addiction and peace education contributes to bring peace in the society.

Majority of members agreed that peace education is facing problems in Pakistan as the mean score 3.9 and 3.6 showed. Additionally, some females were disagreed that peace education is commonly practiced in classroom as the mean score 3.3 and 3.0 showed whereas male teachers were agreed that it is difficult to teach peace curriculum in classroom as the mean score 4.2 and female were just agreed as the mean score 2.9 showed. However, some of them were of the view that peace literature is available for teaching peace as the mean score 2.5 and 2.7 showed. Both male and female teachers shared different perspective about it is difficult to assess peace education as the mean score 2.6 and 3.5 showed.

The data revealed that majority of members were agreed that peace education is needed for student to heighten their dignity and individuality and develop mutual respect among students. They were of the view that it helps in developing students’ attitude that highly values diversity and create open mindedness in students in all aspects of life. However, some of them were agreeing that it enable students to possess autonomous behavior in creating peace by making them visionary and responsible in creating peace and civilized society whereas male and female teachers showed different perspective about the statement that it develop understanding of ecology for peace therefore, it is necessary to teach students about conflict, peace, war, power, gender and  ethnic equity and guide students to develop a sense of trust in association among humans and communicate students to respect others and manage the environment.

A large number of teachers were agreeing that supervise students to develop talent, critical thinking and cooperative ability as the mean score 3.4 and 3.9 showed. A bulk of teachers were strongly agreed that teaching them creative skills for problem solving of life without violence as the mean score 4.3 and 4.1 showed and it also grow their love of justice by building a sense of togetherness. Some of them were of the view that it generates broad-mindedness among students by improving their vision about the possession of life. Moreover, it develops appreciation and actualization of the cultural wisdom that function in creating peacefulness as the mean score 3.4 and 3.3 showed that both male and female teachers were agreeing with the statement.

What Extent ESL Students are Taught Peace and Harmony Skills in their Academics at Graduate Level?

In modern era, the Peace Linguistics prioritizes the softening nature of the language use. It is an interdisciplinary approach which aimed at helping education systems. It helps in creating such conditions for preparation of human beings as peaceful language users. The concept of peace linguistic extended the applied linguist’s pioneering definition of peace linguistic. Many linguists use Peace Linguistics for Conflict Resolution with the help of its principles and practices. They also focused on the dual nature of communicative life.  In 2012, Coleman stated 13 principles and 23 procedures which can be used for shepherding conflicts in positive and satisfying directions. Moreover, it had positive impact on the general health of individuals as well as community. Two most common and famous Coleman’s principles are based on communicative nature: Listen carefully, Be fair, firm and friendly (p.59). 

In all education systems of the world peace education is given much importance. Peace education must be started at school level so that people become able to adjust in the society. They can experience new learning, knowledge, values, attitude and abilities with ease. They can adjust with the society more effectively. They become able to take necessary steps for making world a peaceful place.

What is the Impact of Teaching English Through Peace Education on Language Learners’ ESL Proficiency Skills?

Peace education is the process in which learners are taught the values, the knowledge and the attitudes, different skills and behaviors which help them to live in the society peacefully. Moreover, they learn to live in harmony with others and create a natural environment. Peace education is the hope and only way to create an exemplary society. Moreover, peace education teaches human being different ways of consciousness and commitments towards peace. Peace education is just like medical education. When a doctor learns from medical education different ways of treating sick or ill same is the case with students who were taught peace education they learn to fix all those problems which caused by violence. Violence is a form of pathology, a social disease.

One of the basic goals of Peace education is to protect students against the evil effect of the evil. It teaches different skills to learners which help them in managing conflicts nonviolently. Students were taught to seek peaceful resolution of conflicts. Different teaching skills were used to develop peace consciousness and also the desire to gain peace for just and sustainable future.

How Peace Education Curriculum Enriched Learners’ Character Building and Personality Development Process?

In this world full of conflicts, it is necessary to adopt peace education because there raise many conflicts due to smash in interests, notions, dogmatic orientations, economic systems etc. It is mostly observed that violence is used to cope with such conflicts and this violence ends with more destructive results and has bad impact on society. Moreover it lengthens the cycle of violence. On the other hand, educated young people know to deal with these conflicts in proper way.  They are skilled and educated that’s why they manage and resolve these conflicts peacefully.  The education given to young people for solving conflicts plays a crucial role in ending those conflicts. In 2000, Reardon suggested that necessary training should be started at childhood level, because people need to live in the society. In this context, Peace education results in developing a society based on peace and security.

