Week 16 TESOL at Forty: What are the issues?

TESOL at Forty: What are the issues?

When I read this article at the beginning of this course, I was greatly disappointed with myself because I could not understand what Canagarajah argued about at all. I was afraid whether I could survive in this course. However, now I read this again, then I could understand in some way. He integrated many ideas from Bonny Norton Peirce, Toohey, Lave & Wenger, Douglas Brown and so on into his article. I agree with the idea that “motivation can be multiple, contradictory, and changing. The strategies one adopts to negotiate the contextual constraints on his or her motivation will have an effect on one’s mastery of the language” (Canagarajah, 2006, p.14). Moreover,　I am convinced that empowerment enables students “to become critical thinkers, equipped with problem-solving strategies, poised to challenge those forces in society that would keep them passive”(Brown, 1991, p.248). Through this course, I identified myself as both a L2 learner and a non-native English speaking teacher. That is why I can realize the theories or opinions from Canagarajah, Peirce, Brown and so on.

In Focus on Sociopolitical and Geographical Issues, “English has also become controversial in many countries in the context of globalization” (Canagarajah, 2006, p.22). It is true of Japan. Japan belongs to expanding circle and everyone recognize that English is very important as an international language. Business and education in Japan are filled with English, but there is little need to use English in daily life. What is English for in Japan? Mainly, it is for entering a famous university. Except some students, many Japanese students lose their motivation to learn English after they enter a university. The situations of English teachers are difficult to stand. As teachers try to adjust many students’ needs, English is just a means of entering universities and does not spread in Japan. However, if teachers ignore students’ needs, students will go away. The board of Education in Japan try to focus on communicative skills in English, so the situation is changing now. When I go back to Japan, I would like to teach English as an international language and focus on students’ need.

I would like to ask a question. In this article, it is said that digital technology is spread at present. In Japan, many public upper secondary schools are not equipped with a projector, a computer and a sound system in each class. How about your country?

Thank you very much for all your kindness, everyone!

Week 14 Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Language Education

Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Language Education

This article describes the different ethnolinguistically diverse student population in the US classrooms. So far, researchers or theorists have been discussing more effective methodologies of SLA for a long time. I realize that it is difficult to change the present situation. For example, many people fall into Native Speakers fallacy. In this article, there are still language ideologies such as standardization, purism, and monolingualism. These ideologies will cause us to discrimination against those who non-native speakers.

Now, I am studying at both IUP and ALI, and I feel the diversity of language and ethnolinguistic diversity. ALI class consists of Spanish, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Saudi Arabians, Africans, and so on. We have each different accent, a kind of vernacular dialect, and can communicate each other. I, myself, am often disappointed with myself, because I cannot say what I think in English. However, I do not feel any discrimination. It is natural for each of us to have different accents. All ALI students try to improve their English skills. What do we need is to be accepted as a member of this society and to help us improve our English skills such as reading, speaking and writing. If we do not have any help from teachers or classmates, it will be difficult to keep studying in the U.S. The Statistics shows that a great number of Spanish students are in the U.S., especially in California and New Mexico nowaddays. In ESL situation, all students are non-native English speakers, but in K-12, most of them are native speakers. In this article, the author says “to provide these children with as many as fair opportunities as possible, so that they can excel in their academic and life careers.” Therefore, teachers or scholars, especially in K-12, should pay much attention to non-native speaking students. As the author says, they use ethnolinguistic resources to support the students’ schooling and academic development.

It will take much time to accept and understand ethnolinguistic diversity in language and literacy education. Teachers or scholars should change their attitude. I think people who have vernacular dialects need much help in school or community. One solution is that school gives them a tutor or additional class. Then I would like to ask you a question. Do you have another idea or solution to help such students in K-12?

Week 12 TQ Dialogues: The Hidden Curriculum of Survival ESL

TQ Dialogues: The Hidden Curriculum of Survival ESL

I was convinced that the examples introduced by Auerbach and Burgess oversimplify and lack the reality. I remembered learning some dialogues when I was a junior high school student. The dialogue was between Mike Smith and Junko Takano following like this: “M: Nice to meet you. My name is Mike Smith. J: Nice to meet you, too. My name is Junko Takano. How are you? M: Fine, thank you. And you?” Now I find these conversations very strange. Such conversations never happen usually. However, in junior high school, I was impressed and thought this was English. Moreover, I learned “This is a pen.”, but I have never used this sentence in a daily conversation. In Japan, materials are improving gradually, but there are still such conversations used in a textbook in junior high school. I am wondering why such conversations are used and when I found them very strange?

We should follow some steps. In this article, the goal is to act on a critical view of reality to improve learners’ lives. Nevertheless, it is also necessary to acquire language competency. At first, it does not matter whether the conversation is authentic or not. Students should learn English as much as possible. In the process of learning, they come to know what conversation they really need or how to think critically. The first time I notice the conversation learned from my materials was strange was when I was in the middle of 7th grade. AETs (Assistant English Teacher) came to my school once a month. When I introduced myself to AET, AET said, ““My name is ~.” is okay, but we often say “I’m ~.” And “How are you? Fine, thank you.” is not used very much, either. We say “good or not bad.””

