5/1 Readings

            Early on in Chapter 7, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng discuss how EIL educators must consider the wishes of the student in the way they structure their instruction. The goal of many bilingual programs, for example, is to foster perfect fluency of both languages in every student. This makes the assumption, however, that the student indeed wants to achieve native-like fluency in English (or the L2), when it’s actually possible they might not.

There are other ways, too, in which the instructor must consider the individual needs of his or her students, many of which have not been discussed. As an example, later in the chapter, the authors discuss the potential problems of using CLT as a teaching strategy. CLT is viewed as the L2 instruction strategy that most meets global needs, but some schools and/or instructors still prefer to use the grammar-translation method of teaching. McKay and Bokhorst-Heng (and others) acknowledge that some cultures, such as the specific example in Pakinstan, may not be immediately prepared to use a student-centered model like CLT. However, they do not acknowledge that even some individuals within even Western cultures might not be well-suited for a CLT atmosphere, either.

Some individuals, like myself, vastly prefer the grammar-translation method of learning a language for one reason or another. One reason I prefer it because I enjoy learning about grammar as it is. Also, I am very organized person who likes to know the underlying structure of things before I can feel comfortable. For there’s a comfort issue, too, in a language-learning classroom, and I think that comfort must be a key consideration. For example, every society has Introverts, and most Introverts would be as uncomfortable with the small-group interactions required of CLT as the Pakinstani students were. I know because I’m one of them!

Not that I don’t use small groups in my own classes, of course. But it is important for teachers of every discipline to be prepared to learn their students’ preferences, and then offer their students choices for learning based on those preferences. For example, I assign my students into small, flexible reading groups based on the results of their pre-test, but they are only required to interact with these small groups for a limited amount of time. For the rest of the lesson, students may choose how they want to receive the learning. For example, when it’s time to read the story, they can choose to read it on their own, with a partner, or in a small group listening to me or a recording. When it’s time to answer comprehension questions, they may work on their own or with a partner. Then, they have to share their comprehension answers with their small groups, but it’s a very structured situation in which, aside from reading their pre-written answers, students have to interact with their peers only as much as they are comfortable with.

I go into such detail with this here because I think it’s a really important consideration for language learning. Learning a new language is for many a very vulnerable situation. One feels personally exposed in such a situation, and the comfort of the student has a great impact on how effectively they learn. Putting thought and consideration into how to make one’s classroom a welcoming environment for every kind of learner is more than just acknowledging and appreciating their cultural differences and goals for learning – it’s also valuing what kind of learner they are and enabling them to use that to their advantage.

4/24 Readings

The most interesting information in this week’s Kubota article was the perhaps inadvertent comparison of Japan’s ESL struggles to America’s. From the information provided in the article, it seems like Japan has been going through many of the same struggles as America – a drastic increase in immigration beginning in the mid-1990s, leading to increased need for “Japanese language support” (15) in Japanese schools. Somewhat oddly, as of 1997, a large percentage of their non-Japanese population was from Portugal, but they also had significant percentages from China and Spain, as well as small percentages from more than fifty other nations. (16) However, also like America, “these diversities are not sufficiently reflected in language education [in Japan]” (15). Japan could also be compared to America in that it schools are highly focused on teaching one foreign language – English – just as our schools are focused primarily on teaching Spanish as a foreign language.

The Matsudas’ article was more interesting to me, as a non-ESL teacher. It is important (for me) to note that the problems identified with regard to ESL writing instruction in this article are really universal writing instruction issues. I don’t think the difficulty is just a misunderstanding of how to help ESL writers, but how to help all writers. Too many teachers of every type classroom focus too heavily on the identification of almost meaningless grammar errors in student writing. They focus so closely on the mechanics that they sometimes forget to consider whether the piece of writing met its overall goal, which is simply to communicate. Writing teachers of every kind should be more focused on helping their students communicate effectively, which often requires ignoring mechanical errors that don’t really matter in order to favor an emphasis on the bigger picture. ESL learners do need to know when their communication has been unsuccessful, as do all learners, but they do not need the discouragement of having every single error being pointed out.

The authors actually address part of this idea, with relation to nondominant forms, when they say “teachers need to help students understand the perceived boundary … between what works (variations) and what doesn’t (errors)” (372). They suggest that teachers show their students examples of writing that adhere closely to standard conventions, those that deviate without hampering communication, and those that deviate too far to be successful. This is precisely what I do with my Language Arts students in my traditional middle school classroom. I also encourage my students to experiment with writing that deviates to help them better understand the differences and when/why difference might be appropriate.

