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The Decolonial Option in English Teaching: Can the Subaltern Act?
Abstract
In this reflective article that straddles the personal and the professional, the author shares his critical thoughts on the impact of the steady stream of discourse on the native speaker/nonnative speaker (NS/NNS) inequity in the field of TESOL. His contention is that more than a quarter century of the discoursal output has not in any significant way altered the ground reality of NNS subordination. Therefore, he further contends, it is legitimate to ask what the discourse has achieved, where it has fallen short, why it has fallen short, and what needs to be done. Drawing insights from the works of Gramsci (1971) on hegemony and subalternity, and Mignolo (2010) on decoloniality, the author characterizes the NNS community as a subaltern community and argues that, if it wishes to effectively disrupt the hegemonic power structure, the only option open to it is a decolonial option which demands result-oriented action, not just “intellectual elaboration.” Accordingly, he presents the contours of a five-point plan of action for the consideration of the subaltern community. He claims that only a collective, concerted, and coordinated set of actions carries the potential to shake the foundation of the hegemonic power structure and move the subaltern community forward.
... First, textbooks are sub-alternation instruments with the preponderance of the hegemonic ideology of the native speaker (Faez, 2011;Kumaravadivelu, 2014;Viáfara, 2016). It shows teachers as consumers of knowledge without voice and action, thus indicating coloniality of being. ...
... It shows teachers as consumers of knowledge without voice and action, thus indicating coloniality of being. Second, textbooks promote language instrumentalisation, decontextualised cultural content, and uncritical use of foreign methodologies (Canagarajah, 2005;Kumaravadivelu, 2014;Núñez-Pardo, 2020a;Phillipson, 2008). As ratified by Soto-Molina and Méndez's (2020) documentary analysis, the content of textbooks deals with "high levels of alienation burden, superficial cultural components and instrumentation to the submissive person who favours the dominant culture of English and does not offer possibilities to embrace interculturality in ELF teaching contexts" (p. ...
... The first one is to cast doubt on decontextualisation of knowledge. This is because it restrains the recovery of ancestral knowledge and obstructs the construction of local knowledge (Canagarajah, 2002;Giroux et al., 1988;Kumaravadivelu, 2014;Núñez-Pardo, 2020a, 2021, widening the gap between school, home, and community. In this vein, teachers need to articulate students' knowledge of their context in school curricula, materials, and pedagogical practices. ...
The use of Colombian-authored EFL textbooks as subalternation instruments, the instrumentalization of grammar and foreign methodologies, and the imperialism of a profit-driven publishing industry perpetuates colonial links. This article reports a critical content analysis of six Colombian-authored EFL textbooks from local and foreign publishers. It was framed within a sociocritical paradigm, which included interviews with four authors, six teachers, and two editors. Findings reveal three triads of decolonial criteria: (a) The triad of ontological criteria unsettles the reproduction of foreign beliefs, behaviours, values, and ideologies; (b) the triad of epistemological criteria subverts North and West dominant knowledge and culture, and (c) the triad of power criteria withstands globalised and neoliberal discourses imposed through teaching methods, curricula, materials, testing, training, and standardised English varieties. The findings also indicate that there are still colonial traces in the representation of gender, races, sexual orientations, capacities, and social classes. Thus, developing efl materials from a decolonial perspective contests the commercial, standardised, and colonised textbooks to build contextualised and decolonised efl materials otherwise that are sensitive to cultural diversity. This academic endeavour exhorts teachers to assume a critical stance towards EFL materials content, learning activities and strategies, underpinning language pedagogies, iconography, language policy, and assessment practices, and to exert their agency to contest hegemony and recreate situated EFL pedagogical practices.
... Within the argument presented in the study, I advocate for a vision of the teacher as a professional and as an intellectual not as an instructor. A decolonial option for teaching foreign languages (Kumaravadivelu, 2014) implies that in-service teachers develop skills that enable them to become producers and not just consumers of knowledge. Critical interculturality in the field of elt does not mean rejecting the tradition of professional knowledge or received knowledge (Wallace, 1991). ...
... The coloniality of being, that is, the ontological dimension of the coloniality of power, is linked to the inferiorization of subjects belonging to the former colonies for not fulfilling the ideal of the European White man; consequently, the coloniality of being is intertwined with processes of racialization. Kumaravadivelu (2014) proposes getting rid of empty words that create divisions between groups, such as native and non-native. For this specific case, Motha (2006) indicates that social practices are shaped by discourses and therefore, suggests talking about multi-competence or multilingualism instead of non-native English speakers so that linguistic identity is changed. ...
... Initial language teacher education based upon critical interculturality should promote the recognition that professionally educated teachers are competent to teach all aspects of language, regardless of whether they are considered native speakers or not. Particularly, in a profession that celebrates the World Englishes that focus on intelligibility rather than accent (Kumaravadivelu, 2014). In this sense, one of the participants in the discussion groups highlights that, even though native speakers have linguistic proficiency, they may lack the pedagogical knowledge to teach in the Colombian context: ...
Colombian English Language Teaching (elt) is experiencing a paradigmatic change guided by the decolonial turn. This turn has enriched the debate about the implementation of a bilingual policy in Colombia, its impact on languages other than English, the purposes of learning English in the country, and English teacher practices and identities. This article shares the results of a critical ethnography that collected data from students and teacher educators from elt preparation programs and institutional and legal documents. Results indicate that, in Colombian elt, there are six discursive tensions representing coloniality. These are (a) English teachers as instructors or as educators; (b) native or non-native English speakers; (c) poor image of foreign language teachers as opposed to an idealized language teacher; (d) instrumental or cognitive and intercultural purposes for learning Eng-lish; (e) emphasis on disciplinary knowledge or on interdisciplinary knowledge; and (f) division or integration between theory and practice. To counter these tensions, a set of criteria are proposed. These criteria are: (a) elt preparation graduates are professionals in language pedagogy; (b) they are multilingual educated teachers; (c) they are well-rounded professional educators; (d) Eng-lish is a means of recognizing diversity; (e) elt preparation programs embrace interdisciplinarity as a decolonizing option; and (f) elt preparation programs promote praxis. To conclude, the criteria proposed aim to shift initial language teacher education from an instrumental vision to a reflexive one, considering what is being learned, how, with whom, in what contexts, and the reasons that justify it.
... In theoretical and ideological terms, the appeal for a curricular change, and the profound desire for a departure from an English literature-dominated syllabus appear to have clear linkages to the recurrent scholarship on the decolonization of the curriculum, decoloniality, decolonization of foreign language education and Cultural Discourse Studies (Kumaravadivelu 2016;Lin and Martin 2005;Macedo 2019;Maldonado-Torres 2016;McKinney 2020;Mignolo and Walsh 2018;Pennycook 1998;Thiong'o, 1986). Considering the criticality and urgency of this issue, the study broadly seeks to analyse data through the prism of 'coloniality/decoloniality' to demonstrate that the reported bottom-up resistance to the teaching of English literature is crucial because we deem it as an obvious indicator of a paradigmatic shift toward curriculum designing. ...
... Tikly (2018) fundamentally problematizes the Eurocentric nature of the curriculum in the colonized world. When scholars argue that coloniality has survived colonialism, they in fact try to suggest that coloniality pervades conspicuously not only in the economic, social and cultural arena but also takes a firm hold of the academia in the form books, in the criteria for academic performance, and in the self-image of subaltern intellectuals (Kumaravadivelu 2016;Maldonado-Torres 2007;McKinney 2016McKinney , 2020Mignolo and Walsh 2018). According to McKinney (2020), coloniality is still alive and kicking in South Africa where powerful monolingual or monoglossic as well as Anglo-normative language ideologies still pervade. ...
... The participants show a rather clearer vision of what kind of curriculum genuinely fits within the given sociocultural ecology, a curriculum that addresses and accounts for the genuine practical academic and employability needs of the students. A closer synthesis of their perspectives collectively call for what we interpret as a 'Decolonial option' of the curriculum (Kumaravadivelu 2016;McKinney 2020;Mignolo and Walsh 2018;Tikly 2018). The findings are discussed in three key themes: (a) reclaiming the indigenous knowledge and literature; (b) meaningful cognitive engagement and identity investment; and (c) sociocultural groundedness and situatedness of contents and pedagogy. ...
When government announced removal of the Goodbye Mr. Chips from intermediate-level English textbooks in one of the provinces of Pakistan, the public and media response was overwhelming. Students in particular took a sigh of relief because many believed it was a boring story by a foreign author, depicting a foreign setting. Drawing on this development as a reference point, this article examines the perspectives of students and teachers about the teaching of English literature in part of Pakistan. The method used combines semi-structured interviews with a questionnaire survey. Using Coloniality and Decoloniality as conceptual frames, the paper discusses the significance of participants’ perspectives at theoretical, ideological and implementational levels. Findings suggest a paradigmatic shift from the Anglo-normativity. Participants call for an overhaul of the current English literature-dominated curriculum. Their alternative paradigm is more pluralist, which should: reclaim the indigenous/local knowledge, be firmly grounded in students’ sociocultural ecologies, and take into consideration students’ cognitive engagement and identity investment. We interpret their reflective agency as a significant epistemic break from the normative deterministic logic of the unassailable position of English, and their voices as robust intellectual tools. Symbolically, these voices seek to liberate academia from the yoke of coloniality.
... This article draws awareness to Whiteness as a centered and reinforced phenomenon in global ELT which contributes to discriminatory practices against English educators and learners who do not conform to White norms 1 (Charles, 2019;Gerald, 2020aGerald, , 2020bKumaravadivelu, these associations may be greater with countries such as the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada (Charles, 2019;Iams, 2016;Kramadibrata, 2016;Ruecker, 2011) with others forgotten or excluded (e.g., South Africa, Ireland) (Ruecker, 2011). The label native speaker may be assigned primarily to a homogenous, stereotyped, and essentialist view of White native speakers, and the nuanced experiences of teachers representing non-White racialized groups, notably Black teachers of English, are not considered (Charles, 2019;Kubota, 2018). ...
... Inner Circle countries as named by Kachru (2006) or center countries according to Phillipson (1992). Teaching methods are recommended from the dominant center, providing White, Western countries with the authority to dominate the development and distribution of texts even though local developers are able to produce them (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). Kumaravadivelu (2016) critiques the notion that the critical examination of textbooks from White native speaker dominant countries should fall on local teachers and students: "It would be naive to think that the passive tactics of the weak can deter the aggressive strategies of the strong" (p. ...
