TEIL McKay CH1-4

Ch1: English as an International Language

While reading the statistics of countries that give special status to English opened my eyes to the reality of how many people per country use English for those purposes. It made me feel a little better choosing this as my next career path in hopes of having a job :) The fact of economic means, at least in my life & others expanding their educational background, are affected tremendously if you cannot live up to economic expectations that higher educational facilities demand. I have been fortunate enough to live a life of privilege when it comes to receiving higher education (and travel). Those students (and countries) that cannot receive higher education due to economic issues pose restriction in many areas of their personal and professional lives. Though the realities of competition is quite relevant- as they mentioned how the international languages of the Internet are slowly translating to their first language since more than 80% of the text found online is English based. This can give individuals who want to learn English (or any other language) more opportunities to do so by cheaper means. But unfortunately for all of us, those days will not be seen for many years still down the road.

As an elementary/early childhood teacher, I have been quite aware of the negative view of western-culture due to colonialism- especially in history books. As they mentioned that English teaching itself promoting negative view of non-westerners was hard to read but sadly is true as they disseminate books and ideas that portray these such images of stereotyping etc. I hope by that as more and more of TESOL educators graduate and conduct in the field of teaching English and culture that it will begin to change for the more positive.

Ch2: Bilingual Users of English

I have been reading many articles now about the negative usage of "native speaker" and how it is looked at as a metaphor than a relative term of language speakers and I agree that "multi-competence" and "English-knowing bilinguals" are better terms explaining persons seeking proficiency of another language (2nd, 3rd, etc). Also the multiple confusing definitions of "mother-tongue"- I always thought this term was irrelevant because what if you were adopted from another country while an infant? This wouldn't apply to you then; would you be considered an "adopted-tongue"? Regardless, it is comforting to read that "...we can change identities...we can join new groups" in the sense of acquiring new languages and obtaining levels of fluency and competency. I hope that teachers always remember that when teaching language that it is not reflected with the words of succeed and fail- "failure to achieve native-speaker competence" because I've not only experienced that with myself, but I have seen it in classrooms in elementary schools and with some of the students here in this program who feel that they are not confident to even speak at all in a classroom because of the feeling of incompetence or whatever mental attitude they have that holds them back. I hope that we as teachers can foster these perceptions in a positive light for all ages that are acquiring a new language. It was interesting to read about the levels of "circles", especially Outer Circle countries and the acknowledgment of code-choices- "an index of the rights and obligations that exist among participants in a given interaction". This I found helpful when reading later in the chapters about "standard" English and its relevance to specific "circle" countries.

Ch3: Standards for English as an International Language

I was glad to read the acknowledgment of "accent association" with "standard" in a positive sense because I feel that many students are holding themselves back in their language learning due to the difficulties of acquiring a "standard-sounding" English accent. Accent allows all of us to have our individuality but the most important feature, no matter what, is the clarity of the language being spoken. I personally feel bad having to ask my friends that are L2 speakers of English to repeat themselves because of their accent, but I know that this is something that I need to train myself to learn so I may better understand what they are saying. I know even living and growing up in USA that I have visited other areas in the SAME country and having people tell me that I have a funny accent/ asking me to repeat myself due to this. I believe this is what Kachru referred to as cline of bilingualism to describe the range of varieties of English used by individuals within one country. Having noted this, I cannot fathom what, let alone where, at least in USA, linguists would consider having the most "standard" accent/dialect to teach "standard" English due to the wide variety of immigrants from all over the world who have settled here creating many generations of inter-mixing cultural families across this country.

Ch4: Culture in Teaching English as an International Language

While teaching my Pennsylvanian/ Pittsburgh and even North Eastern cultures to my students in the South West was an aesthetic adventure in a half when trying to teach cross culturally both with literature and figuratively. For example- teaching "Groundhog Day" was completely new for them having no real reason to learn it since their seasons are not in any extreme comparison to the North East's. Prior to teaching them this tradition, there were extensive lesson plans about why we celebrate it, what it means, when it was started, who the groundhog is, relevance, etc. Being that I was teaching 1st graders, there were many books, pictures, story-boards, vocabulary, and television footage used in order to effectively teach this lesson. Needless to say it involved many aspects of aesthetics but also it involved the personal relationships they had about the lesson- change and awareness of the seasons and weather. Even though the chances of snowfall in their town was once every 20 years (which is the truth), there were other aspects of weather change they could attribute as we do in the North East. Never-the-less, it can be difficult to teach any form of culture if the student cannot devote any type of personal background to the information given or reflect on how their own culture contrasts with it.