I’ll close by agreeing with Matsuda and Matsuda in that “… as long as dominant varieties prevail … we … have the obligation to make those discursive resources available … to not make the dominant codes available to students who seek them would be doing a disservice to students …” (372). Still, the authors assert that “ … teachers can also help students understand that language users naturally deviate from the perceived norm …” (372) which echoes what was already said above.

4/17 Readings

Rosina Lippi-Green’s ideas in Ch. 2 of English with an Accent connect very closely with the ideas in last week’s Farr and Song article, particularly in the assertion that, although the term “standard” is applied to languages by scholars, teachers, and grammarians all over the world, there is no such thing as a standard language, except as an abstraction. Lippi-Green extends this concept by identifying non-accent English as being equally non-existent. She argues that every form of English has an accent, and, more importantly, no accent is “standard.”

She continues with an interesting discussion of the difference between accent and dialect, though I thought her conclusion was quite obvious: accents are marked by phonological changes, while dialects are marked by morphological changes. She didn’t say but I would like to add that although accents and dialects are distinct, they latter rarely comes without the former. For example, Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer with both an accent and a dialect, because the dialect would hardly be used without its corresponding accent. Perhaps, though, there are some examples where this in not the case. It’s interesting to note at this point, too, that just as people judge or make unfounded decisions about speakers of another language, we also judge others based on their accent and dialect. In fact, Lippi-Green later discusses the concept of “accent … as the first point of gatekeeping” (64), because we can’t use race or religion to discriminate, but, legally, we can use accent. Such discrimination was earlier evidenced in her anecdote of the Hawaiian newscaster.

           

While her chapters were interesting, I must say that I did not enjoy the tone Lippi-Green used in her writing. It’s unfortunate, because I agree with her overall message, and she explains things clearly (like her extended metaphor of building a House). However, she seemed pretty snarky and sarcastic in a lot of her arguments to the point of being, in my opinion, unprofessional. For example, she implied in her discussion of the Webster Dictionary definition of “Standard English” that the dictionary was somehow responsible for exploring the implications of the word “educated” and that they had failed in that responsibility. I would imagine that most "educated" people know that exploring the extensive implications of the over-used label “educated” is far beyond the scope of a dictionary. She later twisted the words of this definition to suit her own purposes. Then she pretended that the prefix “non” means “opposite” so she could take some person named Heath’s definition of “mainstreamer” and reverse it to make poor Heath look like a total idiot. Just because you are “not” (non) something doesn’t mean you are the exact opposite of it. I'm sure Heath doesn't appreciate being associated with this reverse definition. In fact, I reread this part of the chapter very carefully to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding what Lippi-Green was doing, because it seemed so obnoxious. Maybe I misunderstood her intentions here ...?

Chapter 5 of McKay Bokhort-Keng said echoed many of the ideas and sentiments of the Lippi-Green chapters, but in a more professional and even-handed way. I particularly like the distinction they drew between the concepts of “intelligibility,” “comprehension,” and “interprebility.” Just because a statement is intelligible and the listener thinks they comprehend it doesn’t necessarily mean they have interpreted it correctly. It would seem that accurate interpretation is only guaranteed, even between speakers of the same language, dialect, and accent, if clarification and verbal confirmation is achieved.

4/10 Readings

            In the article “Language Ideologies and Politics…” authors Farr and Song discuss the ideology of monolingualism in many countries such as the United States. A long-lasting bias towards Standard English has created an environment of hostility and ignorance towards speakers of other languages. An interesting point the authors make, though, is that “In the US, what is considered Standard varies regionally, and what distinguishes any particular language as ‘Standard’ is actually the absence of stigmatized linguistic forms, not the presence of particular forms” (653). While I don’t completely agree with the first part of this statement – there is, in fact, a standard Standard, that national television newscasters speak, for example – I really like the point they make with the rest of their statement. When I think of what constitutes “Standard English” I do, indeed, think of the lack of grammar errors that would be found in non-Standard English. I can’t actually think of a way of describing Standard English that doesn’t include a “lack or absence of” something.