... Teaching methods are recommended from the dominant center, providing White, Western countries with the authority to dominate the development and distribution of texts even though local developers are able to produce them (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). Kumaravadivelu (2016) critiques the notion that the critical examination of textbooks from White native speaker dominant countries should fall on local teachers and students: "It would be naive to think that the passive tactics of the weak can deter the aggressive strategies of the strong" (p. 75). ...
This article draws awareness to Whiteness as a centered phenomenon in ELT which contributes to discriminatory practices through reliance on and privileging of White norms on a global scale. This study sought to address this issue through a critical discourse analysis of 14 English as a foreign language (EFL) open-source teacher training modules with the following guiding question: How are ideologies that reinforce White native-speakerism demonstrated in open-source English teaching methodology training materials designed for global ELT audiences? Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS; Nayak, 2007), the concept of native-speakerism (Holliday, 2006), and the ‘native speaker’ frame (Lowe, 2020) informed the theoretical assumptions of the study. Critical Discourse Studies (CDS; Wodak & Meyer, 2015) provided an analytical lens to examine discourses of power and framing of ideology in the texts. The main thread that emerged from the analysis was an avoidance of stance, demonstrated through contradictory, simultaneous representations of resistance to and reinforcement of ideologies of White native-speakerism. This avoidance of stance is exemplified through representation of language varieties, the emergence of a monolingual view of teaching, representations of culture, and the framing of authenticity. Keywords: White native-speakerism, Whiteness, English teacher training, training materials, English as a foreign language (EFL), English language teaching (ELT), reinforcement, resistance
... Studies on teachers' identity show how personal histories, professional development, and job contexts shape teachers' professional identity through their affiliation to imagined worlds (Martel & Wang, 2015). A particular aspect of English teachers' identities is that they are framed by their status as native of non-native speakers of English (Kumaravadivelu, 2016;Pavlenko, 2003;Song, 2016;Wu, 2017;Xu, 2012;Yuan, 2019). For language teachers, Ruohotie-Lyhty et al. (2021) demonstrated how identity development involves an emotional basis because the socio-political contexts press their teaching to respond to societal discourses and realities. ...
... The English teachers' three imagined identities and the affiliation to an imagined community of "bilinguals" respond to transnational discourses of globalization and the obligation assigned to educators to prepare citizens for the labor market (Kumaravadivelu, 2006(Kumaravadivelu, , 2016Usma-Wilches, 2009, 2015. In Colombia, the NPB has perpetuated those ideas shaping teachers' imagined individual and collective identities. ...
English teachers’ professional development responds to individual needs and societal discourses about teaching, learning, and language use. This paper reports the findings of a case study that explored the factors that increased or limited the active and committed participation of nine Colombian teachers of English in professional development programs. Findings suggest that English teachers are invested in their professional development if they may develop three imagined identities—as proficient English speakers, ELT experts, and ICT competent users—and their affiliation to an imagined community of “bilinguals.” The teachers’ journey to the imagined identities and the imagined community is full of conflicting emotions amidst the socio-political context of their work and the country’s language education policies.
... While reverse linguistic stereotyping and raciolinguistic ideologies affect listeners interacting with racialized speakers, racialized speakers themselves often times endorse the normative ideologies, becoming complicit with the hegemonic structures. This parallels the ways in which nonnnative Englishspeaking teachers of English often conform to the native speakerism and Western pedagogical frameworks, leading to self-marginalization (Kumaravadivelu 2016). In this way, normative ideologies function as what Antonio Gramsci called hegemony or Pierre Bourdieu called symbolic violence, making people subjugate themselves to domination in the absence of direct imposition of power (Burawoy 2019;Kramsch 2020). ...
... People's complicity with the hegemonic ideologies of normativism, stemming from both dominant and marginalized positionalities, has been challenged by decolonial thinking in language studies (Deumert et al. 2020; García et al. 2021;Kumaravadivelu 2016;Pennycook and Makoni 2019) as well as the broader intellectual work on decoloniality (e.g., Mignolo and Walsh 2018;Santos 2016;Thiong'o 1986). Decolonizing the conceptualization of language entails questioning the colonial practices of defining and describing languages as bounded categories and legitimizing a certain variety of language as standardized form in social and educational domains. ...
The field of language education has mobilized diversity paradigms during the last several decades. Paradigms, such as world Englishes, English as a lingua franca, and translanguaging, have illuminated how linguistic forms and practices vary across locations, contexts, and individual linguistic repertoires. Although they aim to raise teachers’ and students’ engagement with linguistic heterogeneity, they are largely founded on the postmodern/poststructuralist valorization of linguistic hybridity and fluidity, which tends to neglect language users and thus overlooks the human differences that also inform that heterogeneity. True linguistic diversity and justice can be attained by both problematizing structural obstacles and recognizing that ideologies and structures are entrenched in unequal and unjust relations of power regarding race, gender, class, and sexuality, which influence diverse language users to communicate in certain ways. This conceptual paper problematizes the conventional focus on language in the discourse of linguistic diversity within language education, especially English language teaching, and proposes that we pay greater attention to language users. While recognizing that social justice is not a universal notion, we endorse an antiracist justice-informed contextualized approach to teaching about linguistic diversity by illuminating how diversity and power among language users as well as broader structures impact the nature of communication.
... These tacit beliefs and values are often articulated through language and educational policy of a given HEI. This has been a persistent concern of certain academics in some departments of English studies (see, for example, Canagarajah 2020; Wa Ngugi, 1981; Kumaravadivelu, 2016). For instance, those who have argued for the upliftment, development, and in some cases policy implementation of African languages as languages of tuition (e.g., Wa Ngugi, 1981, Prah, 2018) have not managed to replace English as a medium of instruction. ...
... 155). Kumaravadivelu's (2016) argument of organic intellectuals is an attempt to address the illusion of nonnative English speakers (NNESs) in Asia. His paper provides a comprehensive view of decades of the marginalization of NNESs in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) by native speakers in Asia. ...
South Africa has policies and frameworks for curriculum design, transformation, and quality assurance in each public institution of higher education (HE). These policies influence the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), particularly at the departmental and disciplinary levels of English Studies. Despite the policy narratives and rhetoric, English Studies still carries vestiges of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Similarly, in other disciplines, scholars in the Global South have highlighted coloniality, epistemicides, epistemic errors, and epistemic injustices, but not in a dual critique of SoTL and the English language.
Hypercritical self-reflexivity by academics should be the norm in SoTL, and this should be linked to language-based curriculum reforms and module content designs. All of these self-reflexive efforts should foreground how the mission to transform and decolonize is entangled with Eurocentric paradigms of English language teaching.
This paper characterizes the nexus between SoTL and the coloniality of language within South African higher education. It also discusses and critiques the nature of an English department in a post-apartheid and postcolonial South Africa. In addition, it critiques the coloniality of language and imperial English language paradigms often embraced by higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa, and delineates curriculum transformation, Africanization, and decolonizing English within this educational sector. Finally, the paper challenges Eurocentric SoTL practices and colonialist English language paradigms by framing its argument within a critical southern decolonial perspective and a post-Eurocentric SoTL.
... The English language is utilized as a means to reproduce and perpetuate imperial power relations between the United Kingdom and its former colonies. This is achieved through a wide variety of ELT practices, such as the assessment criteria, curricular plans, teaching methods, and teaching materials, meant to perpetuate the hegemony of the center over the nonnative speakers (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). However, it is mainly through the center-produced materials and teaching methods that the marginality of the vast majority is sustained (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). ...
... This is achieved through a wide variety of ELT practices, such as the assessment criteria, curricular plans, teaching methods, and teaching materials, meant to perpetuate the hegemony of the center over the nonnative speakers (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). However, it is mainly through the center-produced materials and teaching methods that the marginality of the vast majority is sustained (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). Therefore, many of the materials produced in these Western countries are considered no more than tools of imperialism or neo-imperialism, with content romanticizing and promoting Western cultures and values while ignoring and repressing local cultures (Kanoksilapatham, 2018;Khodadady & Shayesteh, 2016;Lekawael et al., 2018;Pennycook, 2017). ...
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... For example, native-speakerism -the belief that "'native-speaker' teachers represent a 'Western culture' from which spring the ideals both of the English language and of English language teaching methodology" (Holliday, 2006, p. 385) -penetrates classrooms, employment policies, national-and supra-national education policies as well as ELT scholarship (Cook, 2007;Davidson, 2006;Hashimoto, 2013;Holliday, 2006;Kubota, 2018a;Kumaravadivelu, 2016;Phillipson, 1992). Here, "native English speakers" are often ideologically and discursively constructed as white speakers from Inner Circle communities (Kang and Rubin, 2009;Kubota, 2018bKubota, , 2021. ...
... Third, even if practitioners desire to practice WE-informed pedagogy, they are often not supported materially, meaning that there is a dearth of resources to guide this type of pedagogy (Galloway and Rose, 2018;Matsuda, 2012b). Researchers point out that materials published by large publishers continue to feature Inner Circle Englishes and speakers (Kumaravadivelu, 2016;Matsuda, 2012b;Yamada, 2015), who are also often racialized as white (Kubota, 2018b(Kubota, , 2021. ELT scholarship has seen proliferation of theoretical critiques against traditional, Inner Circle-based ELT over the last 50 years but teaching practices and publishers of teaching materials have not kept up with the speed of such theoretical development. ...
This chapter re-examines the role of world Englishes (WE) in today's English language teaching, highlighting its pedagogical applications. It first provides a brief overview of the theoretical development of WE and neighboring/overlapping fields. This is followed by a summary of WE's pedagogical foci, after which it identifies major stumbling blocks that impede the actualization of WE-informed pedagogy. It then highlights classroom innovations that challenge those obstacles while contextually applying WE elements to instruction. The chapter concludes by responding to the critique of WE, and advocates strategic use of the WE framework that utilizes its theoretical limitations for pedagogical purposes.
... Non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) Language teacher identity has been a subject of research interest in LTI for the last quarter of the century. After Phillipson's (1992) pioneering work, extensive studies and articles have been written and published by NNEST scholars (Canagarajah,1999;Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2005;Mahboob, 2010;Medgyes, 1992;Moussu & Llurda, 2008), who are fighting back on their subaltern position and inferior image (Kumaravadivelu, 2016) imposed by linguistic imperialism and colonial hegemonic power structure (Phillipson, 1992). Braine's (1999) work on nonnative educators in TESOL has encouraged a number of scholars to pursue further research on this issue. ...
