Chapters 2 and 3

Chapter 2 is distinguishing the Inner Circle, Outer Circle and Expanding Circle.  The inner circle rejects language minority students and view language diversity as a problem in society.  Language minority's are supposed to learn English without development of their first language.  The Outer Circle still encourages English development, but the language minority students have just as much access to English education as the native language students.  In this way there is more acceptance of the language minority.  The Expanding Circle countries have teachers that experience problems motivating learners of English and may not have perfect proficiency in their English. 

Chapter 3 examines the role of diglossia of multilingual societies.  It gives a thorough investigation of the role of English in South Africa and India.  Both of these countries have many mother tongues with in their population, multiple official languages in their government, governmental support of multilingual people, English taught in school, English used in certain contexts and the key to a better career.  The government has such a huge role in the social formation of a country.  What the political leaders enforce, the schools respond, and the people respond.  One thing that I found interesting is the support of the government and the lack of reality.  Just like No Child Left Behind, the governmental policy (on multilingualism) looks good on paper, but does not reflect the reality of the situation.  English has a stigma in these countries which separates the classes even further.  The social classes show that those that speak English are apart of an elite class.  It is required for students to speak English when entering college and those that apart of a low social class are not given proper education and cannot speak English and cannot go to college keeping them in the lower class.  This brings me to my big question... Is a country able to be multilingual and still have equal value for each language?

I liked how the chapter concentrated on bilingual education and focused in support of bilingual education. It also mentions proposition 227 which is a significant era that shows the United States' view on bilingual education.  The diglossia of language seems to be non-existent for both the United States and Britain.  Governments give little support to the teaching of bilingual education.  Nor do they support native English speakers learning a second language.  How would our society change if we had multiple official languages?

Chapter 1 McKay and Bokhorst-Heng

Chapter 1 is a broad analysis of the English language globalizing.  The chapter states that there are two major themes of thought when it comes to globalization.  One is the heterogeny position supports many different types or variations of English.  The homogeny position, "views the spread of English as leading to a homogenization of world culture" and ignoring any of the local appropriations of language.  Furthermore, there is another distinguishing factor between the positions of globalization and the process of globalization.  It is important to see the social history in order to see the social future.  This is where the political side of the issue comes in, where history is so important so that the bad historical events do not repeat themselves and the good events occur more often.
The chapter discusses the colonialism of English.  Historically, during the colonial period it was rejected to speak an indigenous language and because of the European culture dominated expanded its regions, also the language dominated and expanded.  Many countries value English and wish to affiliate themselves or maybe transform themselves into an English speaking country historically because of the British power and boasting of that power.  In that same way, English had power.  If you could speak English, you could communicate with the powerful and therefore had power.
I have always wondered the demographics of world English, and now I finally know!  About 80 countries of the 198 countries in the world speak English.  This number at first seemed unimportant to me, if less than 50% of the countries spoke English that would mean that if I picked someone out of anyone in the world that I would have less than a 50% chance that they would be able to communicate with me.  However, I did not realize the actual amounts of speakers and how native spoken English is a mere 5.4% of the worlds population and native spoken Chinese is 15 percent of the worlds population (however, Chinese has many dialects that are not understood throughout). 
How can this minute percentage be so powerful?
It is shown in media, military, capital, and therefore influences what political leaders think their country should know, and then they influence the school system, and then the school system establishes English as the students second languages and English becomes understood as a lengua franca. 

Ibrahim, Kubota & Lin, Rich & Troudy

The Ibrahim article describes continental Aftricans experiences with language in Canada and the influences of the hip-hop culture of the Africans in the Canada. Ibrahim first establishes that hip-hop is not just a type of music but a dress, a talk, and a walk. There is also a definition of becoming black as a process. There is a cultural society and a racial society. Race can be judged by the outside. He concludes that the hip-hop culture and language can be beneficial to a learner of a second language because of the strong connection between identity and language learning ACCORDING to his definition of learning. However, the negative sexual and homophobic relations that rap has should also be identified.
I think it is interesting how the students identify with the hip-hop culture despite their lack of historical connection to the rap world. Mukhi says that it is a genetic thing. I wonder if they say that because of what society sees her skin as. It reminds me of my friend Joyce whos parents are from Ghana. At first I foolishly assumed that the group of students she hung out with was from a black American society, but when I attended her African Student Association meeting I saw what a diverse Black community we have a ISU. I quickly learned not to assume that all blacks that may speak in a similar way, have a heritage in the United States.


