Unleashing the Potential of Big Ideas in Language Education: What and How?

While the concept of big ideas has been widely promoted in different subject areas such as history and STEM, its pedagogical power has received little attention in second language education. In view of this gap, this paper seeks to conceptualize and practicalize this notion by addressing two fundamental questions regarding the “what” and “how” of big ideas in English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language (EFL) classrooms. Specifically, the paper proposes a tentative, heuristic framework that views big ideas as a composite of three distinct yet interrelated dimensions regarding knowledge, domain, and learning. In light of the framework, the paper argues for the need to adopt big ideas as curriculum organizers in language teaching while employing an infusion, inductive approach to helping students analyze, comprehend, and apply big ideas in the process of language learning.