This article presents case studies of two long-time English language teachers: a California English as a second language instructor originally from Brazil, and a Chilean English as a foreign language teacher who worked for many years in the United States before returning home. Based on interview and classroom observation data, this research explores teachers' perspectives on the connections between their transnational life experiences and their development of intercultural competence, how they define their own (inter)cultural identities; and how they approach cultural issues with their English language learners. Although both women self-identify as bicultural, they were observed to have somewhat different approaches to teaching cultural issues: The California teacher emphasizes subjective comparisons between the many national cultures represented in her classroom, but the teacher in Chile focuses more on the cultural changes that she and her students have experienced as a result of globalization. Whereas previous studies of teacher identity in TESOL have focused primarily on the dichotomy between native-and nonnative-English-speaking teachers, this article argues that the profession needs to put more value on the pedagogical resources that transnational and intercultural teachers bring to English language teaching. I end with implications for educating intercultural teachers.
A common concern that appears throughout this volume is how to make French L2 learners aware of linguistic variation in French second-person tu-vous pronoun use (e.g., Williams, van Compernolle, & Pierozak; Douglass, Blattner, & Williams), which may be of limited application for teachers of English and other languages that do not make distinctions between informal and formal pronouns of address. It would have been useful if sample classroom tasks had included an English translation to be used by teachers of other languages. As Neguerela-Azarola points out, some activities posited in this volume need further development to be directly applicable within the L2 classroom. Screen shots are also lacking, sometimes impeding a complete appreciation of classroom task interface. This book will be useful to SLA teachers and researchers due to the broad range of technology employed in the L2 classroom. A clear focus on promoting sociocultural competence, intercultural understanding, and learner autonomy gives credence to the positive impact that the contributors to this volume intend to foster. REFERENCE Chapelle , C. A. (2003). English language learning and technology. Amsterdam : Benjamins .
Based on qualitative research conducted in 3 university English as a foreign language classrooms in Chile and 3 community college English as a second language classrooms in California, this article examines the approaches used in teaching culture in these classrooms, the differences in how particular cultures (usually national cultures) were represented depending on teaching context, the processes by which these representations of culture were co-constructed by teachers and students, and the extent to which the observed cultural pedagogies seemed to cultivate interculturality. In particular, this article focuses on discursive faultlines (Kramsch, 1993), areas of cultural difference or misunderstanding that became manifest in classroom talk. Although teaching culture was not the primary goal in any of these classes, the teachers generally provided space for students to problematize cultural issues; however, this problematization did not necessarily lead to interculturality. The article concludes with implications for cultural pedagogies based on the observed interactions.THIS ARTICLE IS BASED ON QUALITATIVE research conducted in six classrooms, three English as a foreign language (EFL) classes at a Chilean university, and three English as a second language 1 (ESL) classes in California community colleges. Given that, as Kubota (2003) has argued, "images of culture (in language education) are produced by discourses that reflect, legitimate or contest unequal relations of power" (p. 16), I set out to examine how culture is discursively represented by language teachers in different contexts. However, in analyzing my data, it became clear that in the classrooms I was observing, "images of culture" were frequently coconstructed by the teachers and students through a variety of classroom activities, most of which focused on language skills rather than on cultural knowledge. This article examines key processes
In this ethnographic study, I contrast the educational experiences of two Central American immigrant women in an English as a second language (ESL) family literacy program in the San Francisco Bay area in 2002. Based on life-history interviews and classroom observations, I argue that these learners' second language and literacy development can only be understood within the larger sociopolitical context over time. To this end, I draw on participants' life-history narratives to situate their experiences of studying English within the larger social history of immigration in California and within the intergenerational trajectories of education in their families. Specifically, these narratives illustrate participants' perspectives on how their language learning opportunities have been mediated by such factors as their parents' messages about education, their previous experiences of schooling, U.S. immigration policies, the 2001 economic downturn, and the availability of bilingual education for their children. I conclude by arguing that to meet the diverse needs and goals of learners in their classrooms, ESL educators need to incorporate into the curriculum the specific sociocontextual issues that these learners confront in their daily lives. O ne August morning in 2002 at an ESL family literacy class inCalifornia, 24-year-old Brenda Ríos 1 came in with her daughter Nathaly and told her teacher that she was feeling nervous. It turned out that Brenda had decided to start driving without a license because as an undocumented immigrant she was ineligible to apply for one. When her teacher commented that if she were Brenda's mother, she would tell her not to, Brenda replied that she had already talked on the phone with her mother in Nicaragua, who had advised her to go ahead.ESL family literacy classes, focused on the educational needs of 1 Names of persons and places are pseudonyms.
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