Subjective Academics: A More Realistic Objective…?

While I do believe that the re-visioning of TESOL as TEGCOM, laid out in by Lin et al., is an admirable course to set with for the future of the field, I find that some of their other arguments, especially those by Richardson to be troubling.

When I tried to work out if the dichotomy set up by even the nomenclature  of TESOL or ESL or EFL rely on essesitalizing and othering paradigms, I realized that no matter how you dissect the rhetoric they all offer superior status to those who already have English within their cultural capital. Changing our perspective to observe World Englishes or EIL, through the Teaching English for Glocalized Communication seems to be a powerful forward thinking, and true attempt to neutralize English. My concern however, is that the approach laid out in this article will be met with great opposition by politicians who are not experts in the field.

I understand how "present day applied linguists 'objective' writing is but another example of how unequal power relations between the allegedly rational objective researcher (Self), who is constructed a capable of conducting meta-analysis and rational theorizing on the allegedly subjective researched (Other)" (297), to a certain degree perpetuates dichotomies across the board. Yet, I fear that if we move away from empiricism, no matter if it is merely an appearance, in the humanities (which has been the case for many many years, until recently, at least in literature), then in many respects the credibility of our studies may be lessen. We look to science as a space for factual evidence. Granted the human narrative, both epistemologically and cognitively may be skewed from understanding facts, or unchanging scientific laws, these gray areas of Arts Based Research seem hard pressed to create actual change in government policy.

So while I applaud these brave scholars in their work, and wish them the best, I fear that the improvements that they and I would like to see enacted in our world, may have difficulty coming to fruition.

Linguistic Ecology

This metaphor seems to be very fitting for the varied and interdependent relationships between dialects and it seems to be a necessary paradigm that should, but most often is not, recognized. Bi-dialectism seems to acknowledge and move towards a solution,y et it only appears to address "oratory" language issues.

My question then with regards to TESOL pedagogy is, are we working toward a reading/writing comprehension, or a "Standard English" literacy, or is it necessary that we teach our students how to speak standard English.

Perhaps, it comes down to the simple appreciation of dialect difference, and "a pedagogy of critical language awareness. [That] involves a pedagogy that teaches students how 'notions of facts' about language are actually 'elements of a larger narrative, an elaborate construction deployed for larger social needs and political ends, and that as such the should be question, and if necessary, made differently"(Bokhorst-Heng and McKay 117).

Encouraging students' critical awareness of their own heritage, both culturally and linguistically, will inevitably be the driving force that pushes English through its process of evolution. What we romanticize about standard English of the past, will one day be the sentiment of the "standard English" we use today. It joys me that the term "standard English" is so problematic, because if it were a stable entity then English would be considered a dead language, like latin for example, which is reliable in its unchanging form that we can apply it universally in service of other stalwart phenomena like scientific laws. The reason perhaps that there is so much quarreling about the standardization of English is that the language's future is yet to be determined. English, like any ecology is in a constant state of change, and it is this linguistic volatility that requires our constant and vigilant attention as educators.

Well, Folks, Go-on Home and Undastand Y'all Family First

I came across a very interesting yet saddening article from my hometown of Raleigh, NC this weekend titled "Raleigh has lost its drawl, y'all". And indeed it has lost it's distinctive Southern drawl. I cannot count the number of times in my travels that people have asked where my Southern accent is, if I am truly from North Carolina, and I have not been able to provide them with an answer. But apparently this is what I should be telling folks:

“There’s no question as to when the change happened, based on the birthdates of the speakers,” NCSU linguistics professor Robin Dodsworth said. “You went within the space of two or three generations from being an unambiguously Southern-speaking city to an unambiguously non-Southern-speaking city.”
If anything, people in Raleigh are sounding more Eastern than Southern, linguistics experts say. While characteristic accents linger in the rural South, urban centers along the East Coast talk more like each other.
“Raleigh has some features that other cities along the Eastern Seaboard share, and Philadelphia has, historically, been one of these,” Dodsworth said in response to a question about Raleigh’s linguistic brethren. “Also D.C., Richmond, even Charleston, to some extent.”

