March 25th Readings

After reading through these articles, I feel I gained a lot of new insight. I will begin with Kubota’s article. I especially liked a quote from this article.

“Human beings possess a far larger proportion of genes in common than they do genes that are supposed to differentiate them racially. Not surprisingly, we are much more like each other than we are different. It has been estimated that, genetically speaking, the difference in difference - the percentage of our genes that determines our purportedly racial or primarily morphological difference - is 0.5 percent, (p. 67) RACE AND TESOL: INTRODUCTION TO CONCEPTS AND THEORIES”

I think it is easy to focus on differences between people, but we must be careful. Is race really just a biological concept, or is there a deeper, more hidden meaning behind how we identify others? If race is a social construction, then this changes things. Some say race can strategically mobilize groups to create resistance. This reminds me of essentialism, and how focusing so much on differences can actually empower certain groups, as well as cause a dichotomy.  

Racialization, or categorizing people, has roots even in colonialism. Judgments against others usually have underlying reasons. Perhaps there is pride or the sense of superiority in the one doing the judging, which can then affect how they treat or view the others.

As future educators, we have an important role. We must approach education through critical pedagogies and critical multicultural education. The word ‘critical’ is crucial here because we learned from Kubota’s article on Barbara that not thinking or discussing critically can be detrimental. Educational visions should target social justice and equity through examining power and politics and often reinforce domination and subordination in society. Students and teachers must discuss relations of power in terms of race, gender, class, and other categories to fully understand the reality in which we live.

I took away an important message from Ibrahim’s article. I like how it described rap as a voice for voicelessness. It explores the hopes and the human and cultural experience of the Black Atlantic. Black Americans created rap to express themselves. If we could integrate ourselves into it, we could better understand their problems. These can include human degradation, police brutality, and everyday racism. If educators consider learning to be engaging one’s identity and fulfillment of needs and deisres, then ESL pedagogy must find a way to draw in youths such as those in this article. Identity decides what ESL learners acquire and how they acquire it. Linguistic content learned should not be separate from political, social, and cultural context. Learning means investing. As teachers, we must find how our students invest in their identities and then develop materials accordingly, taking into account the race, class, sex, and identity of our students.

I became upset upon reading Kuma’s article, especially when it discussed Aptekin’s view of Asians. He stated that Asians were not capable of thinking critically and later the article downplays any and all of their inventions. However, basic scientific conventions such as the compass, gunpowder, and printing are complex and couldn’t have just been “stumbled upon.” This article also made a really good point in saying that to understand how Asian students communicate in the classroom, we must consider more than just cultural beliefs. Anxiety, motivation to participate, speaking abilities, communicative competence, how the instructor presents material, and many other factors influence an Asian child’s input and output in the classroom. IT is not fair for others to make assumptions about them without looking at the situation holistically.

 

Hinkel Chapter 7

Hinkel Chapter 7

·         Competence required to interact with others in another language

o   Goals of interactive practice, roles of participants, topics/themes considered pertinent

o   Optional linguistic action patterns along which the practice may unfold, conventional meanings, expected participation structures

o   Amount of flexibility one has in rearranging expected uses of practice’s linguistic resources when exercising these options and likely consequences engendered by various uses

o   Skill to mindfully and efficiently recognize situations where patterns apply and know when to use them when participating in new experiences to help make sense of unknown

·         Elsewhere, it has been argued that competence development involves

o   Guided practice in significant practices considered significant by learners

o   Systematic study of L2 interactive practices (conventional resources and typical meanings, varied uses by participants, consequences ensued)

·         Interactional competence is a prosaic of interaction; engaging learners in another language helps develop L2 in ways that decrease chances of negative social reactions

·         We interact based on common knowledge of our practices

·         Predictable uses of resources provide us with the tools necessary for structuring and interacting with others in ways that are both socially and cognitively meaningful to us and to those around us… what about those who don’t share this knowledge? How is this knowledge developed?

·         Two general spheres of practices

o   Primary: acquired during childhood, important practices to families and significant social groups

o   Secondary: schooled, begin work, involved in communities in adulthood/adolescence

·         As we gain more experience in various practices, we become more interactively competent (build habits of uses and responses to uses of linguistic resource within those practices)

·         The more competent we become, the more we use our knowledge to better interpret and respond to ensuing talk, become creative in the ways we choose to participate, and become adept at realizing our individual goals within the larger practice-related goals

·         Engaging in social interaction with people who are more expert is important “cultural amplifier” necessary to development of cognitive processes

·         Consciousness needed to learn language and pragmatics/interactional competence

·         Guiding students to detect patterns used in interaction through the systematic study of interactive practices (development of prosaic of interaction) will facilitate the development of interactional competence in the second language.

o   Included in this competence are skills needed to:

§  Notice a particular linguistic resource and its function

§  Reflect on its interactional meaning (particular placement in sequence of speech, ex.)

