Shohamy E. and Brown 23 and 24

There is so many components that go into assessment especially testing.  The test must be reliable and valid, in accordance to what the test should be measuring.  This goes through domains such as reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar; it aslo goes through purpose such as stakeholders of the test, test users, test takers, is it measuring achievement or is it placing the student into a program.  Something that the article concentrates and stresses is the importance of analyzing discourse when testing.  Shohamy gives a short background of research that has been done on discourse and language testing, "quantitative analyses have examined mainly the effect of different discourse elements on test takers' scores" (203).  There is research on the effects of test features such as subject matter, titles, rhetorical structure, missing cohesive ties, question types, oral tests and production tests and how these features effect test scores.  For example, for a reading comprehension test, the question types must take into consideration, "(1) the texts used for a test, (2) the test questions, (3) the answers produced in response to the test questions, and (4) the interpretation of the answers produced and the assignment of scores" (205).  The question types suggested by Perkins in the article are open-ended essay responses that can be collected for a portfolio.  This is similar to the teaching writing article that we read earlier.  In that article they recommend alternative assessment. 
I thought the section on qualitative examination of oral proficiency tests was particularly interesting, perhaps because I will take an partly oral examination to be a bilingual teacher.  On the state test that I will take there will be an oral section in which I have a limited time to speak into a tape recorder.  For a taped test, there is typically more paraphrasing, and for a direct test like the OPI there is more switching to their L1.  I would have thought the opposite, just because there is an actual person that you are speaking in a direct context. 
The last section on new assessment types mentions that "teachers and students are more involved in developing and designing the assessment procedures" (212).  I like the joint development of the test, it is a very transformative way of thinking.  Also there must be a variety of assessment procedures for assessment of discourse skills, which cannot be totally analyzed by a state test. 

Kuma 13, and Brown

In Kumaravadivileu's chapter about monitoring teaching acts, he talks about the various impacts of observations in an second language learning classroom.  He talks about the limitations with Product-Oriented Models and Process-Oriented Models.  These models are both "cumbersome, time-consuming, and labor intensive" (289).  They can both give a limited understanding of how the lesson really went, and are not as benificial to the teachers practices, teachers self-reflective skills, student understanding, and observer intake.  He also talks about an alternative to the product and process oriented models and suggests a User-Friendly System.  Kuma organizes this system into a M & M observational scheme or ten part process, involving at least three meetings with the observer. 
My roommates mom is a second grade teacher, who typically has autistic students in her "mainstream" classroom.  Because of the students that she has in her classroom, observations from an autism specialist need to be made.  The teacher finds these observations stressful, planning much more detailed lessons, and having to organize an administrator to also attend the meetings (in order to defend the teacher in case of a bad report from an observer).  My roommate described one instance where the observer came late to a lesson without the principle attending and decided to stay later than promised. 
Kuma describes his process as an "atmosphere where teamwork is encouraged" (291) which I think was clearly lacking in this observation process.  There was not a preobservation meeting with the teacher, which I think is an excellent backwash enhancer.  I am using the term backwash in a way where the teacher plans differently because of this observation.  The careful planning that a teacher may have to do, which may give a false display of what students really experience, may be minimized if the observer met with the teacher beforehand to discuss what would be happening in the class. Another thing that truly affects the teacher and students nervousness is the responsibility of the observer to give a "fair, frank, and friendly" comment, as well as being on-time with the appropriate observational technique agreed with the teacher (video camera or another observer attending the session). 
I really enjoyed being the observer while reading the classroom dialogue in the example in the book on pages 295-298.  Many of the things that I thought should be talked abut with the observer were talked about, the question about the condo, the paragraph explanation and the school system clarification.  Something I found interesting during the postobservation analysis is the teacher and observer disagreement on the learing opportunities on page 301, "When the observer, being a more experienced teacher, argued that teachers in an L2 class should make use of all the learning opportunities created by learners even if they gto against their planned agenda, the novice teacher seemed skeptical."  If disagreements like this come up, who has the right to say what is right?  Is it okay to agree to disagree in these instances?  Is it better to have an expert teacher come in and observe or is it better to have one of your own experience?

Final Paper Progress

Teacher Error Correction In Writing

I will be talking about error correction in the writing of younger students elementary ages.  What I want to discover is how teacher corrections affect a students writing, and how writing improves, progresses, or digresses with the feedback that the teacher gives on their writing.  

I will be opening my paper with a discussion on the controversy with correction feedback in writing with research from Dana Ferris Truscott.  Then I will divulge into different methods teachers use for feedback on writing.  Christina Ortmeier-Hooper from the University of New Hampshire is also a source that I will mainly be using her article called "Mapping new territory: Toward an understanding of adolescent L2 writers and writing in US contexts."  I believe this article gives the most direct findings for me as a future bilingual elementary teacher.  

