Week 16 Blog Post
April 30, 2012
In chapter 7 of McKay & Bokhorts-Heng, they highlight the important things of each chapter of the book. We read about how the English language is becoming more recognized worldwide. This then ensures the widespread learning of English. By having English more widespread, there are new variations. Because English bilingual speakers use the language on a daily basis alongside on or more other languages, their use of English and their variety of English is often influenced by these other languages. There are new lexical items, new grammatical standards, and new pronunciation patterns (McKay & Bokhorts-Heng p.182).
We then move onto the topic of ELF interactions and various theories that account for code switching within a community. It states that we should promote students’ awareness of their own use of code switching and we should consider how the local languages could be productively used in the classroom. I feel like we focused on this topic quite a bit. It seems that this is the best route to take when working with an ELL. They learn that no one is oppressing their language that they use, but there is a time and place for any type of language to be used. In a job interview, students should learn that standard English is the best code to communicate. But when with family and friends, they should communicate in whatever code is most effective for the situation at hand.
We then covered the topic of Othering, specifically how we may not realize we other certain people. We even see how this Othering can be manifested within ELT methods and materials. An example of this is how native English speakers may create materials that promote the idea that Western society is a better way to live, or more cognitively advanced. This then incorporates the earlier topic that was how we present teaching materials. We have to look at our materials and see how other cultures are portrayed or are absent. In the book they discuss how Moraccan teachers claims that having Western cultures within their language textbook runs the risk of students having discontent with their own culture. In an ideal world, teachers would teach about other cultures but not compare it to any other in a negative connotation. That way, students not only learn about other cultures but teachers also instill a sense of acceptance and acknowledgement of other cultures, traditions, etc. But once again, we have to be understanding that we do not own the language. Displaying Western-like cultures with English then “others” Americans. English is spoken in almost all countries, we cant display only Americans with the English language.
What I find completely facilitating is how the Japanese author wrote a book titled, “Why the Japanese People are No Good at English.” This author makes an interesting observation. He observes that when a Japanese person comes in contact with an English speaker, usually a Westernized one, they take on the dispositions of that person. They try to emulate their actions. It would be interesting to see how this theory holds up to other theories and/or studies; or it would even be interesting to find out what the public opinion is on this topic.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Week 15 Post: The Globalization of English
Week 15 Blog Post
4-23-12World Englishes and the Teaching of Writing (2010) by A. Matsuda and P. Matsuda
Impact of Globalization in Language Teaching in Japan (2002) R. Kubota
Kubota’s 2002 article discusses the tension of globalization in language learning and teaching in Japan. It relates this tension to a triangle consisting of three main points: 1) ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity in the local communities, 2) the prevalence of English and 3) nationalism endorsed by linguistic and cultural essentialism. It explains that the first and second dimensions tend to threaten national identity and stimulate the third dimension. When trying to make sense of these dimensions, the last state seems to help. Japan feels the threat of losing its nationalism because of the ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity that is rising in many of its communities. This then brings in the English language because many of the diverse cultures and ethnicities tend to speak English. So in order to keep everything in check, they turn towards the classroom and endorse linguistic and cultural essentialism. This all seems to have probably gotten worse in the last decade due to the major influx of non-Japanese individuals who now live in Japan.
These dimensions, though, present some contradictions, however. The increased local diversity within Japan is not compatible with convergence to the American norm, Nationalist views also are sometimes promoted by using a Western mode of communication in the classroom. These contradictions are resolved in a discourse called kokusaika. Kokusaika is a discourse that blends Westernization with nationalism but fails to promote cosmopolitan pluralism. It tends to promote convergence to predetermined norms rather than divergence towards cultural and linguistic multiplicity. (Kubota, 2003)
This seems like a concept that I will need to continue to learn about because I am still struggling to make sense of it. I think the terms that are keeping me from completely understanding the definition is what “cosmopolitan pluralism” is. If I had to guess what it means I would infer it means the accepting of diversity within an urban setting.
Kokusaika has influenced language learning and teaching in Japan. It apparently blends Anglicization and nationalism. Anglicization I could infer means that white individuals who speak English are in power or in the process of obtaining power. Nationalism is what I believe to be having pride or strong connective feelings towards to country and in this context would be Japanese nationalism in a power struggle with the globalization of English and Anglicization. This article was a tough read, I hope I have understood it and that I am not completely off track, but I am sure everything will be cleared up in class.
