The worldliness of English, English in the world, and English language pedagogy

Alastair Pennycook states, “English language teachers…have been poorly served by a body of knowledge that fails to address the cultural and political implications of the spread of English” (54, English in the world/The world in English). This idea underlies the purpose of this week’s readings: To determine just how English teachers have been “poorly served” and to figure out how English teachers can themselves negotiate the cultural and political implications of teaching their subject matter and the teaching methods/angles they employ.

McKay and Bokhorst-Heng’s Chapter 4 discusses the various varieties of both language planning and language politicking around the world. While these two terms – language planning and language policy – are defined differently, they are inextricably linked. Language planning, according to the text, “involves things like making decisions about the status of a language, determining a new language-in-education policy, and coining a new word” (89-90). Language policy, on the other hand, involves the linguistic, political, and social goals that course through the language planning of an entity (89). This is the same language policy concept that takes place in families, albeit on a much smaller scale than the language politicking that McKay and Bokhorst-Heng call “worldly.” We read a bit about family language policies in Dr. Kang’s research article, and we read more about it in the article by King and Fogle (2008).

McKay and Bokhorst-Heng discuss language policies on a global scale. For example, they illustrate how people in Singapore have been encouraged to become bilingual because of the international capital English can help one obtain, but the Singlish variety is denounced as inappropriate. The result, according to the authors, is that this is a form of bilingualism “that in fact tends to reinforce ethnic boundaries, with students going to segregated mother tongue classes (each with their own curriculum, developed in isolation of each other), rather than unify the different ethnic communities” (115). The situation in Singapore occurs due to a tension between national identity and internationalism (105). The language politicking is even evident in pop culture, when the Prime Minister quietly asked the producers of a sitcom to send the main character (who spoke Singlish on the program) to English school. Coincidentally, the Ministry of Education also sent 8000 teachers to school “for remedial English lessons” (107) so that these educators could help the youth learn to speak better English.

In the U.S., this division has occurred and is still occurring, just as in Singapore. The English-only movement, underscored by language policies that promote English over other languages, trickles into the classroom in the form of ideology that promotes English as the main, desired language and all other languages as having little value (non-standard varieties are “othered”). McKay and Bokhorst-Heng provide as one example the politicking in California and note four principles inherent in the CA language debates, which McKay and Bokhorst-Heng state “are echoed around the world where English is taught” (100):

1) “language was seen as a common bond unifying the nation”
2) “language was seen as a key to personal and economic success”
3) “language was viewed as a symbol of one’s ethnic identity” and
4) “language was viewed as a symbol of nationhood and good citizenship” (100).

These language policies – and the tensions underlying them – inevitably bleed into English classrooms, especially bilingual classrooms and programs. McKay and Bokhorst-Heng illustrate this relationship in the discussion of the Ebonics debate, predominantly in the Oakland School District in California in the 1990s. Faced with trying to teach students who spoke a non-standard variety of English outside of school (as well as inside school), the Board asked that Ebonics be considered a legitimate dialect. If Ebonics was viewed as a legitimate language, then the district could obtain funding for bilingual education; the Board recognized that language and school performance were strongly linked.

What does all of this have to do with teaching? Especially ESL and bilingual education? McKay and Bokhorst-Heng note “three main ways in which the designation of an official language has consequences for language learning and teaching: a) the insight the destination provides into prevalent social attitudes toward particular languages; b) the effect of approved language policies on the stated language-in-education policy; and c) the setting of linguistic standards” (114).

McKay and Bokhorst-Heng cite several reasonable, “Yes!”-producing, ideas.
• First, they cite Delpit (1998) as wondering if it is possible “to embrace both realities in classroom instruction – the reality that Ebonics, the linguistic form a student brings to school, is intimately connected with their loved ones, community and personal identity, and the reality that students who do not have access to the politically and socially popular linguistic form of Standard English are less likely to succeed economically than those who do?” (111)
• The idea of “bidialectism”: Instead of teachers trying to prevent students from using non-standard varieties in the classroom, they view these non-standard varieties as part of students’ linguistic “code”. Students are allowed to use their chosen varieties, but the standard variety is encouraged in the classroom and on school work (especially written work). McKay and Bokhorst-Heng state, “Rather than a ‘fix-something-that-was-wrong’ approach, it seeks to add to the funds of knowledge that student come with to the classroom” (116). Having mastery over other languages, dialects, and varieties is viewed as additive and beneficial.
• McKay and Bokhorst-Heng cite Kramer-Dahl (2003) as taking this idea of bidialectism even further to  an appreciation of dialect difference (117). This approach, then, is one that recognizes “the worldliness of language and a pedagogy of critical language awareness” (117).
• This idea of bilingualism as “additive” and “beneficial” is evident in the article by King and Fogle (2008) and illustrated just how much of a push toward bilingualism – or away from, or toward with language inequalities – is a matter of perspective and ideology. King and Fogle’s article looks at the impact on family language practices (parents choosing to raise bilingual children) by public discourse, extended family attitudes, and cultural identity

And, Pennycook (as many others do) calls for critical awareness as well as involvement from language teachers:

Thus, as applied linguists and English language teachers we should become political actors engaged in a critical pedagogical project to use English to oppose the dominant discourses of the West and to help the articulation of counter-discourses in English. At the very least, intimately involved as we are with the spread of English, we should be acutely aware of the implications of this spread for the reproduction and production of global inequalities.” (55)