Response to Angel's courage and honesty (long post)

Marie Nelson (mnel who-is-at nlu.nl.edu)
Wed, 18 Oct 1995 14:02:58 -0500 (CDT)

On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Angel M.Y. Lin wrote:

> Well, (I must be very careful now... :-)) to be honest, I think there's
> not been much communication between people of different paradigms... and
...[snip]
> criticizing them... well it's certainly a difficult and complex issue,
> and involves philosophical and ethical questions

I agree. And it's so hard not to act oppositional, or even to be
perceived as such, even if you don't intend to be, or to be insensitive
when you DON"T want to be, but have little way to know better, because of
the lenses our cultures impose on us. And because of the abuse we
ourselves have lived through.

I believe talking through these issues here, and in our classrooms, is
critical if we are to live either safely, or (eventually) peacefully in
our world. Besides, it's the right thing to do. So, thanks for educating
all of us about these issues, and thanks for sharing your own
vulnerability. It takes a lot of courage, and I'm not sure we deserve
this gift, or even recognize it as such, particularly at those times when
we feel a bit guilty. Honesty is truly a gift that you honor us with.

> practical as this one: what should be the role of researchers in an
unjust > world, where there's domination (subtle or overt) and suppression
of > every kind...? > I;m writing about this right now for a publication
coming out of the IFTE conference. I am beginning to wonder, much to my
dismay as a professional researcher :) + :( , whether it's ethical for me
to study anyone but myself. I know that's an extreme position, and I'm
not sure I believe it totally, but I'm trying it on for size for a while.
What I feel pretty sure of is that I DO question my right to study others
UNLESS I also study myself. And, as a person who's worked for years with
teacher-researchers, I think I have an obligation to practice what I
preach.

But it's hard, and we have so few role models for doing anything without
overtones of domination. It's hard to move into the new paradigm at all,
much less skillfully. I find myself dragging one foot in the old paradigm
all the time, and tripping over it, I might add.

> I was born and have gone through most of my life in a British colony...
I > do not belong to those lucky people who are born with the necessary >
English linguistic and cultural capital to succeed in school in a British
> colony... my parents don't speak any English at all! my community
speaks > Cantonese, and we live in a life world where Cantonese is very
important for > us for socio-cultural and identity reasons... it's been
quite a struggle > for me to have come this far... and lots of
sacrifice... >

I would love to know more of the specifics of your
experience, particularly of the tensions you feel and the things you've
had to give up. Are you writing about it? I think it would make a
wonderful book. Or some great articles.

> So, naturally I'd very much like to see more L2 people really address >
>these issues... instead we see lots of L2 mainstream or TESL theories >
>being exported to Asian countries...

I often wondered why we Americans
think we know so much about teaching our mother tongue to speakers of
other languages when so few of us speak any other languages at all.
We can be pretty arrogant at times.

and in my home place, where these
> theories have often not been indigenized... our fellow-teachers are
> criticized for speaking "Hong Kong English", their accent laughed at,
> and school children are criticized as "lacking in motivation and
> enterprise" to "learn English", criticized for speaking their mother
> tongue in the English lesson... and so on and so forth...

Yeah. I saw a lot of that during my years in Japan. May have done some
of it myself--probably did.

if you were in > my position... what should you do? >

I'd keep telling my story to those who are ready to hear. I'd share
those small details of how prejudice and arrogance and domination play
themselves out, because often we have (sort of) good intentions and don't
even realize how abusive our interactions can feel.OFten we don't
know how to empathize because we've never experienced it ourselves and
therefore it doesn't even occur to us that we're doing it. (That's my hunch)

When I taught at George Mason a Malaysian student told me about how he'd
hated English because it was the language of those who stole his country
from his Malay people and sent in the Chinese and the Indians to hold
onto it. He couldn't eveen get a degree in his own country becasuee of
the prejudice against indigenous people, so the government had contracts
with America universities, including GMU, to educate the Malay so they
could have native teachers teaching their kids, etc.

He had a hard time getting through his resistance to the language of the
conquerors, but once he realized that he could USE English for his own
ends, he had major breakthroughs in attitude which led, of course, to
breakthroughs in writing behavior, and eventually to breakthroughs in the
writing.

He ended up majoring in writing and getting a master's degree before
going home. I quote him extensively in my book. His (book) name is
Kamal. You may want to scan for him. (He's indexed).

Take care and good luck in your work. I know you have a great
contribution to make to the field, and that the areas where you've
experienced pain can become the source of your most powerful insights
and of your most powerful writing too.
Marie