When I started to read chap. 4 of Kuma’s book, it reminded me of some bad memory, because one of my friend was died by ‘the crash of Korean air Flight in Guam in August, 1997’. And I was so shocked to know the Seattle Times’ interpretation of that accident, which was reported the co-pilot’s deference to the captain pilot’s authority, in other words, the Korean cultural factor as the crucial crash reason. It meant my friend was died by our traditional culture. I couldn’t believe it. It’s non-sense. What kind of idea (stereotype) do they have on Asian people?
In 2003, I audited one of Asian American Studies classes in UCLA. One of Asian American students said her routine happening on the bus to the class. In Los Angeles, California, there is a good transportation system. So many tourists and international students usually take the bus as their transportation for the sightseeing or going to school . One day, on her way to school, one old white man sat on her next and asked to her, “Are you a student in UCLA?” “Yes.” “What’s your major?” “(she answered for that question)” “ Oh, interesting, in that part, what do you specifically study?” “(she explained what she studied in her classes)” “Oh, by the way, your English is very good. Where are you from? “ “ I’m from here” “Of course, you are from here. You are a UCLA student. But you know what I mean. What is your original nationality?” “I’m American.” “ No, you don’t understand what my question is. My question is ‘where are you and your family from?’ ” “I think you don’t understand my answer for your question. I’m American. And I think you speak English very well, too.”
In related to above happening, a similar but different happening happened to my husband. A few years ago, he worked for the English department at one of universities in Korea. When he went to the department office to make some copy for class, he met a newly-employed native speaking professor. They shook hands and talked. A few minutes later, the new professor said to him, “ You speak English very well. Where are you from?” The question made my husband embarrassed but other people including several secretaries and other native speaking professors in the office bursted into a laughter. When my husband answered for that question with “Oh, .. I’m from here, Korea”, one of other native professors said, “Hey, Steve(my husband’s English name). Don’t be confused. It’s a kind of the best praise for your English proficiency.”
Both happenings above show a way of NS’s typical thinking on NNS English (speaking) proficiency. The new professor and the old white man have a stereotype- NNS have a deficient competence on English. By that reason, they were impressed by coming across NNS people (they think) with good English.
I think the first one must be considered as the more serious problem than the second one in terms of ‘why the old man thought the UCLA student as a NNS’. It is so obvious. She has an Asian face, skin. So the old man who even lived in LA, such a multiethnic city, misconceived her as an international student. And the basic reason for him to give her questions is that he wanted to hear some exotic stories from her. But she didn’t give them to him and even she was above his expectation. So he tried to find out his desirable answer from her by continuing his questions to her about ‘original nationality’. But she gave him a counterpart as she said, “I’m American. And I think you speak English very well, too.”
This case shows that even though she is an American who was born and has lived in American society, mainstream doesn’t think her as a member of them. It means, although there have been processes of assimilation of Asian and their descendants into American society and mainstream, with the invented image of ‘the model minority’, which was made by the mainstream aiming at controlling the minority groups like Asian and African-American, there is always ‘a glass of ceiling’ and ‘stereotype’, which the minority can’t reach and change the border line of mainstream. Where, when, and how can Other, like the UCLA student and us (if we can call it), find real two-way interaction with target languge groups?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Bonny N. Peirce - "Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning" (1995)
When I read “Why a learner can sometimes speak and other times remains silent”(p.11), this question makes me think, “why do I feel uncomfortable in TESOL class in contrast to ALI class?” It’s reasonable, because the former is more formal and official than latter. But …. Is it only reason for my discomfort and anxiety to that class?” I try to look for the answer , “ I don’t have enough knowledge for TESOL, Linguistics (including Applied Linguistics)…. and so on and on….” NO! It’s just an excuse! What is the exact reason or source of my discomfort to TESOL class?