§  Formulate and test hypothesis about conventional uses, etc.

§  Develop knowledge that is both domains (practice-specific and domain-general)

§  Develop alternative uses of resources that may lead to realization of learners’ individual goals within larger practice

·         Mikhail Bakhtin, developing prosaics of interaction       

o   Dialogue, transgredience, prosaics of the novel

o   Our individual participation is constrained by degree of sociocultural authority embedded in conventionality of practices’ linguistic resource; in some cases, room for our individual voices and in other cases our participation is restricted b social and other factors. (ex. Talking in social group vs in class)

o   IRE: teacher-initiated question, student response, teacher-produced evaluation of response

o   To develop an understanding to develop consciousness, we need to step outside practices and engage in analysis and reflection of our actions (transgredience, the ability to see an interaction as a dialogic event between resources and utterances from vantage point outside of event and not member of it)

·         Model for classroom practice   

o   Texts- pertinent by being recurring interactions, goal-directed talk among members on regular basis

o   Framework for Analysis: Extralinguistic elements and linguistic resources

§  Extralinguistic elements:

·         Setting: physical space conditions, time and duration, geographical consideration

·         Participants: Social identities (age, ethnicity, gender, origin, one plays role of teacher and others are students)

·         Expected goals or outcomes: expectations ( to solidify social bonds, to make a purchase, to tell a story), to know appropriateness of moves

§  Linguistic Resources

·         Topic: the recurring stories or themes with which the social actors concern themselves

·         Constitutive Speech acts and sequential development: pragmatic meaning each utterance plays (invitation, compliment, etc.)

o   1. What is considered to be a conventional linguistic display of certain act

o   2. Its placement in sequence of utterances

o   3. Intent of interactants (typical patterned arrangement of utterances included, too)

§  The more conventionalized the practice, the less flexible the arrangement is likely to be

·         Participation structures

o   Turn-taking patterns among participants

·         Formulaic openings, transitions, and closings: utterances used to open, move through, and close a practice

·         “ok” can signal movement from one activity to the next

·         “once  upon a time” is a story

o   Pedagogical considerations for study of practices

§  Choosing object of study, concerned with student interests and needs and accessibility of practice and feasibility of collecting data

§  Methods of data collection (video taping, audiotaping, interviews, etc.)

§  Help them with words, phrases and linguistic cues that will help them in target language

§  Prosaics of interaction isn’t focused on production of report that correctly describes a practice, but rather development of L2 interactional competence, the facilitation of which includes providing students with opportunities to take notice of significant interactional features and their situated meanings (make predictions, seek patterns, etc)

§  In learning about the various ways of meaning making within L2 groups, the students develop a critical awareness of language use, and thus, to a certain degree, are empowered to make choices about whether to participate in practices and how to use resources in ways that will enhance fulfilling their individual goals

§  Classroom provides safe environment for learning as students explore various use and consequences of talk in L2 in ways that are likely to have fewer negative social and other consequences for the learners

§  The skills needed to competently participate in face-to-face interactive practices are both practice-generic and practice-specific; how we learn to become a competent participant in a practice depends on opportunities we have to participate in and develop a familiarity with the practice

§  We are more confident and perform more competently in practices we have prior experience in

§  Whose texts from which cultures do we bring in our classrooms?

Hinkel Chapter 7

Hinkel Chapter 7

·         Competence required to interact with others in another language

o   Goals of interactive practice, roles of participants, topics/themes considered pertinent

o   Optional linguistic action patterns along which the practice may unfold, conventional meanings, expected participation structures

o   Amount of flexibility one has in rearranging expected uses of practice’s linguistic resources when exercising these options and likely consequences engendered by various uses

o   Skill to mindfully and efficiently recognize situations where patterns apply and know when to use them when participating in new experiences to help make sense of unknown

·         Elsewhere, it has been argued that competence development involves

o   Guided practice in significant practices considered significant by learners

o   Systematic study of L2 interactive practices (conventional resources and typical meanings, varied uses by participants, consequences ensued)

·         Interactional competence is a prosaic of interaction; engaging learners in another language helps develop L2 in ways that decrease chances of negative social reactions

·         We interact based on common knowledge of our practices

·         Predictable uses of resources provide us with the tools necessary for structuring and interacting with others in ways that are both socially and cognitively meaningful to us and to those around us… what about those who don’t share this knowledge? How is this knowledge developed?

