IN the age of “globalization”, because of the huge domination of western (esp. American media and visual) culture, many marginal cultures have been totally transformed or simply reduced to:

　　— an ever-shrinking reservation space

　　— a remote archaeological site

　　— a semi-authentic museum exhibit

　　— a cheap tourist artifact/souvenir

　　As educators, one of our essential tasks is to create a space where both ourselves and our students learn to recognize the tremendous impact of the digital revolution on all aspects of our culture and society, to maintain a proper balance between issues of practices, ethics, discourses of the new media and the digitextual monopolies of the English-speaking world, and to ensure that humanistic values prevail in this digital age.

　　In the transformed classroom of English oral communication, the target culture demands not only for a greater attention but also for a more creative management from the teacher. In other words, an inadequate knowledge of the cultures of English speaking countries often prevents the “non-native speaker” from engaging him/herself in a successful communicative act. The sharpening of such awareness in both the teacher and the learner is of paramount importance.

　　WHAT is the humanetic approach?

　　It is a balanced combination of humanistic approach and adequate exploitation of new digital media such as Internet, intranet, RealPlayer, with the clicking apparatuses of a mouse, video game joystick and Web TV remote control.

　　This approach aims at enhancing students’ transcultural competence through the following four teaching/learning channels:

　　— Lecturing (weekly input from the teacher)

　　— Tutorials + Students’ Presentations

　　— Digitextual Self-access

　　— Cross-cultural Projects (assignments such as simulated conference, exhibitions, drama & DV competitions)

　　The humanetic approach, by combining face-to-face communicative approach and the freedom of self-access to inter- and intranet, seems to offer a new definition of what teaching and learning may mean in the “Age of Glocalized Digitextuality”.