Chapter 5- Week 14

I thought that chapter Five of McKay & Bokhorts-Heng was very stimulating. This chapter dealt with the linguistic diversity of present-day English use and the debate regarding the teaching of standard English and weather or not there should be a standard way of English language. The beginning of the chapter started off by discussing language variation and how macroaquisition has resulted in language hybridization. “These processes of hybridization have resulted in not just the development of different varieties of Standard English between countries, but also varieties of English within countries, (McKay 1125). Three different models were given to explain the various forms of language in variation. Bickerton’s model was the first defined, followed by the diglossic model, and finally the expanding triangles model. All of these models had the intent to describe a pluricentric view of English. Their purpose is to show that there should not just be one Standard form of English against which all others are measured.

     The chapter also touched on why it is important to call of these variations of English, “World Englishes” rather than “New Englishes.” Reason being is because calling variations of English “New Englishes” in comparison to “Old Englishes” can give way to unintentionally giving distinctions between power. The term “Word Englishes” is better because it tries to encompass all languages as equal without any of them being the specific reference point.

     “Nonnative English speakers created new cultural-sensitive and socially appropriate meanings-expressions of the bilinguals creativity-by altering and manipulating the structure and functions of English it its new ecology. As a result, English underwent a process of acculturation,” (128). This process of acculturations brought upon variations in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary/idiom, and discourse style. There were issues with the idea of variations of English. Some people were against it because they believed that it would lead to a lack of intelligibility among speakers. Randolph Quirk was against the idea of variations of an English language and said that it could be educationally damaging. Braj Kachru, on the other hand didn’t believe that variation would allow a lack of intelligibility, rather would promote an educated variety of English in which people that speak various varieties of English would be able to understand each other.

     Overall I think that it is very important to take all forms and variations of language into account. I do not think that there is or will be a specific standard English that people from all parts of the world will use. I really liked the following quote because ultimately it is true. It states, “Acknowledging language variation, understanding the processes of language variation, and accepting a pluralistic model of English language norms are thus key to effective EIL pedagogy,” (McKAy146). As a future teacher, I think that it is essential to be respectful to all students, regardless of how well or different their English is.  I agree that there should be a pluralistic model of English norms. Furthermore, I agree with Kachru and think that allowing a variety of linguistic norms would lead to an educated variety of English that would be intelligible across the many varieties of English.

Week 13

Chapter four talked about the importance of lesson planning and how it affects the notion of language politicking within historical and social circumstances. It is important to understand the dynamics of language planning because it affects all of us in several ways. The government is involved in the decision-making when it comes to deciding on the variety of a language and also when choosing the national and official language. Once a language is chosen, it goes through corpus planning, which is the script, grammar, spelling, and so forth, of a language. Regardless of which form of English is adopted, the government is involved in the language planning and policy activity of it all. As future educators we should be aware of their decisions because they have a direct implications for education. 

Chapter Four also talked gave various terms such as the difference between national language and official language. A national language represents the national identity of a country. The official language is a language that is given unique legal status in the country. For example, it used for government administration and law, media, and as a language of education. 

Furthermore, it introduced us to language planning and language policy.

It is important to understand the differences between the two terms.

Language policy “refers to the more general linguistic, political, and social goals underlying the actual language planning process,” (Deumert, 2000, p. 2000) whereas Language planning “refers to all conscious effort that aim at changing the linguistic behavior or a speech community,” (Huagen, 1987, p. 627 in Deumert, 200, p. 384).

Within language planning, there are various distinctions that have to be made such as making “decisions about the status of the language, determining a new language-in-education policy, and coining a new word.”

Furthermore, language planning goes far beyond these points and “has a direct bearing on matters of identity, economic opportunity and social status power, human rights, and so forth,” (91)

Language politicking captures the worldliness of language in the context of language planning and policy activity, it displays how both language and power are intertwined. The chapter gave to examples, which were Singapore and United States. Singapore is very multilingual. They have multilingualism at the national level and “English-knowing” bilingualism at the individual level. Higher levels of government control the language in education planning. On the other hand, the United States has no centrally controlled language policies. Its dominant language is English. One of the debates that has been an issue lately has been bilingualism. Discussions pertaining to the question of what form of bilingual education is adequate and what the role of languages other than English should take in education and society.

As a future bilingual elementary education teacher, I think that bilingualism is important and necessary for various reasons. It is very beneficial for the students because they are perfecting their first language while also learning English at the same time. Research shows that the more a student knows in their first language the more that he/she will succeed in their second language. Reason being is that they have the concepts of the words down in the L1 so it will make it easier for them to understand it in their L2. Furthermore, bilingualism will not hinder, or “impede” the students’ proficiency in English. 