After reading B. Peirce’s article and several responses to it, I know why. I’m another Wong. I’m afraid of my errors when I speak English to native speakers(NS). And worse than ever, I felt I’m so deficient and stupid when I met non-native speakers(NNS) who speak English fluently. Whenever it happens, mostly I keep silent and just speak a little. Why do I feel like that? My questions go on and on.
At last I reached the most basic reason of my discomfort, which is related to power relations in social environment. NNS - I have thought they have the same problems as mine, but they don’t. So I think they are above me. In other words, their social positions in this society, (for example, at IUP) are higher than mine, as a teacher or a staff in school. Even if they’re just students like me, most of them are Ph. D students. Or even if they’re MA student, they have more experiences in teaching, knowledge of TESOL and Linguistics, high techniques to operate computer and so on.
For NS, I also shrink from them whenever I heard “Excuse me? What did you say?” or watch that they make a face. Most NNS may have the same experiences of mine. Whenever I speak in public including in class, I always assume most NS students think ‘how could you teach English with so weak proficiency, especially with so terrible pronunciation’. I think NS is a kind of judge to assess my English proficiency. So they are also above me.
But there is one more question. Why do I think people who can speak fluently are above me? What makes me think like that? It must be from my educations through my whole life. ‘English is the criterion of success in life’. Now, from so many research and articles including B. Peirce’s, I come to know that my social identity may be changed so my self-contempt will be gone in some day. Hopefully.
I have a question to you, NNS colleagues.
When I visited to Korea last summer, I really wanted to talk with NS in English and look forward to come back to Indiana. It means, (if you have self-contempt in using English like me) if you go back to your home countries, do you have same level of self-contempt for your English proficiency? My answer is “no”. Why? Let’s talk about it in class. I think it is also connected with social power relation.
After reading B. Peirce’s article and several responses to it, I know why. I’m another Wong. I’m afraid of my errors when I speak English to native speakers(NS). And worse than ever, I felt I’m so deficient and stupid when I met non-native speakers(NNS) who speak English fluently. Whenever it happens, mostly I keep silent and just speak a little. Why do I feel like that? My questions go on and on.
At last I reached the most basic reason of my discomfort, which is related to power relations in social environment. NNS - I have thought they have the same problems as mine, but they don’t. So I think they are above me. In other words, their social positions in this society, (for example, at IUP) are higher than mine, as a teacher or a staff in school. Even if they’re just students like me, most of them are Ph. D students. Or even if they’re MA student, they have more experiences in teaching, knowledge of TESOL and Linguistics, high techniques to operate computer and so on.
For NS, I also shrink from them whenever I heard “Excuse me? What did you say?” or watch that they make a face. Most NNS may have the same experiences of mine. Whenever I speak in public including in class, I always assume most NS students think ‘how could you teach English with so weak proficiency, especially with so terrible pronunciation’. I think NS is a kind of judge to assess my English proficiency. So they are also above me.
But there is one more question. Why do I think people who can speak fluently are above me? What makes me think like that? It must be from my educations through my whole life. ‘English is the criterion of success in life’. Now, from so many research and articles including B. Peirce’s, I come to know that my social identity may be changed so my self-contempt will be gone in some day. Hopefully.
I have a question to you, NNS colleagues.
When I visited to Korea last summer, I really wanted to talk with NS in English and look forward to come back to Indiana. It means, (if you have self-contempt in using English like me) if you go back to your home countries, do you have same level of self-contempt for your English proficiency? My answer is “no”. Why? Let’s talk about it in class. I think it is also connected with social power relation.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Presentation (Sep.14) - The Concept of Method, Interested Knowledge, and the Politics of Language Teaching (by A. Pennycook, 1989) & TQ chapter 2
The Concept of Method, Interested Knowledge, and the Politics of Language Teaching (by A. Pennycook, 1989)
1. Interested Knowledge and the politics of SLE
“all education is political”
- SLE: a complex constellation of educational and linguistic relationships that must be considered in the language teaching.
- language and language teaching are always inscribed in relations of power (political issues).
