Intercultural Communications Post 8

The article by Lin that was for reading this past week was a critical analysis on autobiographical narratives of them teaching and learning English by the authors of this article. These narratives all come from diverse sociocultural contexts with English. “English is now a heteroglossic language that has become pluralized …we can point to the creative communicative strategies adopted by people from their own communities from way back to acquire and use English in their own terms” (Canagarajah, 2000, pp.130 – 131).  This quote ties in with what was read and discussed from the last week. English has truly become more pluralized and it is interesting to see when and why people use English, how they use it, and of course like it is said in the quote that each community has adopted creative ways of speaking the English language.The first connection I made with this article was the activity that we had done in class last week. It had to do with what strategy you can do in order to teach and have students understand the different varieties of English and distinguishes between errors and these non dominant language forms and functions. In ours we chose to have the students write on a short topic that would be discussed in class. We chose an invitation for them to write. We would break them up in partners of diverse cultural backgrounds and each one would write the invitation on their own in a natural manner. The partners would then switch papers, read each others, and then identify the variations in their partner’s paper that they would not use in theirs. This analyzing and writing is similar as to what the article was about. In the article, the authors of the narratives compared and contrasted and identified diverse situations that each faced. Of course there were some similarities and then differences that caused each person to have a different approach on their teaching and learning English. These students that we could give this assignment to would be seeing the differences in their variations and analyzing and would then see from their background why they write this way. In my future classroom I plan to do the activity that we came up with last week and also ones similar to it. Clearly it is a good strategy due to the article that we had to read this past week followed the same guidelines. My students are going to all be diverse in either my Spanish class or in my ESL class. This method of teaching and learning would work well in both class but I feel it would be more effective in and ESL class in the idea that because they are still learning the language they need to understand and be knowledgeable of these differences and people’s backgrounds and also because I am a native speaker of English. In the Spanish class of course I could do this but with teaching the different variations, forms, and functions of Spanish. It really is interesting to read and discover the reasons why other people do things even as simple as how they write or use the English language in their natural manner. What other ways can we engage ourselves in understanding and learning people’s diverse backgrounds in learning and teaching English from diverse sociocultural backgrounds and how and why they write and speak they way they do?

Intercultural Communications Post 7

The reading from this past week dealt with world Englishes. World English, according to the article, is said to not be a monolith but a catchall category for all its linguistic and functional varieties. There are problems that arouse from this in regards to teaching standardized written English and diversifying the language in writing. When English learners begin English writing there needs to be an in between this standardization and diversification. Although corrective feedback increases the ability of being able to write “correctly”, sometimes certain grammar errors should be let go so that the learner does not get too discouraged. In my opinion, if the linguistic feature does not disrupt the flow of the writing and there are other more important grammar features that need to be addressed, it should be let go. “Writing has long contributed attempts to stabilize certain aspects of language” (Howatt, 2004). There needs to be some type of dominant variety of English in order for everyone to communicate and understand each other effectively. In the diverse regions around the United States there are dialects and language differences in English that sometimes makes it difficult for others from different areas to understand each other. Although this gives culture to each regions way of speaking, if we do not understand each other no one is going to know what is going on. It is important to be aware of these dialect and diction differences in order to learn and understand what others are saying. This correlates with the speaking and writing of English Language Learners. For the most part their speaking and writing makes sense but there are certain errors that stick out when listening or reading that tend to be addressed either due to confusion from the listener of reader or just a matter of a small mistake that the other can still understand. In what ways can we as future educators do to help establish a relationship between the standardized English and variations of English? For me, as a future educator, I plan to teach the standardized rules of English that my students will need to know use in order to perform well with their language abilities. However, at the same time I am not going to tell them that their way of speaking is wrong and that they should not use that variety of English. I will be sure to differentiate and show the boundaries between a variety and a mistake. It is good for the students to be able to realize what is considered an error and what is considered a variety. Also, in order for students to understand how English has changed over time and continues to change I will teach them the non dominant forms and functions of the English language.

