decolonizing english

"Our goal as teachers is to provide students with access to English and all the personal and professional possibilities that come with the ability to speak English, and to decolonize the teaching of English." (Wong, 165)

I love this idea of decolonizing English. I think it's so important that every student views themselves as worthy of knowing and speaking English. We've been discussing how English is such a power language - and a language that is respected and seen as "for the elite" by nearly the entire world. This places such a large responsibility on teachers of English to ensure that our teaching methods and mannerisms do not in any way reinforce this stereotype. Someone made the comment in one of my TESOL classes last week (I can't remember if it was 343 or 344) that she would not be hurt if, in a Spanish or French class, the teacher request that she only use the target language, because she is already confident that her first language (English) is useful and important, and her ability to speak it is valued. However, this is not the case with speakers of all languages. Although we might be teaching English to students, we also, in some cases, have the ability to value or de-value their first language, and along with that, their identity. English is so strongly viewed as a "valuable" language that speakers of other languages might view their own language skills as inferior and unimportant. If they are denied permission to speak their native language in class and asked to speak English only, this may reinforce the stereotype that English is more important, more valuable, and more useful than their native language. This will either discourage their learning of English or discourage their motivation to build upon their first language, and their language skills in general will suffer. It is so important that as teachers, we understand the social and political implications of language and take those into account when determining procedures and methods for our classrooms.

As we've discussed also, language and identity are very closely tied together. Therefore, in order to decolonize English as it is related to identity, we have to make sure that all students view themselves as "worthy" speakers of English. Because English is seen as a language for the elite and powerful, some students will feel that they are not worthy to learn English or will see English speakers as more learned, more knowledgeable, and more valuable than themselves. I observed this during my summer in Mexico. The people there highly respect English speakers and even have a tendency to trust Americans more than their own fellow Mexicans. This puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on teachers of English to 1) help ELLs view themselves as both valuable contributors to humanity as a speaker of their first language and worthy to learn English and 2) reinforce that English is not more important than any other language, just more prevalent.

This post has gotten long and wordy, but this is something I've spent a lot of time reflecting on. I've spent three semesters teaching ELLs who have no problem with identity and their native language, but this summer I'll be teaching the children of migrant workers, many of whom are members of the "1.5 generation" that we've discussed in class. These students likely 1) lack confidence and/or ability in their Spanish (first language) skills, 2) are being told by their parents (and possibly ESL teachers and just society in general) that learning English is more important, and 3) are under oppression from society because their families are poor and uneducated. This scenario, for me, presents a very challenging twist on the question, "Knowledge for whom?" My job will not be just to teach English. My job will be to help the students see themselves as worthy to speak English, but as valuable to society because of their ability to speak their native language. My job will be to help them form an identity that includes their past language experience as a valuable resource for their future. My job will be to help the students gain knowledge that is not just for one individual or group of people, but "for the masses" as Mao Zedong puts it. My job is to decolonize English. My job is to reach out to a generation of students who don't know their first or their second language and to give them what they need to move forward from where they are. My job is to make students feel worthy. I think that is what decolonizing English means to me.

summary of today's postings

Below you will find three postings from today. The most recent is my annotated bibliography. The next one is my post for the reading that is due next week - Wong, chapter 4. And the initial post is my post for what we read for this week - Wong, chapter 3.

the (very rough) beginnings of my annotated bibliography

Giles, Howard, and Clair Robert N. Saint. Language and Social Psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979. Print.
In the introduction alone, Giles offers a brief overview of what the book discusses and presents many of the ideas that I want to learn more about! He explains psychology in the context of language and talks about several language variables, including accent, speech rate, pitch variety, etc. All of these variables are extremely important to applying language to social context, where focus is placed on how individuals use language. He also mentions judgments that are passed, cultural differences, and how this affects the decoding process – a process that is not “built into” word choice or language itself; rather, it must be “added on to” the language. This decoding process affects how people communicate with one another and has strong implications in the context of second language acquisition.

Lutz, Catherine, and Lila Abu-Lughod. Language and the Politics of Emotion. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1990. Print
For this book, the title caught my eye first. So much of language is related to emotion! And lack of desire to learn language is sometimes related to over-active emotions (fear, inferiority, etc.) Because I want to interview ELLs in the U.S. about their experiences and what extra-linguistic factors hinder their language learning, I felt this book might be exactly what I needed. The introductory chapter I found to be particularly pertinent to my topic. ‘Discourse’ is discussed extensively as a means through which emotion is communicated. The authors go on to discuss how discourse is informed by emotion, culture, and the like – all things that relate to my topic.

