Week 15: Globalization and Language Teaching

To start off with this week’s discussion, I found most of the key ideas that caught my attention were from Kubota’s article on globalization.  I felt he carefully explained this concept as “an increased local diversity influenced by human contact across cultural boundaries as well as speedy exchange of commodities and information.”  He then continued to explain Japan and its situation regarding this concept and compared globalization to being like Americanization.  This was interesting to me because it made me think about any other country that other countries try to become similar to.  I think that each country has its own unique characteristics that make them fascinating and until I went to Europe I never really noticed how much of an influence American culture has on the world.  It then made me wonder if companies like Starbucks and McDonalds were somewhat of a combined effort of ideas from other countries or if America really took the reins and other countries just bought the franchise. 

The quote from the Japanese manager of a McDonalds, “if we eat McDonalds hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white and our hair blonde” made me wonder how he intended for this quote to come out.  In a sarcastic sense, it is humorous obviously because aside from weight gain, the effects of a big mac would not cause such drastic transformations on a person’s hair or skin color.  In a more out of the box analysis of this statement, if Japan accepts an American company such as McDonald’s among their culture, who knows how far that can unravel making Japanese citizens want to acquire more and more attributes from the American culture like our “white skin” and “blonde hair”.  The article also stated that this idea of globalization also causes increased nationalism.

It was interesting to ponder the fact that Japan is struggling between the promotion of English and its own nationalism.  I can see how acquiring more American ideas or customs would be an intriguing thought because it could draw more attention to their economy or even more visitors to the area but on the other hand I can see it being distressing because it may be seen as an abandonment of various characteristics of their Japanese culture.  English is often seen as a symbol of power that is superior to other languages because it is a lingua franca and enables an understanding of multiple areas of the world. 

The concept of a world English correlates nicely with the ideas expressed in Kubota’s article because it demonstrates its significance worldwide.  We’ve discussed numerous times in class about which dialect or accent should be deemed the “standard” English but the fact that there are speakers all over the world with their own unique dialect makes this idea of one uniform English close to impossible.  How would one acquire a pronunciation if it is almost impossible based on their first language?  I think that the English language has definitely brought us a long way from where we once were without a lingua franca but it’s understandable that globalization in regards to English can be a scary thought for some speakers of other languages.

Week 14: Language Variations, Language Ideologies

The word accent has been tossed around in my vocabulary be it through Spanish classes or my day to day happenings since I was younger but I never really set my own concrete definition to the word.  The book chapters defined it in a variety of ways but the definition I found most relatable to my previous thoughts is “a loose bundle of prosodic and segmental features distributed over geographic and social space.” The article then went into more depth on the main ideas of both prosodic and segmental features which really caught my attention.  The author gave various examples of words that in English may or may not be pronounced the same depending on the speaker’s residence area and even though their spellings are different.  The two words that in my opinion exemplify the Chicago accent are the words ‘cot’ and ‘caught’.  I have noticed that people I meet from California would normally pronounce these words very similarly but in my own pronunciation I say these words completely different.  I now understand how strong my accent may sound to speakers unfamiliar with this area and it is really interesting to think about how many other languages have different pronunciations.

Another concept the author mentioned was about how social identity can be marked through accents.  Through stereotypical pronunciations we can identify various race groups based solely on how they pronounce different words in English.  This may bring up some conflict in regards to eliminating the idea of race and its impact on language but I feel that it is just another indicator about how each person is unique.

Quite frankly I felt appalled by the story Lippie-Green shared about Mr. Kahakua.  Using the word “handicap” based solely on how the teacher pronounced his words was the very first thing that triggered my annoyance with the application process he went through.  I recently participated in a research study about teachers whose native language is something other than English and it pointed out numerous things to me.  I was asked numerous questions but the one that stood out to me the most was “If in the future you come into a position of power and are asked to fill a position, would you hire a teacher whose native language is not English?”  My immediate thoughts were absolutely, just because someone was raised in an environment different than my own should not mean that they are automatically not qualified for the position. After further thought I began to realize the complexities of this question; although I feel that everyone deserves an equal opportunity, what if although the interviewee was incredibly qualified and would make an excellent educator, there is a chance that students would not succeed to the same level as if they were instructed by a native English teacher?

The last concept I really appreciated from the article was the concept of the Sound House.  I enjoyed the way the author painted a picture of her point when she used Meryl Streep and Eddie Murphy as her examples.  Although Streep is able to speak in different accents, she is given breaks and opportunities to refilm any scene she may not exhibit her best use of the accent.  While Eddie Murphy on the other hand was brought up in a Sound house that enabled him to be exposed to both African American vernacular as well as “proper” English so he was able to demonstrate a perfect accent in both accounts.