It turns out that scientists and many others agree that genetics has nothing to do with the formation of race, but it is a historical and social construct. Kubota's article defines race, ethnicity and culture as being different but still having othering qualities. Today's understanding of racism as a social and historical construct somehow gives people an excuse for their racist attitudes.
Page 479 of Kubota's article talks about epistemological racism, the knowlege and practices of the  White privilaged, and is something that I have been questioning.  Is exposure to race an internal factor of a persons racist attitudes?  During an interview with one of the TESOL professors at ISU I was asked whether or not I would hire a foreign teacher to teach in a school.  I thought that I would hire them for sure because of the little exposure I had to non-native english speaking teachers.  Why were all of my teachers white, native-english speaking females?  I always wonder if I would have more of an understanding of race and culture if I were exposed to cultures as a young child.  Not cultures like my native Spanish speaking friends, my teachers, the people I looked up to.  I think that if I were exposed to a non-native english speaker it would have enhanced my understanding of the world and perhaps created a better understanding of race.  I am also still confused on racism and stereotypes, is a stereotype a subcategory of racism or is racism an intensified form of a stereotype?  We have spoken about stereotypes before and confirmed that we all have them, so are all of us racists?


The Fich and Troudy article points out that there are two sides to being othered as a race.  One is that they are offended and alienated from the some people in society.  The other is that they bond with others of their own race.  It was interesting that one of the students believed that the international student as something to do with people othering them and some girls thought it was because of their gender.  This made me wonder, are things that you view as apart of why you are different the way you view yourself or actually how others view you?

Taylor-Mendez

During my Children's Literature course, and in C & I 208 we talked a lot about what kind of impact literature has in our classroom.  Older text could be teaching the wrong images to children indirectly.  Even books like The Rainbow Fish and The Giving Tree have been critisized for indirect messages they could be sending to children.  The children's books that I grew up with and never thought of as bad influences are now considered immoral.  This is similar to the textbooks that are being critiqued in this article.  Even though the intent to display the diversity, the textbooks are indirectly encouraging an incorrect image of social class.  It is important for every teacher to analyze the texts that they are exposing their classroom to. 
From this study it is important that she interviewed her subjects since, as stated before, previous research was solely based on an analysis of the books and the whole point of the study is to analyze the intake of the EFL students.  Intake, in my opinion is much more important than input.  When I read The Rainbow Fish in school I did not interpret it as the critics have interpreted it.  This is not the case with these adults.
I question whether the adults would have noticed the deeper meaning behind the pictures if not asked to analyze them.  Not all input becomes intake, especially for different types of learners.  I think that the interview may be more genuine if the learners were asked to read a chapter and then without looking at the book recall some of the images they saw. 
The point that ethnicity is mixed within a culture and should be represented I believe is very important.  My boyfriend is a Korean-American who loves sports.  Recently there has been a player in the basketball world named Jeremy Lin.  Unlike Yao Ming, Lin was born in America and represents an Asian-American basketball superstar (who probably makes 10 times many white males will make in the business world).  My boyfriend loves to watch Lin, and I think takes pride in Lin because he is a representative of his similar Asian-American background something that in the MBA is very rare.  The images that appear for different cultures must have that kind of diversity so that stereotyping is limited with EFL learners.  The stereotype is not true then or now.

The first book reading was very similar to the readings of otherness.  As TESOL educators it is important to not let the media effect our understanding of culture.  The article suggests as well that representations of culture can be very unrepresentative of what that culture really is.  Kabul is viewed as a bitter man for cultural reasons rather than his situational reasons.  This makes me think of a book we read in my Bilingual Education class called Of Borders and Dreams.  This book describes a family from Mexico who's son has difficulty in school.  The ESL teacher (author) invites the family to her home, where the family is offended that she may show all of her wealth to their poor family, which was not the intention of the teacher.  This could be something to be aware of when speaking with your students.  Similar to Kabul, who was used to such a comfortable life style in the country he is from and now has to start all over again, and earn his way to a high socioeconomic status.