“all knowledge is interested”
* positivist (or scientist) orientation : tradition
- “the produced knowledge is neutral and objective” -> the removal of the personal and the political from the investigation of human issues -> an ahistorical and apolitical approach .
* criticism on positivist orientation
- all knowledge is produced within a particular configuration of social, cultural, economic, political , and historical circumstances -> all claims to knowledge represent the interests of certain individuals or groups” -> need to look critically at the interests, especially in relationships of power.
2. Methods in Language Teaching
What is Method?
- a product of early scientism, an attempt to delineate modes of inquiry and define problems. (p.597)
- “the term ‘method’ is a label without substance” (Clarke, 1983)
- the construction of the Method concept in language teaching has been … the attempt to validate current forms of knowledge at the expense of past forms. (p.608)
- the Method concept is ultimately prescriptive rather than descriptive. (p.609)
Criticism on Method
Feyerabend (1988) - “ the modern obsession with Method”
Stern(1985) – “…preoccupation with the new methods …. unproductive and misguided”
Clarke(1983)- Little agreement as to which methods existed when and in what order
History of language teaching
Kelly (1969) : a pattern of cyclical change
Classical, Renaissance & Modern periods: an emphasis on oral communication
Middle Ages & Enlightenment: emphasis on analysis of the written text
Adherents of the concept of Method & their offers on Method
H.D. Brown (4 methods)- Direct Method, the Grammar-Translation Method, the Audiolingual Method, the Interpersonal Approaches
Clarke (4 ), McArthur (5), Stern (7), Larsen-Freeman (8), Richards and Rodgers (8)
Chomskyan Revolution in 60s
Audiolingualism vs. Cognitive Code Method
What and how do teachers choose one method out of many?
Disparity between academic thought and textbook publication, and the knowledge produced by teachers in their daily practice.
Based on educational experiences, personalities, particular institutional, social, cultural, and political circumstances, understanding of particular students’ collective and individual needs.
3. Knowledge, Texts, Teachers, and Power
Knowledge & power
If all knowledge is interested, what interests are served by particular forms of knowledge?(p.609)
Knowledge (re)produced should be seen within its political context, and in its relationship to the political economy of textbook publishing, the hierarchical nature of knowledge production, the gendered issue of teaching practice, and educational imperialism in the teaching of English as an international language.
Texts & power
The definition and academic legitimation of methods is beneficial to the publishing industry.
Teachers & power
-Method may be seen in the context of the gradual de-skilling of the teacher’s role
-The method concept has played a major role in maintaining… a hierarchically organized division between male conceptualizers and female practitioners(p.611).
_______________________
Chapter 2 in TQ
1. Amy Cecilia Hazelrigg Reaponds:
- The demand of “those-who-do-not-nod” is a solution to the problem of teaching ESL(Method!). - Most of them are not aware that the approaches have names and specific ideologies with origins in time, place and value system.
- “the dominance of the notion of Method… has had the effect of limiting our understanding of what language teaching is all about” & “ it applies inappropriate positivist solutions to complex human issues and ignores the sociocultural context of language teaching.”
- The Method textbook : an account of the process of L2 developments, not language teaching. Ex) Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL
2. Jim Sayers Responds
- conflicts between the English and Navajo languages, and power relations between student and teacher, between home and school.
- “It’s necessary to negate the political nature of pedagogy to give the superficial appearance that education serves everyone, thus assuring that it continues to function in the interest of the dominant class.”
- Critical pedagogy is “simultaneous development of English Communicative abilities and the ability to apply them to develop a critical awareness of the world and the ability to act on it to improve matters” (Crookes & Lehner, 1998)
-Do we have to select between developing a critical awareness and ability to act (meaningful education) and taking action (the teacher as a type of educational guerrilla)?
- Compassion: one of the qualities a teacher must have
3. Alastair Pennycook Responds
- On gender issue, it’s not on literal or numerical terms but on the nature of knowledge.
- teaching and teacher education are often constructed as atheoretical domains -> need to battle this view!(Caution is needed! The argument is about the imbalance between theory and practice not about the abandonment of theoretical domains).