I would take this one step further in saying that Raleigh has undergone, via the influence of increased immigration from other linguistic regions of the US, a turnover in diglossic power. In the past, our quaint Southern dialect was once considered the H-varity, yet as more people relocated from large urban centers (and by this I mean to imply areas such as New York who bring with them a large degree of cultural capital), and the rise in international technology industry in the area, a less dialect heavy language became more prevalent. As the southern dialect began to lose dominance it also lost its H-varity status. Now, unfortunately, the Raleigh dialect, is moving into an L-varity, one that is less suited for business and government and understood as an antique.

Much of the discussion in both the Kubota and Ward (2000) and McKay and Bokhorst-Heng (2008) articles for this week call for an integration of both L-varity and H-varity into the classroom. My point in calling attention to the gradual but definitive loss of the Raleigh dialect, is that the effects of globalization on English should not exclusively be concerned with foreign-immigration, and that many distinct and historically valuable diglossia's are present in every region of our own country. When we look at the pedagogic and ethical concerns presented in both of these articles, they highlight the struggle that First Circle countries experience when creating ESL policies in primary schools. I found that most of the policies presented, as well as the solutions by the authors, still toiled with issues of Otherization.

I do not mean to have a solution for this tremendous problem, however I believe that a vital part of helping students comprehend World Englishes is to have them first understand local Englishes. Brief exposure to a WE from India that they may never experience in person does not seem that it would have lasting affects on their conception and empathy for other WE. If they were to start in their own backyard however, and could identify WE in their own community, perhaps they would more readily understand and empathize with the vast multiplicities in which English has taken shape.



http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/04/06/2806388/raleigh-has-lost-its-drawl-yall.html

English Neutrality or Ubiquity…?

"Indeed there is a constant insistence on the neutrality of English, a position that avoids all the crucial concerns around both the global and local politics of language"(qtd. in Bokhorst-Heng and McKay 3)

It seems that claiming English as a neutral linga franca of the world is a double edged sword—"a join us or die claim" if you will (ironically, this was one of the slogans used by the American Revolution when they split from England, and now we see the globalized power of the US perpetuating the linguistic hegemony of English throughout the world). I say this because English's spread has not come without an exertion of power. I find it dubious to believe that people around the world just simultaneously decided that English seems to be the best language that they could all learn to communicate together. In fact, I would argue that there has been resistance from the the first spread of English language and western culture, and there is a strong resistance to it still.

The problem however with such a global phenomena perhaps, is that English's gradual spread has grown to such a large degree that it has developed a ubiquitous presence it begins built a following that supports the dominate position it has taken in the world:

"It is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and academic conferences, science, technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports, international competitions, pop music, and advertising" (qtd. in Bokhorst-Heng and McKay 7).

My question then is: How can people resist such a hegemonic force? Or how can do we insure that the architecture and history of this power structure is made plain to see for all, no matter where they stand in relation to hierarchy?

 

Learning As Educators: It begins from the self

Ibrahim’s article raises several vitally important questions that we must consider when working as a TESOL professional. What I think is most valuable that we can take from this article however, is that we must also consider what position we hold within the hegemony. In order to understand what our students might feel/perceive us to be, we must be able to discuss and understand how our race, ethnicity, language skills, gender, economic status, etc. increase or decrease our own symbolic capital both inside and outside the classroom. Without this understanding I do not think we will be able to offer much assistance to our students in their own search for identity.

Our future students in the ESL classroom will more often than not be a global embodiment of racial identities, and without a basic awareness of the paradigms that our students face in SLA as a racialized (or marginalized) body. We have to ask:  “How do we practically combat this?” but I would add, “How do we manage our own predetermined roles as gate keepers to these racial essentialization? How do we fight against that?”

Under the Guise of Philanthropic Gesture

These chapters reminded me of a research paper I wrote last semester called, "Shortcut Pedagogy: The Incomprehensibly Irrelevant Trainings of BPO Call Center Employees", about the reprehensible corporate use of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), and how they chose to instruct EFL to their employees. This except below is specifically relating to Indian call centers:

Finding properly trained trainers is an investment with which these large multination corporations constantly struggle—whether through ignorance or unavailability it is hard to say. Even the best trainers who understand that the intercultural aspects of their pedagogy, “…are not always able to acknowledge the extent to which culture is embedded and reflected in its language(s). Corporate trainers are often in a position where they are teaching cultural awareness without the time, expertise or resources to look at any but the broadest linguistic aspects of the new culture” (Hayman 149). This fissure in the timetable created by the circumstances of businesses’ needs and the reality of proper language acquisition may be an obstacle that BPOs are never capable of overcoming.