Kuma 11 and 12

Both Chapter 11 and 12 brought up issues that we have disscussed in ENG 343.  The first point was that English is a Global Language and also highly stigmatized by the rich and wealthy.  Even though Kuma does not say this, he says that the term standard English comes from "those who control the social, political, and cultural power centers within a nation" (242).  Even where English is highly regarded as a first language, or the language of politics and therefore schools like Singapore and India, the language dialect must sound most like a British/Australian dialect in order to be seen as proper.  I like what Kuma had to say for the reasoning behind the stigma that standard English has.  He says, "ELT...is a product of colonialism not just because it is colonialism that produced the initial conditions for the global spread of English but because it was colonialism that produced many of the ways of thinking and behaving that are still part of Western cultures" (243).  Another thing that we talked about in the 343 class is the Ebonics debate, and whether or not people are disadvantaged in learning the origins and dynamics of their home language.  To a bilingual education major, I don't care which language you are learning or speak at home, if those two languages are different you should be values as a learner of two languages, not just the one dominantly spoken by the "well educated" people of society.  Kuma goes on to prove that there are strong support for L1 and L2 to be used in the classroom. 
Cultural consciousness in the classroom brings up ideas discussed in 343 as well.  The complexity of culture for example, and how defining or narrowing this complex idea is not what culture is in its entirety.  Culture cannot even be limited to a context, even within a particular language, nation, or religion.  For example today in my tutorial class at the ELI we had a good discussion on body language and in particular, greetings.  In Saudi Arabia, specifically in the Muslim community, women will not shake the hand of men that are not their family members.  Women will also cover their face only sometimes this is something that depends on the background of the family.  When in the United States sometimes men and women struggle with these customs, but sometimes find similarities.  My students compared their tradition of women covering their hair similar to the nuns in the catholic church that cover their hair.  One point that Kuma points out is cross-cultural encounters.  I believe that these are very important in culture teaching.  In order for students to understand culture they must experience the differences and similarities first hand.  How can we foster that in a EFL classroom?

Kuma 9 and 10 Brown 17

Kuma's chapters were on contextualizing linguistic input with four realities of context, linguistic, extralinguistic, situational, and extrasituational.  The first reality of linguistic context refers to the multiple meanings within one word.  The example Kuma gives is "table,"  which depending on the context like math, literature, science or politics can have very different meanings.  This reminds me of the website that Dr. Seloni showed us last week with the "dictionary" that finds examples of words being used in journals and newspapers so that students may be able to better understand the entire meaning of the word.  Another component to the linguistic context is the cohesion of sentences and being able to understand a group of sentences (conversation).  Extralinguistic context is more about the different stresses that typically coincide with different languages.  This is crucial to accent and understanding.  One of my Chinese students at the ELI is very difficult to understand sometimes and it is because of their lack of stress on any particular word, like the book addresses. In situational context there is an interesting dialogue in Reflective task 9.3 that says A: Not now, darling./B:Then when?  It would be very interesting to see CLD students' thoughts about the context this occurs.  These four realities are important to language understanding and really organize and compartmentalize linguistic input.  Is there one reality that is more important than the other?  Or which one do you think is the most important to teach CLD students.
Integrating Language skills is about how all skills should not be compartmentalized like text books and testing companies try to foster.  In this chapter Kuma points out that one benefit to integrating skill is the various learning styles that various learners bring to the classroom.  Even though teachers naturally integrate skills despite what administration or text books may suggest, this integration for different learners is very important.  I think that even more should be done to integrate different skills that wouldn't typically be used with a language classroom, like spelling the alphabet with your bodies, or drawing a mural in response to listening.  My question is, should learners not be challenged to complete skills outside of their comfort zone?  Especially with younger learners who have not mastered certain skills?