The second article by A. Matsuda and P. Matsuda, World Englishes and the Teaching of Writing, also discusses the globalization of English. At the beginning of the article, the authors make a statement which I find very interesting and involves something that I have never considered: “The English language is not a monolith but a catchall category for all of its varieties—linguistic and functional—hence the term World Englishes (WE).” (Matsuda & Masuda 2010) It is hard to believe their next statement as well, “A majority of English language users today have acquired English as an additional language.” This makes me feel, as an American, that we definitely do not “own” the English language by any means.
The authors then go in to talk about the different principles that teachers can adopt that help guide them while negotiating the relationship between standardization and diversification.
1. Teach the dominant language forms and functions.
2. Teach the non-dominant language forms and functions.
3. Teach the boundary between what works and what does not.
4. Teach the principles and strategies of discourse negotiation.
5. Teach the risks involved in using deviational features.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Week 14 Post: The "Non-Accent"
English with an Accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States
Rosina Lippi-Green, chapters 2-4
I find this aspect of social-linguistics extremely interesting. It is one of my favorite subjects with linguistics and possible within the English studies. For some reason I am fascinated with accents. Something that has completely changed the way I think about accents is a section within this reading, “The Non-Accent,” when the author describes the two different types of accents that are present, these being an L1 accent and an L2 accent. I had never before thought or even considered the idea of separating these two. How unfair is it for us to dub a specific regional way of phonetically producing words as separate from “English?” I find this relevant in my life because being from Chicago, anytime my family and I travel people can guess right away where we are from. I hear no difference at all in how they speak and how we speak most of the time, but somehow it sounds so different to them. I always wondered how it was possible for only one side of the “accent” to notice any difference. Now, I am dating a guy from central-southern Illinois. When I first met him I had a hard time understanding him! I asked him if it seemed like I had an accent and he said no, I just sound like how people on TV sound. Now, of course, I have gotten used to his and his family’s different phonetical pronunciations.
As for an L2 accent, I find it incredibly interesting to think to separate these two. It completely makes it. L1 accents are just different American (in our case) regional ways of phonetically speaking. L2 accents are accents that are produced due to the speakers’ way of having learned their L1 and how their hard pallet has been shaped because of it. I always thought that it was so interesting that if a child starts speaking an L2 before the age of 12, there is a lower opportunity for the child to develop an L2 accent because their pallets have not yet finished forming. I know a family that moved here from Italy. The son was 14, one daughter was 12 and the other daughter was 7. Now adults, the only sibling to have an L2 accents is the oldest son who was 14 when they moved. The other two have (to my ears) absolutely no accent once so ever.
The author states, “…dialect is perhaps nothing more than a language that gets no respect” (43). How the author then goes on to explain her technical definition of dialects and accents. Accent is when differences are restricted primarily on phonology, like my boyfriend’s and my way of speaking. If the two varieties of a single language also differ in morphological structures, syntax, lexicon, and semantics, then they are different varieties or “dialects” of the same language.
I can almost see this with my boyfriend and me. He has phrases that I have never heard of and I find it very interesting that he and his family use the word “seen” for I think past progressive tense. For example they say, “I seen that movie last week,” or “I seen him running earlier today.” Obviously, these could be changed into one of two ways, “I saw the movie last week” or “I had seen that movie last week.” It depends on the context for when you would use each. So whenever they use the word “seen” I always try to figure out which tense it would take place in, because sometimes they do use the word “saw,” maybe they just take out the lexical verb “have.” It is interesting to take note on these differences.
Rosina Lippi-Green, chapters 2-4
I find this aspect of social-linguistics extremely interesting. It is one of my favorite subjects with linguistics and possible within the English studies. For some reason I am fascinated with accents. Something that has completely changed the way I think about accents is a section within this reading, “The Non-Accent,” when the author describes the two different types of accents that are present, these being an L1 accent and an L2 accent. I had never before thought or even considered the idea of separating these two. How unfair is it for us to dub a specific regional way of phonetically producing words as separate from “English?” I find this relevant in my life because being from Chicago, anytime my family and I travel people can guess right away where we are from. I hear no difference at all in how they speak and how we speak most of the time, but somehow it sounds so different to them. I always wondered how it was possible for only one side of the “accent” to notice any difference. Now, I am dating a guy from central-southern Illinois. When I first met him I had a hard time understanding him! I asked him if it seemed like I had an accent and he said no, I just sound like how people on TV sound. Now, of course, I have gotten used to his and his family’s different phonetical pronunciations.