Kramarae, Cheris, Muriel Schulz, and William M. O'Barr. Language and Power. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1984. Print
As the title implies, this book discusses the relationship between language and power. When we discussed sociolinguistics in class, we focused quite a bit on the subjects’ interactions with “power figures” in their lives and how it affected their language and ability to communicate. In this book, differences are discussed between high language and low language. Although that is not the situation exactly with many ELLs, that is often how it is treated in society – that English is “superior”. This book talks about how this affects society and social interactions.

Brown, Richard Harvey. Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987. Print.
In the first chapter of this book, Brown discusses “sociolinguistics, language communities, and the mobilization of low-income groups”. This does not directly pertain to my topic, but indirectly it does have some valuable information that at least connects and will give me a start for my research. It talks about class and social distinctions, which is relevant to the idea of inferiority that my paper will focus heavily on. It also contains a section on structure of language and the social implications of that, which is not addressed extensively in the other resources I have so far. I might not use this book, but it is a possibility.

learning by doing

I love the idea of learning by doing! What better way to teach than to apply it to real life. In all of my teaching classes, this has been encouraged - to bring the real world into the classroom, to approach learning as a necessary thing to solve real problems. Just yesterday, I participated in a microteaching experience with some classmates, where we practice-taught one another our lesson plans. One of my classmates was teaching a lesson on bacteria and stuff like that. Pretty boring! But she opened up the class with a scenario in the ER - and that drew some attention. When students can see themselves using the materials they are learning, it is so much more motivating to them.

I want to focus on just one idea presented in this chapter - using "real" L2 materials. I have learned Spanish out of a textbook since I was in 7th grade, but there was nothing more satisfying that going to Mexico and actually seeing it used on billboards, on menus, in books, etc. Prior to seeing the language in action, in essence, it was easy to be convinced that the language actually did not exist elsewhere! Obviously ELLs within the United States will see the language all around them, but it is necessary for us as teachers to draw attention to it and provide opportunities for students to study it. Text is all around us; the internet makes it beyond accessible. ELLs should have plenty of exposure to these forms of language - and like Wong mentions in chapter 4, they don't need background information first! Many times the meaning of a word or the use of a phrase can be implied from an advertisement or something of the like. Students can actually scaffold their own learning, in theory, because they are constantly building a little bit more on what they know, trying to figure out the world around them.

Just the other day in my ESL class at the ELI, I brought in some AAA books for my students to look at. We were talking about travel and I wanted them to see an authentic text that English speakers can use to plan trips. They were very interested in this particular item! It aided their learning, and it helped them to apply what we had just learned. I was thrilled that they found it helpful.

"Real" L2 materials are not hard to come by - they are all around us. It is up to us as teachers to figure out how to help students learn by doing - planning activities and real experiences for the students to better understand the language community they find themselves to be a part of.

teaching like paul

At the very beginning of chapter 3, Wong begs the question, "How do we enable our students to be full participants in more than on speech community and to walk in multiple worlds?" In a way, my husband and I were just discussing this question the other day from a missionary perspective. The most effective method for reaching out to others and spreading the Gospel is to become like them. In his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 19 - 24, the apostle Paul writes:

"For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain."

Essentially, he explains that although he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted to, he chose to become like the people he was teaching so that he could relate to them and more effectively teach them.

As teachers, our job depends on our ability to relate to our students! We might not be able to become exactly like them, but we may have walked in their shoes or learned another language like they are doing. Freire's "Problem Posing" strategy, to me, was very similar to Paul's approach to spreading the Word of God. On page 85, Wong writes, "As teachers, we can be seduced by the promises of the permanent. If I use the same syllabus as last year or the same text, then I can predict what will happen. At the same time, I might not reach all students with this. In fact, I might only reach the docile students, the ones who are already privileged within the system. If I can use a problem-posing approach, in which I as a teacher do not know the answers but am willing to work with my students to find them out, then I am working within a "dynamic present". I may not be able to predict the future - what and how my students will learn, but they will be learning." Essentially, in problem posing, teachers and students participate in dialogue, rather than constant teacher transmission.

But what caught me about problem posing is that it is "dynamic", as Wong puts it. In Teacher Ed. classes, we refer to this as "autonomy" - the teacher's freedom to present the material in a way that they choose, that best reaches their students.

So back to the original question - how DO we prepare students to "walk in multiple worlds"? It seems that they must learn to be dynamic - to be willing to change, based on their surroundings. In his teachings, Paul "to the weak [...] became weak." It is about talking, relating, sharing, and being autonomous. Teachers must be willing to search out the best methods for the students, who will respond better to a lesson specifically adapted for them. As Wong explains, problem posing defies permanence and encourages an ever-changing approach to teaching languages to meet the needs of an ever-changing world.