Week 7 EFL

               My initial reaction to this topic was, “Why am I learning about English as a Lingua Franca?  I will never be teaching students who will use English as a Shuttle Language as Baker has explained.”  As I continued to read I learned more and started to think more broadly.  It may be true that right now in my education career I will not come across students who use ELF, but in the future maybe I will.  Who knows where I will be teaching and what types of ELLs I will come across.  It is important to know the difficulties these students face as well. 

                When reading the chapter by Mckay and Bokhorst-Heng I came to a conclusion.  It is not important to correct my ELL students for every mistake when they are speaking.  If I understand what they mean I can continue the conversation without drawing attention to the error, however I might repeat the sentence correctly.  If the student is able to express thoughts and comprehension is made then perfect grammar doesn’t need to be focused on.  The important thing is to maintain flow of conversation, and encourage students to talk!  The authors also talked about code switching.  This is something my colleagues and I have discussed at length.  It is really important for students to know what is appropriate in specific settings.  This is actually important for all students not just ELLs.  Many students do not understand that there is a very important distinction that needs to be made in particular settings.

                The video we watched last week about writing was very interesting.  I never even considered that writing could be so different depending in the culture.  I stand very firm with the statement “Equal is Not Always Fair and Fair is Not Always Equal.”  I guide many actions in my class by this statement.  This is exactly what the person in the video stated about writing.  Holding the ELLs to a standard of what’s good enough but maybe not perfect.  The purpose for writing is comprehension, and if that is met details can be overlooked.    Now I’ve mentioned this overlooking twice, and I don’t want it to sound like I am holding my ELLs to a lower standard.  That is not the case.  I believe it is very important to focus on one error at a time and build confidence.  Imagine how you would feel if someone picked apart everything you said or wrote and told you all the ways it could be better.  Confidence is most important, and then skill by skill can be address.  The biggest aha when watching this video is to ask your students to tell you what will be most helpful to them when looking at his/her writing.  Even at first grade my students could answer that question.  What a novel idea!  

Week 6

                As an educator I have made many of the same errors that Barbara made in the Article written by Kubota.  I too was very sheltered in my education experience.  It wasn’t until my first teaching job that I actually encountered students with different culture backgrounds.   Barbara asked her students what the difference in their country was in compared to the United States.  Without being properly educated about ELL students; this would be a common error.  You are calling attention to the differences the ELL student is seeing.  The drawback to that is the stereotyping that occurs and the overgeneralization as well. 

                I think that all educators should have ELL training in at least a basic level.  It will help students recognize differences and learn strategies to help ELL students.  It will also help make educators aware of what is beneficial and what types of things to stay away from.  How can we be expected to know what to do with these students if we’ve never been exposed to anything of this nature?

                In more than one of the articles the topic of critical thinking was questioned.  In my opinion critical thinking is learned behavior.  I am constantly challenging my students to think outside the box.  This is a skill that is continuously being worked on.  I believe that all students are critical thinkers if they are challenged and taught to think critically.   

Week 5 Stereotyping and Othering

Sometimes I feel like John, Mr. Smith’s neighbor in Holliday et. al Theme 2.  John recognized that his neighbor’s the Smith’s were culturally different than him.  John was picking up information about his neighbor by observing their lifestyle.  Things that were said and done lead John to believe the Smith’s were Amish.  His judgements did not seem stereotypical, he was simply gathering information and making a conclusion. He wanted to associate with his neighbors, but just didn’t know how.  He didn’t want to be disrespectful.  I get new students and observe them to make conclusions about their culture and personality.  While I don’t mean to stereotype or be disrespectful I do.  What is the fine line between stereotyping and gathering information to make an informed opinion about a person from a particular culture?

Kumaravadivelu talks about Asian stereotypes.  Many of the stereotypes generated about the Asian culture were only for some people some of the time.  I wonder how it came to be that people from so many different cultures are all grouped under the one Asian label?  It seems to me like that is true for every culture.  While it may seem that you are drawing upon knowledge of a student from a particular culture, most of the time you are creating a completely wrong set of ideas.  Like we talked about the first weeks of class; every person has his/her own unique culture.  This individual culture is made up of many life events.  No two people will have the same culture.  So really just learning about a student is what will be most helpful.  It is hard to do, but not forming an opinion ahead of time is actually the best practice.

Week 4 Culture and Identity

Holliday et. al used an excellent analogy “A person’s gender identity is more like gold in that it is not highly situation dependent; whereas a person’s occupational identity element is probably more like oxygen in that it is highly situation dependent.((p.103)”  This analogy sums up my beliefs.  Your identity is ever changing and is different in different situations.

I had a hard time understanding the changing definitions of Discourse and discourse.  I did find a huge similarity between the systems of discourse and the many culture groups each individual belongs to: gender, generation, profession, corporate or institutional placement, regional ethnic, and other possible identities (Holliday et. al p.111).  It seems to me that you can interchange the words discourse and culture pretty easily.  I like Hall’s statement of culture identities are like cloaks that individuals can put on or take off (p.32).  I really think this resembles my understanding of how much identity plays a role in day to day life.

I have been learning to think differently since completing the readings this week.  I never realized the complexities of language, and that it isn’t just learning how to speak the language.  There are so many things to take into account such as: frameworks, contextualization cues, inferencing, facework, social identity, and rhetorical devices.  There are so many things to learn in addition to the language in order to understand and be understood.  Hall states that a traditional perspective considers culture is treated separately from language.  I think this is more often the case and language and culture are very combined.  The example of the doctor/patient in Holliday’s Intercultural Communication book really brings to light all of the complications that can arise when communicating in a language new to you.  Wrong conclusions can be made so easily when not understanding the cultural background of each individual in a situation.  Many times an ELL is talked to as they are slow or stupid.  Doctors have made hugely wrong diagnosis’ due to a few misunderstandings.  A teacher can make this same mistake.  I learned this from personal experience.

My cousins biological mother and father lived in Mexico most of their life.  Nancy was born in Illinois.  Her mom was dying of cancer and my aunt adopted her and her two older brothers who were born in Mexico.  The boys were in ELL classes getting help adjusting.  Nancy never received any ELL services;  I assume due to the fact she was born in the U.S.A.  She was just as much of and ELL student as her brothers but was not provided the same support.  It took all the way until third grade with my aunt pushing the school to complete testing, and provide additional help.  The school thought she had a learning disability, and never took into account the fact that she was an ELL student.  After being provided the proper support she ended up skipping a grade which finally put her with students her own age. 

How many times is an ELL misdiagnosed medically or educationally due to a cultural misunderstanding?  How often does ELL lose confidence by being treated as though they were stupid? 

Hall also mentions hiatus developing through the process of social categorization in which we learn to sort the world and the people within it into groups made meaningful by large socioculture forces.  This is so problematic, but is very frequent!  How we act is responsive to contextual conditions.  These are such powerful things that are taken so lightly.