            Later, Farr and Song describe the acquisition of Standard English in the US as a sort of cultural capital: “… the abstract notion of Standard English becomes objectified as something people can possess or lack: it is an asset that can be acquired … those who do not acquire this commodity are viewed as choosing not to” (653). This reminded me of the cartoon we saw in class last week that illustrates the frustration of individuals who want the cultural capital of knowing Standard English, but are facing a number of obstacles in doing so.

            The article also discusses the effects of language policy on education. An interesting point made in this section was the assertion by Cangarajah in 2005 that “Some scholars have noted the danger of over-emphasizing the hegemonic power of language policy, which underestimates the agency of local educators in interpreting and applying such policy” (655). The authors go on, however, to illustrate the frustrations of teachers who favor multilingual education but are prevented from meeting their students’ needs because of the power of policies such as NCLB and state standards. It seems from these examples that the power of policy can not be exaggerated. A teacher may very well create a community of multilingualism in his or her classroom, but that lasts for only one year for those students, and the teacher may fail to meet the expectations of his or her administrator or state in the process. It is a tough situation for culturally-aware teachers to be in.

            The Language Planning and Policy chapter in McKay and Bokhorst-Heng discusses similar issues. One interesting discussion included in this chapter is that focusing on the lack of an official language policy in the United States. There have always been groups pushing for the designation of English as the official language of the US; in fact, many individual states have declared English as their official language, and groups like US English have been working very hard to sway public opinion enough to secure this declaration at the national level.

            Some scholars, it appears, argue that this lack of official policy has actually made language bias worse in our country. For example, Shannon (1999) concluded that the absence of a policy has caused US society to shift to an ideology of monolingualism and has established “English as a symbol of national identity, pride, unity …” (100). This leads me to wonder: in what way does having a multi-lingual policy prevent such bias? For example, as reviewed in last week’s readings, South Africa has numerous official languages, but there is still a heavy bias towards English, and even Afrikaans, although there are many other native languages that have been designated. It would seem that taking a multi-lingual approach doesn’t solve the problem. And what kind of policy would be effective for the US in correcting this fierce pro-English ideology? Even declaring some kind of multi-lingual policy in the US would exclude the languages of many of our citizens.

4/3 Readings

            In Chapter One of International English in Its Sociolinguistic Contexts, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng introduce the principle argument of their book: while it is valuable to have an international language like English, the spread of it should be effected in such a way that it supports the development of other languages. The authors then give Scholte’s five definitions for globalization and identify the fifth as the one they have in mind. This definition is “globalization as deterritorialization – the change of social space so that space is no longer mapped in terms of territorial places, distances, or borders. McKay and Bokhorst-Heng also want to focus on the need to balance local and global concerns in globalization.

            Later, the authors summarize Pennycook’s description of the two basic attitudes scholars have of the spread of English. The homogeny position sees the spread of English as homogenizing world culture, and this is perceived by some as positive, by others, negative. The heterogeny position states that English has been localized, creating different varieties of English in different parts of the world. This is all very interesting, but I didn’t see any of it applying to what was discussed in chapters two or three. Maybe later. Anyway…

            Chapter One also discusses the role of colonialism in the spread of English, remarking on the Linguistic Imperialism of British and American colonialism in particular. The authors also summarize here the book The Alchemy of English, which comments on the power of English to open “linguistic gates to international business, technology, science, and travel” (7). They also mention a study that concluded that in general, youths around the word believe that English is the key to success, and they summarize the incentives for learning English. The economic incentives include the use of English in transnational corporations and the prevalence of out-sourcing. Education incentives include policies within educational institutions to offer classes in English and governmental policies. There are also mass media incentives: in advertising, products are promoted in English, and English is the dominant language in popular music and movies. All of this information more directly related to the ideas discussed in the chapters immediately following.

            In Chapter Two, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng describe the various contexts in which English is now being learned. They start by summarizing Kachru’s 1985 model of concentric circles. The

Inner Circle

refers to countries in which English is the primary language. The

Outer Circle

refers to countries in which English serves as a recognized second language. The

Expanding Circle

describes countries in which English is widely studied as a foreign language, though it may not be used widely in the country itself. (29)

            The authors go on to break down the English learning contexts into how they differ in each of the above-named circles. In the Inner circle, countries like the United States have a tendency to pull out ESL students from their general education classrooms, and this presents a serious danger to their social development. In addition, many teachers view their ESL students negatively, even as cognitively deficient.