·         Two general spheres of practices

o   Primary: acquired during childhood, important practices to families and significant social groups

o   Secondary: schooled, begin work, involved in communities in adulthood/adolescence

·         As we gain more experience in various practices, we become more interactively competent (build habits of uses and responses to uses of linguistic resource within those practices)

·         The more competent we become, the more we use our knowledge to better interpret and respond to ensuing talk, become creative in the ways we choose to participate, and become adept at realizing our individual goals within the larger practice-related goals

·         Engaging in social interaction with people who are more expert is important “cultural amplifier” necessary to development of cognitive processes

·         Consciousness needed to learn language and pragmatics/interactional competence

·         Guiding students to detect patterns used in interaction through the systematic study of interactive practices (development of prosaic of interaction) will facilitate the development of interactional competence in the second language.

o   Included in this competence are skills needed to:

§  Notice a particular linguistic resource and its function

§  Reflect on its interactional meaning (particular placement in sequence of speech, ex.)

§  Formulate and test hypothesis about conventional uses, etc.

§  Develop knowledge that is both domains (practice-specific and domain-general)

§  Develop alternative uses of resources that may lead to realization of learners’ individual goals within larger practice

·         Mikhail Bakhtin, developing prosaics of interaction       

o   Dialogue, transgredience, prosaics of the novel

o   Our individual participation is constrained by degree of sociocultural authority embedded in conventionality of practices’ linguistic resource; in some cases, room for our individual voices and in other cases our participation is restricted b social and other factors. (ex. Talking in social group vs in class)

o   IRE: teacher-initiated question, student response, teacher-produced evaluation of response

o   To develop an understanding to develop consciousness, we need to step outside practices and engage in analysis and reflection of our actions (transgredience, the ability to see an interaction as a dialogic event between resources and utterances from vantage point outside of event and not member of it)

·         Model for classroom practice   

o   Texts- pertinent by being recurring interactions, goal-directed talk among members on regular basis

o   Framework for Analysis: Extralinguistic elements and linguistic resources

§  Extralinguistic elements:

·         Setting: physical space conditions, time and duration, geographical consideration

·         Participants: Social identities (age, ethnicity, gender, origin, one plays role of teacher and others are students)

·         Expected goals or outcomes: expectations ( to solidify social bonds, to make a purchase, to tell a story), to know appropriateness of moves

§  Linguistic Resources

·         Topic: the recurring stories or themes with which the social actors concern themselves

·         Constitutive Speech acts and sequential development: pragmatic meaning each utterance plays (invitation, compliment, etc.)

o   1. What is considered to be a conventional linguistic display of certain act

o   2. Its placement in sequence of utterances

o   3. Intent of interactants (typical patterned arrangement of utterances included, too)

§  The more conventionalized the practice, the less flexible the arrangement is likely to be

·         Participation structures

o   Turn-taking patterns among participants

·         Formulaic openings, transitions, and closings: utterances used to open, move through, and close a practice

·         “ok” can signal movement from one activity to the next

·         “once  upon a time” is a story

o   Pedagogical considerations for study of practices

§  Choosing object of study, concerned with student interests and needs and accessibility of practice and feasibility of collecting data

§  Methods of data collection (video taping, audiotaping, interviews, etc.)

§  Help them with words, phrases and linguistic cues that will help them in target language

§  Prosaics of interaction isn’t focused on production of report that correctly describes a practice, but rather development of L2 interactional competence, the facilitation of which includes providing students with opportunities to take notice of significant interactional features and their situated meanings (make predictions, seek patterns, etc)

§  In learning about the various ways of meaning making within L2 groups, the students develop a critical awareness of language use, and thus, to a certain degree, are empowered to make choices about whether to participate in practices and how to use resources in ways that will enhance fulfilling their individual goals

§  Classroom provides safe environment for learning as students explore various use and consequences of talk in L2 in ways that are likely to have fewer negative social and other consequences for the learners

§  The skills needed to competently participate in face-to-face interactive practices are both practice-generic and practice-specific; how we learn to become a competent participant in a practice depends on opportunities we have to participate in and develop a familiarity with the practice

§  We are more confident and perform more competently in practices we have prior experience in

§  Whose texts from which cultures do we bring in our classrooms?

Hinkel Chapter 7

Hinkel Chapter 7

·         Competence required to interact with others in another language

o   Goals of interactive practice, roles of participants, topics/themes considered pertinent

o   Optional linguistic action patterns along which the practice may unfold, conventional meanings, expected participation structures

o   Amount of flexibility one has in rearranging expected uses of practice’s linguistic resources when exercising these options and likely consequences engendered by various uses

o   Skill to mindfully and efficiently recognize situations where patterns apply and know when to use them when participating in new experiences to help make sense of unknown

·         Elsewhere, it has been argued that competence development involves

o   Guided practice in significant practices considered significant by learners

o   Systematic study of L2 interactive practices (conventional resources and typical meanings, varied uses by participants, consequences ensued)

·         Interactional competence is a prosaic of interaction; engaging learners in another language helps develop L2 in ways that decrease chances of negative social reactions

·         We interact based on common knowledge of our practices

·         Predictable uses of resources provide us with the tools necessary for structuring and interacting with others in ways that are both socially and cognitively meaningful to us and to those around us… what about those who don’t share this knowledge? How is this knowledge developed?

