Canagarajah Reading

The quote that really encompassed one of the views that this class has taught me was this: “We now recognize that (a) because English is nativized in many communities (featuring diverse norms), we cannot treat these speakers as less legitimate “nonnative” English speakers; (b) because identities are hybrid and multiple, and most of the world is multilingual, we must conceive of learners as having identities that often accommodate English seamlessly with other languages… Suffice it to say that we are now compelled to orient ourselves to our learners in more specific ways, taking into account their diverse learning contexts and needs.” This quote is important because it speaks of how we really can’t even presume that there’s one methodology that will cater to all of our students. Like our previous readings have told us, we might encounter students who’ve been taught English in their home country or students who’ve been barely exposed to English. It wouldn’t help the student who learned English in his home country if the teacher was to start at the basic—teaching him grammar without considering the different contexts that he might find himself in. We’ll have to incorporate the English he’s learned in his home country into the methodology we use. The same could be said to the student who has to start from scratch. And yes, that’s easier said than done and I can’t even presume to guess that I’ll have an answer to that, years from now—but Troike has said that, “there can be no one ‘best’ method is undoubtedly the wisest approach.” And I think that’s what my ESL teacher did when she was teaching me in middle school here in the US. The government in the Philippines require schools as early as kindergarten to teach English, so coming to middle school, I already possessed knowledge in English—you know, I had all the components, all the bits and pieces that would have made me into this walking, talking-English machine. What I lacked was the finishing touch, the interaction/discourse—something that you can’t really experience outside of the classroom in the Philippines—that would have assembled all the pieces together. My ESL teacher provided that, she mostly gave me a place where I could display what I already know without fear of embarrassment. But with her other two students, she was more concerned with instructing them with grammar, vocabulary etc.

Lingua Franca English

I don’t know how to articulate what’s currently inside my head but when I read this article, I was taken aback at how simply Canagarajah blurred the dichotomy between native speakers and non-native speakers when he questioned whether there’s really a separation between grammar and pragmatics (do you have to be proficient in a language’s grammar if you could still communicate your message in the context you’re in) or can’t NNS “shape language to suit their purposes” just as easily as any NS can? I really don’t know if there’s a barrier that prevents a NNS from being NS-like. If there is, where does that begin? As a NNS of English, I consider myself to be proficient enough. Sometimes I forget that I’m not a NS especially when I’ve immersed myself enough in English that I think in English, that I dream in English. To me, English no longer is just a language that I use when I communicate with others, it’s a language that I use when I’m debating with myself, when I’m trying to unravel new notions. There’s no longer a bridge between Tagalog or Ilocano and English—I don’t have think first in Ilocano before I talk in English. Does that make me as competent as a native speaker? Or a LFE speaker?

            One of the things I liked about this article was how wholly Canagarajah described LFE. He said “the speakers of LFE are not located in one geographical boundary. They inhabit and practice other languages and cultures in their own immediate localities…they recognize LFE as a shared resource…” To me, it just boggles the mind. English, the way I imagined it to be, was a monolithic language, impervious to any change or influence. But it’s not. That’s not really how languages go, do they? They evolve to reflect the needs of the communicator.