I have to say here that even though I know this concept is based on research, I find it hard to believe, because of the experiences I have had. I have worked with many teachers, both gen. ed. and ESL, in many schools in many areas of Illinois, at a variety of grade and English-proficiency levels, and I have never seen any behavior or heard any comment that could be perceived as evaluating the student on anything less than their actual abilities. In fact, I have often heard such teachers remark on how smart their students are, not in a surprised way, as if ESL students shouldn’t be smart, but in a proud way, as all teachers are when they see their students understanding something. Again, I’m sure the statements made by these and so many other authors are based on research and evidence, but I’m saying that I haven’t personally seen evidence of this, and it makes me feel like teachers aren’t given enough credit, not only for their hard work, but for the enormous amount of understanding and personal interest they show for each student.

In their discussion of the learning contexts of the

Outer Circle

, the authors focused on South Africa as an example. In S.A., English is recognized as an official language, but among many others. However, many schools still use English exclusively, even though that is not the first language of many of their students. South African principals and teachers view English as prestigious and a vehicle for economic advancement, and view alternate languages as the opposite. Still, in some

Outer Circle

countries, there is widespread bilingual education, such as the Philippines, where English is used to teach Math and Science, and Pilipino is used to teach everything else.

In Expanding Countries, many students have no motivation to learn English, as there is no immediate application of it for them in their communities. This reminds me of high school, where I was required to take Spanish, as it was the only foreign language offered, but I was living in a very homogeneous, Caucasian community in which there was no opportunity for the use of the language I was learning. Although I didn’t see myself going into a career in the future in with a knowledge of Spanish would be particularly valuable, I felt plenty motivated to learn it, because I am fascinated by languages and thought it was fun. But I can see how many of my peers were not motivated at all, and it showed! So, in these Expanding Countries, students are often required to learn English, but they don’t really see the reason for it. This has been called TENAR, Teaching English for No Apparent Reason, as well as some other funny names.

Yikes! This is already ridiculously long! The second chapter also talks about Communicative Language Teaching, which is quite interesting. The third chapter focuses on disglossia, which is multilingualism in which one language, or form of a language, is use for formal situations, while another is used for informal situations, such as SSE (Singapore Standard English) and SCE (Singapore Colloquial English). The chapter also talked about India, in which members of the professional elite account for most of the five percent who speak English, further stratifying the elite from the underprivileged. It also summarizes the ways in which access to English is limited for lower-caste students who make it to college (a very small percentage). There is also an interesting section on Mother Tongue Maintenance, but I’m not going to go into it, because this is twice as long as it’s supposed to be.

Week Eight Readings

            Cosette Taylor-Mendez summarizes in “Constructions of Racial Stereotypes in ESL Textbooks” a small study that she conducted in Brazil of the impressions textbook images make on the students who study them. Her study investigated the ways in which images were being used in EFL, whose interests were being served by those images, and whether we ought to seek change in such cultural portrayals. Her study, unsurprisingly, found that EFL students perceived a distinct white-dominant culture in the textbooks they were studying. Images of whites in the books presented them as business professionals, successful, wealthy, etc. Images of other races showed them in inferior roles or life situations. Overall, the students in the study thought the books “represented the books as a peaceful land of the social and political elite who are free from problems” (72). Interestingly, all students in the study had visited the US at least once, so they new and could remark on the fact that the images in their books were not showing the US as it really is. One student even commented that the images didn’t “teach about life styles, but about movie-styles” (p 72).

            A great part of the article was at the very end, where Taylor-Mendez offered some practical solutions to the problems highlighted by her study. While acknowledging that most teachers do not have a choice of what textbook they use, she did encourage EFL teachers to take measures to ensure their students recognize the discrepancy between the images in their books and reality. Some suggestions were: conduct thoughtful discussions about the ideas portrayed by the images, engage students in projects that ask them to redesign the images to be more appropriate and realistic, and possibly even have students write letters to the editors of their texts asking them to select more effective images. I love when authors provide practical advice and suggestions.

            The readings in Holliday et. al. provided a great amount of information on a variety of topics. Section A3.2 summarized and provided examples of Otherizing images of different cultures that are presented in the news and other media. Much later in the book, in Secion B3.3, a fascinating article by van Dejh provides more insight on this issue. The author begins by explaining the concept of New Racism, which is a subtler, more politically correct form of racism than the Old Racism of slavery and segregation. Yet, New Racism can in many cases be even more dangerous, especially because it is “respectable” and so widespread. New Racism involves the suggestion that although minorities may not be “inferior”, they are at least “different”: they have a different culture and “deficiencies” such as lack of achievement values and a dependence on welfare.

