This paper examines the current state and problems of English education in Korea before presenting theoretical and pedagogical rationales for encompassing the education for international understanding in ELT. A state of current culture teaching in ELT has been influenced by the linguistic imperialism with the emphases of cultural education about the United States. In order to overcome the problems, I tried to come up with new approaches to contents of ELT. Fundamental philosophy behind the new approaches to English education contents is integrations and balance under a critical stance about the identity of English and counter-discourse approaches. In this proposed contents, heavy emphases are put upon developing English curriculum contents that contribute to the students’ comprehensive understanding of other cultures and English as an EIL.
For this, this study is to explore why‘Education for International Understanding’is necessary in the current ELT in order to overcome linguistic imperialism. Finally, I hope that the concrete ways about how to adopt the EIU and curriculum development on it need to be followed up as a further studies.
Key words: culture teaching, English education, global education, linguistic imperialism, world Englishes