Week 12

For this blog, we read CH 2 and 3 of McKay. There were a lot of important terms and practices used throughout these two chapters. I was very interested in Kachru’s model of concentric circles of English speakers. There were three concentric circles, which were, the inner, the outer, and the expanding circles. The inner circle focuses on English as the primary language. Places such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany are considered Inner Circle. Within this inner circle, “individuals that do not speak English are referred to as language minority students,” or “English Learners,” furthermore, “ these students include immigrants, refugees, and long term residents who come from non-English speaking homes.”(McKay 31). Within the inner circle, the Swann Report by the Department of Education and Sciences strongly encouraged mainstreaming, meaning only focusing on learning English and not learning other languages. They believe that learning other languages, other than English, will hinder learning English.

The outer circle is when English serves as a second language in a multilingual country and one in which English is one of the officially recognized languages of the country. In these countries, people frequently use English mostly in social contexts outside the homes. Some of these places include, India, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Finally, the Expanding Circle is the last circle of Krachu’s model of concentric circles. This circle is when English is studied widely as a foreign language. It is more of a want rather than a necessity to continue studying English. There are a lot of problems motivating the learners. Furthermore, many teachers lack English proficiency and lack confidence in the language and teaching. Some places that would be examples of Expanding Circles are China, Germany and Korea.

These differentiations between the uses of English languages are very interesting to me. I think that these circles are good representations of the various uses of English. Both Chapter 2 and 3 show how multilingual speakers use English for specific purposes. Various factors influence how much of a second language that an English as a Second Language Learner learns or cares for learning. Some examples of these factors are seen as domains, such as the family itself, religion, location, education, government, etc.  I do also believe that economic status is another factor that ties in with the willingness to learn English as a second language. In chapter three we see that English is seen as a dominant language and one that is associated with making money, having better paying jobs, which results in a higher overall income.

I liked how the chapter also went over how it was unconstitutional to place English as a Second Language learners or English Language Learners in classrooms that have teachers that only speak English. As a future bilingual teacher I have read about the negative affects that can contribute from situations such as these. It is important for there to be bilingual programs. It not only can benefit the ELL students but also any monolingual student can also learn a second language as well. Furthermore, it will make all students aware of the fact that there are other ways of speaking and although English is the dominant language, it will also make them aware that it is important to take other languages in account because eventually in their future they will come across paths with someone that does not speak their language. 

Week 11

This chapter focuses on how and why the use of English has spread throughout the United States and the other countries around the world and how it has affected the use of English and other languages. Two terms that affect the use of language are forced language and voluntary language. Forced language happens when populations have to learn the language of the conqueror, whereas voluntary language is when people acquire another language for the benefits they believe that they will acquire from learning this new language. Both of these types of shifts have contributed to the widespread growth of English (Nettle and Romaine 2000). I believe that the voluntary language goes hand in hand with globalization because people have a desire to learn English because of the benefits they will receive from it. There are some people that see globalization as a positive effect on people however there are also people that believe that globalization can have a negative effect on people. Because of globalization, there is a need to have one dominant language that everyone can communicate with. This language is English. Some people view the spread of English as leading to a homogenization of world culture. For those that are proponents of the homogenization and globalization, they believe that having one dominant language will make it easier to communicate with people of various parts of the world. People that are against it believe that homogenization is a negative aspect of globalization, “reflecting imperialism and colonization and leading to the loss of other languages,” (Nettle and Romaine 2000). The reason for which colonialism and colonization are embedded in globalization is because according to Pennycook, they are key factors that played a role in the spread of English. “Colonialism fueled a discourse of the insider and outsider, or the Self and the Other, in which the native Other was often portrayed as “backward, dirty, primitive, depraved, childlike, feminine and so forth” while colonializers, their language, culture, and political structures were seen as “advanced, superior, modern, civilized, masculine, and so forth.” This lead to the use of more native speaking teachers to teach English in the classroom. The negative to this was that people could lose their first language in hopes to trying to acquire their second language.

I believe that globalization has both a negative and positive affect on peoples lives. Just as in the examples that were given in the chapter, there are many people from other countries that are focusing on learning English because they believe what they read in narratives, or see in the media. They believe that learning and knowing English will allow them to progress in their education and economically speaking as well. But to what cost? Some people focus so much on English that they forget their first language altogether that can eventually result in the loss of their culture. As a future teacher, I think that it is important to focus on both languages and not just eliminate the first language altogether. With the loss of language, comes the inability for the students to speak with their elder family members, which can cause them to miss out on learning about their culture, family traditions and identity. Instead, it is important to focus on both languages and not saying that one culture is more important than the other.   

