Blog Post 6 February 28

I started learning about lingua franca’s two years ago and never understood the idea of it in the beginning. How can two people who are native speakers of different languages use another language to communicate? What if one of the speakers doesn’t know a lingua franca such as English? Then how do they communicate? “The term native speaker has been the subject of much debate over the last few decades and although it has been regarded as both inappropriate and ill defined, it still exerts a strong influence on English language policy and teaching” says Baker. How can the term be completely defined by certain characteristics? What does native speaker really mean? Does it mean that any person that is born in that country is a native speaker? I feel like the term native speaker cannot be defined in closed terms. I believe that many people in the United States feel like because English is such a dominant language around the world and is considered a lingua franca, that everyone should speak English. Public places such as restaurants and shopping centers seem to expect the patrons to speak English in order to communicate with them. As a server in a restaurant it is hard for me to understand non native speakers and I feel exceptionally bad when an order comes out wrong due to a miscommunication between server and customer.

“The link between language and culture needs careful consideration.” The more I learn from my TESOL classes the more I understand how important it is to incorporate different cultures in the classroom. Languages and cultures can be separated , however in some theories language and culture are intertwined. Through this theory, language is an embodiment of culture. In my opinion, I think that language and culture are directly connected. There seem to be different views about whether or not culture and language belong together. I think that learning culture is important and language is part of that culture. Parts of culture include language, food, religion, politics, etc.

Marra states that collecting data and analyzing it is very important and Marra shows the data in twenty different workplaces. The workplaces were European based. First the researchers had to identify their philosophy before collecting data. I think this article is interesting because we haven’t talked much about New Zealand and I do not have much background on the culture of this area. This article personally confused me but one thing that I understood from the article was the researcher took considerable time and action to understand the Maori culture, and make the study unbiased. I think that is a problem with most research, that it is hard for the person conducting the study to not judge or to have their own input. The one problem that Marra had was that she did not have any Maori people on her research team, only Maori research assistance. I think that if she had Maori people on her research team she might be able to better understand the people and then develop a philosophy from this. This is a major problem for many researchers in the majority that are studying a minority. Studying minorities can be hard if you are part of the majority of a race/culture in a region. It would be hard for a person from New Zealand to study Americans in the United States if they didn’t know their customs, language or have never even been in the US before.

Documentary Blog Post

I think the main idea of the documentary was to see how culture plays a role in writing. How are our expectations shaped as a society by cultural preference? How do we assess international student writing when we have to grade it alongside the writing of native speakers and how can we think about surface error in a fair and constructive manner? As said in the documentary, Americans will introduce the main point, say what they want to say in the beginning and then develop. In places like Ecuador they don’t put the point at the beginning. They go around it then talk about the main idea in the middle. This is called circularity. For example, in the film it mentioned that if a fight broke out at a party, a person from America would say exactly this and then give supporting details. However, a non-native speaker might say something about how the one boy who was involved in the fight dated this person and give more background information about the people, rather than state upfront what happened. I don’t know if this will ever change because families teach their families that this is culturally acceptable to either talk excessively about something or go straight to the point. I do think that a listener would be more engaged in a conversation if the speaker went straight to the point like native speakers of English do because I personally would get lost in the Ecuadorian way of giving way too much information up front.

In Vietnam, students are penalized for going outside of the classroom and trying to get extra academic information other than what they are taught by their professors. Extra information and student’s own opinions don’t seem to be valuable. For example, a student got marked down for talking about how peaceful outside was because she was doing “creative writing”. This honestly shocks me because in order to understand the English language, I believe that students should learn all types of different writing. After taking an Advanced Composition class, it pulled me out of my comfort zone and made me write in a way that I never would have. It also helped me realize that I might want to be an author someday. But how can these students in Vietnam expand their horizons in the writing field if they are only taught one way of writing? It’s like the five paragraph essay. It is instilled in the brains of English native speakers in America for over 5 years until a student attends a university and learns that the five paragraph essay is not acceptable and it’s not the only way to write successfully. The American system of writing can be stricter than the Turkish system, if that is hard to believe. I have had the “12 point font, double spaced, one inch margins” banged over my head for years, and the “period trick” won’t work because my professors said they have all done it before.

Most professors know that international students know they are having a hard time while writing in the classroom. They are kind, however the problem is is that they are not acting as they are thinking. They know these students are having problems but are not doing anything about it. We are hoping that their behavior will be same as their thoughts and expectations. We as teachers require empathy for students coming from different countries and realizing how much intelligence they may have on different topics. Just because they might not be able to write in grammatically correct English doesn’t mean they aren’t smart individuals.