Brown 22 and Kuma 7 and 8

Brown's chapter on assessment coincides with the article that we read last week about writing.  There are many components to assessment, the major one is the variety of assessments that a teacher can use.  They can be assessed as an ongoing assignment, interaction, portfolio (like in the article) or formative way.  They can also be assessed on a "storehouse of skills and knowledge, usually within a relatively short time limit" (402 second edition).  The chapter presents the validity of the different testing/assessing.  For the midterm that I used for my ELI students I would say was a more interactive language test.  Based on what the students have practiced in class, debate, disscussion, vocabulary, or other various activities, they had to complete various communicative tasks for the midterm.  Midterm multiple choice tests would be invalid to the content of the class.  We have just completed an analysis of a standardized test of our choice in our ENG 346 class.  In this class I have realized that standardized tests, although undesirable to many teachers, are unavoidable to any teacher of a second language learner.  What are some ways that we can use this testing backwash to our advantage in our classroom?  A testing strategy that I thought was interesting was the cooperative test construction, I do not think any of my language teachers have used this on me, but this past week in a Chicago ESL classroom that I observed, the teacher had the students creating "wh" questions and told them that some of the questions would appear on a test they would take later on. 
Kuma's Lanuguage Awarness in the US or Whole Language movement, claims that "It does not exclude some languages, some dialects, or some registers because their speakers lack status in a particular society" (158).  This is also emphasized later in the book as a component of Critical Language Awareness (CLA).  Language in a critical awareness allows students to have power over their language interpreting it in specific sociopolitical contexts.  Then Kuma presents a difference in the view of the teachers role in this critical awareness.  Does the teacher help the learners "understand how language is used by some as a tool for social, economic, and political control" or "can [they] cooperatein their own marginalization by seeing themselves as 'language teachers
' with no connection to such social and political issues" (165)?  I think that the second option that Gee presents is a misrepresentation of language, like Paulo Frieres view of teaching as a transformative intelectual, there are deeply embedded social, economic, and political powers within the education system. 
Intuitive Heuristics is basically the self discovery of language of a student.  Kuma describes heuristics in a grammar context, since the rules are definite in a grammar class.  I compare this idea to the teaching written grammar in the article last week, that self-correction is the essential skill to teach since writing is such a complex process, and in heuristics was of teaching it is all about leading your students to reason and not to memorize rules.  However, previously, Kuma talks about the complexity of the English language spelling system alone, and how a students reasoning could lead them to spelling "fish" "ghoti."  Also in beginning language learners I have always thought that explicit instruction of the grammatical rules are more effective.  Can a heuristic type of teaching be used in every context (beginning-advanced) (spelling, syntax, subject-verb agreement, ect.)? Also, in the dialogue examples one of the teachers uses a book and the other uses a cartoon.  The one with the cartoon seems to be more heuristic and more effective.  Are there heuristic grammar text books and would they be effective and useful to teachers?

Not Speaking the Language

The article called "How do I support a student's first language when I don't speak the language?" answers a lot of my questions on a diverse non-dual language classroom which I have been concentrating on in my bilingual education courses.  One thing that I really liked was the teachers involvement with the parents in order to educate them on how important it is to actually teach their kids how to read and write in their native language or language that is spoken at home.  This is often a misconception that immigrant families have when they want their children to have English speaking skills.  The article also talks about the political activity that has happened with Proposition 227 which promoted English only education, and required waivers for non-English speakers.  This makes these challenges for teachers with very diverse classrooms very hard.  I am not sure if the Spanish speakers would be better in a dual language classroom, or if they would get more out of learning with speakers of different languages. 
The teacher must learn much more about each culture so that the students can be properly represented in the classroom.  However, it forces speakers to speak in the target language which would be English in this case.  The negotiation of meaning must happen in the target language, with some aid from the volunteers.  I like Kuma's example, episode 5.3, where the teacher carefully selects the questions so that the students collectively come up with a definition.  I try to do this in my ELI courses, asking what a definition is usually results in some students knowing, and some not knowing.  Instead of me giving the answer, the students should be forced to try to figure out the meaning without me so that vocabulary term is memorable.  I try to have my students provide multiple definitions and examples so that one of the examples is comprehensible input.  This is a skill that I do not think comes naturally to teachers of mainstream classrooms.

Kuma 3 and Brown 4 and 16

Brown's chapter 4 was about various language learning principles and how to teach toward/for these principles.  To organize these principles he used sub categories, cognitive, affective, and linguistic principles. Automaticity is one of the cognitive principles which claims that "both adults and children must sooner or later move away from processing language unit by unit, piece by piece, focusing closely on each, and 'graduate' to a form of high-seed, automatic processing in which language forms are only on the periphery of attention." For me as a language learner I would like to know at which point in language does this actually occur?  Is this an ongoing struggle for even beginning level learners or is this principle to be used only for reaching level learners?  The book mentions that focus on form is not harmful but especially helpful when there are adult language learners, which makes me think that teaching through a variety of principles may be a good alternative to method.  The section on automaticity also mentions the quality of a teacher you need to be when teaching automaticity which is patience (one of the things I had in the beginning of the year on my list of qualities of teachers of ELLs). 
Chapter 16 concentrates on teaching listening.  In this chapter it mentions the silent period that language learners go through, which is nothing new to me, however, I would really like to know how to tell when a student is in a silent period (so that I am not grading them on low participation) and how to encourage them to speak?  The interactive model of listening gives processes that I have noticed in my beginning level learners at the ELI go through.  Finding out their background knowledge is always important so that they can decode a question based on the background vocabulary they have.  Many times, I will ask a question and get an answer that is unanticipated.  Like if I asked "Who is in your family?" and they respond "My family is in Nigeria." I can tell that they knew it was a "wh" question and about family and decoding the wh question went wrong.  Speaking of asking questions, I liked how Kuma broke down different types of questions to ask language learners.  the question that I mentioned above was I think a display question, because it had predetermined answers.  Kuma states that "learners' responses to referential questions [not display] were propositionally longer and grammatically more complex than their responses to display questions."  But if my students are not able to produce correct answers to these types of questions that are provided in real life contexts shouldn't they be valued just as much as the display questions? 

