Chapter 5

In Branch 5-1, Wong talked about Vygotsky's ideas in TESOL and the minority. He said that all children, whether they are "normal" or children with disabilities or from a minority, have the same capabilities of learning and should have the opportunities to participate in the educational discourse. According to Wong, Vygotsky "understood education as a tool for social transformation--for social emancipation and freedom from want." I think it's easy for us to take the easy way out--to keep the status quo and not transform our methodology to include all students, thereby preventing access to knowledge for all students. But Vygotsky said that it shouldn't be the case, we need to use education so that it is accessible to all students, whether they have disabilities or are in the minority. If given access to education, all students can use education to transform their lifestyle. The previous quote just reminds me of that saying, give a man a fish and he'll have food for the day; teach him how to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime.

Later in Branch 5-2, I heartily agree with Wong when she said we should "honor home languages and cultures, we need to bring bilingual and bicultural models into our classrooms and we need to change the climate--the culture of our classrooms, to foster respect for all languages." This reminds me of Jim Cummin's framework of language minority students in the way that he said that we should take an additive view toward the home language and cultures. We shouldn't expect our students to only speak English in the classroom because we're just merely denying them their identity. Instead, we should work so that our curriculum reflects respect for all languages.

Annotated Bibliography

Davidson, Keith. "The Nature and Significance of English as a Global Language." English Today 23.01 (2007): 48-51. Print.

In this article, Davidson states that although the use of English threatens almost 90% of the world’s many languages, people are still definitely multilingual in the way that we choose to speak English as well as our “native” languages. Davidson also points out that although English is a global language, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a standardized English out there that is accessible to all speakers. He lists the main varieties of English as: British and Irish, American and Canadian, Australian and New Zealand, African, Caribbean, South Asian, and East Asian. With so many different varieties, Davidson acknowledges that there is a certain kind of “dysfunction in international English that can arise” especially when English speakers don’t understand other speaker’s use of English from different regions. This article is helpful because it adds a certain dimension to my paper. Countries who use English don’t just accept the kind of English being given to them by foreigners. They find ways in order to make English their own.

Bobda, Augustin Simo. "Linguistic Apartheid: English Language Policy in Africa." English Today 20.1 (1999): 19-26. Print.

Bobda states that there are differences between British English and Pidgin English in Africa and this created a “British linguistic apartheid.” For example, Bobda postulates that the native English speakers didn’t want Africans and Asians to attain native-like competence and proficiency. Bobda argued that this apartheid is encouraged through “falling standards” of teaching English in the school curricula (19). This means that there’s lesser funding for schools to teach the standard British English. He argues that because of this Pidgin Englishes are developed more and more—to the point in which it becomes incomprehensible as a means of inter-communication. This will be helpful to my article because it will show an impact in which “standard” English is not being taught and how negatively it might be viewed as by other people.

Song, Jae Jung. "The Juche Ideology: English in North Korea." English Today 18.01 (2002): 47-52. Print.

This article talks about how English is taught in North Korea—one of the most reclusive countries in the known world. It states that unlike other non-English speaking countries, North Korea uses English as a means of venerating Kim Il Sung and its other leaders. This will help my paper because it shows another aspect of how English is transformed in other countries.

Qian, Niu and Wolff, Martin. "The Chinglish Syndrome: Do recent developments endanger the language policy of China?." English Today 19.4 (2003): 30-35. Print.

According to Qiang and Wolff, there are six assumptions that accompany the ESL teaching methodology in China. The first assumption is that “everyone in China needs to learn ESL” (31). For example, Beijing wants all of its residents to learn and be able to speak English so that its representation as international city will be strengthened. The second assumption is that there is only one teaching method suitable for ESOL. Qiang argues that this is simply impossible with the sheer number of population of Chinese wanting to learn the language and that one methodology will not be suitable for everybody. The third assumption is that Chinese ESL speakers can teach English even if they don’t have any cultural background. Qiang also disagrees with this assumption because teachers may not go beyond teaching the grammatical rules of English will certainly not help the students learn how to communicate in different settings. The teachers may not be able to correct students on proper pronunciation. This article will be helpful because it gives a snippet on how countries are handling their language policy to reflect their need to teach English.

#7

One of the things that were discussed from Chapter 3 was how similar the ginkgo nut was to learning. Wong said that both could be displeasing and sometimes be irksome. When someone steps on the ginkgo nut, it will release an odor so foul that someone wouldn’t be able to stand. The same thing could be said of learning. It is understandable that learning can be considered as an acquired taste. There are so many things that can be unpleasing and discouraging to a student especially when he or she is just beginning to explore the realm of learning—it make take years and hard work before the student develop the “taste” for learning.

            Learning could be an acquired taste because there are so many things that blocks a student from finding pleasure on the act. For example, the material may be too hard for the student to comprehend. Instead of trying to work on the solutions to a problem that’s too hard for him or her, the student may choose to give up entirely. He or she might not have teachers who encourage their efforts and instead highlight their mistakes, as well as understate their efforts. This environment fosters a state in which the student may not be as agreeable to learning. However, Wong also describes something called “problem posing” in order to help the students learn a new language in ways that wouldn’t leave a bad taste/experience for all involved.

            According to Wong, “students learn the new language through dialogue and meaningful activity.” It is not enough for teachers to give students the rules of the grammar and memorize thousands of vocabulary then expecting these methods to be enough so that the student could learn a new language. A more substantial help is needed. For example, Vygotsky claimed, “An activity that is generative of higher mental processes is a socially meaningful mediated activity. The source of mediation is either in a material tool, in a system of symbols, or in the behavior of another human being.” When I was first learning English, one of the activities that my teacher gave us was encouraging the students to read one after the other. When we didn’t know how to pronounce a word, our other classmates could help us. Sometimes, groups would enact a passage that we read in class. This only helped us volunteer more often and made English into our own language.

#6

This chapter really made me realize how many aspects of TESOL there are to consider. For example, the size of classroom affects how teachers should approach their teaching methods. They need to make sure that not only are they covering the agenda promptly, they also need to make sure that they are connecting with their students and making sure that the students are all on the same page. However, students in a language-learning class might be more difficult to handle than any regular classes because are there not only different levels of knowledge among students, there are also different beliefs and assumptions that may be conflicting with Western values.

Going from my experiences, I'm really grateful for the school I went to during middle school. In the Philippines, learning English was just another class for me. There was a barrier between myself and the language. Speaking it didn't nearly matter as much as passing the class because all my other classmates felt that way. When I came here as a teenager, I became that girl who simply watched from the window. Most of the time, it was hard to connect with other students; there was always that doubt that I would be able to communicate what I wanted to say. But when I was in the ESL class, that barrier was gone. I was with a teacher who had a tremendous amount of patience, someone who encouraged me to find the right words. It also helped that she only had two other students along with me who occupied her attention. She was able to dedicate her time and made sure that all of us understood the language and the culture that came along with it. I know that if I was in a ESL class with twenty other students, I wouldn't have felt as comfortably as I did then.