... Furthermore, the turn of the 20th century has seen the outpouring identity discourse focusing primarily on NESTs and NNESTs dichotomy (Menard-Warwick, 2008). Kumaravadivelu (2016) contends that the critical discourse on the native -nonnative EFL teacher dichotomy still remains mainstream in the field of TESOL and claims that decolonial 'result driven' approach is the only option to move forward the subaltern position of the NNESTs' community. It is worth mentioning that the recent surge in local research on LTI in Latin America focuses on postcolonial theories and seek to raise awareness about issues of struggle and power inequality in relation to local teachers' strong resistance to "whiteness" and "nativespeakerness" in the Global South (Castañeda-Peña, 2018; Gómez- Vásquez & Guerrero Nieto, 2018;González, 2009;Mendez et al., 2019;López-Gopar 2016;Rivera, 2018). ...
Within the field of TESOL, language teacher identity (LTI) has been the focus of a myriad of studies in the previous two decades. Researchers need to trace back in order to move forward, it is an essential step towards a comprehensive understanding of what has been done in LTI research. This review article provides an overall literature review on conceptual approaches of how identity is defined and perceived in the context of recent history. It is then followed by an analysis of dominant trends on recent studies of Language Teacher Identity to profile what, why, when, and who constitute seminal works in LTI research by tracing scholarly literature from 1975 to the present. A dataset retrieved and analyzed from Scopus was further correlated using Vantage Point software. The findings not only revealed the conceptual approaches, dominant trends, and methodological development in LTI research, but also identified the underexplored areas in transnational teacher identities, teacher educator identities, and online teacher identities, which provided implications for future LTI research directions.
... is assertion reveals that there exists an unhealthy hierarchy among the teachers based on ethnicity: monolingual teachers of English vs. bilingual teachers of English, which results in dissatisfaction over low-salaries, demotivation, low self-esteem, and voice legitimacy. erefore, such ideologies need to be challenged and problematized [72,73]. e policymakers should realize that an academic is an academic regardless of their ethnicity or nationality [74] and attempt to achieve equality among ELT teachers in different aspects including salaries and voice that will positively affect their innovativeness and creativity. ...
... Such belief reveals that those teachers are powerless and they depend on the ministry to change their deplorable conditions which, in our opinion, is shoving away the teachers' own responsibility to raise their voice against discrimination and exploitation and unless they emerge as pro-active, nothing shall ever change their lot. Kumaravadivelu [72] asserts that "the solution cannot come from the dominating power; it has to come from the subaltern themselves through critical consciousness and the collective will to act" (p.76). ...
Literature in the field of TESOL recruitment practices suggests that the myth of monolingual speakerism has impacted the employment methods in various countries in the world. The monolingual (native) speaker has a privileged position in English language teaching, representing both the model speaker and the ideal teacher. Bilingual teachers of English are often perceived as less competent than their monolingual counterparts in Oman. The aim of the study was to critically explore and problematize the recruitment practices that discriminate the bilingual English teachers in Oman. This article reports the findings of a small-scale qualitative study conducted at an English Language Center (ELC) at one of the colleges of technology in Oman (CoTs) through obtaining data from bilingual teachers of English. The results demonstrated that the native (monolingual) speakers’ fallacy is “alive and kicking” in Oman. All the recruiting agencies prefer to recruit monolingual speakers justifying this stance on the pretext that bilinguals are viewed as incompetent imitators of English. There is also a huge discrimination based on salary range between monolingual and bilingual teachers, despite doing same job. Colonial impact is another reason behind monolingual speakers’ preference. The impact of discrimination is that bilingual teachers of English are left feeling inferior. Hence, it is essential to adopt policies, which install greater sense of job security to enhance motivation and innovation. The study suggests that there is an urgent need to review the recruitment practices in Oman to establish equality and to create a healthy working environment.
... The English language is utilized as a means to reproduce and perpetuate imperial power relations between the United Kingdom and its former colonies. This is achieved through a wide variety of ELT practices, such as the assessment criteria, curricular plans, teaching methods, and teaching materials, meant to perpetuate the hegemony of the center over the nonnative speakers (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). However, it is mainly through the center-produced materials and teaching methods that the marginality of the vast majority is sustained (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). ...
... This is achieved through a wide variety of ELT practices, such as the assessment criteria, curricular plans, teaching methods, and teaching materials, meant to perpetuate the hegemony of the center over the nonnative speakers (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). However, it is mainly through the center-produced materials and teaching methods that the marginality of the vast majority is sustained (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). Therefore, many of the materials produced in these Western countries are considered no more than tools of imperialism or neo-imperialism, with content romanticizing and promoting Western cultures and values while ignoring and repressing local cultures (Kanoksilapatham, 2018;Khodadady & Shayesteh, 2016;Lekawael et al., 2018;Pennycook, 2017). ...
The adoption of commercial language-teaching materials produced in the United Kingdom, or the United States, is a common practice in English language teaching (ELT) worldwide. This is due to the wide perception of British and American English as the standard, favorable models of the English language. This practice, however, does not support the increasing and urgent shift to the teaching English as an international language (TEIL) paradigm, and it further perpetuates the hegemony of these Western countries over the market of ELT materials. In this paper, we seek to not only problematize the adoption of global commercial materials but also propose a conceptual model for composing effective local ELT materials for the Malaysian English language classroom. In doing so, we refer to the relevant literature and previous research. The proposed conceptual model embraces the TEIL paradigm as well as multimodality and executes them by utilizing oral history and the graphic novel as two powerful pedagogical tools. By combining these two pedagogies, the model accentuates the acknowledged pedagogical value of both oral history and the graphic novel and results in local-context and culture-based texts that are also consistent with the current nature of texts being visual and multimodal. Furthermore, the paper showcases some samples of graphic oral history texts composed by Malaysian English language teachers and student teachers in two projects.
... Esse mito/discurso subalterniza o professor de inglês brasileiro, de modo que é necessária a mobilização da comunidade subalternizada para o desenvolvimento de um conjunto de ações coletivas com o potencial de tensionar contra esse discurso que promove assimetrias na sociedade por meio de relações (de poder) políticas, culturais, econômicas e educacionais. Para Kumaravadivelu (2016), os métodos de ensino de inglês podem pressupor uma competência presumida pelo falante nativo, seus estilos de aprendizagem, seus padrões de comunicações, suas crenças culturais. Desse modo, percebe-se que a ideologia propagada por métodos e materiais didáticos produzidos por grandes centros hegemônicos pode ser mitigada por professores de comunidades periféricas, de modo que uma opção decolonial pode ser atualizada em práticas situadas, o que nos leva a compreender que " [...] nem sempre as teorias e abordagens gestadas na Metrópole atendem aos interesses da periferia" (Rajagopalan, 2013, p. 154). ...
... Considerando que a LA mestiça problematiza o ensino de línguas a partir de sua natureza interdisciplinar, faz-se necessária a explicitação das teorias mobilizadas para essa reflexão: em interface com a concepção de ensino crítico de inglês, compreendido como uma teoria pedagógica resultante da articulação entre a vertente SciELO Preprints -Este documento é um preprint e sua situação atual está disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-460x202255200 crítica da LA e o ensino de inglês que contempla aspectos sociais e políticos da aprendizagem da língua (Rajagopalan, 2013;Kumaravadivelu, 2016; entre outros), adoto como teoria linguística a perspectiva dialógica da linguagem (Bakhtin, 2016;Brait, 2016;Volóchinov, 2018). Essa filiação reconhece a produtividade da relação entre a LA e a teoria dialógica do discurso para se pensar a própria área e para tratar a aula de língua como um espaço dialógico Amaral et al., 2020 ...
O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a constituição do discurso acadêmico do professor de inglês sobre experiências exitosas no ensino da língua. Para isso, filio-me à Linguística Aplicada e adoto a perspectiva dialógica da linguagem para explorar 12 resumos de comunicações publicados no caderno de resumos do III Seminário Internacional da Associação Brasileira de Professores de Língua Inglesa na Rede Federal de Ensino Básico, Técnico e Tecnológico (ABRALITEC) em 2020. Os resumos são tomados como enunciados imbuídos do discurso oficial sobre o ensino de inglês no Brasil e do discurso teórico mobilizado para a realização da investigação no campo da atividade científica. A análise dialógica do corpus elucidou que o discurso acadêmico do professor de inglês se bivocaliza com o discurso teórico por meio da nomenclatura de conceitos e da citação a autores para fundamentar teorias pedagógica, metodológica e de linguagem, ao passo que se bivocaliza com o discurso oficial por meio da inserção de léxico específico ou da menção à política de educação linguística para complementá-la ou transgredi-la.
... This article, however, aims to show that while scholars generally agree that native-speakerism and the ideologies and practices associated with ELT remain massive stumbling blocks in the legitimization of Englishes in the world (Hillman, Selvi, & Yazan, 2021), such agreement does not extend to the idea of ELT as a continuing colonial project. Conditions of coloniality, such as the pervasiveness of native-speakerism facilitated by global and institutional infrastructures of education, continue to shape ELT practice (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). However, while scholars acknowledge the workings of destructive ideologies, practices and infrastructures sustaining and resulting in inequalities of English and multilingualism, some work stops short of saying that these generators of inequalities remain colonial in nature (Edge, 2006;Kumaravadivelu, 2016). ...
... Conditions of coloniality, such as the pervasiveness of native-speakerism facilitated by global and institutional infrastructures of education, continue to shape ELT practice (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). However, while scholars acknowledge the workings of destructive ideologies, practices and infrastructures sustaining and resulting in inequalities of English and multilingualism, some work stops short of saying that these generators of inequalities remain colonial in nature (Edge, 2006;Kumaravadivelu, 2016). According to this line of thinking, colonialism is a thing of the past; thus, native-speakerism (and ELT in general) is now cut off from its imperialist moorings. ...
In various iterations of studies of Global Englishes, much has been written about native-speakerism. However, Kumaravadivelu asks why the intellectual output has not substantially altered the power dynamics between ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speakers. This article conducts a critical historiography of native-speakerism and shows how it is fundamentally implicated in the mobilization of race and racial inequality in the operationalization of colonial power. It does so by going back to texts written during the period of American colonization in the Philippines and discussing their discursive and structural continuities today. The article highlights and problematizes the coloniality of native-speakerism.
... By looking back, I refer exactly to what Freire calls for, that is, to critically understand our past. By looking sideways, I refer to what more recent decolonial studies call for, that is, the acknowledgment of the ecology of knowledges and the denial of absolute and universal truths (Sousa Santos, 2007) with an emphasis on the acknowledgment of ourselves as knowledge producers whose agentive capacity is even greater if we engage in Global South coalitions and concerted actions within our professional community (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). ...