As for an L2 accent, I find it incredibly interesting to think to separate these two. It completely makes it. L1 accents are just different American (in our case) regional ways of phonetically speaking. L2 accents are accents that are produced due to the speakers’ way of having learned their L1 and how their hard pallet has been shaped because of it. I always thought that it was so interesting that if a child starts speaking an L2 before the age of 12, there is a lower opportunity for the child to develop an L2 accent because their pallets have not yet finished forming. I know a family that moved here from Italy. The son was 14, one daughter was 12 and the other daughter was 7. Now adults, the only sibling to have an L2 accents is the oldest son who was 14 when they moved. The other two have (to my ears) absolutely no accent once so ever.
The author states, “…dialect is perhaps nothing more than a language that gets no respect” (43). How the author then goes on to explain her technical definition of dialects and accents. Accent is when differences are restricted primarily on phonology, like my boyfriend’s and my way of speaking. If the two varieties of a single language also differ in morphological structures, syntax, lexicon, and semantics, then they are different varieties or “dialects” of the same language.
I can almost see this with my boyfriend and me. He has phrases that I have never heard of and I find it very interesting that he and his family use the word “seen” for I think past progressive tense. For example they say, “I seen that movie last week,” or “I seen him running earlier today.” Obviously, these could be changed into one of two ways, “I saw the movie last week” or “I had seen that movie last week.” It depends on the context for when you would use each. So whenever they use the word “seen” I always try to figure out which tense it would take place in, because sometimes they do use the word “saw,” maybe they just take out the lexical verb “have.” It is interesting to take note on these differences.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Week 13 Post: Language Ideologies and Language Policies
In Farr and Song’s article, they discuss the language ideologies of standardization and monolingualism that underlie bilingual education as well as the “English-only” policies that we have her in the United States. But most importantly, they cover how these policies conflict with the reality of the students’ linguistic and identity practices.
In the introduction, the article describes how language policy itself is comprised.”..Not only of the explicit, written, overt, de jure, official and top-down decision-making about language, but also the implicit, unwritten, covert, de facto, grass-roots and unofficial ideas and assumptions’ about language in a particular culture (650).” They then state why the beliefs about language are inseparable from education. The first reason is that language policy often is carried out through mass education. The second is that education itself is conducted through language.
After reading this, I really tried to make sense of the introduction. It really all makes a lot of sense. When people decided something as big as language policy, it involves the official top-down decision-making. But I believe it is near impossible to have a group of people decide something and not immediately make assumptions that relate to their lives. It does not have to even be about the language, but the particular culture the language is part of may have an influence.
The article then goes on to describe what language ideologies actually are. “Representations, whether explicit or implicit that construe the intersection of language and human beings in a social world are what we mean by language ideology.” They also extend this by saying something that I think is the main driving factor behind a person’s language ideology and this is that language ideologies connect the linguistic with the social, and they do so in the interest of a particular, usually powerful, social position. I would them extend this by saying that I believe people may create a language ideology based more on “social and cultural conceptions of personhood, citizenship, morality, quality and value.” In an educational sense, there are two specific ideologies that exist according to this article: the belief in language standardization, and the belief in language monolingualism.
“Language policy involves not only the macro level of national language planning, including determining what language is to be used and learned in school; it also affects language choices at home and in other community sites. Moreover, language policy not only concerns what languages are to be used where, when, and by whom, but also what choices in grammar, vocabulary, genre, and style are appropriate in particular contexts (654).” Language policy and language ideology cannot be separated. A person’s language ideology will greatly influence, or as in the article, “inform” their belief in the language policy at hand. But interestingly enough, language ideology doesn’t determine language policy. There are often many conflicting ideologies within a given policy.
Wiley (2000) argues that the ideology of English monolingualism in the U.S. served two distinct goals of assimilationist policies: deculturation and acculturation. He describes that the policy for Native Americans was based on deculturaltion to subordinate them by removing their languages and cultures, whereas the policy for European immigrants was based on acculturation for their structural incorporation into the dominant society.
We look back at what happened to the Native Americans as a horrible mistake, something that we should learn from, and something that we should have preserved. Many, many years later we are still repaying them and have actually hurt their culture more than helped them. It is a dark part of American history. Shouldn’t we have learned from this? By trying to wipe out an entire population, it backfired and hurt them and us forever. When deciding on language policies, we should keep this in mind. We should realize that the other languages and the cultures that come with it can only enhance our culture and make it more interesting and colorful and won’t hurt it.