- no one theory is going to provide us with useful answers to the multifaceted contexts of language teaching(p. 31).
- critical work may involve as much humor, gentleness and generosity as any other pedagogy .
- How could and should we explain the normative base of Critical Theory? : It’s compassion in a sharp critique of inequality.
4. More problems of Pennycook(1989) by Pennycook
1. Filled with the voices of others
2. A bit of a theoretical hodgepodge: theoretically inconsistent
3. What does it mean to “validate other, local forms of knowledge about language & teaching”?
4. “the author gives us no principle way to choose what to teach and how to teach it” (McCall, 1990)
------------------------
Q. What is difference between Method and method, which we see Amy’s response’s title? If you choose one of them, which one do you like to pick up and why?
Q. In Amy’s review, she asks, “what will offer them a tapestry of choices for assessing their world and creating possibility through the making of meaning?” What would be your answer?
Q From which level of school or educational situation (home? kindergarten, elementary?) do we(teachers) let our students have critical view on knowledge, texts, and so on. What if they or their parents don’t want it, what do we have to do for that?
Q. Do you agree with Pennycook’s base of critical theory (compassion)? Why and why not?
Q. One of Pennycook’s questions is “how long does it take for us to start to sound different form the voices that people the texts we read? “ How long did/will it take for you to have it?
1. Interested Knowledge and the politics of SLE
“all education is political”
- SLE: a complex constellation of educational and linguistic relationships that must be considered in the language teaching.
- language and language teaching are always inscribed in relations of power (political issues).
“all knowledge is interested”
* positivist (or scientist) orientation : tradition
- “the produced knowledge is neutral and objective” -> the removal of the personal and the political from the investigation of human issues -> an ahistorical and apolitical approach .
* criticism on positivist orientation
- all knowledge is produced within a particular configuration of social, cultural, economic, political , and historical circumstances -> all claims to knowledge represent the interests of certain individuals or groups” -> need to look critically at the interests, especially in relationships of power.
2. Methods in Language Teaching
What is Method?
- a product of early scientism, an attempt to delineate modes of inquiry and define problems. (p.597)
- “the term ‘method’ is a label without substance” (Clarke, 1983)
- the construction of the Method concept in language teaching has been … the attempt to validate current forms of knowledge at the expense of past forms. (p.608)
- the Method concept is ultimately prescriptive rather than descriptive. (p.609)
Criticism on Method
Feyerabend (1988) - “ the modern obsession with Method”
Stern(1985) – “…preoccupation with the new methods …. unproductive and misguided”
Clarke(1983)- Little agreement as to which methods existed when and in what order
History of language teaching
Kelly (1969) : a pattern of cyclical change
Classical, Renaissance & Modern periods: an emphasis on oral communication
Middle Ages & Enlightenment: emphasis on analysis of the written text
Adherents of the concept of Method & their offers on Method
H.D. Brown (4 methods)- Direct Method, the Grammar-Translation Method, the Audiolingual Method, the Interpersonal Approaches
Clarke (4 ), McArthur (5), Stern (7), Larsen-Freeman (8), Richards and Rodgers (8)
Chomskyan Revolution in 60s
Audiolingualism vs. Cognitive Code Method
What and how do teachers choose one method out of many?
Disparity between academic thought and textbook publication, and the knowledge produced by teachers in their daily practice.
Based on educational experiences, personalities, particular institutional, social, cultural, and political circumstances, understanding of particular students’ collective and individual needs.
3. Knowledge, Texts, Teachers, and Power
Knowledge & power
If all knowledge is interested, what interests are served by particular forms of knowledge?(p.609)
Knowledge (re)produced should be seen within its political context, and in its relationship to the political economy of textbook publishing, the hierarchical nature of knowledge production, the gendered issue of teaching practice, and educational imperialism in the teaching of English as an international language.
Texts & power
The definition and academic legitimation of methods is beneficial to the publishing industry.
