Week 7

After doing this week's reading, my eyes were opened to how important it is to consider the sociolinguistic aspect of interaction between speakers. Like the example provided in the McKay reading, the way someone says something and the way it is interpreted is very important. In the reading, when the teacher asked the student, James, a question in which he answered with "i don't know" she took it as him not really caring about what she was asking. In reality, within the African-American community, James's response was telling the teacher to help motivate and help him answer the question. In hand, the reason why the teacher took it differently is because of the fact that she isn't from this community. When it comes down to teachers dealing with students from very different and a diverse spectrum of communities, it is important that we are knowledgeable on the different ways things are viewed and stated within these different communities and cultures.

Before reading, I didn't know what "lingua franca" meant, or had even heard of it. After reading Baker's article, I had a clearer idea. It's a word used to describe a "working" or "bridge" language. Baker examines the different forms of English as a lingua franca. We often look at English as being an essential language to know when it comes to several realms of education, business, and international interactions. But the basis of just knowing the English language doesn't mean that one truly understand where another one comes from culturally or linguistically. While a teacher can communicate with their student, and they get the idea that they mutually understand each other on a language basis, are they truly understanding one another on a deeper level? As Baker states in his article, "learners of English are not learning to join a single language community, but are 'shuttling between communities' between the local and global, in which variety of norms and repertoire of codes are to be expected" (572), it goes to show how L2 English language learners may feel when learning and adjusting to this new culture. It's important for us to be aware of how these learners may be viewing these codes on their local and global levels, and it's important for us to let them keep their cultures, codes and ideas.

As far as Marra's study, I find studies done in the workplace very interesting because second language learners as adults and in the workplace may have a particularly difficult time adjusting. I know my dad went through a similar difficult experience because the English he learned was different than that of the "standard" English here in the US.

Thoughts: Do you think there is a "standard" English that second language learners should be learning in order to interact "correctly" with their peers whether in an academic or work setting?

Week 6

                “Cultural Assimilation and it’s Delusions” got me to think from the beginning when he was explaining what the Ford company did with the immigrant workers they hired “helping them assimilate American cultural beliefs and practices, including ‘table manners’ and ‘the care of their teeth’ (65). I was a little bit offended that the Ford Company thought that their new employees did not know how to do those simple things just because they were immigrants. I think that they indeed do know how to care for their hygiene and they have their own table manners, but the company thought the employee’s way was incorrect simply because it was not the “American Way”.  The rest of the reading talked about the concept of assimilation and how different people view it when it comes to assimilating to the American culture. When Kuma talked about the way Peter Salins views assimilation to the American society I was shocked by the three things he wanted people to do to become truly assimilated, “As per this contract, immigrants "would be welcome as full members of the American family" if and only if they (a) accept English as the primary language, (b) take pride in their American identity, and (c) live by the Protestant ethic” (67).  I do not think anyone needs to give up their first language to live in America, I do believe that they should make an effort to learn English because it will make life easier in the long run. I also think people need to take pride in America, but they do not need to lose or lower the pride they have for their homeland in order to live in this country. The Protestant ethic does not coincide with everyone’s beliefs and therefore I do not believe that in order to be a true American that one needs to have the same beliefs as everyone else. I think one of the things that makes our country so great is all the diversity it has to offer and if everyone assimilated to the way Salins thinks we should, then America would not be what it is today and the culture would be completely different.  

 In “Problematizing Cultural Stereotypes in TESOL” he talked about how even though the TESOL community is supposed to be away from stereotyping the students and learners there are still some stereotyping going on particularly in the Asian community.  The stereotypes that are given to Asians are not just in the TESOL classroom, but in the academic setting in general. People think they are anti-social with class interactions, are very obedient to authority figures and they do have good critical thinking skills. Those generalizations can be very offensive to anyone and we need to learn to step away from them and look at every person as an individual. 

Week 5

Week 4

In this week’s readings, more about identity was discussed and looked at. We had three different readings, one was from Holliday’s book, the other from Hall’s “Language and Identity” and Norton’s “Social Identity, investment and language learning”. These were all very interesting texts in different ways. There were two particular things from what I read this week that really stood out and caught my attention. One was the different factors that Holliday discussed in his book. The other was in the Hall’s reading when talking about second language acquisition.

Starting with what caught my attention in Holliday’s part of our assigned readings is the different factors that play in the identity of people and much they play a role through our communication by talking and writing. As stated in Holliday, “Our sense of self is achieved through our capacity to conceive of our own lives as a unity and this in turn is a result of our capacity to tell the story of our lives.” This type of language is through narratives and storytelling, and this kind of realization of identity will be shown about us through our own trajectory projects. When we write a personal narrative, we are releasing information to the world about what makes us who we are. What shape us are our experiences and views of world and these help shape what we see as “acceptable” and “normal” and everyone’s interpretation of this is different. With this, there are different “discourses” in which an individual will choose which discourse to use depending on their environment, and sometimes this may also be misinterpreted by who is surrounded by the speaker and their thoughts.

There’s more to identity than just this though. In Norton’s article, there was a particular situation that caught my attention. The situation involved an immigrant, Eva and her discussion with The Simpsons.  As states above, part of our identity has to do with our language and speaking it. She was judged right away and classified by her classmates just because she didn’t know about Bart Simpson. Because she didn’t recognize who this cartoon character was right away, she was looked at as a poor language learner. In my opinion, knowing and not knowing a particular cartoon character shouldn’t be a basis of deciding whether someone is a good or poor language learner. Another quote that was referenced in Norton’s article that I found very intriguing was, “’Language is the place where actual and possible forms of social organization and their likely social and political consequences are defined and contested. yet it is also the place where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity, is constructed’” (21).  I agree with this in part but I also believe that there is more that factors into it.