... It also socialised them into the beliefs that a) linguistic forms override content and idea in academic writing in the host institution, b) L2 users of English are unlikely to write as proficient as the L1 users, and c) they could and should improve their L2 writing abilities outside content courses simply by taking more time to practice. Although native speakerism and linguistic imperialism have been problematised and criticised (e.g., Kumaravadivelu, 2016), this tendency to marginalise the intellectual contribution of L2 users of English and pay disproportionate attention to linguistic quality of L2 output has not fundamentally changed (Phillipson, 2018). If imbued with the native-speakerism, feedback may widen the gap between new and established members and reinforces students' positions as peripheral members of the academic discourse community. ...
While feedback has been found to serve multiple functions, how feedback socialises master’s students into the academic discourse community remains under-investigated. The current study aims to enrich this discussion by focusing on the self-reported, feedback-related experiences of two Chinese MA TESOL students at a UK university. Multiple-sourced data were analysed to investigate (a) the identity categories into which teacher feedback (written and oral) attempted to socialise the focal students; (b) if positioned into undesirable identity categories, how the students reacted to such challenges; and (c) how their reactions to identity challenges affected their investment in feedback-related academic literacy practice. Teacher feedback was found to socialise the students into three identity categories with differential legitimacy in the academic discourse communities. Both students encountered identity challenges, which prompted them to reconfigure power relations, claim more powerful identities, and adjust investment in feedback-related academic literacy practice accordingly. However, they took different approaches to reframing power relations, and their reconstructed identities also differed in terms of congruence. The findings call for more research on the sociocultural and sociopolitical dimension of teacher and student feedback literacy, and suggest the necessity for teachers to provide identity-empowering feedback to facilitate students’ academic discourse socialisation.
... For example, English is spoken and taught as an additional language by more non-native speakers and teachers of English than by native speakers (Hamid, 2016), yet in many countries the ELT profession is still "the proud privilege of expatriates" (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p. 68) who have native English-speaking status. In ELT literature, "Western/grand narratives" (Canagarajah, 2016, p. 10)have traditionally dominated research and limited the ability of research voices from marginalised regions to bring a much-needed global perspective to research in this area (Kumaravadivelu, 2016;Rose et al., 2020). ...
In this chapter, autoethnography is used to highlight critical issues in English language teaching (ELT), viewed through my eyes as a teacher working with refugee-background English language learners in an Australian adult migrant English program (AMEP). I begin with a brief introduction to autoethnography and discuss recommendations made in recent literature for this methodology in ELT to adopt a more critical approach. I then reflect on the two-year period I taught in the AMEP and incidents that prompted me to reconsider assumptions I had held about my position and privilege as a teacher. I discuss some practical applications of critical reflection in my teaching practice and consider possible ways forward for teachers and researchers in AMEP seeking to engage in collective inquiry and dialogue around critical issues.
... In terms of the ELT curriculum, colonialism is perceived to exert its power most evidently in the assumed imposition of native English-speaking varieties of English and Western methodologies -'I am a native English speaker, what's my role in all of this?' was a question I often struggled with in this space. In Colombia, I was understood variously as the colonist (for example, in a seminar discussing the Kumaravadivelu (2016) text 'The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern act?', an event led by the author; as the only person perceived as a native English speaker, I felt the full discomfort of the criticisms levelled against 'native-speaking, foreign teachers'), and as an ally, a so-called 'indigenous foreigner' (Usma Wiches, 2015: 49-50) who had aligned themselves with a decolonial enterprise. (I'm thinking here of a conference where the presenter, who knew I shared her 'critical pedagogic principles', in a tirade against native English-speaking teachers, broke script to clarify, 'Not you Peter, you're different.') ...
Within the spirit of conspiration, this article brings together contributions from participants of the PhD-led UCL Reading and React Group ‘Colonialism(s), Neoliberalism(s) and Language Teaching and Learning’, which ran in 2019/20. Weaving together various perspectives, the article centres on the dialogic nature of the decolonial enterprise and challenges the colonial concept of monologic authorial voice. Across the reflections on participants’ own engagements with questions of decolonising language teaching and learning, we pull together three threads: the inherent coloniality of the concepts that shape the very disciplines we seek to decolonise; the need to place decolonial efforts within broader contexts and to be sceptical of projects claiming to have completed the work of decolonising language teaching and learning; and the affordances and limitations offered to us by our positionalities, which the reflexivity of the conspirational encounter has allowed us to explore in some depth. The article closes with a reflection on the process of writing this article, and with the assertion that decolonising the curriculum is a multifaceted and open-ended process of dialogue and conspiration between practitioners and researchers alike.
... In terms of the ELT curriculum, colonialism is perceived to exert its power most evidently in the assumed imposition of native English-speaking varieties of English and Western methodologies -'I am a native English speaker, what's my role in all of this?' was a question I often struggled with in this space. In Colombia, I was understood variously as the colonist (for example, in a seminar discussing the Kumaravadivelu (2016) text 'The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern act?', an event led by the author; as the only person perceived as a native English speaker, I felt the full discomfort of the criticisms levelled against 'native-speaking, foreign teachers'), and as an ally, a so-called 'indigenous foreigner' (Usma Wiches, 2015: 49-50) who had aligned themselves with a decolonial enterprise. (I'm thinking here of a conference where the presenter, who knew I shared her 'critical pedagogic principles', in a tirade against native English-speaking teachers, broke script to clarify, 'Not you Peter, you're different.') ...
Within the spirit of conspiration, this article brings together contributions from participants of the PhD-led UCL Reading and React Group ‘Colonialism(s), Neoliberalism(s) and Language Teaching and Learning’, which ran in 2019/20. Weaving together various perspectives, the article centres on the dialogic nature of the decolonial enterprise and challenges the colonial concept of monologic authorial voice. Across the reflections on participants’ own engagements with questions of decolonising language teaching and learning, we pull together three threads: the inherent coloniality of the concepts that shape the very disciplines we seek to decolonise; the need to place decolonial efforts within broader contexts and to be sceptical of projects claiming to have completed the work of decolonising language teaching and learning; and the affordances and limitations offered to us by our positionalities, which the reflexivity of the conspirational encounter has allowed us to explore in some depth. The article closes with a reflection on the process of writing this article, and with the assertion that decolonising the curriculum is a multifaceted and open-ended process of dialogue and conspiration between practitioners and researchers alike.
... The concept of translingual discrimination thereby points to the critical issues between language and inequality, innovating the analytic potential of applied linguistic theories by taking concepts such as linguistic racism (Corona & Block, 2020;Dovchin, 2020a), unequal Englishes (Tupas & Rubdy, 2015), raciolinguistics (Rosa & Flores, 2017), and linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2015) seriously. The main ethos of these concepts is to reveal the unequal power relationship between ideologies and practices such as so-called native or non-native, first or second language users (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). The focus is on the central role that language plays in the enduring relevance of race/racism, institutional/interpersonal discrimination in the lives of migrants, racialised or ethnic minorities in the highly diverse transnational host societies of the twenty-first century, and what it means to speak or communicate as people with transnational identities. ...
Moving beyond two main concepts of 'interlingual' and 'intralingual' discrimination, this Cambridge Element addresses the concept of 'translingual discrimination', which refers to inequality based on transnational migrants' specific linguistic and communicative repertoires that are (il)legitimized by the national order of things. Translingual discrimination adds intensity to transnational processes, with transnational migrants showing two main characteristics of exclusion - 'translingual name discrimination' and its associated elements such as 'name stigma' and 'name microaggression'; and 'translingual English discrimination' and its elements such as 'accentism', 'stereotyping' and 'hallucination'. The accumulation of these characteristics of translingual discrimination causes negative emotionality in its victims, including 'foreign language anxiety' and 'translingual inferiority complexes'. Consequently, transnational migrants adopt coping strategies such as 'CV whitening', 'renaming practices', 'purification', and 'ethnic evasion' while searching for translingual safe spaces. The Element concludes with the social and pedagogical implications of translingual discrimination in relation to transnational migrants.
... Similarly, Widdowson (1994) attributed the influence of native speakerism on NESTs' teaching methodology to the cultural representativeness of NESTs in English. As Kumaravadivelu (2016) pointed out, communicative language teaching (CLT), mainly promoted by Western cultures, has been regarded as the most appropriate methodology in East Asian NEST schemes, which undermines the teaching methodology of LETs. Another related concern pertains to NESTs' insensitivity towards local cultures (school or otherwise), where some NESTs have been reported to be aloof about accommodating the local norms and thus exhibit intercultural incompetence (Bunce, 2016). ...
Most literature on native speakerism has criticized its impact especially in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts where native English-speaking teachers, who are deemed to be more competent and desirable, enjoy more benefits and privileges than their nonnative counterparts. However, recent research has suggested that such assumptions associated with native speakerism may not accurately reflect what is actually happening in EFL school settings. The current study examines Korean English teachers’ views on various dimensions of native speakerism in order to capture the impact of native speakerism as experienced by local English teachers. Data were collected from 37 in-service teachers working in elementary and secondary schools in South Korea via surveys and interviews. The survey results showed negative effects of native speakerism for some constructs; however, the qualitative results revealed that concerns surrounding native speakerisms were not as problematic as one might hypothesize based on the existing literature. The results are discussed with suggestions aimed at alleviating any negative effects of native speakerism in EFL settings.
... This choice perpetuates the European and North American cultures as the dominant ideological orientation shaping the representation of the imagined world of English. In that train of thought, the concept of publishing industries replicates the model of one culture-one langue has attended to the proliferation, appropriation, and regionalization of Englishes and questioned the ELT textbook writer's ownership of English in the role of resisting the marketed world (Kumaravadivelu, 2016, Noah, 2010, Simonsen, 2019Trujeque, 2015). ...
En el siguiente artículo de revisión muestro un análisis de los principales desarrollos relacionados con el tema de investigación de ELT (Enseñanza del Idioma Inglés) - escritores de libros de texto en el mundo: el papel en el ámbito de la producción de materiales de ELT en el que establecí al autor como un sujeto para trabajar en sus relatos como escritor, sus puntos de vista, y los conflictos con la industria, del reconocimiento, los derechos de autor, y remuneraciones en el ámbito de la creación de libros de texto de inglés. Este interés yace en mi experiencia como profesor de inglés y en el que he diseñado materiales para la enseñanza del inglés en mi lugar de trabajo. En el presente articulo empleé una búsqueda en bases de datos por medio de la minería de datos, en la que se encontraron sesenta artículos publicados en todo el mundo en lugares como Japón, India, Pakistán, Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, entre otros. El análisis evidenció tres tendencias recurrentes: la primera, una práctica hegemónica en la producción de material que está sujeto quien escribe textos. La segunda muestra la preferencia de las editoriales internacionales por los escritores expertos en libros de texto de ELT como modelo sobre los escritores novatos. La tercera revela que las industrias editoriales educativas replican el modelo de una cultura-un idioma, ignorando la visión cultural crítica del escritor de libros de texto de ELT. Se concluye de este análisis que los escritores de libros de texto de ELT es un área de investigación que no ha sido ampliamente problematizada dentro del campo de ELT.