Intercultural Communications Post 6

The reading from this week dealt with the idea of culture. We have talked much of this idea of culture at the beginning of class. Due to that, I was able to relate to a lot of the topics that we had been reading in class that we have discussed and experienced. Culture was talked about not only as defining the word itself but also as culture and language, community, and language education.  Throughout the article there are many diverse definitions of exactly what culture is. “Although culture is one of the most studied and most used concepts in human history, it has stubbornly defied a clear cut definition of what it exactly is: There is no consensus about what it really is (Green Pippies, 43).  For me, I would always define culture as a group of people that share a common belief, religion, language, and traditions. These could include foods, dances, and music. However, from what I have learned throughout this class, these things do not entirely mean or signify a culture. For many, people like to categorize a certain category of people in to their “culture”. Through this, they expect that this certain group of people are to follow along with these traditions, languages, beliefs, and etc and are not allowed to have aspects from a culture other than theirs. On a very basic level, for example, many people would categorize Mexicans having their own culture where they only eat burritos, tacos, and rice. However, this “culture” incorporates other “culture’s” traditional foods in to their diets. What I have just explained is why people have such a hard time in being able to define what a culture is in black and white. Instead it is in a gray area.  As I have seen and read throughout this article and in this class, people can not be classified as just one “culture”. We are all our own person and have aspects from each of our experiences that define us. Although our family history and traditions make up part of where we come from, we can not define a culture and the way people are supposed to act, feel, and think based on that. In regards to culture and language, community and language education, these cultures are based off and separated in these groups. As a future educator I will be in a diverse classroom working with students from many different cultures. Not only will I introduce and familiarize my students with the diversity of other cultures, I will also be sure to enlighten them in the idea that just because someone is from a “culture” does not mean that that culture defines them. I will hopefully be able to let my students have the understanding of what culture really means and that their knowledge and understanding will help for a better a future of seeing people as individuals. Also, it will hopefully help with the decrease of separation of the culture of languages, communities, and language learning.  In what ways can we help create a more unified world?

Intercultural Communications Post 5

The article Language Ideologies and Policies: Multilingualism and

Education, written by Marcia Farr1 and Juyoung Song2, talks about the controversy over monolingualism and multilingualism. For the most part, many countries speak a variety of languages that they have learned through out their education. The one that seems to be the most spread official language of countries is English. Although the countries mother tongue is still one of the official languages, English continues to be the number 2 official language. America is one of the countries that appears to be pushing for this monolingual country and making standard English as the only official language. “Thus both liberals and conservatives share a belief in the culture of monoglot Standard: everyone should (learn to) speak Standard English. But what is Standard English (Farrl and Song2, 4). According to the article, Standard English is “not an empirical reality, but an abstraction, an ideal use of what is deemed ‘best’ linguistic practice. In the U.S., what is considered Standard varies regionally, and what distinguishes any particular language use as ‘Standard’ is actually the absence of stigmatized linguistic forms, not the presence of particular forms (Farr and Daniels 1986). For me when I think of Standard English I think of the grammar, readings, and writing that we learn in school and are tested on through out standardized tests. Since I have been in third grade I have been learning that there is only one correct standardized form of English. But who is to distinguish this? It was not until last semester when I took English 241, the history of the English language, where I learned about the diverse dialects and linguistic characteristics of the language in other regions in the country. We do not all speak the same English. However, for the most part we can understand each other. Different words may be used for the same thing but the word is unknown to the speaker from a different region. Due to not having a clear definition of what is “Standard English” I feel that conflicts arise from this even to make it the official language of America. Along with that, America is made up of people that are from every where around the world that speak their mother tongue. Dorian argues that “the pairing of nationalization and language standardization yielded an ‘ideology of contempt’ toward minority languages and dialects, which in turn contributed to the disappearance of ‘small languages’ worldwide”. I believe that in order to stand by the American dream we need to allow for this country to be multilingual. There is too much history and significance of languages that have disappeared and are continuing to disappear due to their lack of use and the focus on only English. For me, I think that multilingualism is a good thing. It will open up for better communication with those that do not speak English in other countries. Also, we will not be as ignorant to others cultures and languages if we begin to learn about them. In my future classroom I will be teaching Spanish. Therefore I will be teaching in support of multilingualism. My students will be exposed to different cultures. Those cultures include cultures of Mexico, South America, and Spain. I can only hope that by having them learn this language will encourage them to learn other languages and cultures.