·         Two general spheres of practices

o   Primary: acquired during childhood, important practices to families and significant social groups

o   Secondary: schooled, begin work, involved in communities in adulthood/adolescence

·         As we gain more experience in various practices, we become more interactively competent (build habits of uses and responses to uses of linguistic resource within those practices)

·         The more competent we become, the more we use our knowledge to better interpret and respond to ensuing talk, become creative in the ways we choose to participate, and become adept at realizing our individual goals within the larger practice-related goals

·         Engaging in social interaction with people who are more expert is important “cultural amplifier” necessary to development of cognitive processes

·         Consciousness needed to learn language and pragmatics/interactional competence

·         Guiding students to detect patterns used in interaction through the systematic study of interactive practices (development of prosaic of interaction) will facilitate the development of interactional competence in the second language.

o   Included in this competence are skills needed to:

§  Notice a particular linguistic resource and its function

§  Reflect on its interactional meaning (particular placement in sequence of speech, ex.)

§  Formulate and test hypothesis about conventional uses, etc.

§  Develop knowledge that is both domains (practice-specific and domain-general)

§  Develop alternative uses of resources that may lead to realization of learners’ individual goals within larger practice

·         Mikhail Bakhtin, developing prosaics of interaction       

o   Dialogue, transgredience, prosaics of the novel

o   Our individual participation is constrained by degree of sociocultural authority embedded in conventionality of practices’ linguistic resource; in some cases, room for our individual voices and in other cases our participation is restricted b social and other factors. (ex. Talking in social group vs in class)

o   IRE: teacher-initiated question, student response, teacher-produced evaluation of response

o   To develop an understanding to develop consciousness, we need to step outside practices and engage in analysis and reflection of our actions (transgredience, the ability to see an interaction as a dialogic event between resources and utterances from vantage point outside of event and not member of it)

·         Model for classroom practice   

o   Texts- pertinent by being recurring interactions, goal-directed talk among members on regular basis

o   Framework for Analysis: Extralinguistic elements and linguistic resources

§  Extralinguistic elements:

·         Setting: physical space conditions, time and duration, geographical consideration

·         Participants: Social identities (age, ethnicity, gender, origin, one plays role of teacher and others are students)

·         Expected goals or outcomes: expectations ( to solidify social bonds, to make a purchase, to tell a story), to know appropriateness of moves

§  Linguistic Resources

·         Topic: the recurring stories or themes with which the social actors concern themselves

·         Constitutive Speech acts and sequential development: pragmatic meaning each utterance plays (invitation, compliment, etc.)

o   1. What is considered to be a conventional linguistic display of certain act

o   2. Its placement in sequence of utterances

o   3. Intent of interactants (typical patterned arrangement of utterances included, too)

§  The more conventionalized the practice, the less flexible the arrangement is likely to be

·         Participation structures

o   Turn-taking patterns among participants

·         Formulaic openings, transitions, and closings: utterances used to open, move through, and close a practice

·         “ok” can signal movement from one activity to the next

·         “once  upon a time” is a story

o   Pedagogical considerations for study of practices

§  Choosing object of study, concerned with student interests and needs and accessibility of practice and feasibility of collecting data

§  Methods of data collection (video taping, audiotaping, interviews, etc.)

§  Help them with words, phrases and linguistic cues that will help them in target language

§  Prosaics of interaction isn’t focused on production of report that correctly describes a practice, but rather development of L2 interactional competence, the facilitation of which includes providing students with opportunities to take notice of significant interactional features and their situated meanings (make predictions, seek patterns, etc)

§  In learning about the various ways of meaning making within L2 groups, the students develop a critical awareness of language use, and thus, to a certain degree, are empowered to make choices about whether to participate in practices and how to use resources in ways that will enhance fulfilling their individual goals

§  Classroom provides safe environment for learning as students explore various use and consequences of talk in L2 in ways that are likely to have fewer negative social and other consequences for the learners

§  The skills needed to competently participate in face-to-face interactive practices are both practice-generic and practice-specific; how we learn to become a competent participant in a practice depends on opportunities we have to participate in and develop a familiarity with the practice

§  We are more confident and perform more competently in practices we have prior experience in

§  Whose texts from which cultures do we bring in our classrooms?