This article in the Wall Street Journal describes an alarming decision by the Arizona Department of Education to police English language “fluency” in Arizona teachers.
Being a monolingual speaker of English does not make a person a “flawless” speaker or writer of English; more knowledgeable about English language rules; or a better example of how-students-should-speak-and-write-English. No speaker of English–monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual–has an unmarked or neutral accent. Such things simply do not exist. Any statements or policies otherwise are simply examples of unchecked nationalism, xenophobia, and linguistic othering. Positioning monolingual speakers of English as the linguistic ideal does nothing more than structure society in inequitable ways. The decision of the Arizona Department of Education to interpret the No Child Left Behind Act in this way says more about the identities and internalized ideologies of educational gatekeepers and little about the linguistic abilities and realities of schools, teachers and students.
Every once and a while, I receive emails from students about the classes I’m teaching in the coming semesters. Here’s the scoop. In Fall 2010, I’m teaching two sections of ELNG 200 – Linguistic Diversity and Teaching Language Arts. In Winter 2011, I’m teaching one section of ELNG 200; one section of ELNG 326 – Teaching English as a Second Language; and one section of EC&I 871XX Methods & Curriculum in Teaching English as an Additional Language, a graduate class in our proposed TESOL graduate certificate.
I’m currently recruiting international students at the University of Regina for a research study I am conducting. If you meet the following criteria then I would like to talk to you:
- You’re an international student in the faculties of Engineering, Business Administration, Education, and Arts currently enrolled in courses at the University of Regina; and
- English is your second language or if your English is sometimes considered “non-native” by English speakers in Saskatchewan even though you consider yourself a “native-speaker” of English
The study investigates the experiences of international students at the University of Regina with a particular focus on the areas of language, communication, and interaction. I would like to know more about your experiences with language in your classes, residences, and in accessing University of Regina services (for example: your experiences in making yourself understood; written English requirements; vocabulary; attitudes toward accent; assignments and marking; reading requirements; interaction with students and employees at the university; access to tutoring; and anything else not mentioned here that you feel is relevant).
Your involvement in the study would involve meeting with me, Dr. Sterzuk, for approximately one hour for an interview. In exchange, you would receive an honorarium of $20 (in the form of a gift certificate). Participation in this study is completely voluntary and will involve an interview taking about one hour of your time at your convenience. The study has been approved by the University of Regina Ethics Board and is funded by a President’s Fund research grant.
If you are interested in being interviewed (for about one hour) or if you have any question about this study please contact Andrea Sterzuk by telephone at 585.5607 or by email at andrea.sterzuk@uregina.ca.
The university where I work, the University of Regina, is introducing a 5-course graduate level certificate in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The certificate consists of the following five courses which are NOT offered online, can be taken in any order, and are all 3 credit courses:
EC&I 859 Second Language Reading and Writing
EC&I 858 Second Language Acquisition Theory
EC&I 870XX Critical Issues in Second Language Education
EC&I 870XX Grammar in Teaching English as a Second Language (offered Fall 2010)
EC&I 870XX Methods and Curriculum in Teaching English as a Second Language (offered Winter 2011)
For more information about the program and how to register, you can send me an email at andrea.sterzuk@uregina.ca
I’m in Atlanta for the annual conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. I’m very excited to be here and listening to some great papers. I present tomorrow on my research on EFL student perceptions of English in globalized times. Plus there isn’t any snow here! Fantastic.
While reading Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel’s blog, I came across a link to this research by Clare Woods (Coventry University) on the relationship between texting and reading ability & phonological awareness. This topic is brought up in every undergraduate and graduate class that I teach so I was interested to read the following:
“We began studying in this area initially to see if there was any evidence of association between text abbreviation use and literacy skills at all, after such a negative portrayal of the activity in the media. We were surprised to learn that not only was the association strong, but that textism use was actually driving the development of phonological awareness and reading skill in children. Texting also appears to be a valuable form of contact with written English for many children, which enables them to practice reading and spelling on a daily basis.”
I spent the last week in Villahermosa, Tabasco at UJAT – la Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco. I first visited this university in 2004 with Jesus Izquierdo Sandoval, one of my friends from graduate school. He’s a professor there now and, thanks to this connection, I have had the opportunity to return and work with them on their new masters in English language teaching. 
While there, I gave a lecture and several workshops. I also had the opportunity to visit a school in a nearby town where a U of R student will fulfill her internship requirements in Fall 2010 - our first internship in Mexico. It was a busy but productive week. The change in temperature didn’t hurt either…
If you’ve been following this news story, you’ll know that during the 2008 election bid, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid described Barack Obama as a “light skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” and claimed that this would help rather than hurt Obama’s eventual presidential bid. Read more…
This blog entry, about the Netflix interactive map, has a really interesting discussion about movie rental choices and identity (race and social class, mainly).