            The most interesting part of this article was the discussion of the ever-so-subtle ways in which the news media can sort of put minorities in their place while not really appearing to do so. For example, most news stories that involve minorities feature them in negative situations, and news staff will make purposeful lexical choices depending on the race/ethnicity of the subject (e.g. “riot” vs. “urban unrest” or “terrorist” vs. “freedom fighter”). This author also provided the clever use of syntax choices: minorities are often in the passive role in sentences (i.e. the direct or indirect object) unless they are the agents of negative actions, in which case they are the subject of the sentence. This was fascinating data that I had never considered before but immediately realized as true. This type of subliminal messaging has the potential to be eerily effective to even the most open-minded of observers. I wonder how much of these linguistic strategies are done with intent, and how much of it happens more as an unconscious reflex. I was a journalism major in college for three years, and we were (of course) never told to use these strategies, so where do they come from? Do they just grow out of the inherent racism of the writer?

Week Seven Readings

Will Baker asserted in “The Cultures of English as Lingua Franca” that ELF doesn’t have a particular and distinctive culture all its own. Rather, the culture of ELF is constant flowing and changing from conversation to conversation. This cultural variance is caused not only by the different cultural backgrounds of the speakers, but also by the variety of discourses of the speakers and the qualities that the speakers choose to perform for their audience. In fact, these last points apply not only to ELF conversations, but all communication in any language. This is why cited researchers Scollon and Scollon refer to interpersonal interactions as “interdiscourse communication” rather than “intercultural communication.”  

Baker analyzed many ELF conversations and concluded the above, and applied this knowledge to propose the pedagogical insight that ELF participant must be prepared to engage in communication through exercises in cultural awareness, language awareness, and accommodation skills. These are interesting findings, and the teaching points seem like meaningful goals, but I often wish that the authors of such articles would offer specific examples or ideas of how their suggestions might be applied in the classroom. For example, teaching “cultural awareness” is a broad and ill-defined goal for teaching, and many instructor, such as myself, would have a difficult time of implementing such a program of learning. It’s difficult to visualize what a course teaching “accommodation skills” would look like when it is so different from anything one has seen before.

The article “Recording and Analysing Talk” by Meredith Marra was extremely interesting and enlightening as to the lengths to which some researchers will go to get the best, most accurate data possible. These New Zealanders sought to analyze the nuances of Maroi communication in the workplace. To do so, they painstakingly trained themselves to understand and enact some of the most important qualities of the Maori culture. The researchers realized that they had to behave in ways that would make their Maori subjects comfortable, rather than themselves, if they were to gain authentic and complete data. They also included the Maori in the data interpretation phase of their study, to ensure that they were making accurate conclusions rather than making presumption based on misunderstandings.

Chapter 6 in International Englishes…provided background information and methodology for conversation analysis. It also provided some interesting elements to include in a successful English as an International Language pedagogy, such as teaching repair strategies like asking for clarification, rephrasing, or allowing wait time; and teaching basic conversation skills of expressing disagreement, turn-taking, and taking leave.

The most interesting part of the article was the discussion of the most common grammatical and phonological errors that ESL speakers make. The chapter provided a list of all of the common errors that do not impede communication. According to the chapter, many TOEFLs and experts think that English instructors should focus only on the errors that DO impede communication, rather than burdening their students with all possible errors, thus overwhelming them. This immediately sounded problematic to me, as I believe a complete education is the only education. I also know that if I was taught another language and later found out that I was making errors no one had told me about, I would not be happy at all. As I continued the chapter, I realized that others agree with my concerns. In fact, many students want to attain a native-like grammatical proficiency, so it is, indeed, inappropriate not to teach it completely. This did lead me to wonder, though, how many English instructors are, in fact, ignoring those common errors that don’t affect communication, and how many Spanish errors did I make in my Spanish courses that my professors never told me about!?

Week Six Readings

            Two of this week’s articles, “Japanese Culture Constructed by Discourses” and “Unfinished Knowledge,” review similar concepts to those discussed in last week’s class. The stereotypes applied to Japanese ESL students that are summarized in these texts are very similar to those of the Chinese and Indian stereotypes; indeed, they are all part of one larger “Asian” stereotype.

