Are you familiar with the following dialogue?
-Would you like to have the cleanest house in town?
-Of course!
-Then, you need to have the amazing new Hover vacuum cleaner!
-Oh! No, I don’t!!!
-What?! Why not??!!
-Because my husband does the cleaning in our house!!!!
-OH!!!
It comes from the Language Teaching Methods project, a joint initiative by Diane Larsen-Freeman and the U.S. Information Agency, and presents a classroom demonstration of the audiolingual method (American English, 2013), where students are made to obsessively repeat the same phrases over and over again. Hilarious as it may be, it does offer an insightful representation of a period when language learning didn’t invest much in students’ critical thinking. Also, through imitation aimed to limit any L1 interference.
While such practices may seem distant from contemporary classrooms, this demonstration offers valuable insight into how understanding of language learning has evolved. In contemporary pedagogical approaches, language becomes the vehicle for constructive discussions of social issues and sensitive topics. The theory of translanguaging has transformed second language acquisition challenging long-standing assumptions that learners’ L1 primarily represents undesirable interference rather than valuable resources in second language development. (Canagarajah, 2011, p.1; Lewis et al., 2013, as cited in García & Lin, 2016).
Acknowledging the importance of raising awareness of social issues and respecting students’ linguistic background, the International Baccalaureate framework provides a holistic approach towards language learning. Although discussions continue regarding the extent to which IB policies fully embrace multilingual perspectives (Huckle, 2021), the IB philosophy strongly emphasizes linguistic diversity, intercultural understanding, and international mindedness (Huckle, 2021).
Within the IBDP curriculum, sensitive social issues are part of the nature of language acquisition subjects. Specifically, the English B official guidebook (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2018) acknowledges the potential the subject offers to address significant topics that challenge students’ intellectual, personal, and cultural background. The course is structured in five themes: identities, experiences, human ingenuity, social organization, and sharing the planet, each of which offers opportunities to engage in insightful discussion that challenge students’ perspectives of the world (ibid.).
In practice
In English B, talking about language is not teaching grammar rules; rather, it is addressing issues related to the role of language, e.g. To what extent the language we speak shapes our identity. True, this is a thought-provoking issue, but let’s make it a bit more interesting.
Recently, there has been a Greek TV series, Serres (Kapoutzidis & Patronis, 2025), which describes the coming out of a homosexual young man. In the 1st episode of season 2, viewers watch a scene (Kapoutzidis & Patronis, 2025, 00:15:42–00:17:05) where his aunt, having just been informed by her doctor that she is an intersex person, changes the sequence of the letters in the acronym ΛΟΑΤΚΙ, which in Greek stands for LGBTQI, into ΙΚΤΟΛΑ, prioritizing intersex people (like herself). In vain, the others try to explain that the sequence has a special international meaning and therefore cannot be changed.
This scene can facilitate a discussion about gender identity and sexual orientation. Most importantly, it shows how our identity is shaped by the words we use to describe ourselves and others: The aunt wants to understand exactly what an intersex person is as part of a self-exploration journey. Through the scene, our students are invited to consider how linguistic choices can reflect perceived hierarchies, visibility, and recognition. By attempting to reorder the acronym, the character is not merely changing letters; she is negotiating representation and questioning whose identity receives prominence. In other words, she does not have a problem with being intersex, but she cannot stand being the last in the ΛΟΑΤΚΙ acronym. Our students come to realize that ultimately, words communicate values.
In this activity, IB students approach the issue using their own linguistic experience as a starting point for constructive discussion. Additionally, the use of the Greek language, the familiar context (an average Greek family and town), and the recognizable cast narrow students’ defense mechanisms, especially if they still do not feel very comfortable discussing these issues. Additionally, they can conduct their own research to find the notion behind the sequence of words in the LGBTQ+ acronym and also realize that this sequence is not something definite because words can have as many interpretations as the people who use them.
And what about the video with the audiolingual approach? Does it present such an obsolete method in language teaching that it can only be used for fun? No, on the contrary, it can serve as a nice example of how (language) education has evolved and initiate discussions about 21st-century learning. It can encourage further discussion about gender roles considering the deeper cultural message of this dialogue and how the instructor engages his students with an unexpected humorous element (Because my husband does the cleaning in our house!!!!) and whether this dialogue would have the same strong effect on contemporary classes. Finally, would it have the same effect if it were articulated in Greek?
At the core of the IB philosophy, the question is not whether students use one language or another. The question is what opportunities languages create for understanding ourselves, others, and the world around us nurturing learners who are not only effective communicators, but also open-minded, reflective, and compassionate individuals who can engage meaningfully with the complex social issues of a multilingual world.
References
American English. (2013, January 25). Language teaching methods: Audio-lingual method [Video]. YouTube. 
Baccalaureate Organization. (2018). Language B guide: First assessment 2020. International Baccalaureate Organization. 
Canagarajah, S. (2011). Translanguaging in the classroom: Emerging issues for research and pedagogy. Applied Linguistics Review, 2, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110239331.1
García, O., & Lin, A. M. Y. (2016). Translanguaging in bilingual education. In O. García, A. M. Y. Lin, & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and Multilingual Education (Encyclopedia of Language and Education) (pp. 117-130). Switzerland: Springer.
Huckle, J. (2021). Multilingualism and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP): An analysis of language learning in the IBDP in light of the “multilingual turn.” Journal of Research in International Education, 20(3), 263–280. 
Kapoutzidis, G. (Writer), & Patronis, S. (Director). (2025, September 23). Episode #2.1 (Season 2, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. In G. Kapoutzidis (Executive Producer), Serres. Pedio Productions; ANT1+.