In the introduction, the article describes how language policy itself is comprised.”..Not only of the explicit, written, overt, de jure, official and top-down decision-making about language, but also the implicit, unwritten, covert, de facto, grass-roots and unofficial ideas and assumptions’ about language in a particular culture (650).” They then state why the beliefs about language are inseparable from education. The first reason is that language policy often is carried out through mass education. The second is that education itself is conducted through language.
After reading this, I really tried to make sense of the introduction. It really all makes a lot of sense. When people decided something as big as language policy, it involves the official top-down decision-making. But I believe it is near impossible to have a group of people decide something and not immediately make assumptions that relate to their lives. It does not have to even be about the language, but the particular culture the language is part of may have an influence.
The article then goes on to describe what language ideologies actually are. “Representations, whether explicit or implicit that construe the intersection of language and human beings in a social world are what we mean by language ideology.” They also extend this by saying something that I think is the main driving factor behind a person’s language ideology and this is that language ideologies connect the linguistic with the social, and they do so in the interest of a particular, usually powerful, social position. I would them extend this by saying that I believe people may create a language ideology based more on “social and cultural conceptions of personhood, citizenship, morality, quality and value.” In an educational sense, there are two specific ideologies that exist according to this article: the belief in language standardization, and the belief in language monolingualism.
“Language policy involves not only the macro level of national language planning, including determining what language is to be used and learned in school; it also affects language choices at home and in other community sites. Moreover, language policy not only concerns what languages are to be used where, when, and by whom, but also what choices in grammar, vocabulary, genre, and style are appropriate in particular contexts (654).” Language policy and language ideology cannot be separated. A person’s language ideology will greatly influence, or as in the article, “inform” their belief in the language policy at hand. But interestingly enough, language ideology doesn’t determine language policy. There are often many conflicting ideologies within a given policy.
Wiley (2000) argues that the ideology of English monolingualism in the U.S. served two distinct goals of assimilationist policies: deculturation and acculturation. He describes that the policy for Native Americans was based on deculturaltion to subordinate them by removing their languages and cultures, whereas the policy for European immigrants was based on acculturation for their structural incorporation into the dominant society.
We look back at what happened to the Native Americans as a horrible mistake, something that we should learn from, and something that we should have preserved. Many, many years later we are still repaying them and have actually hurt their culture more than helped them. It is a dark part of American history. Shouldn’t we have learned from this? By trying to wipe out an entire population, it backfired and hurt them and us forever. When deciding on language policies, we should keep this in mind. We should realize that the other languages and the cultures that come with it can only enhance our culture and make it more interesting and colorful and won’t hurt it.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Week 12 Post: Three Concentric Circles are Not Enough
McKay & Bokhorst-Heng
Chapters 2 & 3
Chapter two describes the social contexts in which English is being learned. It introduces Kachru’s model of concentric circles the describes the type of English speakers. The three circles are the inner, outer and expanding circle. The inner circle is where English is the primary language of the country. For example Australia and Canada. The outer circle is where English serves as a second language in a multilingual country such as India. The expanding circle is where English is widely studies as a foreign language such as China. These explanations are hard to wrap your mind around at first. But as the chapter goes on, we are able to understand each more deeply.
The inner circle is the most prevalent type of English learning context and it involves recent immigrants to the country. I believe we can relate this to America and the types of students we might be teaching one day. They use the terms to describe individuals who do not speak English “language minority students.” Because of the negative connotation that this term holds, the terms “English Learners” is more appropriate.
There are however, many controversies that follow this model. Bruthiaux (2003) criticizes it because he believes it overlooks the variation of English used within specific geographic areas. It also does not consider the variation within specific contexts such as Afican-American English vernacular.
Something that I thought was very interesting were the policies regarding the education of ELs and how they differ between the UK and the US. British policies tended to support they mainstreaming of ELs while American policies tended to promotes English as a second language pull out programs or bilingual programs to the extent where they were mandated by legislation or Supreme Court decisions. As a pre-service educator, I believe that the pull out method that America has in place seems to be the best solution to helping our ELs. While observing at my mom’s school, I spent most of the day with the TESOL teacher picking her brain and watching how she went about assimilating the students. She told me stories about how after students are here for several months, they start to go to some mainstream classes to see how they can handle it. She said that a lot if not most of her students go through a period where they break down. I worked with one girl that was in her room who had just came here from Mexico and could not speak a word of English. She cried and had a lot of break downs because she was so overwhelmed with not understanding anything and having to get through the school day. I don’t know how she could have possibly made it through the day if she was mainstreamed. At least in the pull out program she knows they we are there to help her with the specific intent to help her learn English. I feel that mainstreaming these students too quickly can lead to them shutting down and possibly giving up on learning English.