Traditional education glorifies the power and legitimization of the authority. Even the history books are full of many stories in the praise of the dictators or militant. Peace education helps in creating a peaceful disposition in the students by countering the omnipotent standards of the militarism by questioning the structure of violence that dominates them in their everyday life.  Peace education deals with teaching non-violent ways of living. It deals with asking the question is it the only way to solve this conflict or there other ways to deal with it. How can we get those other ways and how can we make a peaceful society. 

What is the Impact of Peace Curriculum on the Interest and Motivation Level of ESL Learners?

Peace education does not mean offering new ideas but it means constructing new ideas from existing ideas in order to make education more effective and useful with the help of contemporary approaches. Peace education reexamines the symbol and mottos of traditional wisdom related to the peace issues such as reciprocity, caring, tolerance and justice. This leads towards the society conducive towards problem solving and pupil learns to behave in humane manner. It provides necessary knowledge, skills and peaceful models of life to the students aiming at building a bridge to achieve peace in their life. It also includes the efforts to neutralize violence in order to build harmonious life.

It can safely be stated that peace education motivates efforts to continuously seek peace, initiate reconciliation and promote justice without degrading human dignity, self-worth and rights. Every individual wants self-respect for himself and have wish for self-dignity as an individual, at the same time they must also recognize the identity of others. This principle provides a base for humane and just society. Peace education helps in resolving the conflicts in students and arouses creativity in them. Peace curriculum intended to heighten the dignity and individuality of students by teaching them peace.

Implications of the Study

In the light of the findings of the study it was found that this study can be implicated in the field of education both practically and theoretically. In this modern age of mass and media in which every child has access to internet, children have become hyper active, confused and violent; they see everything with doubt, they endorse negativity, they are ready to accept any calamity, these are things which create conflicts and start a war in the minds of the children. Now it becomes obligatory to finish these negativities from our society. Therefore, this study provide a helping hand for parents and teacher in order to control the aggressive behavior of students and teaching them peace and harmony.

This study can be implicated in ESL classrooms for teaching English language to students as the positive results of the study showed that they can improve their speaking and writing skills along with learning tolerance and peace.

Conclusion

This study is concerned with the need of peace education for students. In 1997, Lederach stated that peace education is considered as a holistic approach when practically taking it as an approach but it is much more and has the tendency to transcend. It today’s world it is the need of education to prevent the future reoccurrence of violence because it labors to cease the cycle of conflict. Its main concern is dealing with the education or reeducation of the children. The needs of peace education and stated that peace education is an important preventive tool for the students not only in peace time but in wartime as well. Many research studies found in this context that those children who were previously exposed to violence were more likely to commit violence in their future (Bar-Tal & Rosen, 2009; Salomon, 2002; UNICEF, 1999). In contrast to this, Punamäki (1999) found that students, who were grown and develop educationally, use their understandings in solving conflicts and developing peace in society. Mandela claims that it is important to teach youth the basic skills for dealing with conflicts. He further added that a sense of agency should be taught at for their interpersonal and community relations. 

It is mostly observed that societies utilize resources for the training of doctors and spend money for the cure of diseases. It is also necessary to teach its citizens different ways of dealing with affairs nonviolently.

In 2012, Gomes de Matos introduces a LIF-PLUS approach to peace Linguistics. It is based on two key concepts: Communicative Peace and Communicative Dignity. The authors conceived two beliefs from his experience of conducting workshops and seminars for language teachers. He stated that communicative life can be befitted from these two persuasions:

1.        Life can be improved communicatively when language is used peacefully. The use and implementation of language must be based on peace building force.

2.       Life can be improved communicatively when language users are aware to use it appropriately. They must be educated to learn to use language peacefully for the good of others as well as for themselves. They can work for the good of other persons, groups and mankind.

Peace education does not offer something new but reconstructs existing ideas such as reciprocity, caring, tolerance and justice. By following the peace education these symbols were become more meaningful. In 2003, Hence, Bayer, Stanley have stated that necessary training should be given at school level. In today’s world the level of peace education is very low.  The third world countries are facing many conflicts like weak political structures, internal conflicts, extremism, and totalitarian ideologies and the curriculum being taught at these countries lack peace education. However, today it is a basic necessity of time that curriculum should be peace oriented and curriculum should be designed to promote peace education at school level.

Recommendations

The positive response collected from teachers and students leads to suggest the following recommendations of the study.

1.        It is recommended for the education department that elements of peace education must be added in curriculum in order to meet the demands of present era. Additionally, it is also recommended as peace literature is useful for character building therefore it must be part of a curriculum since school education.

2.       It is recommended for teachers that they must adopt teaching strategies for applying peace curriculum in ESL classroom.

3.       It is recommended for future researchers that they can conduct another study in order to fill the gap of this study. Moreover, they can conduct another study to check the impact of peace literature on reading and listening skills of the leaners as well.