Blog Post 5 February 21

The article by Tony Silva starts off strong by giving an overview of the content. “I am constantly amazed and humbled by the quality of the efforts of ESL writers in my classes” is something that I want to be able to say after teaching for many years in a high school setting. It seems that the ESL students try to explain what they mean while writing, possibly because they are trying to make sure they can get their point across to their reader. Yeon Hee Choi did some studies regarding NES and ESL subjects where NES individuals preferred a claim-justification-conclusion pattern and the native Korean speakers (ESL individuals) preferred a situation-problem-solution-conclusion. When I read this is seems like a bunch of blabbering on paper to be quite honest. However after reading it over again, I understand that ESL speakers need more steps in order to get their point across to their audience. When I think of a native speaker and the claim-justification-conclusion pattern I think of the five paragraph essay that students learn as early as junior high and throughout high school until graduation. We are told as students to introduce the situation, have three body paragraphs with supporting details for your topic and to conclude by saying “As you can see”, “Overall” or the worst one, “In conclusion..”. This may be the reason why the NES speakers have this three step mindset. While I am reflecting on the five paragraph essay, I wonder how much more this template is going to be used in junior high and high schools as that writing format is thrown out immediately once students enter college.

After taking a rhetoric centered class at Illinois State University, Connor’s article clicked with me while I was reading it. There is rhetoric in each kind of text for each language. However, I have only explored the rhetoric of the English language. Contrastive rhetoric can be hard to wrap someone’s brain around so how many people actually pursue the topic of rhetoric as a graduate student? I like the sample letters that were included within the Connor text because they actually show how different writing can be when the writer’s first language is not English. The letter written by the native speaker is much more detailed and native English speakers really like to explain themselves by writing down their accomplishments and how they are fit for a certain position. Anglo-European essays, Oriental languages and Russian essays all have different types of angles and writing developments. As a future teacher and a lover of correct grammar and using expansive vocabulary in order to write professionally, critically or creatively, I want to be able to teach my ESL students how to write in different formats.

The overall idea that I got from these articles is that as future educators, whether it is for ESL or not, need to realize that not all students will have the same vocabulary level as what is expected for the grade level they are in. It is harder for ESL students to have the extensive vocabulary and grammar knowledge of the English language when compared to NES.

Blog Post 4 February 14

With any profession, there is bound to be stereotypes. Society puts these ideas about certain races, genders and religions in order to group people together. For example, being a server, I have come to the general realization that the majority of African American people are cheap because they usually do not tip over 10-15%. Sometimes I will receive even 5% on a bill. Because this consistently happens not only to me, but to my co-workers as well, some people dread waiting on African Americans. This does not mean that we are racist, it means that we have a pre conceived notion of what to expect when the bill comes because of previous instances with that certain race.

I was wondering why this article mainly focused on Asians because stereotyping, especially in schools, is so evident. “It is apparent that there exists a harmful homogenization of nearly 3 billion people belonging to cultures as contrasting and conflicting as the Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and many others—all thrown into a single cultural basket labeled Asian”, as said in Kuma’s Cultural Stereotypes article. This is completely accurate in my opinion because as a Caucasian female, I put the “Asian” people in the same category. It can only assume that this is beyond frustrating from their point of view because they are being called something that they are not. I know that I would be offended if someone just assumed my cultural background and being incorrect about my ancestral line.

I was very surprised to learn that Confucius actually had written that “the teacher does not always have to be more knowledgeable than the pupil; and the pupil is not necessarily always less learned than the teacher.” It is perceived in the United States that all of the Chinese people are always obedient especially in the academic setting. However, teachers have come forward with evidence disproving this “theory” by saying that Chinese students can be “extremely active and even aggressive”. I cannot see Chinese students doing this because from my experience they have been quiet and obedient in the classroom. For example, when I was a senior in high school I taught a sixth grade Reading and Language Arts class. One Chinese student had transferred in during the middle of the semester. She was very quiet and did not take part in class discussions unless she was specifically called on. In the article it says that there is the stereotype that Chinese students “do not take active part in class discussions because of their cultural disposition”. I am not sure if this is true or not but because I have only had experience with teaching and observing one student that was Chinese, that is unfortunately my viewpoint on that culture. I need to change this as I am becoming a teacher of TESOL.