What most new hires encounter, as did Marantz, is a trainer, “…reading from a photocopied pamphlet while 100[s] of us took notes…[and for] five hours, we sat stiffly while she recited the entire pamphlet” (Marantz 6)—a pedagogic technique that leaves no room for any student interaction, let alone the trainer presenting the information in an engaging manner.

Perhaps more appalling than the tepid lack of pedagogy exhibited by trainers, might be the poor, inaccurate, and derogatory quality of the information these businesses include in their curriculums. On the second day of Marantz’s cultural training, a twenty-minute lecture was given on “the Australian psyche”, which was described as follows:

“Australia is known as the dumbest continent. Literally, college was unknown there until recently…Australians drink constantly…If you call on a Friday night, they’ll be smashed—every time. Oh, and don’t attempt to make small talk with them about their pets, okay? They can be quite touchy about animals…They are quite racist. They do not like Indians. Their preferred term for us is…‘brown bastards.’ So if you hear that kind of language, you can just hang up the call” (Marantz 11).

How could it even be possible to approach an Australian customer contacting a call center with a single ounce of respect after this officially endorsed, audaciously crude profile has been taught as fact? This type of training is analogous to the use of Pidgin English novels to educate westerners about East Asian cultures. This use of shortcut-stereotype cultural education is a prime example of the danger prevalent for trainers to fall into playing “…the role of the ‘top-down’ imparter of information rather than allowing the participant to learn through a more typical adult learning experience of reflection, exploration and testing of new concepts” (Hayman 153). Where fault lies may be up for debate, but it is hard to argue that corporate heads are ignorant or powerless to change these pitiful excuses for pedagogy.  

Subramaniam, L. Venkat. “Call Centres Of The Future.” itmagazine. 2008. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. 

Hayman, Jane. “Talking about talking: Comparing the Approaches of Intercultural Trainers and Language Teachers.” Globalization, Communication and the Workplace: Talking across the World. 147-158. London, England: Continuum, 2010. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. 

What interests me most in Gaischi and Taylor-Mendes's articles are the examination of the the role of ESL/EFL teachers in uncovering the Biopower (a technology of power, which is a way of managing people as a group. The distinctive quality of this political technology is that it allows for the control of entire populations. It is thus an integral feature and essential to the workings of—and makes possible—the emergence of the modern nation state and capitalism, etc. Biopower is literally having power over bodies—Foucalt from Wikipedia) at play in the educational materials they use, as Gaischi notes: 

It seems opportune to make clear and available to ESL teachers how ideologies are being packaged and presented to them and how they themselves may be positioned: "People internalize what is socially produced and made avail- able to them, and use this ... to engage in their social practice" (35).

If we as teachers cannot recognize the ways in which institutions of power work to remove our agency as individuals, be it through an overt or subconscious implementation, then we also lead our students into a similar state of helplessness. While I do not believe it is our job as educators to become activists, I do believe it is our duty to enlighten our students to the forces that work both for and against them. Images in a textbook may seem harmless, yet unconsciously they work to reinforce essentialist views of culture, gender, race, locality and physicality. And in doing so, they remove agency from a population that already has little. 

When we consider English as a lingua franca, and the power that is gained from English fluency, it may become more obvious why those with power would strive to maintain their dominance. Even though, "the number of people affected by the flow of ESL teaching materials from English-speaking cultures" is in a continual and massive growth, "the fundamental link between private industry and an ostensibly philanthropic far-reaching government agency" (Gaischi 32) should not be ignored. In fact I would offer that the subtle gestures made through skewed or misrepresented cultural realities, is a deliberate, aggressive act of biopower to globalize American and British cultural and language under the guise of philanthropic gestures.

