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.

中文翻译：

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释放语言教育中大创意的潜力：什么以及如何？

虽然大思想的概念在历史和STEM等不同学科领域得到了广泛推广，但其教学力量在第二语言教育中却很少受到关注。鉴于这一差距，本文试图通过解决关于英语作为外语（EFL）课堂中的大创意“是什么”和“如何”的两个基本问题来概念化和实践这一概念。具体来说，本文提出了一个试探性的启发式框架，该框架将大思想视为知识、领域和学习三个不同但相互关联的维度的组合。在此框架下，本文认为在语言教学中需要采用大思想作为课程组织者，同时采用注入、归纳的方法帮助学生在语言学习过程中分析、理解和应用大思想。