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).