Global thinking, local teaching

The ideas underlying the readings for this week appear at first pretty simple: the English language has permeated to most (but not all) areas of the world, and now those affected must decide just how to deal with this fact. But it isn’t that simple. How do people reach across borders and communicate without knowing a common language? Whose language will be the language decided upon for communication? What does that do to the power of that language and the language(s) not chosen? What happens to native languages? How do we maintain native languages and identity while at the same time attempting to participate in a global conversation? What wins out: global interests or local ones? Western or Other? And what is the sociohistorical background that helps inform all of these decisions? What are the implications? Who is given power and who is Othered? Who retains agency and who loses it?

To attempt to illustrate these issues, we were given circles. Then cylinders. Then back to circles (but remember the circles are fluid, they are permeable). And Kubota reminded us of Kaplan and his doodles, the doodles that helped him convey his ideas of the indirect (to him, illogical) way of Eastern rhetoric. McKay and Bokhorst-Heng (after deciding upon circles) did a fantastic job of clearly delineating for the reader the issues and complexities of English as a lingua franca in regards to each of the three circles:

• Inner Circle countries often view language diversity as a problem and monolingualism as the ideal. They have English, which is “the” (I would argue “an”) international language; what more does anyone need to survive in this world? some Inner Circle inhabitants would ask. Language minority students (anyone for whom English is not the L1) are seen as the outsiders. Inner Circle countries deal with providing English language support in (what “someone” feels is) the least restrictive environment (in the U.S., that would be ESL classrooms; in the U.K., that would involve mainstreaming. Oddly enough, this difference and debate sounds like one involving American students upon whom we have slapped the label “Special Ed.” Hmmm.)
• Outer Circle countries deal with the perceived or real necessity to educate all in English, but they often run into issues of how (and whether) to offer this equally to all their inhabitants. We were presented by the authors with studies of both South Africa and the Phillipines, with South Africans appropriating Zulu as a less-accepted language than English while the people of the Phillipines attempted to maintain some sort of national language, with the accompanying/interplaying cultural identification, while acknowledging that “necessity” (due to colonization) of incorporating English.
• Expanding Circle countries deal with more local issues, such as motivating learners and finding competent (and confident) teachers of English in the face of often-stringent ideas by top-down edicts. In this discussion, we were presented with Bonny Norton Peirce’s social identity and investment theories, although (unfortunately and disappointingly) McKay and Bokhorst-Heng never mention the difference between “motivation” and “investment” when discussing integrative versus instrumental motivation.

So many language policies. But so many different languages, and so many different attitudes. And then we come to Kubota (discussing English language learning in Japan), and – in examining ideas and attitudes of English language policies in Japan – we realize that there is no easy answer. Here, sociohistorical factors continue to affect language attitudes and policies, in often a dichotomous way. Always in tension, Kubota says, is nationalism versus Anglicization. She begins the article having us think of this triangle (ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity; English/Anglicization; nationalism) as an equilateral triangle, all “pulls” and “pushes” being equal. In the end, though, she explains that this is more of an isosceles triangle, with English/Anglicization (kokusaika) and nationalism pulling on diversity, each with its own “direction” of language ideology and leaning.

Triangles, circles, cylinders (ok, we can let the cylinders go). But it is all very confusing, so very confusing that it makes my head hurt to try to think of the application of all of this to TESOL, to teaching.

However, my confusion and bewilderment as to “What do I do with all of this?” was answered with McKay and Bokhorst-Heng’s invocation of Kramsch and Sullivan’s (1996) “contention that the most appropriate pedagogy for teaching a global language is one that is based on global thinking but local teaching” (McKay and Bokhorst-Heng 2008, p. 53). This should inform our practices: global thinking, local teaching. Taking our students’ individual situations, attitudes, motivations, into consideration, and informing that consideration with what we’ve learned ourselves, is what we should take from this.

EFL/ESL Textbooks: Enhancing or Inhibiting Intercultural Competence?

“I’ll take your car in to the service station,” my husband said to me as he left for work, dressed as usual in his suit, tie, and dress shoes. The odometer on my Honda had just turned over 90,000 miles and, at the same time, the heater went out. And it needed new brakes. And new tires. I wondered why my husband was offering to deal with my car, as I knew he had a busy day planned. Then it hit me: While he doesn’t know much more about cars than I do, the people at the auto center were much less likely to pull a fast one – to insist upon unnecessary repairs – if he, a male in a suit, took the car in instead of me, a female in a cardigan sweater and jeans.

****

Flash backward five years, and I’m calling my husband to vent in frustration. Two weeks earlier, the same Honda had been parked on a street as I was going into a business. I had just reached the entrance to an office building when I heard a sickening crash. Someone had backed into my car as it was legally parked on the street. For weeks I’d been dealing with the other person’s insurance company to settle the claim, but they’d been holding out, continually telling me that they were still not ready to find their policyholder at fault. The damage was estimated at nine hundred dollars, and so I was desperate to get the claim settled and get my car repaired. “Let me see what I can do,” my husband said. And with that, he called the insurance company, introduced himself (as the co-owner of the damaged car and as an employee at a rival insurance company), and asked to speak to a supervisor. When he and the supervisor arrived at an impasse, my husband quietly said, “This is unfair. Your policyholder is at fault. Would you like me to report this to the Department of Insurance?” I had a check for the estimated damages within two days.