These chapters reminded me of a research paper I wrote last semester called, "Shortcut Pedagogy: The Incomprehensibly Irrelevant Trainings of BPO Call Center Employees", about the reprehensible corporate use of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), and how they chose to instruct EFL to their employees. This except below is specifically relating to Indian call centers:

Finding properly trained trainers is an investment with which these large multination corporations constantly struggle—whether through ignorance or unavailability it is hard to say. Even the best trainers who understand that the intercultural aspects of their pedagogy, “…are not always able to acknowledge the extent to which culture is embedded and reflected in its language(s). Corporate trainers are often in a position where they are teaching cultural awareness without the time, expertise or resources to look at any but the broadest linguistic aspects of the new culture” (Hayman 149). This fissure in the timetable created by the circumstances of businesses’ needs and the reality of proper language acquisition may be an obstacle that BPOs are never capable of overcoming.

What most new hires encounter, as did Marantz, is a trainer, “…reading from a photocopied pamphlet while 100[s] of us took notes…[and for] five hours, we sat stiffly while she recited the entire pamphlet” (Marantz 6)—a pedagogic technique that leaves no room for any student interaction, let alone the trainer presenting the information in an engaging manner.

Perhaps more appalling than the tepid lack of pedagogy exhibited by trainers, might be the poor, inaccurate, and derogatory quality of the information these businesses include in their curriculums. On the second day of Marantz’s cultural training, a twenty-minute lecture was given on “the Australian psyche”, which was described as follows:

“Australia is known as the dumbest continent. Literally, college was unknown there until recently…Australians drink constantly…If you call on a Friday night, they’ll be smashed—every time. Oh, and don’t attempt to make small talk with them about their pets, okay? They can be quite touchy about animals…They are quite racist. They do not like Indians. Their preferred term for us is…‘brown bastards.’ So if you hear that kind of language, you can just hang up the call” (Marantz 11).

How could it even be possible to approach an Australian customer contacting a call center with a single ounce of respect after this officially endorsed, audaciously crude profile has been taught as fact? This type of training is analogous to the use of Pidgin English novels to educate westerners about East Asian cultures. This use of shortcut-stereotype cultural education is a prime example of the danger prevalent for trainers to fall into playing “…the role of the ‘top-down’ imparter of information rather than allowing the participant to learn through a more typical adult learning experience of reflection, exploration and testing of new concepts” (Hayman 153). Where fault lies may be up for debate, but it is hard to argue that corporate heads are ignorant or powerless to change these pitiful excuses for pedagogy. 

Subramaniam, L. Venkat. “Call Centres Of The Future.” itmagazine. 2008. Web. 9 Nov. 2012.

Hayman, Jane. “Talking about talking: Comparing the Approaches of Intercultural Trainers and Language Teachers.” Globalization, Communication and the Workplace: Talking across the World. 147-158. London, England: Continuum, 2010. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. 

What interests me most in Gaischi and Taylor-Mendes's articles are the examination of the the role of ESL/EFL teachers in uncovering the Biopower (a technology of power, which is a way of managing people as a group. The distinctive quality of this political technology is that it allows for the control of entire populations. It is thus an integral feature and essential to the workings of—and makes possible—the emergence of the modern nation state and capitalism, etc. Biopower is literally having power over bodies—Foucalt from Wikipedia) at play in the educational materials they use, as Gaischi notes: 

It seems opportune to make clear and available to ESL teachers how ideologies are being packaged and presented to them and how they themselves may be positioned: "People internalize what is socially produced and made avail- able to them, and use this ... to engage in their social practice" (35).

If we as teachers cannot recognize the ways in which institutions of power work to remove our agency as individuals, be it through an overt or subconscious implementation, then we also lead our students into a similar state of helplessness. While I do not believe it is our job as educators to become activists, I do believe it is our duty to enlighten our students to the forces that work both for and against them. Images in a textbook may seem harmless, yet unconsciously they work to reinforce essentialist views of culture, gender, race, locality and physicality. And in doing so, they remove agency from a population that already has little. 

When we consider English as a lingua franca, and the power that is gained from English fluency, it may become more obvious why those with power would strive to maintain their dominance. Even though, "the number of people affected by the flow of ESL teaching materials from English-speaking cultures" is in a continual and massive growth, "the fundamental link between private industry and an ostensibly philanthropic far-reaching government agency" (Gaischi 32) should not be ignored. In fact I would offer that the subtle gestures made through skewed or misrepresented cultural realities, is a deliberate, aggressive act of biopower to globalize American and British cultural and language under the guise of philanthropic gestures.