... 378). Decoloniality is, then, an unavoidable option to dismantle hegemonic power structures (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). At its core, decoloniality strives to challenge colonial ways of thinking to recenter ethnic communities in the Global South: their existence, their languages, cultures, and their knowledges. ...
As English spreads globally, it continues to displace local languages and cultures at all levels of education. Concerned with this issue, in this article we report our experiences as English instructors attempting to decolonize English lessons to embrace the diverse cultures, languages, and realities of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian students enrolled in English courses at a public university in Medellín, Colombia. To attain this, we framed lessons from a decolonial, critical intercultural (ci) perspective and strived to interrogate language ideologies and cultural power relations by inviting students’ languages and cultures to the classroom. The experience suggests that sustaining local languages and cultures through English entails the production of teaching materials that contest the erasure, homogenization, and misrepresentations of Black and Indigenous peoples. It also implies positioning students as experts on their cultures and as text producers, all of which provides a broader understanding of intersectionality in Indigenous and Black communities.
... Nowadays, CLT is a totally accepted methodology in many countries (14) all around the world. ...
Background & Aims: Methodology as a critical factor plays a significant role in achieving the acceptable results in educational fields, particularly in the process of language teaching and learning in applied linguistics. Analyzing the teaching methodology from different perspectives such as satisfaction is also important. Accordingly, the purpose of present paper is to evaluate the satisfaction level the students of medicine about GTM and CLT methods in UMSU. Materials & Methods: To this end, a designed questionnaire was used among 35 students of medicine (17 males and 18 females) as a convenience sample ranging from 19 to 22 years to assess their beliefs about GTM and CLT. The quantitative and descriptive statistical methods were used to evaluate the students' satisfactions level toward GTM and CLT. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 17. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test was applied to evaluate the normal distribution of data in different variables (p> 0.05). In order to compare the mean scores of two methods, a paired t-test was used, respectively. Results: The findings indicated that there is a significant difference in students' perception between GTM and CLT method in the presentation of contents. Students had positive attitudes toward deductive and lectured-based learning, and they were satisfied with GTM. In other four remained options, no significant differences were observed. Conclusion: According to the results, it was revealed that although CLT method is confirmed and suggested by a large number of scholars to be an effective method in language teaching, its state of the practice is not in favor of learners in some cases, mainly among the students of medicine at UMSU.
... It is an interpretative qualitative analysis (MOITA LOPES, 1994) on the development of the two courses, focusing on the class proposals presented. Our discussion, in the scope of applied linguistics, is anchored in authors such as Grosfoguel (2021), Mignolo (2017), Silva Júnior; Matos (2019), Kumaravadivelu (2014), Monte Mór (2018), Queiroz (2020). The main results demonstrate that, when having contact with decolonial ideas, pre-service teachers were able to expand their perspectives on the meaning of teaching English in public schools, basing proposals on their own experiences in higher education, as well as on the experiences provided by supervised internships; which, in the case under analysis, culminated in problematizing activities involving ethnic-racial and gender issues. ...
Aspectos relacionados à decolonialidade, especialmente na formação de docentes de inglês, não devem mais ser ignorados. Pensando nisso, desenvolvemos, ao longo de um semestre do curso de Letras/Inglês de uma universidade federal, duas disciplinas do último semestre da graduação, por meio das quais estabelecemos diálogos entre o ensino de línguas e literaturas sob o olhar decolonial. Neste texto, objetivamos compartilhar e analisar dados acerca da experiência, a qual culminou com apresentações de propostas didáticas decoloniais por parte dos graduandos, a serem desenvolvidas em salas de aula de inglês da educação básica. Trata-se de uma análise qualitativa interpretativista (MOITA LOPES, 1994) do desenvolvimento das disciplinas, com foco nas propostas didáticas apresentadas. Nossa discussão, no escopo da linguística aplicada, ancora-se em autores como Grosfoguel (2021), Mignolo (2017), Silva Júnior; Matos (2019), Kumaravadivelu (2014), Monte Mór (2018), Queiroz (2020). Os principais resultados demonstram que, ao terem contato com ideias decoloniais, os docentes em formação inicial conseguiram expandir suas perspectivas acerca do significado de ensinar inglês na escola pública, embasando propostas em suas próprias vivências no ensino superior, bem como nas experiências proporcionadas pelos estágios supervisionados; o que, no caso em análise, culminou com atividades problematizadoras acerca de questões étnico-raciais e de gênero.
... (124), thus central to one's interrogation of neoliberal dispositions and practices in education today is the coloniality of these dispositions and practices in the first place. Consequently, curricular revisions along the lines of decolonizing options (Kumaravadivelu 2014) cannot happen if conquest, and the vestiges of colonial content, dispositions and attitudes in teaching materials, methodologies and classroom practices, are "invisibilized" (Hsu 2015: 125). ...
Neoliberalism as a lens through which language learning – and by extension education in general – is viewed is insufficient in accounting for the transforming nature of education and language learning today. In other words, the neoliberalism of education and language learning – operationalized, for example, through the practices and ideologies of linguistic entrepreneurship – is imbricated in historically-mediated sociopolitical relations. This can be exemplified by the case of the Philippines where entrepreneurial discourses and practices ‒ for example, language learning for employment opportunities, pursuit for profit and as a moral obligation to society ‒ are historically traceable to the Philippines’ enduring encounters and confrontations with 20th century (neo)colonialism. Linguistic entrepreneurship fittingly describes the dispositions, practices and ideologies of the neoliberal language learner, but as soon as this language learner becomes the neoliberal Filipino speaker, it becomes politically imperative to historically unpack the ‘Filipino’ in language learning. In this sense education and language learning are characterized primarily by their coloniality, mediated by the logics of neoliberalism; linguistic entrepreneurship is mobilized in conditions of coloniality.
... raciolinguistics (Rosa and Flores 2017), linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas 2015), and inequalities between native/non-native English speaking teachers and learners, marginalisation of local cultures and varieties of English, etc. (Kumaravadivelu 2016). These new developments have urged language educators to re-address the goals and methods within English users, learners and speakers around the world (Fang and Ren 2018;Jenkins 2014; Rose and Galloway 2019) as they challenge the entrenched language ideology of native-speakerism and the privilege of native speakers of English (Houghton et al. 2018). ...
... Para falar mais sobre essas possibilidades de horizontalização, volto a citar minha experiência na turma de pós com a Rosane. Como falei antes, procurei você e depois a Rosane para desenvolver mais as minhas leituras e compreensões teóricas sobre potenciais praxiologias antirracistas, e o que ela nos apresentou foram autoras(es) que explicam como o racismo é um elemento da colonialidade que permeia nossa sociedade (e.g., KUMARAVADIVELU, 2016;SEVERO, 2017;VERONELLI, 2019;WALSH, 2007). Para mim, ser professor de inglês implica várias contradições, ambiguidades e paradoxos. ...
Este livro é composto por uma coletânea de 10 artigos e é uma homenagem à Profa. Dra. Rosane Rocha Pessoa.
... In addition, the assumption that native speakers should be sources of authentic texts is still present (e.g., see the description of authenticated listening texts by Wagner, 2014Wagner, , 2016, despite a continued push towards pluralistic perspectives on language learning and teaching ( Alptekin, 2002 ;Kumaravadivelu, 2016 ;Sharifian, 2013 ). To a certain extent, this may be a result of multiple perspectives involved in defining authenticity -whose authenticity do we speak of? ...
This study aimed to review published research on authenticity in language assessment. Based on previous research, we divided authenticity into situational authenticity (similarities between the content of the test and language use in the target language use (TLU) domain or curricula and textbooks) and interactional authenticity (the resemblance between test-takers’ cognitive processes under test and non-test situations). We identified 96 publications that explicitly studied/used authenticity in the context of language assessment (and learning). A coding scheme was derived from the synthesis to investigate how authenticity was examined in these articles. The results revealed five main themes in the articles: definition of authenticity, methods of investigating authenticity, the TLU domains, corresponding test tasks, and the degree of resemblance between the TLU tasks and the test tasks. Most articles in these themes largely conceptualized authenticity in a similar fashion, despite there being different representations of authenticity. What was missing in virtually all the articles was an extensive investigation of the characteristics of the TLU domains. In addition, most articles failed to compare the TLU tasks and test tasks. We conclude that the matter of authenticity in language assessments remains to be addressed and fully resolved.
... More recently, parallel movement towards decolonizing education (Kumaravadivelu, 2014;Motha, 2020;Rubdy, 2015;Toyosaki, 2018) and promoting inclusive pedagogies (Rhodes & Lohr, 2019) that span K-16+ contexts have been gathering momentum as well. ...
College EAP programs continue to use deficit 'native/nonnative' labels despite a well-established academic discourse (Yazan & Rudolph, 2018) that successfully critiques these constructs as being counter to the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion espoused by most higher education institutions. There is a need, therefore, to create spaces within EAP classrooms for students to problematize these constructs, and to provide them with alternative and more equitable identity options, as exemplified in the research presented here. The practitioner-research study focuses on how I, as an EAP instructor, fostered critical dialogues in my classroom around the 'native-nonnative' identities by drawing upon my own translingual-identity-as-pedagogy. Applying a pluralistic practitioner-research design and integrating appropriate ethical research generation and collection methods (Jain, 2013; 2014), I coded classroom data using adapted grounded theory and then employed critical and sociocultural lenses to interpret the data. The analyses revealed that by fostering critical dialogue and drawing upon my own translingual identity in my pedagogy (Jain et al., 2021), I was able to create opportunities for students to deconstruct the prescriptive 'native/nonnative' labels and move beyond their initial over-simplistic assumptions to a more nuanced understanding of the constructs.
... 11). Kumaravadivelu (2016) claimed that the inequity against "nonnative" teachers in EFL teaching is continuing and these people are victims of a hegemonic power structure. ...
The current study addresses the question whether the level of proficiency of teachers who teach a “non-native” language, English, affects their attitudes, motivation, well-being and self-reported classroom practices. This quantitative study is based on a cross-sectional research design in order to investigate the relationship between actual English proficiency of 376 English Foreign Language (EFL) teachers from around the world who had English as a Foreign Language and feelings and self-reported behaviours. Statistical analyses showed that more proficient teachers scored higher on the dimensions “Classroom practice” and “Attitudes toward students and institution”. They were also more motivated and happier. Intermediate (B1-B2) teachers scored significantly lower on these measures than EFL educators with Advanced proficiency (C1-C2). No significant differences emerged between teachers at Lower advanced (C1) and Upper advanced levels (C2). An argument is made that all dependent and independent variables are connected, highly dynamic and interacting directly and indirectly, which means that causality is multi-directional. The implication is that educational authorities should organise regular in-service training to maintain and boost teachers’ proficiency because investing in teachers’ linguistic skills represents a long-term investment in their emotional well-being and will ultimately benefit their students.