Week 13: Language Planning and Policy

The most interesting topics I found through my readings of the article by Farr and Song was te concept of the language ideology. This idea was expressed repeatedly throughout the text and I think a good summary of this concept is necessary to include in my reflection.  The concept of language ideology connects the linguistic aspects with the social aspects in which they do in the “interest of a particular, usually powerful, social position”.  Within this definition there are two different types; the belief in language standardization and of monolingualism.  Although the concept of language ideology is interesting, I think that monolingualism and language standardization are both harmful ideas that would destroy the beauty of difference on this planet.  If every person spoke the same language I would assume the next step would be converting to the same religion, belief system, cultural ways and much more that makes each person unique.  Although it was expected that this would come into affect when the world modernized and there was a rise of the European nation-states, but I still believe that it is important to stress variety in the human language system.

The article also mentions the idea that language beliefs and education are inseparable, which really puts future TESOL educators in a somewhat sticky situation.  In order to abide by the education system and its rules it is important to carry out the language policy through mass education and it turn education is itself carried out through language.  The authors expressed this idea in a much romanticized way that really caught my attention. 

I also had never understood the concepts between language policy and language planning until reading the assigned chapter.  To summarize, language policy refers to the more general linguistic, political and social goals that are referenced in the language planning process.  Language planning on the other hand is the conscious effort that linguists put forth in a community to change the linguistic behavior.  These ideas construct important decisions like to reference the example in the book in which one variety of a language is to be selected to be used for school, political documents and other official purposes.  It’s interesting to see that I have been using these ideas for all my life but never really understood there being a term for this. 

The idea of language politicking is also strongly referenced in the reading which refers to the direct bearing that language has on matters of identity, economic opportunity, social status, power and human rights.  When expanding the use and meaning of language to such important ideas it really shows the influence one’s language may have on themselves, those around them and the community as a whole. 

I was somewhat disappointed to read about the “English Only” debate because when adding the idea of language politicking it truly shows how much one’s language can impact matters of their identity and so forth.  I can understand why it may be easier for one nation to consider prohibiting the use of other languages in order to make a more peaceful country, I also think that it would be a hypocritical move for the United States to activate the English Only policy because in the colonial times not everyone spoke English and our own ancestors are from varying countries that helped build this country to what it is today.

Week 12: Multilingual Practices

The focus of chapter 2 was very interesting to me because I had never heard of the concept of the concentric circles in regards to explaining the English language.  The author indicated that the inner circle entailed students who spoke English as their primary language, the outer circle was made up of those who spoke it as their second language in a multilingual context and lastly the expanding circle which was made up of those who studied English as a foreign language.  The author also pointed out that although this diagram helps understand the different levels of acquisition, it does not address any type of variation.  For example, the book mentions the African American vernacular to be one of the variants that the system does not include which we previously determined as a class that it should be addressed as a separate dialect of the English language.  This exclusion of the dialects makes it a questionable diagram especially for those minority language groups that were not included.

I also found the comparison of the ELL classes in the United States and those from Britain to be fascinating.  It is interesting to think that two countries with the same native language to run their systems completely differently.  In Britain they do not pull students out of regular classes even if they need more instruction on the language because they argue that it causes cultural isolation and segregation.  The United States systems however do not address cultural isolation thus they encourage providing the extra guidance to ELs so that they do not drown away amongst their native speaking peers.  These ideas were then followed by the analysis of the Lau vs Nichols supreme court decision which debated the “discriminatory intent versus the discriminatory impact”.  They found that language development must occur before being placed in class which in my opinion makes the most sense.  When foreigners enter this country for the first time barely knowing the language, it can be an extremely overwhelming experience and if they were to be placed in classes where they don’t understand it can only lead to making manners worse.  For example, a new student entered my middle school from Russia but knew very little English.  He was placed among English speaking peers and did poorly in math until he was placed in an ELL class where we later found out he was a math whiz and joined the school’s mathlete team.  Examples like this are perfect evidence of how important it is to be giving students the extra help they need before throwing them into the water with no life vest hoping they can swim.  Of course the ideas of student motivation and teacher competence are both important factors that were also addressed in this section, but I really think that the idea of EL classrooms and its benefits out way the possible cultural isolation or segregation that may or may not appear.

The chapters also mentioned the term diglossia which I was unaware of before reading this section.  It is really interesting to think that there are communities that language varieties are important because they play different roles in society.  After analyzing this idea more I can understand better and even see examples in my own community that I hadn’t previously noticed.