“In order to understand Asian students’ communication patterns in the classroom, we need to take into account, besides cultural beliefs, factors such as “the relevance of the topic under discussion, the instructor’s presentation of the material, the students’ familiarity with the subject, the students’ motivation to participate, the students’ anxiety and tolerance of risk-taking, and their speaking abilities and communicative competence”” is a quote from the article by Kuma that really jumped out at me while reading. I understand that this article is focusing on the Chinese culture because it is used as a generalization to represent all people of an Asian decent, but other cultures need to also be recognized as being generalized. Why do some teachers forget about culture while in the classroom? Don’t they understand that not every student is just “Caucasian” and can come from many different cultural groups? Teachers need to pay more attention towards incorporating culture into their classroom. I took a geography class in high school where we all picked a different country and explained the culture on a poster board and made food for that country and it really helped to give students an idea of what other cultures were like.

Blog Post 3 February 7

The article on Language and Identity spoke to me more than any of the other readings for this week. The idea that language is a fixed entity and that individuals do not play a role in shaping their language seems strange to me. “However people can make whatever use they want of their language systems since the more traditional view considers individuals to be agents of free will, and thus, autonomous decision makers.” I agree with this statement because people learn their language autonomously by being influenced by other aspects around them, whether it is family teaching them how to speak their first language or watching educational television that can either help them to learn concepts (alphabet, colors, etc.)

When I think about how people use their language and change it into their own, I think of people who speak in a different dialect and use different vocabulary that isn’t necessarily attached to a certain stereotype. For example, there is a strong connotation/stereotype that all people of African American descent speak in what is known as Ebonics. When I think of Ebonics I think improper language use that changes words like “ask” to “ax” and continues to make certain people use incorrect English grammar. I am from a heavily Caucasian populated suburb, however, more and more I am seeing Caucasian people use Ebonics via Facebook, Twitter and even in person. I am a server at Outback Steakhouse and when I wait on tables who are Caucasian that speak in Ebonics or do not use correct grammar, I think to myself, “How did these people start speaking this way? Was it inherited from their parents or what social group they belong to?” After reading “Consequently, since all individual language is seen as involving a high degree of unpredictability and creativity in both form and message as individuals strive to make personal connections to their surrounding contexts.”, I found that each person’s language really is unpredictable. I can’t predicate the way that people speak just because of the way that they look on the outside. However, I believe that most people judge from the outside when it comes to language use. This past week I have been on a Dexter kick and cannot stop watching the seasons that I have in my bookshelf at home. I can directly apply what happens in this series to language. For those of you who haven’t seen this series, Dexter is a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who is a serial killer who “cleans up the trash” of Miami. He only kills for good. This urge to kill comes from his childhood and his police officer father teaches him at a young age how to channel it and how to not get caught. The way that he doesn’t get caught is by using certain language in order to make people believe he is a different person, a good person. He makes personal connections to his surrounding contexts by pretending to like his girlfriend Rita even though he claims to be a hollow shell inside and by acting like a loving brother to his sister Debra and a father figure to his girlfriend’s children. No one knows that during the night he is killing people who he believes deserve to die. In one instance, before he is interviewed by a psychologist when he is a child, his father tells him that after he is asked a question, think of his answer in his head by answer with the opposite. By using that language he is not only lying, but convincing someone that internally he is a good person because he doesn’t have deranged thoughts. I think that not using language is as important as using it. Sometimes when you don't use language, people read your body to determine things that you might want to say but don't.

Another issue that I would like to touch on is social identity. “Our histories are defined in party by our membership in a range of social groups into which we are born such as gender, social class, religion and race.” This article does a good job of talking about social identity and realizing the importance of it. These above topics are not the only things that mold your identity. I never thought that geographical region provides me with a sense of my social identity but it does. Because I was raised in a Caucasian neighborhood, the schools I went to had classes that where the majority were white students. I am part of the northern area of the United States so I will have a different dialect and accent than those who are from the southern states. Having cousins who have moved from Illinois to Texas, I get frustrated speaking with them because their quick talking has now changed into slow paced talking and I want to yell “HURRY UP AND GET TO THE POINT!” because they take longer time to pronounce words and now use different vocabulary that I would never use. Being from Illinois I think that I am used to people talking and moving quickly so that I can move on to the next activity, whatever that may be. There is always a fight in my family between the word closet and whether it is phonetically pronounced Claw-zit or clah-zit. This is because some people grew up in different areas of Illinois where pronunciation is different. This “second layer of group membership” has helped me develop my phonetics and helped me decide the correct pronunciation of everyday vocabulary words. I agree with the article that says “While our social identities and roles are to a great extent shaped by the groups and communities to which we belong, we as individual agents also play a role in shaping them.” I believe that I speak the way I do because that is the way that I want to speak, regardless of what my parents and society have taught me about language.