Intensive English programmes (IEPs) are college and university units that provide international students with academic English instruction for the purpose of admission to the host institution. IEPs are colonial endeavours: they commodify and promote a language with a traceable colonial history that is reinforced through modern structures of knowledge distribution within higher education. Reliance on colonial architectures limits creativity and enforces hegemonic structures upon a field that tends to manifest more social justice orientations. This article argues that the position of IEPs allows them to contest their colonial nature through conscientious, incremental change. It considers the core activities of the IEP ecology (i.e. instruction, discipline, profession, business, and service), looking at how each facet may be utilized to enact a decolonial option. These interventions lend themselves to goals of decolonial projects by reducing bias and hegemony in how IEPs approach language and are positioned within the field and their host institution.
This doctoral dissertation has as its main focus the discussion of an English language education experience from a posthumanist perspective. This study was done with a group of six students at a private language school located in Goiânia, in the state of Goiás, in the Central West region of Brazil, in 2019. In addition to being the inquirer, I was also the teacher of that group. In this investigation, supported by arguments from posthumanism aligned with critical applied linguistics, I seek to promote a deconstruction of understandings of what it means to be human, along with the questioning of what language is and what it involves, and the problematization of relations between human and nonhuman entities. In this regard, materiality and discourse are conceived as intertwined. This undertaking is grounded in reflections from postqualitative inquiry and postfoundational frameworks; more specifically, it is characterized as a posthumanist study. For the generation of empirical material, which occurred from August to December (i.e., during one semester), the apparatuses that became part of the study were the following: a) an initial questionnaire; b) classroom intra-actions with the learners, which were filmed, audio recorded, and transcribed; c) students’ activities done throughout the semester; d) reflective and diffractive field notes; and e) intraviews. The discussion of the empirical material is divided into two main topics: sociomateriality of (human) bodies and material-discursive ideologies of language and language education. As posthumanist scholars have pointed out, by and large, academics involved in the humanities and social sciences have often neglected material aspects when it comes to discourse, and because of that my objective is to problematize not simply social aspects (as it has been the focus of critical applied linguistics), but rather sociomaterial ones, based on the events that occurred throughout the study. As unfoldings of this experience, the reflections on bodies, issues of identity, especially class, race and ethnicity, gender, and age presented in this work offer a post-anthropocentric viewpoint from events that the students and I experienced. Regarding language and language education, I discuss the learners’ perceptions, attitudes, and actions as well as my own as material-discursive practices, with a focus on our intra-actions with the classroomscape and technologies, the assessment and tests, and their language learning projects. As I draw on the aforementioned perspectives, I aim to show how matter mattered in this language education experience.
This article offers a decolonial reading of professional development for English-medium instruction (EMI). The article zooms into the context of Taiwan, where the promotion of EMI has intensified since the 2030 Bilingual Policy was introduced. It is unclear, however, what constitutes EMI professional development, and to what extent the conceptualizations of EMI in existing courses and programmes improve or exacerbate colonial divides. By drawing on literature that look into the intersections of language, education, and de/coloniality, this article explores what a decolonial lens can tell us about professional development for EMI, and how this lens may provide new ways to rethink and remake it. From a website analysis of 66 Taiwanese universities that have received government funding under the Bilingual Policy, 15 professional development courses and programmes were identified and closely examined. The findings highlight three themes related to language, pedagogy, and context. To better support EMI faculty, this article argues that contextual questions should be foregrounded as they afford alternative perspectives in understanding the construction and communication of knowledge in teaching. Specifically, directing the focus to context means to acknowledge existing multilingualisms in EMI settings, and to work towards opening up spaces for linguistic, pedagogic, and epistemic diversity.
This chapter looks at the (non)nativeness identity in multilingual context with native-speakerist lens and critical race theory (CRT) frameworks. It first questions the native speaker (NS) and nonnative speaker (NNS) dichotomy toward (non)nativeness identity and thus presents the contextualized formation of linguistic identity and its role in deconstructing the NS/NNS dichotomy. With native-speakerism and CRT frameworks, this chapter also reveals how (non)nativeness identity is constructed through native-speakerism intertwining with racism, which leads to difficulty for individuals to challenge its influence on their identity construction. This study thus illustrates the tendency and the reason of mutual influence between (non)nativeness identity and native-speakerism ideology as NNS, who is excluded under native-speakerism and racism, would choose to reinforce rather than challenge these ideologies.
As English continues to spread as an international lingua franca, there is a growing diversity in its use around the world. As a result, there are calls for embracing diversity in the teaching, learning and assessment of the language. At the same time, there is a growing criticism against the widely taken language tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) for being guided by the pervasive ideology of monolingual native speakerism and devaluing the multilingual speakers and the multiple varieties of Englishers. Against this backdrop, this conceptual paper focuses on the influence of the World Englishes movement on these so-called standardized tests and critically examines how the existing assessment practices fail to represent the multilingual repertoires and actual language practices of the diverse range of test-takers around the world. Based on critical analysis of relevant literature on World Englishes, the paper highlights the progress, challenges and possibilities for the incorporation of more diverse models of language tests in a translingual world that we live in today.
This essay shows how I came to assume the role of an activist-scholar and educator through engaging in self-observation and self-reflection in the course of my day-to-day professional practice. The story of my professional growth comprises epiphanies that were transformational, enabling me and my students to transcend our traditional roles. This critical adventure occurred in an Iranian language institute where I was able to implement a curriculum inspired by principles of critical pedagogy and Rumi’s literary texts. I drew on material from divergent sources to develop and understand my transformed self. My story illustrates my departure from domineering syllabi, how I embraced alternative roles, and became what I call a ‘nomad’ educator. My aim is to show how teachers can bridge the theory-practice gap to implement a curriculum that is congruent with their internal selves and their students’ souls, thoughts, and lived culture.
Throughout many countries found in the "expanding circle," there exists a form of linguistic racism known as native-speakerism, which privileges or discriminates against foreign language teachers based on their being or not being a native speaker of a particular language. This study critically examines the role that native-speakerism has played and continues to play on English language teaching (ELT) in Japan through a careful analysis of the literature surrounding native-speakerism. Through establishing the significant effects native-speakerism has had on a nation's educational practices and policy, as well as on hiring practices and policies in private language schools and tertiary education institutions, the study aims to shine a light on the detrimental effect that native-speakerism has on ELT within Japan and, to a lesser extent, Korea. It also suggests means through which native-speakerism can be combated, not only in the context of Japan but also in any context affected by native-speakerism.
Over the last decade, there has been an increasing awareness that colonialism continues through various overlapping iterations of coloniality, such as politics, economics, security and academia. Academics from global north countries and global south countries have highlighted and called for the dismantling of coloniality in its various iterations. Perhaps the most vocal decolonising calls have come from global north academics wanting to decolonise global north academia in the form of epistemic decolonisation. As such, in this article, I call on global north academics researching 'on and in' global south countries to employ decolonial methodologies to avoid inadvertently reinforcing coloniality. By utilising autoethnography and critical decolonial reflexivity, I offer ways for global north academics researching on or in global south countries to guard against reinforcing coloniality during their research.
Como disciplina, la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras (ELE) se debate entre políticas subalternantes y prácticas subjetivantes. En este contexto, los docentes de lenguas extranjeras afrontan políticas y discursos orientados a encuadrar sus prácticas pedagógicas y agendas investigativas. Sin embargo, se busca que intervengan en experiencias y procesos que posibiliten la apropiación personal y la transformación social. En este estado de cosas, este artículo ref lexivo invita a decolonizar la ELE en Colombia. Para ello, el presente texto examina perspectivas epistemológicas como el colonialismo y los estudios decoloniales. Presenta, luego, la decolonización de la ELE a través de alternativas discursivas como la gramática de decolonialidad, el empoderamiento, la educación y la subjetivación de maestros. La principal conclusión es que la comunidad de ELE requiere centrarse, intelectual y empíricamente, en la deconstrucción de estructuras y estrategias opresivas que diseminan el pensamiento y la cultura del norte global.
During the last 20 years, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies has played an important role in advancing research on critical applied linguistics. Although the level of scholarly interest in critical research and its visibility have increased, issues that critical research has attempted to problematize, such as normative ideologies of language and language education, continue to dominate policies, practices, and ordinary people’s consciousness in the real world. Critical approaches to research should be grounded in praxis, namely, committed reflection and action for transformation. In order to further promote critical language studies with a vision of praxis, it is necessary to amplify a synergy between producing scholarly knowledge within academe and making efforts to put the knowledge into practice through concrete actions for transformation in the real world. This article examines some challenges that scholars face in forging the synergy, including institutional constraints and neoliberal expectations that dissociate research from local impact. Proposed ideas for praxis-oriented scholarly work include, but are certainly not limited to, decolonizing our minds, paying attention to and intentionally making a commitment to transformation, actively engaging with public scholarship for knowledge mobilization, legitimizing and encouraging multilingual scholarship, changing institutional expectations and practices, and actively connecting with communities.
As recently as the mid 1960s, English programs in both the UK and the US were mostly focused on national views of language, and the English language has been studied from the perspectives of two largely monolingual countries (Bolton, in ‘Thank you for calling’: Asian Englishes and ‘native-like’ performance in Asian call centres). Despite the vast changes, English departments have seen in the last 60 years, including calls for the recognition, and indeed acceptance, of the pluricentricity of EnglishPluricentricity of English, a movement away from a largely monolingual ideology that has, at its center, the idea that English has a single standard, little has changed in the language classroom, particularly in EFLEnglish as a Foreign Language contexts. Theoretical discussions about English and Englishes abound, and today, even though World Englishes-based language teaching pedagogyWorld Englishes-based pedagogy is increasingly discussed, such discussions have not moved beyond the theoretical. Attempts to integrate either new varieties of EnglishesNew Varieties of English into the language classroom, particularly in EFL contexts, have been met with opposition at best and hostility at worst. This paper begins with an overview of scholarship on World EnglishesWorld Englishes and then examines first the role of World Englishes scholarship in general, followed by an account of the role of the academic world in perpetuating the powerful position of Inner Circle varietiesInner Circle varieties today. It concludes with a section on how best WEWorld Englishes-informed pedagogicalPedagogical practices might be incorporated into language programs and classrooms.