Teachers & power
-Method may be seen in the context of the gradual de-skilling of the teacher’s role
-The method concept has played a major role in maintaining… a hierarchically organized division between male conceptualizers and female practitioners(p.611).
_______________________
Chapter 2 in TQ
1. Amy Cecilia Hazelrigg Reaponds:
- The demand of “those-who-do-not-nod” is a solution to the problem of teaching ESL(Method!). - Most of them are not aware that the approaches have names and specific ideologies with origins in time, place and value system.
- “the dominance of the notion of Method… has had the effect of limiting our understanding of what language teaching is all about” & “ it applies inappropriate positivist solutions to complex human issues and ignores the sociocultural context of language teaching.”
- The Method textbook : an account of the process of L2 developments, not language teaching. Ex) Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL
2. Jim Sayers Responds
- conflicts between the English and Navajo languages, and power relations between student and teacher, between home and school.
- “It’s necessary to negate the political nature of pedagogy to give the superficial appearance that education serves everyone, thus assuring that it continues to function in the interest of the dominant class.”
- Critical pedagogy is “simultaneous development of English Communicative abilities and the ability to apply them to develop a critical awareness of the world and the ability to act on it to improve matters” (Crookes & Lehner, 1998)
-Do we have to select between developing a critical awareness and ability to act (meaningful education) and taking action (the teacher as a type of educational guerrilla)?
- Compassion: one of the qualities a teacher must have
3. Alastair Pennycook Responds
- On gender issue, it’s not on literal or numerical terms but on the nature of knowledge.
- teaching and teacher education are often constructed as atheoretical domains -> need to battle this view!(Caution is needed! The argument is about the imbalance between theory and practice not about the abandonment of theoretical domains).
- no one theory is going to provide us with useful answers to the multifaceted contexts of language teaching(p. 31).
- critical work may involve as much humor, gentleness and generosity as any other pedagogy .
- How could and should we explain the normative base of Critical Theory? : It’s compassion in a sharp critique of inequality.
4. More problems of Pennycook(1989) by Pennycook
1. Filled with the voices of others
2. A bit of a theoretical hodgepodge: theoretically inconsistent
3. What does it mean to “validate other, local forms of knowledge about language & teaching”?
4. “the author gives us no principle way to choose what to teach and how to teach it” (McCall, 1990)
------------------------
Q. What is difference between Method and method, which we see Amy’s response’s title? If you choose one of them, which one do you like to pick up and why?
Q. In Amy’s review, she asks, “what will offer them a tapestry of choices for assessing their world and creating possibility through the making of meaning?” What would be your answer?
Q From which level of school or educational situation (home? kindergarten, elementary?) do we(teachers) let our students have critical view on knowledge, texts, and so on. What if they or their parents don’t want it, what do we have to do for that?
Q. Do you agree with Pennycook’s base of critical theory (compassion)? Why and why not?
Q. One of Pennycook’s questions is “how long does it take for us to start to sound different form the voices that people the texts we read? “ How long did/will it take for you to have it?
Monday, September 7, 2009
Firth and Wagner (1997) - September 7th
First of all, I’d like to get excuse on my poor English from you, colleagues.
While I had read this article, I felt lots of questions have come across my mind. I thought I knew why. Because I don’t have enough knowledge on Linguistics & TESOL. Under the cloak of that reason I had tried to console myself, whenever I faced with linguistic (academic) theories and terms like interlanguage, even though I could find the definition of them in the article. But I couldn’t understand them completely, was so frustrated and blamed my ‘incompetence’. ‘English’ in the article seemed to irritate me and say, ‘frustrate and blame yourself. You’re a FL learner & NNS! Of course you’re deficient and have many problems!’
OK, dear article, I will squeeze my energy, conquer and read you!
Oh, as I had read the article, the article seemed to say to me differently, like ‘You aren’t deficient. Your anger that you are incompetent to use English, is just from your unconscious mind resulted from your education. Why don’t you read me more comfortably? Sometimes you make misunderstanding or miss important meaning that I suggest. But it’s OK. Just read me.’ OK, I will try.