Week 8

This article was about a study done in Brazil to see how the various images in EFL textbooks can shape the way students and even teachers portrayed their thoughts about foreign language culture. These texts had a heavy content of predominantly white people portraying the dominant society, whereas minorities would be represented in a way that makes them look inferior or just not that well off as white people. Furthermore, the textbooks mostly represent the men being more dominant than women.

After looking at a picture, Marcio, one of the participants, said “This picture where there is a man and a woman, a couple ... probably they have a lot of money or a good position because it's a kind of picture that only who has money want to have, okay: the man standing behind the woman and using a suit and tie. And I don’t like this kind of picture, really. Probably one day if I will be very, very rich I will not take one of these pictures. But I think they represent power; money and status,” (Taylor 74).

In the study, participants voiced their opinion on how these pictures helped them construct a view of how America was like. “More specifically, the images equated American culture with economic and social success by including pictures of popular or successful social, business, or political figures that the students had labeled as American, although in, a few cases, the person(s) in the image weren’t always American,” (Taylor 73). Furthermore, Fatima, one of the participants, stated that the textbooks made it seem as if the United States was a places where everything is beautiful. She continued by saying that she had never read a text that mentioned violence in America. “When the books want to show violence, they show Afghanistan, show the war for example ... to me, it's ridiculous, this,” (Taylor 73).

I think that this article brought up awareness of the fact that the images and even some of the content within textbooks can be stereotypical and can construct certain views in the minds of the readers. Children start reading and watching movies at a young age and they learn what they see. If everything they see in the media and within their books has a constant pattern of, for example, white people are rich and minorities are mostly poor or not that well off then, then students will grow up having that same mentality. It is up to parents and teachers to discuss race and gender with children from the get go so that they do not grow up believing in these stereotypes. As a future teacher I will make sure to explain and discuss race in my classroom. I would try to find multicultural books that step outside of the ordinary, along with movies that do not always portray white people as the dominant culture, rather find ones that do have minorities in the lead dominant role. Another reason I think that this is important to do is because students that are not white could possibly feel left out or automatically placed into a stereotypical group because of the color of their skin or what they look like. I would stress to my students that everyone is equal regardless of color and that everyone has the same right to be a dominant role figure and live a “rich” lifestyle. I would do this by giving them examples of key leaders that are minorities and that have made a difference locally within the community and globally.  

Week 7

I found the article, “The cultures of English as a lingua franca,” by Baker very interesting. Throughout the article, Baker stresses the importance of having a fluid and diverse relationships between languages and cultures. This goes along with the definition or lingua-cultures that was presented in the text. Lingua-cultures highlight the language–culture connection and the importance of different languages and cultures in communication. It is mentioned continuously throughout the article that English is not the property to one culture or community. It is used by over two billion people worldwide and can no longer be thought that those in the inner circle, particularly the United States, are the only people that speak it. The term English as a lingua franca, or ELF, is, ‘‘a way of referring to communication in English between speakers with different first languages,’’ (Seidlhofer, 2005, p. 339). Jenkins, along with Seidlhofer, extend the definition by saying that it, “involves communication in English between participants who have different ‘‘lingua-cultures, whether they are categorized as native speakers, second language users, or foreign language users. ELF can include code switching.

Krashen also gives two different terms to make a distinction between culture and languages so that she can describe her theory of why users of English as a second language think that language and culture can be separated. She describes what both generic sense and differential sense mean. Generic sense is the idea that both language and culture are intertwined, whereas Differential sense means that languages and cultures can be separated. I agree with her belief that all languages can take on new cultural meanings while being used (in practice). This term is known as langaucultures.  She goes on to say that,

‘‘the link between language and culture is created in every new communicative event’’ (p. 185). Therefore, a language such as English will have as many languacultures as there are speakers of the language, and in this sense there is no identifiable culture to which a language is inseparably tied. Yet, Risager adds a further qualification to this separation of language and culture. She believes that at the individual psychological level, that is, at the level of an individual’s linguistic resources or competence, language and culture are again inseparable and develop in tandem based on the individual’s life experiences,” (Baker 571).

I believe that languages and cultures are interlocked and work together when someone is using speaking in either their first or second language. When I speak in my second language, which is Spanish, I believe that I tend to steer my communication through what I know from my culture. My culture and furthermore, my way of thinking impact language. When I become a teacher, I have to remember that students are going to belong to many different discourses. I have to be aware of students that could possible speak with code alterations and even code switch. I think that it easy to do either of these two when forgetting how to say a meaning of a word, or phrase in your L2 because you go back and rely on your L1.