Bax, Skehan, Hu

Bax decribes in his article the end of the CLT approach and compares it to a context approach.  He points out that context is not included in the Methodology of CLT and purely the teachers support for communication.  In comparing the two he points out that CLT is very narrow in its approach, "CLT is the complete answer, If we don't have CLT, then we can't learn a language, No other factors count in learning a language--only teaching methodology, If you don't have CLT, then you are backward."  Context is so important to having a classroom community, a community of learners.  This is an intuitive reaction of good teachers.  I think it is unnatural to not take into account the context in which you are teaching.  They give examples of CLT not working in foreign classrooms. 
Hu also gives this example with Chinese schools.  The context and tradition of the schooling does not quite fit with the principles of CLT.  With the ultimatums that Bax describes, that CLT is the only way to learn language, when actually it is a small portion of language learning.  I believe if CLT was used in a general way or a portion of what is used in a class it could work in other contexts.  But then again Bax finds that "good teachers naturally take account of the context in which they teach."  Is it safe to say that good Chinese teachers that grew up in the context where they are practicing will take context into consideration naturally?  Just as elementary teachers in the United States figure out ways to teach outside of the textbook, even though they are required to, language teachers will use a variety of methods.  Is there such a thing as a teacher teaching with one method?
For me, an English teacher in the US, it helps me know about the contexts the students I have from different countries had in their first country.  Going to Mexico and actually seeing the various types of elementary schools that Mexican students are coming from helped immensely with how I view and will teach my students that are from Mexico.  This was an opportunity that I will never have with other countries.  How do we understand the contexts of education in other countries so that we can incorporate that into our language teaching?

Kumara's Article and Ch 3 of Brown

Chapter 3 of Brown goes more into detail about the different approaches language teachers take in comummunicative language teaching like learner-centered instruction, cooperative and collaborative learning, interactive learning, whole language education, content-based instruction and task-based instruction.  The book is directed towards already practicing teachers, and as a new tutorial teacher at the ELI I took it upon my self to analyze/start analyzing which aspects of these approaches I use in my classrooms.  I am not required to teach grammar, since I am meant to improve the communication skills of the students in the small 50 minute period that I have them.  But I will say that there are ways of making a communication class non-comunicative like Kumara's article suggests.  Researchers have found "so-called communicative classrooms they examined were anything but communicative" where "form was more prominent than function" (62).  It is hard especially with our culture and as a new teacher to allow for silence and thinking.  One of the things that I was warned before I went to my first class is that new teachers have a tendancy to speak too much, where the object is to get the students to speak.  Ofcourse in different contexts such as English as a Foreign Language, the teacher would have trouble making the students speak in the target language.  Even bilingual teachers will have difficulty having their students communicate in a way that is improving their language. 
Although CLT has been so widely acclaimed the fact that two teachers could be using the same method but for one teacher it is working and for the other teacher it is not working.  However for postmethod pedagogy Kuma says that "Any actual post method pedagogy has to be constructed by teachers themselves by taking into consideration linguistic, social, cultural, and political particularities" (69).  I feel as though the post method pedagogy is very adaptable to specific classes and teachers.

Kuma Ch. 1 and 2

Kuma starts off in chapter one describing the different roles of teachers.  The first are teachers as passive technicians which is when teachers are more concentrated on relaying the knowledge than actually teaching, using the knowledge that others have deemed worthy to transfer to generations of students.  He states that this "outlook inevitably leads to the dis empowerment of teachers whose classroom behavior is mostly confined to received knowledge rather than lived experience."  I feel as though this becomes a common trend in older "experienced" teachers.  Perhaps they started out with experimenting with theory and method, but eventually they become a drone of same-old same-old, tired and disempowered to change with changing times and changing classrooms.  The next role Kuma describes is the role of a reflective practitioner.  I find this to be an effective role in my teaching at the ELI.  We are supposed to write weekly reports reflecting on various aspects of the lesson, students, teaching.  I like how Kuma quotes that "anticipatory planning" is a role of a teacher.  He also says that "reflection-on-action can occur before and after a lesson."  I feel as though this is a helpful tool to go into the classroom with a changes you want to make to your teaching in advanced because that's when changes actually occur.  You cannot go into a classroom and just "wing it."  Somethings will work and some will not, and when they do not work analysis should be made on what caused that and which solutions to implement to avoid these in the future.  A couple characteristics of a reflective practitioner I really liked, they are aware of the "assumptions and values they bring to teaching" and are "attentive to the institutional and cultural contexts in which he or she teaches."  As much as good practice is important to understand, so is bad practice.  I think that it is human nature to use our past experience in our practice, whether it is good or bad experience or practice and that many teachers will teach as they have been taught, whether it was good practice or not.  Many of my education courses capitalize on this concept, asking students to recall things that occurred in our experiences as students to determine whether they were good or bad practices and whether to use them or not.  This is something that method neglects and postmethod recognizes.  Teachers have "tacit knowledge about teaching...by virtue of their lives as students."  When it comes to language learning, however, I feel as though I do not have that tacit knowledge as the postmethod suggests.  As much as I like to think that there is a relation between L2 learning among any age group, I never had the same experiences as a young ESL student trying to learn the common language of a country.  Although I have learned about the struggles of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse learners, and now am learning some of the best ways to teach them, will my not having a similar experiences as my students help or hinder their education? 