If the situation is ESL, we need more authentic conversations. In addition, a problem-posing view suggested by Freire is also necessary. ESL students could face many problems in daily life, such as job, housing and health problem. For example, when I tried to pay my bill of this semester at IUP, my pin number was suddenly changed. So I could not enter my URSA. I was very upset, because I thought someone stole my information. I did not what to do and what to explain in English. I have never been taught such conversation in English.

After all, it is not until we face some problems that we can learn authentic English more. However, if possible, we should know how to say and think in advance.

My question is: Do you have any examples that you learn strange conversations when you learn the second language? Have you ever experienced any troubles in the U.S. or foreign countries because you do not know much of the second language?

Week 10 TQ Dialogues Chapter 10

Revisiting the Colonial in the Postcolonial: Critical Praxis for Nonnative-English-Speaking Teachers in a TESOL Program

I am encouraged by the phrase in this article; the notion of experts shifts the emphasis from ‘who you are’ to ‘what you know’. I have ten-year teaching experience in EFL situation, but I still think in the same way as one student in this article “I am not qualified to teach students at any level, even though I will graduate with an MA degree in TESOL.”(p.423) This is because many of students, even teachers, wish to have native speakers. I strongly want to overcome my linguistic deficit and achieve native-like proficiency. However, is it only necessary that non-native English speaking teachers(NNESTs) acquire native-like proficiency? I think we, NNESTs, can get closer to native-like proficiency, but we cannot become a native speaker. I do not abandon my hope, but we should reconsider our true role as NNESTs. I am impressed with “bright side of being a non-native,” such as being a good model for the learners, being culturally informed, and being empathetic to learners’ needs.(p.423) ‘Who can do what’ is important.

Then, I remembered one thing. I had taught English in Japan. Our school has Assistant English Teacher (AET) visit once a week. Compared with me, AET spoke English much more fluently with Standard English pronunciation. Not only students but also I admired how the AET spoke. Whenever I had a team teaching with the AET, students were looking forward to it. The content naturally focused on communication, not reading or writing. One day, I tried to have a writing class with AET, because I thought it was very useful for students to learn how to write in English from a native speaker. Nevertheless, they were very confused because there were a great gap between Japanese writing style and English one. In addition, they could not know how to write what they wanted. As a result, I taught them how to write and express their feeling in English. The AET helped them, depending on the situation. Therefore, I realized that AET was not always an ideal English teacher. It is important that NNESTs and NETs should divide our roles and co-operate each other.

I want to ask non native English speakers how you learn or teach English wiring and reading in a class. In Japan, we mainly translate English into Japanese. Or do you have speaking class? In Japan, it exists only the course name and we learn reading and grammar instead.

Week 9 Jennifer Jenkins

The article researched pronunciation syllabus, the field that I have been struggling for a long time. However, I felt better after reading this article, because I assured that non-native English speaking teachers(NNEST) should play a different role from native English speaking teachers(NEST). It is not easy for non-native English speakers(NNS) to acquire the pronunciation of EIL. That is why NNEST is necessary to help students by different way from NEST.

I am interested in some researches in the article, especially, examples of pronunciation-based miscommunication in interlanguage talk. It is well known for many Japanese people not to well pronounce the difference between “l” and “r” or “s” and “θ.” I know that the Japanese speaker in the research could not make himself understood in English, “Shakespeare’s birthplace.” The sound of birthplace for Japanese people sounds like “bathplace.” For example, it is also difficult for me to pronounce the difference between “bath” and “bus.” The other day I wanted to say to my friend, “I was taking a bath when you called me.” However, for my friend it sounded that I was taking a bus, so she was confused and our conversation did not make sense well. In order to improve my English pronunciation, I have been taking the pronunciation lessons since I came to IUP. It was not until I took the lesson how important the shape of my mouth was when I pronounced English words. In addition, as Jenkins indicates in her research, there are many phonological errors in NNS conversations. I think non-native speakers, especially NNEST should know these phonological errors and try to practice correcting pronunciation. Then, it enables them to help students to improve their speaking.

In the article, Jenkins says that the best teachers can do is to draw learners’ attention receptively to these items to prime learners for future acquisition outside the classroom, should the possibility of extended exposure present itself.(p.98) I agree with her opinion, but how should NNEST do that? For instance, how should NNEST help students acquire the proper pronunciation? Whenever I read the articles about Introduction to TESOL, I am wondering how I actually do each theory in my classroom. I think it is necessary for NNEST to improve their English skills first. I can understand NNEST play a different role in teaching English from NEST. NNEST should have more confidence in teaching English. However, I have little knowledge how I should teach English more effectively. I try to read and think more, then I talk about it to other people.