English remains a language of power in post-apartheid South Africa, providing access to goods, services, social status, and is indexical to White privilege. Raciolinguistic theoretical perspectives postulate that if “standard” English is used by racialized individuals, they are stigmatized as “language deficient’ and have fewer opportunities for inclusion and upward social mobility. In this study we examined the dynamics of raciolinguistic ideology and linguistic inequalities at work. Thematic analysis of interviews with 18 racialized academics produced several themes indicating that these individuals need English to succeed but that they are also marginalized based on how they speak it. We argue that raciolinguistic ideologies in higher education should be addressed to create a more inviting atmosphere for academics of color.
The inherent coloniality of ELT, as both driver and product of Anglophone political power, poses particular challenges for ELT teachers and learners looking to engage with decolonizing agendas. With only scant evidence of these agendas translating into ELT practice, I explored decolonial options, counter-hegemonic actions, with my undergraduate business English learners, adopting a form of practitioner research known as exploratory practice, and centring enquiry on our use of business news articles for a key course component. My learners revealed the potential of decolonial options, and the reflective, exploratory process exposed our language ideologies, with a vocal minority of students resisting any end to the established English-only policy. Suggestions are offered for fellow ELT teachers working in similar settings and who are interested in exploring their own use of authentic materials through a decolonizing lens.
This study explores how English is represented in the education of students in Chilean vulnerable schools. Using the Comparative Case Study (CCS) approach, it examines this question at three different levels: transnational, national, and local. Previous scholars have analyzed how English is represented as a tool for specific social outcomes, such as social mobility or as a social barrier. Other scholars have examined how English is represented in classroom materials. However, the literature shows how these representations have often been in conflict with one another. Moreover, these studies have not shown how teachers and students interpret these representations and to what degree they are accepted, rejected, or adapted. Finally, the literature has not shown how these representations have been considered within “vulnerable” school contexts where arguments regarding social mobility are particularly germane. This study, which focuses on Chile, examines this important intersection between English language teaching and vulnerable schools, a term the Chilean government uses to denote when high levels of poverty are present. This study draws upon two key ideas, Kachru’s Three Concentric Circles of English (1985) and Moscovici’s Theory of Social Representations (1984), and then applies them as frameworks. They are used to examine the values, practices, and ideas embedded within the three levels of CCS as well as to examine the power dynamics that are often associated with the English language. Data were collected for all three levels. At the transnational level, a 2005 policy document from the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation was analyzed. At the national level, another policy document and four core curricular documents were examined: the Bases Curriculares for elementary and secondary school levels, and two grade level plans from the Programas de Estudio (quinto año and segundo medio). Additionally, the corresponding grade-level textbooks distributed throughout Chile were analyzed. Finally, at the local level, interviews with six Chilean teachers of English, all working in Chilean vulnerable schools were conducted. The findings showed that across all three levels, two predominant representations emerged: English as a tool for personal development and English as a tool for making global connections. These two representations were also shown to evince neoliberal values and characteristics. Evidence of marketing, consumerism, and individual responsibility was found. Working within the confines of the national curriculum, the teachers made efforts to adapt classroom materials to make English more accessible and relatable for their students. However, these efforts often also mirrored neoliberal ideology by emphasizing the use of technology for primarily entertainment purposes. Additionally, the findings demonstrated that the practices at the national and local levels largely focused on lower-level cognitive skills. Finally, in general, these representations did not reflect vulnerable contexts, often portraying a much higher socio-economic lifestyle than students in vulnerable schools would likely have access. This failure to acknowledge inequalities raises significant questions as to how English could be used as a tool for social equality when pertinent inequalities in Chilean vulnerable contexts are rarely addressed. Based on these findings, the implications for new representations included within English language classroom materials are discussed.
In South Africa, English is used as a language of learning and teaching for most students from Grade 4 onwards. National policies have requirements for all teachers regarding language proficiency in English, and they also require all teachers from Grades R (pre-school) to 6 to be English language teachers. Because most teachers are not English home language speakers, it is necessary to build academic language proficiency across school subjects along the lines of multilingual content and language integrated learning (MCLIL). National policy documents show little awareness of this and constrain teacher education for multilingual contexts.
RESUMO: À luz da perspectiva dialógica da linguagem, este artigo apresenta uma (auto) reflexão sobre uma aula remota de língua inglesa por meio da análise de memes. Discute-se a experiência de promover o diálogo sobre a pandemia e a democratização do acesso à internet com jovens e adultos do ensino médio de uma escola pública federal. A análise de memes demonstra que a sua linguagem verbal responde criativamente a imagens de cenas de uma novela brasileira e de um filme hollywoodiano, denunciando a falta de democratização do acesso à internet por meio do humor e da ironia. Conclui-se que a leitura de memes, na aula de língua inglesa para jovens e adultos, pode promover a reflexão sobre os recursos expressivos que constituem esses textos e demandar dos estudantes respostas aos discursos sobre o acesso à internet no Brasil. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Ensino remoto. Língua Inglesa. Memes. Verbo-visualidade. Escola pública.
Most recent research on language learning and identity emphasizes on investing learners’ capital as affordance to affirm their identities (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2013). Learners’ capital refers to prior knowledge, home literacies/native languages. Drawing on data from English language academies from Pakistan, this study finds a conflicting picture to the one advocated in the investment model. Gripped by the “deficit ideology,” teachers and students tend to “disinvest” in the native languages. Analyzing data through the conceptual lenses of “Neoliberal Governmentality” and “Linguistic Entrepreneurship,” we find that “enterprise culture” governs learners’ mode of investment. It reflects in their construction of English learning as a form of entrepreneurship, celebrating competition, self-entrepreneurship, and relentless self-improvement. Given the “disinvestment” tendency, the current investment model seems to overlook the power-driven linguistic hierarchies, and linguistic inequalities that may hamper the use of such capital. The paper discusses decolonial pedagogy as an alternative to current ELT.
Storyline: This thesis’ explorations brings forward nuanced understandings of the concept of Othering through the analysis of different materials. The research is particularly important not only because it relates to the researcher’s life history and interests in researching inequalities, but also relevant in the current refugee crisis and the resurgence of xenophobia.
Data: The thesis draws on my reflexive turn and on empirical materials that includes; in-depth ethnographic interviews with five participants, my own autoethnographic and theoretical explorations. The autoethnographic writings include creative nonfiction and stand-up comedy materials. I label these autoethnographic writings as creative nonfiction for its overall literary style of writing. The study as a whole therefore is interdisciplinary, interpretative, qualitative inquiry that is grounded in my life history and ethnographic work to draw a comprehensible jigsaw of the constructions and the workings of Othering. The variety of data sources allows for an eclectic vision to understand the different levels that Othering operates on.
Presentation: Because of the complex nature of this research process, this work does not take on the “conventional” thesis structure. It moves between my own explorations of theoretical work and fieldwork with what may seem a personal style of writing. The diverse materials that I collected reflect my own reflexive turn during the research process. It also adds to the richness of the thick description of the ethnographic work that I carried as a mean of dissemination.
Theory: At its start, the research emerged in the light of three main theoretical fields: the intercultural, the postcolonial and the feminist. However, as it grew, the research held firmer grounds in the later waves of feminism; Intersectionality. Using intersectional feminist thought was befitting particularly as I embarked on unpacking colonial, societal and genderal discriminations that my participants and I stood in the intersect of it.
Originality: The contributions of my thesis and originality lays in the use of stand-up comedy materials as a source of data and as a research tool. I regard the use of this kind of material as an opportunity for a fresh acuity to the study of Othering; where reflections on the Self and the Other is discussed. It is through it that I introduce what I call platform shift; where the discussion about circles of exclusion is introduced. Platform shift is a reflection of one’s fluid movements between essentialist and non-essentialist paradigm depending on what is convenient for the centre causing the inclusion or the exclusion of different Others.
In this doctoral project, I found that there are two recurrent images of the Other that I refer to as the savage and the ravish ends”. In both constructions, the Other is not considered in positive light. This builds up further to use dehumanising discourse to push the Other further towards the margin. I also found that the Other is constructed through visual and linguistics traits, and their image is strongly affected by the power shift. The visual traits may include inherited sources; such as racial features, or acquired sources such as the Muslim headscarf or fashion choices. The Other’s linguistic performance is also put to scrutiny and held in comparison to their identity. Such explorations also highlight how we negotiate our space, and how we move between different worlds and through conflicting narratives.
This volume gathers contributions from a range of global experts in teacher education to address the topic of language teacher education. It shows how teacher education involves the agency of teachers, which forms part of their identity, and which they take on when integrating into the teaching community of practice. In addition, the volume explores the teachers’ situated practice--the dynamic negotiation of classroom situations, socialization into the professional teaching culture, and "on the ground experimentation" with pedagogical skills/techniques.
Although the majority of English language teachers worldwide are non-native English speakers, no research was conducted on these teachers until recently. After the pioneering work of Robert Phillipson in 1992 and Peter Medgyes in 1994, nearly a decade had to elapse for more research to emerge on the issues relating to non-native English teachers. The publication in 1999 of George Braine's book Nonnative educators in English language teaching appears to have encouraged a number of graduate students and scholars to research this issue, with topics ranging from teachers' perceptions of their own identity to students' views and aspects of teacher education. This article compiles, classifies, and examines research conducted in the last two decades on this topic, placing a special emphasis on World Englishes concerns, methods of investigation, and areas in need of further attention.
ELT education, as a commodity, takes many forms in countries all over the world. This book questions how the benefits of international English language education projects are distributed. The critical issues of language rights and linguistic diversity are pivotal in the book’s examination of domination and subordination in international language education projects. The author’s description of the role and teaching of English is based on her experience of working in ELT aid and development and fee-based projects, and through it she unmasks the interests and intentions of aid and fee-based language education projects. The two case studies that form the basis of this book recount a version of ELT marketing and project implementation that will resonate with experiences of aid recipients and university-led private sector fee-payers in many different ELT contexts.
This book explores ways to prepare teachers to teach English as an International Language (EIL) and provides theoretically-grounded models for EIL-informed teacher education. The volume includes two chapters that present a theoretical approach and principles in EIL teacher education, followed by a collection of descriptions of field-tested teacher education programs, courses, units in a course, and activities from diverse geographical and institutional contexts, which together demonstrate a variety of possible approaches to preparing teachers to teach EIL. The book helps create a space for the exploration of EIL teacher education that cuts across English as a Lingua Franca, World Englishes and other relevant scholarly communities. © 2017 Aya Matsuda and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved.