In chapter three, the authors discussed multilingual countries characterized by diglossia and those without diglossia. They also discuss the mother tongue and support for mother tongue maintenance. Support for the learning of English is provided through official language in education policies and through its status as an official language. By providing English education alongside the mother tongue languages, it is seen as a very important feature of the nationalist policy.
Fishman’s (1967) argument is that diglossia maintains languages. He extends Ferguson’s classic diglossia to other multilingual situations where two mutually unintelligible languages occupy the H and L niches. “Who speaks what language to whom and when in those speech communities that are characterized by widespread and relatively stable multilingualism (Fishman 437, McKay et. al 60).”
Chapters 2 & 3
Chapter two describes the social contexts in which English is being learned. It introduces Kachru’s model of concentric circles the describes the type of English speakers. The three circles are the inner, outer and expanding circle. The inner circle is where English is the primary language of the country. For example Australia and Canada. The outer circle is where English serves as a second language in a multilingual country such as India. The expanding circle is where English is widely studies as a foreign language such as China. These explanations are hard to wrap your mind around at first. But as the chapter goes on, we are able to understand each more deeply.
The inner circle is the most prevalent type of English learning context and it involves recent immigrants to the country. I believe we can relate this to America and the types of students we might be teaching one day. They use the terms to describe individuals who do not speak English “language minority students.” Because of the negative connotation that this term holds, the terms “English Learners” is more appropriate.
There are however, many controversies that follow this model. Bruthiaux (2003) criticizes it because he believes it overlooks the variation of English used within specific geographic areas. It also does not consider the variation within specific contexts such as Afican-American English vernacular.
Something that I thought was very interesting were the policies regarding the education of ELs and how they differ between the UK and the US. British policies tended to support they mainstreaming of ELs while American policies tended to promotes English as a second language pull out programs or bilingual programs to the extent where they were mandated by legislation or Supreme Court decisions. As a pre-service educator, I believe that the pull out method that America has in place seems to be the best solution to helping our ELs. While observing at my mom’s school, I spent most of the day with the TESOL teacher picking her brain and watching how she went about assimilating the students. She told me stories about how after students are here for several months, they start to go to some mainstream classes to see how they can handle it. She said that a lot if not most of her students go through a period where they break down. I worked with one girl that was in her room who had just came here from Mexico and could not speak a word of English. She cried and had a lot of break downs because she was so overwhelmed with not understanding anything and having to get through the school day. I don’t know how she could have possibly made it through the day if she was mainstreamed. At least in the pull out program she knows they we are there to help her with the specific intent to help her learn English. I feel that mainstreaming these students too quickly can lead to them shutting down and possibly giving up on learning English.
In chapter three, the authors discussed multilingual countries characterized by diglossia and those without diglossia. They also discuss the mother tongue and support for mother tongue maintenance. Support for the learning of English is provided through official language in education policies and through its status as an official language. By providing English education alongside the mother tongue languages, it is seen as a very important feature of the nationalist policy.
Fishman’s (1967) argument is that diglossia maintains languages. He extends Ferguson’s classic diglossia to other multilingual situations where two mutually unintelligible languages occupy the H and L niches. “Who speaks what language to whom and when in those speech communities that are characterized by widespread and relatively stable multilingualism (Fishman 437, McKay et. al 60).”
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Week 11 Post: Experiencing English from the Inside Looking Out
Week 11
McKay & Bokhorst-Heng Chapter 1
From the inside looking out, a native speaker of English really has no idea of the power and integrity the English language holds. The beginning of chapter 1 is actually mind blowing to a native speaker like myself. ¾ of the world’s mail is in English? English is the MAIN language of books, newspapers, airports, air traffic control, etc.? 80% of the information in the world’s electronic retrieval systems is in English? Never having realized the power and prevalence of English in the world, I feel naïve. As a native speaker, I actually feel as though I am at a disadvantage; I am not fluent in another language. The possibility of one day being a teacher of English to native and in this case, non-native speakers, seems daunting. People, well the world, seems to value this language and use it so much that in order to do right by myself and society, I need to be the best English language instructor I can be.