First post, wrong blog

Chapters one in the Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy was about an example of a lesson with second language learners and with a list of questions as to why the teacher chose certain things the way she did.  Chapter two was more about the history of language learning and went through definitions of methods, approach, curriculum and technique.  The method that I was most familiar with was Krashens, many of the other ones I have never heard of.  As the book and the article mentions it it not wise to just use one method in a classroom. 
I believe that since each learner has a different way of learning then each learner has a different method that works for them.  Not even one method, but I think that each learner may improve from a mix of many methods.  I have been so excited to share that I am working with the ELI this semester and when I tell people this, they are so confused to why I am getting paid to practically talk with ELLs for an hour.  Its a much more complex process than you would think.  As a native speaker it is so hard not to fill in the blanks and talk more than my students.  It baffles me that playing baroque music was essential to one of the language learning methods, even more specifically, "Baroque music, with its 60 beats per minute and its specific rhythm" (27).  Even the silent way, saying that there is no intimidation to speak however, the relation between sounds and language are so strong, I feel this may be a method better suited to a deaf education class.

Lin

Like I have said before the main reason that I wanted to be a bilingual educator was to get a job in this tough economy (especially in Illinois).  But once I got into my intro to bilingual education course I was exposed to various personal stories that strongly advocate for bilingual education and disproving the myths that I have been exposed to as a child.  I feel as though these personal collective stories truely do "emotionally [bind] people together" not only the ones that have had similar experiences, but those that have not had those experiences as well.  Its called empathy and a community of sincere empathy rather than misjudgement will create change in other communities.  Right now I feel as though I am an culturally cognizant (understanding of what a frustrating or pleasant it can be when clashes of culture or language occur) educator in a community of other TESOL/bilingual educators, our small community at ISU that other communities have influenced.  I know that like most of the country, TESOL was a judged and misunderstood practice that I would imagine ISU did not endorse.  With the personal stories of friends, researchers, and the researched I am aware and emotionally bound to those stories. 
The personal stories that Lin provides fill my heart with empathy (not the traditional empathy of remorse, but one of joy as well).  Wendy's want and need to become bilingual to connect to two cultures resonates in my personal endeavors, and Nobu's teacher Mr. Okuhara inspires me to be that confidant with a student trying to learn another language.  However, when the speakers transition to say that their original confidence and motivation in learning a language turns and becomes a confusion and frustration resonates with me and my struggles with Spanish.  That constant fear, though it is not prevalent in my English speaking skills has become a demon in my Spanish speaking skills.  More practice is essential for me and I try to keep pursuing my dreams of that bilingual understanding.  Their stories obviously turn out well. 

Gloabalization on teaching

Kubota's article talks about Japan and its kokusaiaka policy of education in the globalization era.  Like any policy, this has been developed over the history of Japan and has its problems as well as benefits.  The nationalist view that it promotes an essentialist Japan and not the multicultural country that it is.  The importance of English strongly influences the Japanese multiculturalism.  High schools are more likely to teach English as a second language than they are to teach other languages.  This is a question I would have liked to ask Misaki when she came to our classroom.  Were other languages spoken in her home?  What languages were offered in high school?  The demographic diversity that Japan has really surprised me.  I thought most of the colonized countries during the colonial era had the most diversity because of the new opportunities that they provided.  As they say in the article, there are so many factors of a country's diversity. 
Kubota states that the kokusaiaka does not really promote what it says it promotes, being heavily influenced by English.  This may be a disjunction with the policy but not necessarily a bad thing.  The mainstream languages are what they are for a reason, and even though it is sad that other languages are being neglected in schools, to spend money on teaching a language that the young citizens of the country will never use is impractical.  But then again, there is lots of different ethnicity, such as Korean, which could be even more useful because of the proximity of the countries.  What is seen as essential may be the impractical part of this kokusaiaka policy. 
The tie between language and culture is also another interesting point that Kubota makes.  I like Suzuki's thoughts on the Japanese international English system.  He suggests that, "learning English in order to express oneself and explain Japanese culture to the rest of the world, rather than learning about the cultures of Anglophone nations, which could be done more effectively in social studies" (Kubota, p.27).  In this way, English would be taught as a local context rather than an international context.  I believe that this would be a more effective way of teaching English.  But then again, in Spanish classes in the United States, teachers tend to teach cultures through that language.  Would it be appropriate to teach a localized Spanish rather than the Spanish of Spain?