****

In both of these instances, my husband had to “rescue” me by dealing with situations in which his position as a male (and, additionally, as one dressed in a suit and having a white-collar job) provided him more power than I was able to muster. It irritates me, as I’m independent and do not want to be in a position of needing help, just because I’m a female. In both instances, my husband’s help was motivated more by the fact that he had a financial interest as co-owner of the car than by the fact that I was a damsel in distress. Oddly enough, I doubt he’s ever perceived me as such, as I’m so fiercely independent and he doesn’t view women as subservient or less than capable of anything a man can do. Unfortunately, due to stereotypes (and our shared ignorance of automobiles), he had to step in.

Visual rhetoric and loaded gender stereotypes imply heavy meanings, due to values placed upon them. The readings this week challenge ESL textbooks on the visual rhetoric they include in illustrations and photographs. Giaschi’s article examines  thirty-five images in what he considers “successful” ESL textbooks and finds the visual rhetoric loaded with powerful male and not-as-powerful (often subservient) female figures. In analyzing these images, Giaschi applies a modified version of Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which Giaschi calls Critical Image Analysis. Giaschi encourages ESL teachers to use Critical Image Analysis to assess visual rhetoric in ESL textbooks to discern images that may subliminally purport a rhetorical agenda of a dominant group or ideology over a less-dominant one.

Taylor-Mendes’ article also discusses images in ESL/EFL textbooks, but adds the focus of racial stereotypes. As a White woman from Canada (married to a Brazilian male), Taylor-Mendes states that the interview study she conducted of Brazilian students in Sao Paulo learning English as a Foreign Language “led [her] to view EFL textbook images, [her] students, and [her] position in the world in an entirely new way” (65). I found this study interesting for a few reasons. While her study builds upon Giaschi’s Critical Image Analysis techniques, the White participants were more likely to notice the lack of images including minority people or those of color (74). Another point upon which this article interested me is that it demonstrates that these participants were sensitive to these images as depicting race based on continent, ignoring the concepts of migration, immigration, and colonization as hybridizers (75). The images, in Rivaldo’s words, did not “bring a new way of viewing these countries” (75). Taylor-Mendes found, through her interviews, that the visual rhetoric of the ESL/EFL textbooks her participants interacted with presented images showing “a monocultural appearance divided neatly by continent,” and that “this kind of world has never existed” (77).

Based on her study, Taylor-Mendes asserts that “it is important for teachers to consider the images present in English-language textbooks prior to entering the classroom” and that “teachers not only need to draw attention to the content of the image, but they also need to initiate discussions about the issues that the image implies” (77). Additionally, teacher-educators should strive to place pre-service teachers in pre-teaching situations (during clinicals?) in which they are the racial and/or linguistic minority so that these teachers “develop a greater sensitivity to race and power” in order for the teacher to appropriately guide discussions within the classroom with EFL/ESL students regarding the visual rhetoric in their textbooks. At the very least, EFL/ESL teachers and administrators need to evaluate textbooks themselves and choose those that paint a more fair and accurate reality of English-speaking communities (78).

One odd detail I noticed about this study was that, even though Taylor-Mendes reports that “at the end of the study, nearly all of the participants felt that it was [her] responsibility as a researcher to take the necessary steps to improve the images in their EFL texts” (77), several of the participants failed to continue the study (71). I realize that this probably had to do with time and geographical space issues (as Taylor-Mendes reports she had to leave the country). However, I’m wondering why the students were not more invested in assisting with this study after the gravity of some of their comments.

The Hinkel chapter (11) by Cortazzi and Jin addresses the different types of rhetorical-cultural positions taken by EFL/ESL textbooks and ways in which EFL/ESL teachers can evaluate these textbooks (the authors discuss strengths and weaknesses of various checklists published for this purpose). [This makes me wonder about the Spanish textbooks I learned from last year. The images and rhetorical angles were primarily those of the target culture(s). I was assumed to be an American who spoke English, learning Spanish in order to travel to Spanish-speaking countries and to possess a rudimentary knowledge of cultural practices.] Within the discussion of these positions are evaluations of different types of textbooks. One type of EFL/ESL textbook is based on the source culture, one is based on the target culture, and one is based on international target cultures (ESL/EFL textbooks that demonstrate cultures in which English is not a first or second language but rather an international language). Within these types are open texts and closed texts; open text invite reader participation in the form of interpretation, elaboration, and discussions. Closed texts shows images of cultures that are meant to be unchallenged as they are meant to reinforce the stereotypical images and beliefs that the readers already hold.

Asserting that teachers are “’ambassadors of culture’” (Nayar, 1986; quoted in Nelson, 1995, p. 30; quoted in Hinkel, Chapter 11 by Cortazzi and Jin, p. 210), Cortazzi and Jin put responsibility on teachers to ensure that their students acquire intercultural competence, that they learn to negotiate meaning and identity within other cultural contexts when they are learning a second or other language (here, in EFL/ESL contexts) (p. 210). Thus, evaluation checklists of textbooks need to reflect this goal, teachers (and students) need to serve as researchers of the textbooks they utilize and critically evaluate them based upon their cultural content, and teachers and textbook publishers need to strive to enhance students’ intercultural competence by developing and utilizing textbooks that further this goal (Cortazzi and Jin in Hinkel, 217).