            According to Kubota, many characterize the Japanese culture as homogeneous and group-oriented and they further state that these characteristics stifle the creativity of Japanese students. Some experts apply these issues to contemporary writing pedagogy, which dictates that collaboration ought to be a key element of the writing classroom. Kuboto cites Carson and Nelson as saying that Japanese students may not perform well in collaborative writing groups, because they would be focusing on harmonizing and achieving a group goal rather than giving constructive criticism to their peers and striving to achieve individual success.

            Other voices in the field problemetize the perceived deficiency of Japanese students in the art of critical thinking. For example, Ramanathan and Kaplan suggested that Japanese students don’t have the critical thinking skills and cultural background to comprehend and achieve audience and voice, other significant aspects of current writing pedagogy, considerations in composition classroom.

            Kubota goes on to explain that even Japanese ESL students themselves serve to perpetuate the misunderstandings that these stereotypes create. For example, Kubota cites Fox and her own Japanese students describing the Japanese writing style to be characterized by indirectness, vagueness, and politeness. These self-described features are reminiscent of the Kaplan doodles for Asian writing.

            The “Unfinished Knowledge” article presents an interesting fictional narrative of one writing teacher’s experiences with first embracing and perpetuating cultural stereotypes in her writing classroom without even realizing it, then realizing what she had been doing was wrong, and investigating ways to correct it. The best line in the entire story was when Barbara, the subject of the story, was at the height of her stereotyping methods: “Sometimes, she felt confident enough to point out cultural characteristics of a given country when a student from that country failed to notice them” (p 14). Hilarious.

            The Connor article was a little confusing, as it seemed to affirm some of the Kaplan-esque conclusions about distinctions between the writing styles of various essential cultures. Throughout the article, she cited specific differences between the writing styles and content of professional individuals from Finland, Senegal, America, and Belgium. As far as I could see, though, particularly in the examples of cover letters for a job application, the differences noted were no more significant than one might expect to see when comparing samples from two Americans from the same cultural background. Nobody writes in exactly the same way, and nobody follows the exact same prescription for what ought to be included in a given format or mode of writing.

            Overall, I didn’t find the articles to be particularly interesting this week, as they seemed to mostly support and summarize conversations we have already had. I did notice, though, that some of the characteristics of traditional Japanese educations practices that have been criticized as so very different from those in America are not only the exact same as teaching practices in this country from as recently as the 1970s or 80s, but that some of the practices mentioned are having a resurgence in contemporary classrooms. For example, Duke observed that Japanese classes in 1986 focused a lot on choral responses, and I recently learned at an RtI teaching workshop that choral response is an extremely valuable tool, if used properly, for ensuring engagement in the classroom.

Week Five Readings

            The most interesting article assigned for this week was “Cultural Assimilation and Its Delusions.” I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the emphasis put on Christianity as the religion that was any immigrants’ ticket into American culture. It shocked me that even modern-day Harvard scholars were encouraging immigrants to eschew their own religion and replace it with the “religion of America” – Protestantism. This really disgusts me, for are we not supposed to enjoy freedom of religion? This idea of America being a Christian country founded on Christian ideals is not a new one, and it is commonly expounded by certain politicians more frequently than my stomach can handle, but to try to force it on immigrants as if their entire belief system and way of conceiving of the world is inferior is even more reprehensible.

            “Problemetizing Cultural Stereotypes” was also interesting, particularly when it pointed out the fact that even American students exhibit some of these common Asian stereotypes in the classroom. This is so obvious that I can’t believe it has to be stated. Yet, I must admit that I was surprised to read that the author experienced unruly students in India, as I too had fallen under the general assumption that Indian children were earnest learners. To be fair to myself, this impression came from the real-life knowledge that all of the Indian students I had as a tutor at Sylvan were not there to catch up to their peers, but to get even farther ahead of their peers than they already were!

Week Four Readings

            This week’s articles and selections from the text book all focused on similar themes, but it wasn’t until I read the last section in Holliday that I really began to connect the dots. The brief summary of Shumann’s theories on social and psychological distance from the 1970s really tied everything together for me. The concepts that really struck me in these readings were the affects of social cues and what Shumann calls social solidarity.