As we can see the abstract, the article suggests that traditional SLA has so many theories, which don’t have a proper critical assessment for them, and usually fail to account for interactional and social access to language. For that reason, Firth and Wagner (2006) tried to do the reconceptualization of SLA. We can see their three major changing goals in SLA in page 286.
In 1960s, there were two strands of language research in SLA (“the social-anthropological and the cognitive”), and tension between them (“an acknowledgement of the social, contextual dimensions of language… and the centrality of the individual’s language cognition and mental processes”)(p.287). But “the tension was weighted against the social and the contextual”(p.288). Authors criticized this tendency with comments on “experimental settings rather than naturalistic ones”(ibid.)
“Code-switching” (p.289) is hmmm.. Is this the same thing as matching each Korean spelling to English spelling, when I was a kid? “Meaning is negotiated” (p.290). Yes! And I think it is changed a little bit and developed by time, space and interactions of people.
For concerning with the term ‘native speakers’, I was wondering if he(or she) is 1.5 generation so he loses or forgets his ‘previous’ language, is he a native speaker? According to Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee who is a Korean- American writer and 1.5 generation, it seems that the hero(just like the author) doesn’t think he’s a native speaker. He said he’s between NS and NNS.
For Interlanguage, I don’t know what are differences among IL, pidgin, and creole. Is pidgin an IL and creole is not?
And actually I was shocked when I found typo two times in the article which may be one of the journals of authority in academic world! Did you recognize them?
While I had read this article, I felt lots of questions have come across my mind. I thought I knew why. Because I don’t have enough knowledge on Linguistics & TESOL. Under the cloak of that reason I had tried to console myself, whenever I faced with linguistic (academic) theories and terms like interlanguage, even though I could find the definition of them in the article. But I couldn’t understand them completely, was so frustrated and blamed my ‘incompetence’. ‘English’ in the article seemed to irritate me and say, ‘frustrate and blame yourself. You’re a FL learner & NNS! Of course you’re deficient and have many problems!’
OK, dear article, I will squeeze my energy, conquer and read you!
Oh, as I had read the article, the article seemed to say to me differently, like ‘You aren’t deficient. Your anger that you are incompetent to use English, is just from your unconscious mind resulted from your education. Why don’t you read me more comfortably? Sometimes you make misunderstanding or miss important meaning that I suggest. But it’s OK. Just read me.’ OK, I will try.
As we can see the abstract, the article suggests that traditional SLA has so many theories, which don’t have a proper critical assessment for them, and usually fail to account for interactional and social access to language. For that reason, Firth and Wagner (2006) tried to do the reconceptualization of SLA. We can see their three major changing goals in SLA in page 286.
In 1960s, there were two strands of language research in SLA (“the social-anthropological and the cognitive”), and tension between them (“an acknowledgement of the social, contextual dimensions of language… and the centrality of the individual’s language cognition and mental processes”)(p.287). But “the tension was weighted against the social and the contextual”(p.288). Authors criticized this tendency with comments on “experimental settings rather than naturalistic ones”(ibid.)
“Code-switching” (p.289) is hmmm.. Is this the same thing as matching each Korean spelling to English spelling, when I was a kid? “Meaning is negotiated” (p.290). Yes! And I think it is changed a little bit and developed by time, space and interactions of people.
For concerning with the term ‘native speakers’, I was wondering if he(or she) is 1.5 generation so he loses or forgets his ‘previous’ language, is he a native speaker? According to Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee who is a Korean- American writer and 1.5 generation, it seems that the hero(just like the author) doesn’t think he’s a native speaker. He said he’s between NS and NNS.
For Interlanguage, I don’t know what are differences among IL, pidgin, and creole. Is pidgin an IL and creole is not?
And actually I was shocked when I found typo two times in the article which may be one of the journals of authority in academic world! Did you recognize them?
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