Chap 5 and lippiegreen

Chapter 5 talks about the variation in standard English.  The variation within a World English and variation between World Englishes.  It also talks about the standard English ideology.  Macroaquisition, or the acquisition of a second language within a local community.  Creolization is an interesting process that the book analyzes. I relate the creolization to the slave communities that came to the United States that we saw in the movie during class.  The slaves used English as a lengua franca or a pidgin language to communicate and by mixing the languages they created but then the next generation are the ones that have this mixed language as a native language.  According to Bickerton's model a creole holds different prestiges such as acrolect, basilect, and mesolect.  How does one creole become stratified into one of these areas?  As generations of creole speakers advance does the prestige change?  When native creole speakers experience a post-creole continuum I would assume that the speaker will change to the source language like the book suggests, but if that is the case and there is this goal of a native like source language, then how come there are still creoles?  Just like the extermination of languages, I think that many creoles are also disappearing.  I think that this is the difference in views of bilingual.  I do not think that people view a creole as a variation of a language, I think that they view it as a non-language. 
The example of the father daughter is a neat example of a language variation varying depending on the formality of the situation.  It seems odd to me that people will use English as informal speech as well as formal speech.  Why wouldn't they just use their native tongue as their informal speech and English as their formal speech?  Like the previous chapters talked about diglossia, is there a specific time to intentionally use English and a native language combined?
The most interesting part of difference of world Englishes, I think, is discourse style.  The book gives an example of an English variety that uses the word wonderful as synonymous with surprising rather than the good connotations it comes with our English variety.  The book uses the example of someone saying "He died this morning"
"Wonderful"
This is a clearly inappropriate and almost offensive response according to our English variety.  We also have talked about discourse in our 344 class, and one of our peers was saying how an African woman told one of her colleges that she looked fat after her recent vacation, with an nice intention of saying you look healthy, but her college had a much more different interpretation.  I think even with all of the changes in countries regarding English, there will always be a specific discourse for each country that uses it.  No matter how grammatically correct, a discourse is very hard to transfer.  

Chapter 4 and FarrSong

Now that the book has established that there is a need for English in these different circles and the lengths that these expanding circle countries go to improve their citizens English competency, we see an even greater need for "good" English.   Singapore is an example of a country that struggles with its multilingual population.  Singlish is the result of their learning English.  This adorable video actually gave me a better understanding of what Singlish sounds like and how it might compare to Spanglish.  In the begining the little guys are trying to say that speaking Singlish can be confusing and is not ideal.  I think that this could have been a result of the Speak Good English Movement.  Just like in the previous chapters, English is a language of the "common working language...it provides a neutral medium, giving no one any advantage to the competition for knowledge and jobs."  As a result of this competition there is social stratification.  I watched Phua Chu Kang on youtube (at least I think that is the same thing they are talking about in the book) to see what it was like, and from my perspective I cannot see why there is a such a debate on this media influence.  It is funny, I can understand all of the humor because it is English basically, and even if it is not proper English it cannot have that much of an influence on the educators of Singapor.  Even so, if a native speaker of English like me can understand and enjoy an episode of this Singlish comedy, then why is it a controversial issue to use proper English?  Here is one of the episodes that I watched.

These movements that occur are the result of language politicking.  The book also mentions the English Only Movement in the United States.  The politicking holds all of these values and nationalist morals, but what it really effects is the classrooms and how children (the future of the countries) are taught.  Really I could care less if the official language of the United States was English, however, if the policy of the state was to have investigator who arrested those that are not teaching English Only or telling local vendors to have their signs in English, then I would have a problem.  I feel as though that policy goes against our first amendment in the constitution, you have the freedom of speech as long as its in English.

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.  

