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.