Nowadays people talk about a technological age because of all the advances in telecommunications, medicine and transportation. The most common comment is that we are living the dreams of science fiction; we are living in the modernity. But the idea of modernity always changes, depending in the age and in the authors whom write about history: some people related modernity to enlightenment some others to the discovery of America (Dussel 1993 [1]), some others the renaissance and others to the Victorianism and industrial revolution. But all this processes had something in common; all of them associated two realities colliding each other: In the enlightenment, the reason replace faith and that changed the attitude of the people in that age, therefore ideas as freedom and democracy came to the people to change the political leaderships [2]. Something similar happed with renaissance, because that process was the change of all the ideas related to art and the main topic of it; after all construction, painting and music were just dedicate and thought to God almighty, then with renaissance the main focus was in the human being, his body and all the beauty related to it. Moreover, the discovery of America is the perfect example when worlds collide, because Europe stopped to be the whole world and started to see reflected into a wild and untamed world; the perfect place to expand and progress.
Modernity is a continuous process, related to be conscious of the reality and “advance” or change into something “better” and new. Something fundamental in the process of being modern are the experiences of life and the ideas of improvement. For that reason Modernity just the idea that the present is discontinuous with the past.
Therefore, our duty as a future English teacher is to try to explain with the student our reality, because "It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it”. [3](Ways of seeing) thankfulness to the teaching of English, we can make connections with our reality and the reality of the whole world, building foundations in the students and building bridges between the past, the present and the future. The idea of progress as a transition mustn’t be chosen or related to an alien culture, we must observe and investigate our historical situation and our lives, that is, give a meaning and a value to some unrealized future.
Activities related to talk about the average life, to make comments about the news, observe our community and the world are ideal activities for English teacher to create consciousness about the student’s context and reality. Critical thinking [3] is fundamental to see with critical eyes the world and to never impose and ideas as the absolute truth, because history tells us that a canonical and supreme truth doesn’t exist, only perceptions, that we as a teachers must know how to read and how to interpret, for us and for our students.
[1] Dussel, E. 1993. Eurocentrism and Modernity. http://www.jstoy.org
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