Marra and Maxims

When I first started reading Marra's Recording and Analyzing Talk Across Cultures, I did not see how it pertained to the classroom.  I can see how the classroom is a work place where communication is critical to learning, but I think that adult communication in the work place for adults is very different than a classroom full of children.  I think that this is true for most cultures.  I question whether one form of talking is culturally driven  and whether one type of talk is more efficient or better than another.  I thought that the purpose for this study was to find a generalization in the talk of the Maori people.  Further more I do not think that the methodology would of the Maori people is very contextualized.
The Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) analysis or method for working with Maori people which are, "respect for people; present yourself to people face to face; look, listen...speak; share and host people; be cautious; do not trample over the mana of people; don't flaunt your knowledge."  I thought that not flaunting your knowledge was very interesting.  I feel as though this is not a valued method for the work place or the classroom.  Someone from this culture could act differently in the classroom.  Children are naturally self centered and I believe that as a teacher we are not necessarily keeping that self centeredness but we certainly value many ideas and knowledge about a subject as long as its relevant to the topic.  Where as I am guessing Smith found that ideas are limited to a minimum, since flaunting knowledge is something socially unacceptable and the relevance to the subject must be very strong.
Speaking of relevance, this example directly relates to Grice's Maxims which are found in McKay and Bokhorst-Heng's book in chapter six.  I remember learning about this my introduction to linguistics course and also mentioned it last week in our conversations on what is good writing (another great example of me flaunting my knowledge...).  I really like these guidelines for comparison, but never realized that my interactions could have negative effects in a different culture.
So many times I have heard in parent-teacher conferences that I did not speak up in class enough and I changed based on this critique that I got in lower level grades.  Does this method of analyzing interactions mean that we should not encourage students of a particular culture to speak up during class and share their ideas because of the perceptions that they may have of different Maxims?

Writing Across Borders

The main point in the first part of the documentary was that students and teachers of different cultures vary on views of what good writing is and how to write.  This was present in many ESL students at Oregon State.  The one professor said, in a point of view paper on cafeteria food in schools, that she felt much differently about the topic since she grew up in a part of the world where nutrition was much lower than in the United States.  As teachers we must recognize that writing reflects our background experiences, and sometimes our students have very different experiences than ours.  A Japanese and Peruvian student describes the format of an essay being different in Japan and Peru.  In their eyes,  they value the way that they write because of the enforcement that they had in the country they are from.  It would be the same if a student that came from a school in Chicago that told their students to make their paragraphs only a couple of sentences to be short and to the point and then that student goes to a school in the suburbs and then gets marked off for making their paragraph too short.  The student from Colombia mentions that writing is also a reflection of how you speak in your culture.  I would agree that it is a cultural thing for Americans to say "How are you?" in passing and not wait for your answer.  I can see how it may be disagreeable to different cultures, but because it is something that we do not see as offensive but practical and acceptable, I do not think there is anything wrong with it.  Now if I know that a person has different customs, I will accomedate myself because I know that they are used to something different.  Is it wrong of me to think that my own cultural habits are wrong?  I feel as though I should still keep my cultural habits and my own identity, but when helping students with their intellectual growth and development to leave my preferences at the door. 
What this documentary enforces is that writing is relative, what you have read or said and gotten good feedback on is what you will try to reproduce.  However, that does not always mean that everyone will like it.  When teaching students of different cultures than your own, and even students with the same culture, the way that they have been expected to express themselves is a valued and appropriate technique.

Connor and Kubota

Connor's article shows Connor's definition of culture, which is something that we tried to define in the beginning of this course.  They say that culture is, "'a set of patterns and rules share by a particular community.'"  This view of culture can suggest that there are cross-cultural differences, and cause analysis of those differences.  Some say that cross-cultural difference analyzation can be a form of discrimination.  Then the article mentions that not analyzing the difference can also be a form of neglect and discrimination.  So what does this mean for us?  When do we need to distinguish difference and when do we need to not distinguish difference?

In the article the contrastive rhetoric has been accused of guiding students to write for the cultural norm rather than use their own cultural difference.  This reminds me of the linguistics courses I have taken, and how acceptability is preferred to correctness and grammaticality is based on each dialect's every day speech use, not Standard English.  It is okay to tell a student that when writing a document that has to do with power or money (application, interview, grant writing, ect.) that you need to use Standard English.  In one of my classes we questioned why English is so widely studied in second language acquisition.  It is such a powerful language and has been spread through out history.  Since that time, we have globalized our business.  Having a universal language, at least in the business world, would make so many things easier.  However, having a universal language is impossible and dangerous to culture and society.  I think that World Standard Spoken English is a bad idea because of the strong connection with culture and language.

Kubota's article 1999, was describes how children of Japanese dissent are wrongly viewed based on the cultural views of the United States teachers.  It was interesting to see the educational perceptions that some have of Japanese culture being proven wrong.  Thinking that schools have "less emphasis on creativity, self expression, individualism, and critical thinking relative to U.S. education" is very wrong.  Even though the teachers may have a different format than the teachers in the United States that does not mean that the children are not developing through the same experiences.  The Japanese students are tapping into all different senses.  One interesting aspect is that they reinforce a collectivism rather than individualism, however it is wrong to think that the individual does not go into the community.  It is good for students to develop "both individual and group dimensions."  I feel as though there is a stigmatism against memorization skills across the United States and within this article.  I feel as though memorization is an excellent skill to practice because like it or not there are some things that you will have to do in this fast paced world that you need to remember some things for a short period of time.  This is why teachers should present their information in a variety of ways, so that their students can memorize things faster.  

