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.