April 23 readings

Chapter 7 summarizes some of the factors that affect L2 classrooms and L2 learning. It reminds teachers that L2 classrooms don’t exist in isolation and that it is influenced by outside forces that could either alienate students or benefit them in their journeys through learning the English language. One factor is the extent and importance of multilingualism in the sociolinguistic context (i.e. in the country and within the classroom’s/local speech community). The chapter advocates the tailoring of English in certain contexts. Within a country that has diglossic societies—in which people choose different languages for different domains—the importance should be in “designing English learning environments that support the development of bilingualism rather than monolingualism. What is needed is a productive theory of bilingual teaching and learning that recognizes the various ways in which English is used within multilingual communities, and the specific purposes learners may have for using the language” (McKay 181). Another factor that influences L2 classrooms is the official recognition/placement of English. For example, in countries that places English as one of the official languages, English becomes one of the medium of instruction or as a subject taught in the educational system. In diglossic communities where English is the medium of instruction, students typically learn a more standard form of English; in English as Subject context, on the other hand, students are being exposed to and acquire a more colloquial form of English. Due to this difference, one could assume that students exposed to English as Subject situations will have an advantage in natural interactions or that they’d have ore “street-smart” knowledge of English. The students exposed in English as Medium situations would have an advantage in or knowledge for standardized tests such as the TOEFL or in writing contexts. Another factor that influences L2 classroom is English standards. In multilingual communities that foster macroaquisition, it is inevitable for ENlgish to be influenced by other languages in the community and this influence would result in new lexical items, new pronunciaitnos, and new discourse styles. It is important not to see these changes as “errors, interlanguages, or fossilized forms of incomplete acquisition of Standard English, these forms of World English need to be seen as languages in their own right” (182).

April 9 readings

One of the notions that Farr and Song discussed was the “close alignment of an ideology of standardization with an ideology of monolingualism, as exemplified in both England and France” (652). Although I’ve learned about these ideologies, the connection hadn’t been explicitly stated until I read the article. There’s a lot of implications that the connection implied, both positive and negative. One of the positive implications is that the standardization of a language means there could be one language that a group of people can rally behind and could identify themselves with. It also means that there’d be less confusion in what language a society would use for official, educational and economic matters. However, there also negative connotations. One of the negative implication is that “the pairing of nationalization and language standardization yielded an ‘ideology of contempt’ toward minority languages and dialects, which turn contributed to the disappearance of ‘small languages’ worldwide” (652). For example, some of the younger generation such as students wouldn’t see the point in learning any of the other languages that the country has since they won’t be used in the society anyway—some of them wouldn’t see the value of learning another language. The Welsh language, for example, in UK wasn’t being used until the educational system forced the students to learn it. However, even with this process, the some students feel hostile at learning a language that they won’t even use even if it was their heritage language. Another negative implication that the connection carries is that there’s no room for appropriating a standardized language by a previously existing language (such as AAVE). Vernacular usage and code-switching are seen as diluting a language and people who have appropriated the language can’t find a corner for themselves in the society or find themselves suddenly without a voice. This is especially captured by Herder who said “by making language seem faceless, decontextualized, abstract, and socially and historically disembodied, practices of purification could imagine Others by virtue of their…failure to speak this language of the modern subject” (652). Minority languages thus become the abject of a society that advocates in monolingualism; it becomes something that taints the standardized language. Instead, it is transformed into an unincorporated cultural body.

However, Farr, Song, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng also stress the fact that not all societies believe in monolingualism; that more and more, local agents recognize the importance of and the need for bilingualism. There are some societies that advocate in bilingualism even though they stress the importance of having a national language, that “when local agents negotiate or challenge the hegemony of language policies in their interpretation and implementation of them, they contest the ideologies that underlie the language policies, and they acknowledge the sociolingustic reality of language use within multilingual contexts, including classrooms. In such contexts actual linguistic practices involve the creative and emergent mixing of different languages and dialects, and sometimes these mixtures become named languages themselves” (656). For example, McKay and Bokhorst-Heng illustrated how “the majority of Singaporeans use multiple language varieties in their everyday lives, depending on the particular age and educational qualifications of the persons involved, the situation, and the topic” (94). The linguistic ecology, the varieties of languages in Singapore, creates an atmosphere in which English is appropriated into a completely different language: Singapore English. And this language is not at all devalued. Instead, it acquires importance in certain domains.

chapter 2 and 3

One of the things I found interesting was that in Outer Circle countries, which had bilingual policies, rarely had bilingual programs that worked. Something always wrong happened in implementing the policies. For example, in South Africa where the language education stated that “the education sector should encourage the acquisition by all South African students of at least two but preferably three South African languages, even if at different levels of proficiency,” most of the other languages were ignored in favor of teaching and using English in the schools; Zulu, even if it was one of the first languages that most students had, was given little attention as it was thought to be a “handicap than a resource” (McKay 41). This shows one of the negative effects that English has in a global context. It’s being taught as the only language that is worth investing on, which translates as being the only language that students want to learn. McKay illustrates that this phenomena isn’t only applicable in outer circle learning contexts but also in inner circle learning contexts. In Australia, where the language policies state that there should be “provision of services in languages other than English,” which should give opportunities to students in order to learn foreign languages as well as English, it’s still an unpopular concept to the Australian students because they see no point in learning another language which doesn’t carry as much status, prestige and power that English already possessed.

I agree with the main finding that the bilingual education project had in considering the study of Philippine bilingual programs. In it, the project stated that, “English proficiency is a necessary but by no means a sufficient condition for academic success. Rather, socio-economic status and urbanization are also important factors” (McKay 45). The main thing that helped me learn English, while maintaining my first-language, was my socioeconomic status and all the opportunities that status entailed. Because I was well off, my parents were able to take me to a private school that offered more resources devoted to teaching using English and Tagalog as mediums. I also think that the teachers who were competent in English chose to teach in private schools because these schools paid more which resulted in public schools having teachers who weren’t as experienced. Moreover, the teachers who knew both English and Tagalog probably had more socioeconomic status, thus were afforded the chance to study in private schools, and chose to teach in private schools as well. All these could have resulted in the fact that public schools didn’t have teachers who were competent enough to teach English as a language as well as a subject.

There are a lot of incentives for learning English. One of them was the legacy of colonization. As we read from chapter 2, Philippines had a bilingual program as a result of it being colonized by the US. Another incentive is the post-colonial policies which seeks to redress inequality by giving access to English for the citizens. Globalization has also become an incentive for the fact that English has become a global language. For example, the status of English in India has increased because of the increase of job opportunities offered to those who know English.