Later in the chapter, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng discuss the population’s division of native languages. Chinese, Mandarin is first by far, and English is in second. If Chinese, Mandarin has the largest population of native speakers, why is English the widest used language? Why does this language hold the power? The languages are not even close when it comes to native speakers with Chinese, Mandarin with 15% of the population speaking it natively and English having just 5.4% speaking it natively. I understand that the regions that use Chinese, Mandarin are much larger than those who use English. I just cannot understand why English is the most used. The beginning of the chapter dicusses it is because of media sources such as music, movies, etc. But it never, I don’t believe, explains why English is the most powerful in these categories.
The textbook describes that there are different perspectives of the spread of English. These are homogeny and heterogeny. The homogeny perspective takes the position that “the spread of English is leading to a homogenization of world culture.” Heterogeny takes the perspective as “describes the features of World Englishes as a sign of pluricentricism that has been brought about by globalization.” I, personally, do not believe we could ever have a homogenization of world culture. There are too many moving parts to culture (and while the advancement of technology could aid in this) that having a homogenized culture would be impossible. Even after hundreds of years. People are proud of their culture, and they should be. Even if changing everything you do to a Westernized culture would make you more successful, people would hold true to their backgrounds and that is what makes a specific country, that specific country. People would chose only to live in a region where the weather is the best if cultures were all the same! I know I would!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Week 10 Post: Racial Genetic Differences = 0.5%
Blog Post 10
March 19, 2012
Ibrahim, Kubota, Rich
Ibrahim’s article, Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity and the Politics of ESL Learning, brings up an extremely interesting topic that I have never considered before but makes so much sense. When Black immigrants come to the US, how are they accepted into the social structure? Who do they associate with? And most interesting of all, “what does it mean for a Black ESL learner to acquire Black English as a second language (BESL)? (349)” As an educator, this seems to be something that we need to observe in our students. How are they acquiring their English and who do they want to associate with? When we find the answers to those questions, we can figure out how best to help the student. If they want to be part of a certain group, we should encourage their BESL but also help them understand Standard English for academic purposes.
Notes to self: Moments of identification: where and how they see themselves reflected in the mirror of their society. Social imaginary: directly implicated in how and with whom they identified, which in turn influenced what they linguistically and culturally learned as well as how they learned it. Black stylized English, which they accessed in and through Black popular culture.
The date of this article is 1999. So this article is somewhat out-dated. The terms that are used within it seem somewhat bothersome, such as “black talk,” “black stylized English,” and when talking about black talk it states, “Black talk has its own grammar and syntax. BSE, on the other hand, refers to ways of speaking that do not depend on a full mastery of the language.” If this isn’t othering, I don’t know what is. Describing the way a culture speaks then saying it does not depend on full mastery of the language? I know that this is not meant in any sort of degrading manner and I’m sure it is very hard to describe it in other ways, but I could see a lot of people taking offense to this. In all of our methods courses we are taught to not correct a student’s AAVE, but when responding to it phrase their question in Standard English to model for them. Maybe it is the 1999 copy write date, but I would like to see if this article was written in 2012 how certain things would be phrased differently.
Kubota and Lin’s article, Race and TESOL: Introduction to Concepts and Theories, discusses how race and ethnicity are seen in the TESOL field. It also brings up the idea of how social categories such as gender and sexual identities are explored in the field. A quote that I think is very powerful in this article is, “Rather than being silenced by the discomfort of discussing race, racialization, and racism, the field of TESOL could initiate unique and vibrant inquiries to build on these topic and investigate how they influence identity formation, instructional practices, program development, policy making, research and beyond (473).” It then goes on to discuss that this article is to provide TESOL professionals with a springboard for future exploration. I think this article does a great job of doing this. For example, they go into race, ethnicity and culture. They quote a scientist who states that the genetic differences between different races in the human species is only 0.5%. I have heard this before, well I have heard 1% before, and this is something teachers need to be armed with (the knowledge that is) when in the classroom. When trying to discuss or placate racial/ethnical disputes/discussions, TESOL teachers should be able to throw facts out like that to open their students eyes. I think that this statistic should be more well known by the public. I mean honestly, if everyone knew this statistic, it would probably change the way some people think about other races. We are 99.5% the same, why should we keep looking for more differences? The only differences that are involved are those presented in cultural aspects of certain races, not the race itself.
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