            Something I had never considered before is the extreme difficulties of an immigrant dealing with culture shock, or - more specifically - changes in social cues. Not only do recent arrivals need to learn the vocabulary, grammar, and complicated idioms of the second language, they also have to learn what is different about their new home’s social cues. These cues can have a tremendous impact on the success of a conversation with a member of the “target language” group, as in the example of the college student requesting a letter of recommendation from an advisor.  To this, Peirce adds in her “Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning” the added layer of difficulty of not only understanding the social cues of the target language, but also understanding its “rules of use” and how those rules support the dominant group in the new society.

            When a teacher of language learners takes all of this into account, the task of effectively preparing one’s students for successful communication seems unreasonably daunting. Peirce included in her article some excellent examples of teaching strategies to use in their classrooms to assist students with these problems, such as investigating opportunities to interact with native speakers, reflecting on interactions with target language speakers, and recording in a diary events that are surprising or unusual to ask about later. Although I do not teach non-native speakers, I did realize that these strategies could very easily be applied to other general education settings, as well. For example, I have a student who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s. This child has just as much, if not more, difficulty in interpreting social cues and understanding the “rules of use” in his culture. The recommending teaching strategies for language learners could be used to help him learn to understand and get along with his peers.

            Back to the effects of Shumann’s theories on my understanding of these concepts, I was also intrigued by his theory of social distance and the effect that social solidarity has on it. It’s interesting to think about how mutual the language acquisition process has to be: the newcomers and natives have to be almost equally willing for learning to take place in order for it to be successful. The former group has to be receptive to learning and using the target language while the latter group has be to receptive to teaching and understanding their new neighbors. What strikes me most about this is how much it also applies to general education. Not only do students need to be curious and eager to learn; their teachers need to also be willing to understand each student and his or her unique needs and abilities. In so many ways, ESL education is very closely related to general education.

            I have not yet mentioned the second article for this week, “Language and Identity.” The most interesting part of this text was a statement made by Richard Bauman: “Individual identity is the outcome of a rhetorical and interpretive process in which interactants make situationally motivated selections from socially constituted repertoires of identificational and affiliational resources and craft these semiotic resources into identity claims for presentation to others.” (p 35) What I like about this statement is that it concisely explains a very complicated process. And I hope I am interpreting the “situationally” part correctly, but it really gets to the heart of what I think of my identity: I really feel that, perhaps more so than others, strategically choose from a variety of personal identities depending on the situation. In fact, everyone does this to a certain extent, particularly teachers, and I like to see it included in an identity theory that does not specify that the selections must be made due to culture shock, as was suggested in one of last week’s articles.

Week Three Readings

For her article "The Making of an American...", Aneta Pavlenko analyzed several autobiographies by American immigrants from both the turn of the 20th century and from the modern era. Pavlenko compared the topics and rhetoric of these documents and examined them within their cultural context to determine in what ways, if any, the experiences of the two immigrant groups were similar or different. She also sought to determine what effect language acquisition had on the immigrants' cultural identity. The most interesting difference that Pavlenko discovered in her study was that having to do with language acquisition. It seemed, based on the autobiographies under study, that the turn-of-the-century immigrants had much quicker, easier, and less painful experiences with new language acquisition. Many of these immigrants seemed to learn English simply by studying dictionaries and the Bible, and most expressed confidence in their English skills within six months of their immigration. On the other hand, modern day immigrants describe a very stressful, lengthy, and excrutiating experience with English-acquisition. For many of them, according to Pavlenko, it took as much as several years to gain what they considered to be proficiency in the language.

The assumptions that Pavlenko makes as to the reasons for these differences are more interesting than the differences themselves. Pavlenko concluded that earlier immigrants had an easier time learning English for several reasons: many were already multi-lingual, so learning a new language was a familiar process; the types of jobs acquired by these immigrant often required limited English-speaking skills, so they assumed proficiency while really having a basic understanding of the language; laws at the time required the learning of English, so by learning English, they were only doing what was expected of them and what all of their compatriots were doing or had already done. Modern day immigrants have a more difficult time gaining English proficiency because the expectations for "proficiency" are higher, there is a general feeling of nationalism that leads many immigrants to resist formerly common forms of assimilation, and they feel that learning the new language will mean abandoning their own. It is this last assumption that I do not quite agree with, although I know this conclusion is based on what seems to be quite extensive research. I'm not sure I agree because the school at which I teach, while maintaining a generally homogeneous population, did experience for a few years a sporadic influx of Hispanic migrant workers. The experiences I've had with these families reflect more what Pavlenko described of the turn-of-the-century immigrants than the modern ones, particularly with regard to their lack of abandonment of their native language. These families almost uniformly had learned a basic level of English, as their jobs required, yet they maintained a use of both languages when speaking with friends and families. These families did not seem reluctant in the least to learn (more) English, but they also kept a strong hold on their first language.

