Culture and Written Discourse: Intercultural Rhetoric, Multilingual Writing

            I enjoyed reading the Kubota articles “Unfinished Knowledge: the Story of Barbara” and “Japanese Culture Constructed by Discourses: Implications for Applied Linguistics Research and ELT.” In the first article “Unfinished Knowledge: the Story of Barbara,” Kubota makes an interesting point identifying issues of power and discourse. TESOL scholars and educators need to remember that by “speaking for ELLs” they are denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves. As the article states, “a common conception underlying these articles is that Western academic traditions emphasize such values as individualism, autonomy, creativity, voice, and critical thinking, whereas the cultural background of ESL students, particularly those from East Asia, reflects quite opposite characteristics, such as collectivism, memorization, and respect for authority,” (p. 11). I was surprised when I read that Atkinson believed “critical thinking” as being a Western cultural tradition and not for ESL pedagogy. I do not think that it is fair to assume that a certain culture does not value critical thinking, especially in the Asian culture because they tend to respect authority, because then it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. After reading Barbara’s story, I was glad to see that she was able to open herself up to getting to know and understand cultures that were different from her own, especially since she had no previous experience with other cultures. I think that it is important for teachers, who feel that they are not familiar with other cultures, to think outside the box and experience different cultures from their own because it will help them to better understand their culturally diverse students’ language and culture. But how do are we suppose to teach the importance of cultures without stereotyping?

            After reading the second article “Japanese Culture Constructed by Discourses: Implications for Applied Linguistics Research and ELT,” it made me reflect on what I have been learning in my bilingual courses and the importance of teaching culture in the classroom. According to this article, there are three models for teaching culture: the acculturation model, the pluralist model, and the critical multiculturalism model. In the acculturation model, the students’ cultures are treated as deficits and it is more concerned with teaching the dominant language and culture. The pluralist model recognizes and respects native cultural and linguistic traditions of ESL students' and wanted to preserve their native language and culture. “This model fails to interrogate the constructed nature of cultural differences and to give ESL students access to discourses of power,” (p. 26). The last model focuses on critical multiculturalism and critical literacy. This view indicates that ESL professionals need to go beyond simply affirming and respecting the culture of the Other and romanticizing its authentic voices-they need to critically explore how cultural differences as a form of knowledge are produced and perpetuated and how they can work toward transforming the status quo,” (p. 27-28). As a bilingual elementary education major, we have talked about these three models. So after reading these articles, I also question, “Should teachers not take into account any cultural differences if they are to avoid stereotyping?”

Power and discourse: Otherization, cultural assimilation, cultural stereotyping

            I enjoyed reading Holliday A2.1-A2.3 because it discussed the concept of Othering and how “we should try to understand people before we can communicate with them” and “how easy it is to be misled by our own preconceptions, and to fall into the trap of Othering,” (p. 23). Oftentimes, when I tell people that I am a Bilingual Education major, I hear people’s stereotypes and prejudices against bilingual students, such as “why don’t you just teach them English,” and I am just shocked. I feel it is important that all bilingual students deserve a chance to be taught in their native language while they learn English. I think that to be able to effectively teach bilingual students, teachers have to teach without any biases, stereotypes, or prejudices. I am going to have to make sure that I do not make assumptions about a culture because my students may come from very diverse backgrounds and I have to be able to embrace that diversity in the classroom. When reading the section From stereotypes to Othering, I thought it was interesting that “many argue that it is natural to form stereotypes, and that they indeed help us to understand ‘foreign cultures’—that they act as a template, or as an ideal type, against which we can measure the unknown,” but I agree with Holliday’s view that “a major reason for this is that stereotypes are often infected by prejeudice, which in turn leads to Othering,” (p. 25). The one example that I found the most interesting was Jeremy the lecturer and Jabu, who was a black student from South Africa. In this situation, it is difficult for Jeremy to come across to Jabu as understanding and inclusive, but to Jabu, she feels as though she is being patronized and Othered by her supervisor. I don’t think that Jeremy realized how much of an impact his assumptions about black culture had on his supervision of Jabu, even though he thought he was helping and being understanding. I understand that we must careful what we say because “we may be unaware of the power our words may carry,” (p. 33).

Identity and Language Learning: Discourse, Culture, and Identity

            The readings for this week were about language learning and how it affects a person’s identity and culture. The Holliday readings talked about discourse and identity. It talked about how narratives are used a way to represent a person’s identity because people write or talk about their personal experiences they have had in their lives. As Stephenson states, “the capacity to narrate our personal experience gives us a sense of individual identity, but in so far as we are able to relate that experience to a broader narrative, we can also share an identity with others,” (p. 101). I think that a reading or listening to someone’s narrative about their personal experiences can give the reader or listener a sense of who that person is, but there is more than personal experiences that mold a person’s identity and makes them who they are.

