Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Last Post

I can honestly say that I was one of those people who walked in the advisor’s office and said I want all the minors available so I can get a job. I just wanted to add a minor that will make me stand out and spice up my resume. As an ESL student I had some amount of passion towards this field, but not as much as what I have developed over the semester.  Now I clearly see why this class in required for those wanting a TESOL minor. I can say that I have grown intellectually, and culturally 100%. This class was a wonderful experience, and has thought me so much. It thought things that although seem common sense, must of us do not bother to take time and think about it and impact it has on students (for example the writing differnces), for that I am very thankful for taking this class. To close the semester I would like to talk about the last chapter in McKay and Bokhorst-Heng’s book. I found this chapter a nice way to end the semester. It took the concepts that we have talked about and gave us, pre-service and current teachers, advices on how to prepare our learning environment for all English learners whether natives or non-natives. A few of my favorite implications or the ones I found very important were “EIL curricula should include examples of the diversity of English varieties used today, full recognition needs to be given to the other language spoken by English speakers and EIL should be taught in a way that respects the local culture of the learning”. I believe that a lot of the problems that we see today in all circles(inner, outer, or expanding) is lack of understand or knowledge of the diversity that exits in the English language. People are not aware of the complexity of the learning process. As I mentioned in my previous blog, it is very important that students are exposed to the varieties of Englishes that exits in today’s world. Exposure to such varieties allows the students to be knowledgeable about the language, and also give them a wide repertoire of which variety to use in a certain context.  I believe such exposure can also eliminate the negative views we have about certain varieties. What ties perfectly to the concept of teaching different varieties, is the idea that educators must teach it in a way promotes and respect the other cultures. There are many struggles that exist with the concept of learning English, not only we must fight to include the different varieties but we also must fight to include those varieties in a way that does not promote inferiority. This reminds me of Taylor-Mendes’s article on cultural representation, the issues that were explored within the article. I believe there is no importance of introducing or teaching a culture if it’s only looked in a negative way. It just pushes to students to me more discriminatory towards that culture and furthermore reinforces the concept of othering. These and many other factors must be taken when teaching English. I agree with the chapter that “effective pedagogical decisions and practice cannot be made without giving special attention to the many varied social context in which English is taught and learned” and even go further and “promote bilingualism for learners of all background”(197). I think that all of us wish for an environment like that but often do not know how to create such environment or have the willingness to do so. Just like the chapter says “most learners make it clear that monolingualsim is not their preferred goal” (181), but due to a combinations of reasons most educators do not strive to accomplish this goal. But my biggest dream is to create a classroom that reflects the diversities that exits in the world both culturally and language wise.

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