'Higher Education in a Global Society should be of tremendous practical value to deans and provosts contemplating an international partnership or program. Written in a most accessible style by a combination of higher education scholars and veteran academic administrators, it provides a nuanced understanding of both the pitfalls and unanticipated benefits from such programs.' - Charles T. Clotfelter, Duke University, US.
The chapters in this volume seek to bring hybrid language practices to the center of discussions about English as a global language. They demonstrate how local linguistic resources and practices are involved in the refashioning of identities in a variety of cross-cultural and geographical contexts, and illustrate hybridity as an enactment of resistance and creativity. Drawing on a variety of disciplines and ideological perspectives, the authors use contexts as diverse as social media, Bollywood films, workplaces and kindergartens to explore the ways in which English has become a part of localities and social relations in ways that are of significant sociolinguistic interest in understanding the dynamics of mobile cultures and transcultural flows. © 2014 Rani Rubdy, Lubna Alsagoff and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved.
According to current estimates, about eighty percent of English teachers worldwide are nonnative speakers of the language. The nonnative speaker movement began a decade ago to counter the discrimination faced by these teachers and to champion their causes. As the first single-authored volume on the topic since the birth of the movement, this book fills the need for a coherent account that: traces the origins and growth of the movement. summarizes the research that has been conducted. highlights the challenges faced by nonnative speaker teachers. promotes NNS teachers' professional growth. No discussion of world Englishes or the spread of English internationally is now complete without reference to the NNS movement. This book celebrates its first decade and charts a direction for its growth and development.
The field of second/foreign language teacher education is calling out for a coherent and comprehensive framework for teacher preparation in these times of accelerating economic, cultural, and educational globalization. Responding to this call, this book introduces a state-of-the-art model for developing prospective and practicing teachers into strategic thinkers, exploratory researchers, and transformative teachers. The model includes five modules: Knowing, Analyzing, Recognizing, Doing, and Seeing (KARDS). Its goal is to help teachers understand:
This volume brings together key writings since the 1992 publication of Linguistic Imperialism - Robert Phillipson's controversial benchmark volume, which triggered a major re-thinking of the English teaching profession by connecting the field to wider political and economic forces. Analyzing how the global dominance of English in all domains of power is maintained, legitimized and persists in the twenty-first century, Linguistic Imperialism Continued reflects and contributes in important ways to understanding these developments.
This study examines the beliefs of Chinese junior high school English teachers about foreign language teaching and influencing contextual factors in a time when curriculum innovation is confronting deep-rooted cultural traditions and complex teaching realities. Drawing upon data collected by means of questionnaires and interviews, this study reveals a multi-dimensional structure of teachers' beliefs. On the whole, teachers' beliefs are congruent with the constructivism-oriented curriculum reform, but a closer examination suggests that both traditional and constructivist beliefs exist. Constructivist beliefs favour student participation, interactive class, and learning strategy training while traditional beliefs involve focus on grammar and language form, drill and practice, rote memorization, and teacher authority. A variety of contextual factors are found to exert a strong influence on teachers' beliefs, such as Confucian culture, curriculum reform, high-stakes testing, and school environment. These factors interact to facilitate or constrain the development of teachers' beliefs. The study highlights the situated nature of teachers' beliefs with implications for curriculum reform, teacher development and many other important issues in secondary foreign language education in China and other similar contexts internationally.
In its early days, CLT was widely promoted as suitable for all contexts, but many questions have since been raised about what it really means and what versions of it (if any) are suited to specific learning situations. Experiences in Asia, where educational traditions and current realities often contrast strongly with those where CLT originated, have provided a major impetus for this questioning and the process has been reinforced by developments in the wider context, such as the postmethod perspective in language teaching and the decline of centre-to-periphery conceptions of modernization. CLT now serves not so much as a label for a specific approach as an umbrella term to describe all approaches that aim to develop communicative competence in personally meaningful ways. It also provides a framework for defining issues that research and exploratory practice need to address in the years ahead.
Coinciding with the global boom in commercial English language teaching is the development of a sizeable publishing industry
in which UK-produced textbooks for the teaching of English as an international or foreign language are core products. This
article takes the view that these ‘curriculum artefacts’ can also be understood as ‘cultural artefacts’ in which English is
made to mean in highly selective ways. The article focuses specifically on representations of the world of work in textbooks
from the late 1970s until the present and shows how they have drawn consistently on evolving discourses of the new capitalism.
It argues that students are repeatedly interpellated in these materials to the subject position of white-collar individualism
in which the world of work is overwhelmingly seen as a privileged means for the full and intense realization of the self along
lines determined largely by personal choice. The article concludes by suggesting that such materials have increasingly constructed
English as a branded commodity along lines which are entirely congruent with the values and practices of the new capitalism.
Parallel to the growing recognition of English as an international language, the fundamental premises of the TESOL discipline (e.g., the ownership of the language, native speakers as a goal and model of competence for learning and teaching, linguistic standards and language variety/ies to be taught, monolingual/monocultural approach to teaching) has undergone a serious challenge and reconceptualization over the past several decades. While this trend resulted in an unprecedented recognition of the issues surrounding nonnative speakers in the field of TESOL, it also meant the emergence of a series of unfounded ideas or false beliefs about nonnative English speakers in the TESOL (NNEST) movement. By discussing and problematizing these commonly held myths and misconceptions about the NNEST movement, the current article aims to clarify a number of important issues and shed a light onto the past, present, and future of the movement. Having a solid grasp of the movement in the context of global dynamics, changing times, and reconfigured fundamental premises of the discipline has a paramount importance for all stakeholders involved in TESOL who long for a professional milieu characterized by democracy, justice, equity, participation, and professionalism.
In this ethnographic self-reconstruction, the author represents the ways in which he negotiated the differing teaching practices and professional cultures of the periphery and the center in an effort to develop a strategic professional identity. He brings out the importance of using multiple identities critically for voice in the wider professional discourses and practices. As global English acquires local identities, and diverse professional communities develop their own socially situated pedagogical practices, it is becoming important to chart a constructive relationship between these communities in TESOL. Through his journey of professionalization, the author explores the framework of relationships that would enable an effective negotiation of practices and discourses between the different professional communities and facilitate more constructive teacher identities.
This article reviews the literature on the relatively new field of materials development for language learning and teaching. It reports the origins and development of the field and then reviews the literature on the evaluation, adaptation, production and exploitation of learning materials. It also reviews the literature, first, on a number of controversial issues in the field, next, on electronic delivery of materials and, third, on research in materials development. It identifies gaps in the literature and makes proposals for future progress in materials development and in the research within the field. Much of the literature focuses on materials for learning English but the same principles apply to materials for learning any L2, as has been acknowledged by some of the authors whose publications focus on materials for learning other languages.
The concepts native speaker and mother tongue are often criticized, but they continue in circulation in the absence of alternatives. This article suggests some. The terms language expertise, language inheritance, and language affiliation sort out some of the mystification, and they allow us to place educational questions of language ability and language loyalty alongside a broader view of society.1
The need to adapt or modify the use of given textbooks and other language teaching materials to fit the requirements of particular learning situations, and even particular students, is widely recognized. This volume presents a systematic approach to adaptation useful for methods courses as well as for the experienced teacher or curriculum planner. As the first principle of effective adaptation, maintenance of congruence between a variety of factors is stressed; these factors include the teaching materials, the methodology and objectives of the course, student characteristics, the character of the language being taught, and the personality and style of the teacher. The discussion is divided into four main sections: (1) "Contextualization: The Textbook and the Real World"; (2)"Usage Problems"; (3) "Language Variety"; and (4) "Administrative and Pedagogical Concerns." The appendices present complementary studies on testbook analysis and evaluation for particular teaching-learning situations: (1) "Adapting Materials in Context," by A. Hilferty; (2) "Evaluation of Foreign Language Textbooks: A Simplified Procedure," by M. N. Bruder; (3) "Evaluating Beginning Textbooks," by A. Tucker; and (4) "Graph for Estimating Readability-Extended," by E. Fry. (AMH)
The topics of language and subaltern social groups appear throughout Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. Although Gramsci often associates the problem of political fragmentation among subaltern groups with issues concerning language and common sense, there are only a few notes where he explicitly connects his overlapping analyses of language and subalternity. We build on the few places in the literature on Gramsci that focus on how he relates common sense to the questions of language or subalternity. By explicitly tracing out these relations, we hope to bring into relief the direct connections between subalternity and language by showing how the concepts overlap with respect to Gramsci's analyses of common sense, intellectuals, philosophy, folklore, and hegemony. We argue that, for Gramsci, fragmentation of any social group's 'common sense', worldview and language is a political detriment, impeding effective political organisation to counter exploitation but that such fragmentation cannot be overcome by the imposition of a 'rational' or 'logical' worldview. Instead, what is required is a deep engagement with the fragments that make up subaltern historical, social, economic and political conditions. In our view, Gramsci provides an alternative both to the celebration of fragmentation fashionable in liberal multiculturalism and uncritical postmodernism, as well as other attempts of overcoming it through recourse to some external, transcendental or imposed worldview. This is fully in keeping with, and further elucidates Gramsci's understanding of the importance of effective 'democratic centralism' of the leadership of the party in relation to the rank and file and the popular masses.
Libro a propósito de las estrategias para el estudio del inglés implementadas por profesores y estudiantes de países subdesarrollados, con el fin de que el idioma esté al servicio de sus necesidades e identidad, y no en beneficio del imperialismo y las estructuras coloniales que perviven en esas naciones.
The original title of this paper was “Power, Desire, Interest.”1 Indeed, whatever power these meditations command may have been earned by a politically interested refusal to push to the limit the founding presuppositions of my desires, as far as they are within my grasp. This vulgar three-stroke formula, applied both to the most resolutely committed and to the most ironic discourse, keeps track of what Althusser so aptly named “philosophies of denegation.”2 I have invoked my positionality in this awkward way so as to accentuate the fact that calling the place of the investigator into question remains a meaningless piety in many recent critiques of the sovereign subject. Thus, although I will attempt to foreground the precariousness of my position throughout, I know such gestures can never suffice.
Linguistic imperialism alive and kicking Guardian Weekly
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Kamhi-Stein, L. (Ed.). (2004). Learning and teaching from experience: Perspectives on
nonnative English-speaking professionals. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
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Coma, B. (2012, September). Working together to end discrimination: Professional equity workshop. NNEST Newsletter.
The NNEST lens: Non native English speakers in TESOL
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Nonnative language teachers: Perceptions, challenges and contributions to the profession
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Perceptions of ELT among English language teachers in China
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The global coursebook in English language teaching
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Dangerous liaison: Globalization, empire and TESOL
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