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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