Hi, Karin,
The situation you describe sounds very familiar. Suresh Canagarajah described
in his book (Resisting Linguistic Imperialism; Oxford U Press, 1999) the
English langauge learning situation in Sri Lanka in which you'll find many
parallels. It looks like with the forces of globalization (which very often
means in reality the developmenf of global capitalism--global capitals
dominating state labor markets, state language and education policies and
state economies), English has become one of the most imporant resources for
social mobility and socioeconomic advancement for many people and school
children in diferent parts of the world, although many of them might find
English a totally irrelevant or alien language in their everyday lifeworld.
And yet, their life chances (and prospects) depend a lot on whehter they can
do well in English. This is why some researchers call this phenomenon the
global domination of English (e.g., Alastair Pennycook), in the sense that
it's not English per se which has any fault but how English has become the key
to one's social mobility no matter how irrelevant (and how inaccessible)
English is in one's daily life, especially for many working class children
located in communities where they have no access to any sociocultural
activities in which English plays any authentic communicative roles.
You mentioned a lot of the constraints in these situations:
Lack of teacher training, lack of activity-based/interactive langauge
teaching/learning materials and facilities (e.g., computers, e-mail, internet
facilities), lack of English-conversed teaching staff, and so on. They all
tell us how much inequity exists in the field of education, and in this case
English langauge education in the world. So, this is both a techinical issue
(e.g., when, how and what to do with grammar teaching, communicative tasks,
and textbooks and so on) AND a sociopolitical issue: who decides on the
distribution/assignment of educational resources for these students, and in
uner-resourced states, where they can obtain the necessary resources to do
their education? It is both a state issue and a world issue. It's much more
than just a techinical, "HOW" question of langauge teaching, which the TESOL
field has traditionally taken as its major theoretical and practical
occupation. That is, not only instrumental rationality is the issue here, but
an issue of distribution of resources, of sociocultural identities (why and
how these children will be led to see themselves as bilinguals/multilinguals
and not just monolinguals trying to pass some school English tests). There's
been some recent effort in TESOL to respond to these issues (e.g., see refs.
by Alastair Pennycook, Ryuko Kubota, Joan Kelly Hall, Suresh Canagarajah, Jim
Tollefson) but these efforts are still being marginalized in the TESOL
discipline as a whole. However, there's a new journal being launched by
Lawrence Erlbaum: Critical Inquiry in Langauge Studies. Yes, much more work
needs to be done in this area.
In Hong Kong, I've been working for the past 7 years on developing local,
critical pedagogies to help working class children (whose situation very much
resembles he one you described in your message) to overcome the obstacles to
learning English (both resources, identity and motivation). It's very much an
uphill and lonely battle, given the fact that many of our TESOL colleagues in
Hong Kong are not sympathetic to critical pedagogies. They think that working
class children cannot learn English well because "they are lazy", "their
parents are not supportive", "they are not good learners" and "their teachers
are not responsible teachers". This way of individualizing the cause of lack
of school success is an easy theory to explain some very complex social
inequity issues. "Blame the student, blame the teacher, blame the familiy and
there's nothing more we can do" seems to be the argument there.
I've been feeling rather frustrated over the years and have thought of moving
out of Hong Kong, where I can find few like-minded people. However, recently
there have been more and more people who are more interested in these issues
and it's become slightly better than before. Well, I still need to hang in
there, and I draw strength from one or two of my research students, who are
actively engaged in developing more empowering pedagogies for their students.
It's like a drop of water in the sea, but better than none, and we must keep
on this kind of work, no matter how lonely we might feel sometimes.
I have written more than I intended.
Best,
Angel
>===== Original Message From mkdtostes <mktostes@uol.com.br> =====
>Ana has raised some very interesting points here, especially in relation to
the concept of play.
>In my country students can't seem to learn English at school, even being
exposed to language for about 7 years. We have problems such as 40 students in
a class; few or no resources; teachers who barely know the language themselves
and know almost nothing about the teaching/learning process; students who do
not know why they are supposed to learn English, what they are going to use
that for, etc.
>What I'm really concerned about is that in public schools, students normally
start learning the FL when they are about 11, and teachers focus on teaching
grammar. When those students get to college they complain that every year
teachers started from the 'verb to be' and even then they can barely use it
correctly.
>It seems teachers are so worried about teaching grammar aspects that they
forget to teach language. Even when the textbooks chosen contain dialogues,
different contexts, activities, what is expected from students is correct
grammar.
>Well, now some personal experience. My daughter can communicate a little in
English but normally does poorly in school tests. Some of her friends who have
English classes in language institutes cannot communicate with another
teenager in real life situations even after 2 or 3 years attending those
courses (3 hours a week). Now we need several ramifications here related to
identity, motivation, student's social milieu, participation in communities of
practice or in activity systems (or chances to engage in real-life situations
using the FL), cognitive development, maturity in the L1, mediation, etc.
>But if we are aware that our students come from a community that does not
regard FL learning as important, do not have any kind of motivation to learn
another language (not even grades in some cases); do not have access to
participation in communities of practice where the FL is used (for example,
using the Internet, chat rooms, e-mail, etc.); do not have access to cable or
dish TV, computer games; no contact with native speakers; no money to buy
books or to rent films... How can we help them then?
>Personally, I think students have to be able to do something with language,
not 'learn' a language the way it's done here. In my opinion, in the first
years there shouldn't be grammar teaching, but grammar explanations when
necessary, linked to the tasks being carried out. Then the concept of play
would apply perfectly.
>But then we would have another problem because many teachers do not know what
to do without a textbook to guide them and we would have to write new
textbooks with detailed and careful explanations. And then???
>
>Karin Quast
>mktostes@uol.com.br
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ana Marjanovic-Shane
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 3:51 PM
> Subject: RE: Thinking in a foreign language
>
>
> Hi Mike, Huong, Vera,
>
> These are difficult topics, for a letter format, but I'll try to add some
of my views: both as a "foreign" languages speaker and as someone who studies
language and construction and creation of meaning.
> (snip, snip, snip)
>
>
> Finally, one of the media that is hugely underrepresented in the foreign
language teaching and learning is play. Play is a "natural" mode for
children's learning, a true Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Play is also
one of the main places where children learn a foreign language. Observing my
children I became aware that it was their play that FIRST became spoken in a
foreign language -- long before they started using L2 with the same
proficiency in "real" activities.
>
> The closest I came to using play in learning a foreign language were those
"audio-visual" labs when we re-enacted a short situations observed in a movie.
Play is a great way of learning even for adults, and I think that it is
grossly underrated as mode of learning language.
>
> What do you think? (as Eugene would say)
>
> Ana
Angel Lin, Ph.D.(Toronto)
Associate Professor
Department of English and Communication
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon, Hong Kong
Fax: (852) 2788-8894
Phone: (852) 2788-8122
E-mail: enangel@cityu.edu.hk
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/en/staff/angel/angel_p.html
http://www.tesl-hk.org
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