Week 8 Mckay Chapter 3-4

It is desirable for me, non native English speaker, to acquire Standard English. In Outer Circle countries like Singapore or India, they have their unique English. In Singapore, it is called ‘Singlish’ and it is regarded as ‘bad English’. However, there are many controversies whether they locally use it or not. Some argue that ‘Singlish’ is part of the Singaporean identity and that ordinary people could relate to it.( Mckay p.55) On the other hand, others claim that children should not speak what they termed ‘bad English.’ I think the variety of language is necessary and language expresses our own culture or identity. In Japan, English is a kind of official language. We want to speak English like native speakers, but I have recently thought that our English is one of the forms of our culture. Japanese people often create new words from English. For example, a convenience store is called ‘konnbini’, and a digital camera is ‘degikame.’ It is a kind of a short form of English words. Maybe, English speakers will not be able to understand these words, but it is very convenient for Japanese people to say them. It may express the flexibility of Japanese people. I need the variety of English in the world.

However, it is important for us to learn and understand EIL as means of communication. As I told above, we also need to know the variety of English. According to Tay (Mckay p.58), Singapore consists of a basilect, mesolect, and acrolect. This type is also true of Nigeria.(Mckay p.58) Variety 4 like acrolect is internationally intelligible, but socially unacceptable. This is only one example that the English situation is diverse and complicated. As far as I am concerned, globalization is proceeding faster and faster in this century. English should play a role as International Language. Therefore, I argue that it is essential to learn Standard English.

In Chapter 4, I am interested in Figure 4, two contexts in which information about a target culture can be introduced in an EIL classroom. In Japan, teacher and students share the same culture and a textbook is a target culture. Teachers can empathize with the students if they cannot understand the cultural differences between their own culture and the target culture. However, how can teachers help students to motivate their interest to the target culture, and to understand cultural differences through such a context? In another context, teacher, student, and textbook are source culture, it is efficient for students to consider how they would explain elements of their own culture to others. Nevertheless, it is only one way communication. Students can understand their culture more deeply, but not other cultures. How can we solve this context?

Week 7 McKay Chapter 1-2 Hall Chapter6

McKay Chapter1-2
More and more people who study English as a second and a foreign language study abroad in English speaking countries such as the U.S. or the U.K. every year. Such people have strong desire to learn English, because most of them want to succeed in their future of present occupation and so on. So do I. Why is it English? It is because English is as international language, which means “it is used by people of different nations to communicate with one another.”(McKay p.11) The linguistic power of English is very clear. According to McKay in chapter 1, English influence on many fields all over the world, such as economy, industry, computer science, global culture, tourism, information, and education. However, it is true that there are some factors that may impede the spread of English. I agree with the explanation why Japan is the low contact ratio between Japanese people and speakers of English by Martin.(p.19) Many Japanese still think of English as the only means to enter university. As Martin points, there is little need in Japan to use English on a daily basis. Moreover, our limited use of English has had little impact on its ability to establish integral economic ties with regions over the world.(p.19) Nevertheless, the situation is changing gradually. The globalization is proceeding, and we begin to notice the necessity of English more.

How do we(the Japanese) change our perspective toward English? We have misunderstood English study, because we have thought of it as the only one subject to enter university. As Kubota describes, one way English exerts influence in Japan is through the image that English textbooks present of language, culture, race, and ethnicity. It represents the superiority of native speakers of English.(p.23) I think English teachers have to change their attitude toward to English study. We should not bring negative images to students from books and ideas. It may be true that native speakers are superior to non-native English-speaking teachers in pronunciation, listening, vocabulary and reading, but I strongly believe that non-native English speaking teachers have the strong fields in a highly developed awareness of structure of the language and the problems their students may have in acquiring it.(p.45) Bilingual teachers of English should have the confidence and teach English to students in a proper way, not assimilation. Then, English spread more over the world as well as in Japan.

Question: Suppose that you are a non-native English-speaking teacher, and you have to teach English in outer or expanding circle countries. Students wish to learn English by native English-speaking teachers. What should you focus on or should you tell them at first?



Hall Chapter 6
For second language learners, to acquire the target language is a perpetual desire. We have learned some theories in SLA research in Introduction to TESOL. The theories explained by Hall are still difficult to understand, but it is also helpful to study the second language acquisition and to give me some clues. Model of communicative competence by Celce-Murcia et al. is a clear visual explanation.(p.107) Discourse competence is centered and related with sociocultural competence, linguistic competence, and actional competence. In addition, strategic competence weaves through all components. Reflect my English ability, my English deficiency depends on the lack of each components, especially strategic competence. Then, how do the second language learners develop each component?

Pedagogical approaches for redesigning language classrooms are the key to solve it. In Japan, I have never thought such pedagogical approaches. Then, I am interested in problem-posing approach. It encourages students to define the real-life problem, share their experiences and elaborate on what they see.(p.115) It is very effective way to learn the target language. Students can get and store a lot of knowledge, but if they do not relate the knowledge with their real-life problem, they will forget it soon. For example, since I came here, I have had some troubles in my life, such as setting up telephone, the internet, the TV and the electricity. Whenever I set up, I had to call a company and explain what I needed. At first, I wrote down many phrases before I called. Later I managed to explain what I needed, but it was still difficult for me. Anyway, I could learn some phrases and know the better way to explain.

As Hall says in summary, sociocultural perspectives is to help students to understand the means by which their activities are constructed, how to negotiate with others to position themselves in relation to these roles and identities.(p.123) I would like to teach English to students by the view by sociocultural perspectives more when I go back to Japan.