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!

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.

Week 8 Post: Images as a Discourse

Blog Post 8

March 5, 2012

Taylor-Mendes 2010

A 3.1, A 3.2, B 3.2, B 3.3

While reading Taylor-Mendes’ piece, I had a hard time taking in the argument. I’m am not sure why I feel this way. There is, I have noticed, some strong rhetoric being used throughout the piece. While I understand that it is important to have textbooks and images that do not just meet the ideal English speaking target audience, I have a hard time problematizing it as much at the author in the article does. I totally agree with a lot of what is being said. But making yourself as an author seem self-loathing and making the rest of the audience who fall into the similar demographics feel as though they should self-loath, is a problem. It can be a turn off for a lot of people and how it did with me, leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I do not believe that many educators “dismiss and ignore the sociopolitical reality in which EFL is taught.” Educators are educated people, and while I am not an in-service educator just yet, I feel that even though I am pre-service I have the common sense and understanding that yes, majority of the images are in fact stereotypical. I do believe that it is something to be problematized, but I feel as though the article is putting a lot of the blame or focus on the teacher. We have to keep in mind that the main audience that the producers are appealing to is of the White, middle class demographics. The producers need someone to gear it towards and trying to incorporate every culture or race or lifestyle in the textbook is near impossible. I feel almost compelled to say that it would be complete reverse stereotyping (if such a term exists) and it would leave the audience feeling patronized. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think that having all different types of cultures, lifestyles and races incorporated is a must, but it needs to be something that comes naturally and should not be over dramatized and/or analyzed. I think that our society is moving to a more diverse mentality and the discourse of images will soon follow.

Further in the article Fatima talks about what she thinks of American based on the images. She believe that America is clean and peaceful, free from poverty and violence. While we all know that this is far from the truth, it is what we portray in our images. Fatima knows that it is impossible for a land to be as happy as America is portrayed, so our images are not fooling anyone. During the study, the White participants were more likely to comment on the racial stereotypes in the images than the non-White participants were. I find that interesting and I wonder why that this was so. The article brings up many good topics to be talked about. It makes the reader critically think what exactly does an American look like? The ideas that we have can be stereotypical, but most often it is something that we are not aware of and it is subconscious. It is a way of life that we have fallen into over many years. But as I stated earlier, I believe it is something that will change naturally and the years go on. We are only on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to complete erasing all stereotypes conscious and unconscious. Pushing it, I believe, is damaging and patronizing.