I feel as though there are so many ways to teach material and other countries may have better methods and are worth investigating.  However, I also feel as though I will have restrictions by my colleges, administrators and parents.  Parents, for good reason want their children to be taught in a similar way that they were taught in order to help their children with homework and because they themselves turned out well because how they were taught.  Are my assumptions true?  Will I not be able to adopt a Hansei reflection section in my daily activities because of the norms of the school and community?

This weeks readings in Holliday were about otherness.  The first passage shows how otherness can be seen and stereotypes are formed on what we relate with the otherness we see.  He thought that he would be offending the neighbors by asking them if they wanted to watch television at their house, when in fact they were grateful that they allowed them to come and watch.  I asked my roommate if she had the same experience with her best friend from high school who is a converted apostolic christian.  I am not educated enough to know all the practices of this religion, but I do recognize that she dresses differently, wears her hair differently, and believes different things than I and my roommate believe.  Recently she was in her friend's wedding, and I asked if she avoided asking or doing certain things because of the company that she was exposed to.  She said that she first tried to say something about television and nobody understood what she was talking about and she did not talk about anything related to that after.

The second passage showed me how emotions influence peoples stereotypes.  When we have a negative emotion with a certain race, language variation, or social class we will generalize that emotion with all people of that same race, language or social class.  The two people in the example may have had a positive emotion and ended up getting together. This would obviously give them and their relations a good opinion of that culture.  I feel as though otherness and stereotypes are driven by emotions, feelings, and relationships.

The third passage was about power and discourse.  This point made me question, when do people have enough.  When does othering go too far and when is it appropriate to act on or claim that someone is othering you?

My project link is here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Yvq0eYFrY

Identity

2/7
Social influences have a great impact on cultural identity, and a large part of this is language.  An immigrant that comes into this country and is surrounded by a language variety that exists in the region, obviously they are going to adopt words into their vocabulary that others may not use.  My friend from the bilingual program had to learn English when she lived in Texas.  Socially, she was exposed to many users of the phrase “ya’ll.”  When she moved here she changed her speech again, in order to match the speech of her peers.  This goes for racial and ethnic speech as well.

The article talks about crossing and what social instances do to affect speech.  I found it shocking that Asian adolescent students faked not having very good English skills in order to get out of class activities.  As a bilingual educator this is important to recognize crossing.

Norton’s article was similar to the content of Hall.  Norton investigated how social identity affects our language learning.  The story of Martina made me think of something I was talking about with a friend, how public speaking or performance makes us nervous.  With years of practice everyday in our own language some of us still suffer from this anxiety.  However, each time you practice and the more good feedback you receive makes you more confident that the next time it will be better.


I thought it was so noble of Martina to eventually be independent enough to do things that a mother should do for their children.  Martina was not satisfied with her identity as a non-fluent English speaker.  She practiced and took uncomfortable leaps to gain fluency, just like we have been thrown into uncomfortable situations and deal with the embarrassment.  However, not every speaker of English ever overcomes the fear of public speaking and avoids it all together.  I think that there was something deep inside of Martina that pushed her to have a new social identity in Canada.  Norton expresses the notion that communicative competence must include a speaker’s ability to claim the right to speak.  Claiming the right to speak implies the speaker has confidence in their speech rather than native like speech.  Becoming fearless of the odd looks you might receive or the confusion that might occur are aspects of claiming the right to speak.  I think that this is crucial for communicative competence.  I do not think that speakers have this level of competence, because of some perceived notion of their social identity at a plateau.  


Like we saw and affirmed in class, that immigrants often struggle because it is like starting all over again, I think that part of the new beginnings that language learners have is reaffirming their old identity and a change in their old identity.  De Fina says that the way people use their “socially established resources” or “social categories (race, gender, ethnicity, ect.)” to tell their stories is an indicator of identity.  I took this to mean, that when people join different groups, meet new people, or move new places, they may change their identities to the changes they encounter or they may keep the identities that they already have.  


Overall I was astounded at how complex identity is.  Before reading the articles, I thought that there were two types of identities, the way you perceive yourself and the way others perceive you.  Situation identities, use social languages, discourses, and conversations are categories that Gee believes influences our identities.  So basically what ever you say, think or feel in any situation and with or against any certain person.  

I want to know whether you think identity acts with culture as one or if they are independent of each other.  Even perhaps if identity is a sub category of culture or if culture is a component of identity.