            In Chapter 2: Language and Identity (Hall, 2000), it focused on the connection between social identity, language and culture. I learned that language and culture are important factors in building a person’s social identity. “Our histories are defined in part by our membership in a range of social groups into which we are born such as gender, social class, religion and race” (p. 32). I found it interesting that based on the groups or communities we are a part of can have a great affect on our social identities and roles. “The degree of individual effort we can exert in shaping our identities, however, is not always equal,” (p. 33). In this article, I learned about Giddens' theory of structuration and Bourdieu's notion of habitus. We bring our past experiences in our lives to social situations.

            In the article Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning (Norton, 2000), Peirce argues that “SLA theorists have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identity that integrates the language learner and the language learning context. Furthermore, they have not questioned how relations of power in the social world affect social interaction between second language learners and target language speakers” (p.12). After reading this article, it made me think as a teacher how children deal with second language acquisition and how the impact it has on a person’s social identity. I thought it was interesting that she described language learners as “unidimensional,” e.g. introverted vs. extroverted, inhibited vs. uninhibited, or field dependent vs. field independent (p. 10).

            I think that as a bilingual education major, I am going to have to make sure that I don’t make assumptions about a culture because my students may come from very diverse backgrounds and I have to be able to embrace that diversity in the classroom. Also, some of the parents of my students may be struggling with the culture shock as Gail and Eva did in the article. I think that for the ELL students in the classroom it is important to lower the affective filter in order to help them gain the confidence they need to learn a second language. “In Krashen's view, this affective filter comprises the learner's motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety state—all of which are variables that pertain to the individual rather than the social context,” (p. 10).

Self and Other: Language and Identity

            The readings for this week discussed language and identity. In my bilingual education classes, we learn the importance of integrating all of our students’ cultures and languages in the classroom. In one of my classes, we were asked to create identity texts and I think that they are a great way for teachers to get to know and understand the different backgrounds of each student and get the students to accept other cultures as well.

            Aneta Pavlenko’s The Making of an American: Negotiation of Identities at the turn of the twentieth century analyzed the narrative identities of European immigrants of the twentieth century and their journey to America and autobiographies of immigrants today. She argues that “these memoirs differ from contemporary immigrant autobiographies as far as the relationship between language and identity is concerned, and will attempt to explain the differences through ideologies of language and identity dominant in the early twentieth century,” by showing how sociopolitical, sociohistoric, and sociolinguistic affect how individuals perceive themselves and their language (p. 35). I found it interesting that we can read autobiographies of immigrants and learn a lot about their life, their culture, and their language. The European immigrants discussed what they had to do in order to become assimilated into the “American culture,” learn the language, and how they struggled between losing a part of who they were to fit in. For many of the immigrants in the article, even though they went through Americanization, they still did not feel as though they were Americans. As Constantine Panunzio describes, “I have now been in America for nineteen years; I have grown up here as much as any man can; I have had my education here; I have become a citizen….I have come to love America as I do my very life- perhaps more arid yet they still call me a 'foreigner,'” (p. 45). As I was reading this article, it got me thinking about what does it means to truly be American? Some refer to America as one big melting pot, but I like to think of America as a salad because there are very distinctive parts of a salad, as with America and the different cultures and languages.

            In the Holliday readings, it focused on how people construct their own identities. For Parisa, she is an Iranian and others often have a stereotypical view of who she is. She had to explain to her colleagues that those stereotypes are not true for all Iranians, which I think is important because it helps other create a non-essentialist view of her culture. Another point in the reading was identity card—“while one person may be exchanging information with another person, they are both, be it intentionally or unintentionally, also sending messages about their cultural identity—about how they want the other person to see them,” (p. 17). I agree that people need to be aware of what they say because someone may see or hear and that can affect how they perceive someone’s cultural identity. As I said before, from my bilingual classes, we have learned the importance of one’s cultural identity and language. As a future teacher, I think that it is important to tell my students’ families that it is important to keep their home culture, while incorporating their new culture and language and by no means should they abandon their home cultures.

Blog Post 1: Culture

            I found this week’s readings about culture to be very interesting. As a Bilingual Education major, we learn what we can do to use the different cultures in our classroom and how we can incorporate culture into our teaching. It is important to get to know our students and I think that by knowing and understanding their culture will help as a teacher to know the student and their needs better. On the first day of class, we were asked to write our definition of what culture is and after reading the articles, I have never realized how much culture is constantly changing and is a very difficult term to define. Now, I am not sure what I think culture really means.

            After reading the Dwight Atkinson’s article, it helped me reflect on my own beliefs about culture as a future educator. Before reading the article, I did not really know what the relationship between TESOL and culture. It helped me to understand that “one cannot really be understood without seeing one as part of the other,” which not many people understand either (Atkinson, p. 648). One thing I found to be interesting in this article were the Six Principles of Culture. As the article states, “one cannot talk about culture in any very satisfying way without discussing its theoretical background, especially when such discussions are currently so important in related fields and disciplines,” (Atkinson, p. 641).

            In the Kumaravadivelu article “Cultural Globalization and Language Education,” he discusses the impact of cultural globalization and its affect on second- and foreign-language education. It made me think of how cultural globalization will impact the students in my classroom and what I can do to deal with these kinds of issues.