This is already quite long, so I'll try to discuss the Holliday readings briefly. These readings were valuable particularly because of their function if defining terms that I was last week completely confused about, such as "thick description". I was happy to learn more about this concept. The anecdote about the Iranian woman's peers potentially creating a thick description of her culture was very useful, but I hope it's a made-up story, because the way her peers behaved seemed quite shocking and not any way I would expect most of my acquaintances to behave. At the same time, it made me wonder (if it is a true story) if perhaps the subject of the story was perceiving attitudes that weren't really there. That is the only way I could make sense of such an ignorant display.

As I read about it, I realized that creating a thick description of a culture would be a great way to gather information to educate students about various cultures, but the problem is that this process seems to require actually having experiences with the cultures under study, and those experiences are rarely available to me.

The most interesting part of these readings was the example of the Chinese student generalizing, and perhaps even exaggerating, his country's culture for some unknown culture-shock reason of his own. The suggestion that individuals describe their culture to "outsiders" not as it truly is but as they wish it to be seen is an interesting one. However, I also think that an individual's generalization about his own culture is no different from another's generalization about some other culture; in both cases, I think it's more often just a simplified way of explaining something rather than an intentional misrepresentation - for whatever reason. What would have made the anecdote even more valuable than it already was would be to have asked the Chinese student why he exaggerated his country's Confucianism, rather than just making an assumption.

Week Two Readings

          What struck me as I was reading the first article, “Cultural Globalization and Language Education,” was how directly fashion connected to much of what Kumaravedivelu was saying. The author seemed to want very much to assert a non-essentialist view of culture, particularly in saying that every culture is affected and changed by a variety of other cultures, and this intermingling has been taking place since the first civilizations. Perhaps because of the author’s earlier mention of fasion as a component of culture, I immediately connected this discussion of cultural mish-mash to the cross-cultural influences of clothing. For example, women in America are still wearing Romanesque sandals, toga-like dresses, tiered skirts that were first worn in Mesopotamia, and espadrilles, which were designed in ancient Persia (if I remember correctly). Those are just a few metaphoric examples of the significant impact that other cultures can have on one’s own. [And to be fair, I will mention that I recently saw a program on the BBC about certain Japanese fashions taking after the ancient Roman chiton, a type of female garment.] There were other ways in which I thought fashion complemented Kumaravedivelu’s point of view, such as the use of style by micro-cultures to self-identify, but I don’t want to belabor the point.

            The second article, “TESOL and Culture,” was not as enjoyable to read, largely because I found the review of literature at the beginning to be quite vague. For example, the author, Atkinson, mentioned the use of terms like identity by TESOL scholars to refer to culture in recent years,  but he doesn’t ever explain what this identity theory is. Another example is when Atkinson states that one author under review criticizes ESL teachers for causing their students to rhetorically construct their identities, but doesn’t define that concept for the reader. Perhaps more experienced TESOL students understand these references and terms better than I, but as a novice, it would have been helpful to me to get more information on these ideas. I also disliked the summary of Foucault’s argument that knowledge-power discourses render society inequitable, since lawyers have tremendous legal power and doctors have the same for medicine. Does Foucault suggest, then, that we should all have equal knowledge-power in these areas? Or is this just an over-simplification of his point? Further discussion of the discourse theory suggests that the latter might be the case, as in its broadening to the point that some people are brought up more advantageously than others, but again, as a novice, I can’t be sure.

            I did notice some similarities between the two articles. For example, they both agreed on the problem of Orientalism, a concept that was no surprise to me. They also both seem to come from non-essentialist points of view, as they go into great detail about the fluid nature of cultures and about the effects of “other” cultures. In the last article, I most liked the discussion of Strauss and Quinn’s theory that culture comes from an individual’s experiences. I definitely agree with this, because everyone we meet has a slightly different culture from our own, the substance of which has been influenced by their upbringing, their education, their friendships, etc. An individual’s culture might be more similar to that of one friend than another, but I believe that each individual’s culture is at least slightly different from any others’. I think the author of this article agrees, since he made Individuality the first principle of culture.

Test

Test Post