"Our goal as teachers is to provide students with access to English and all the personal and professional possibilities that come with the ability to speak English, and to decolonize the teaching of English."
This quote is especially important to me because it is my dream to teach English in the Peace Corps. Because of this I am very interested in ways and techniques that I can use to decolonize the teaching of English. The English language has been globalized because of British colonialism as well as economic and militant power the United States holds. As teachers we must be aware that we are culture bearers and through our teaching we must be sure that we are not colonizing our students. We cannot simply force the English language and our specific accents among students, we have to take into consideration that English is a language addition not a language substitution. If students want to know who they are as people then it is vital for them to know the 'mother-tongue' of their language. We must be sure that while teaching we are not inadvertently oppressing that history and creating a language loss. Obviously since we are in TESOL classes none of us have the intention of dismissing the already existent cultures students will have. Yet, the colonizing nature of our teaching may be something that we are not aware of, and that is why it is necessary to not only teach our language and culture but to facilitate and promote the culture of our students. As teachers if we promote the other cultures and strive for double consciousness in our students we are taking an active role ensuring that our students do not forget who they are, but actually add to who they are.
I was considering doing TESOL with the Peace Corps for a while too! :) I love that term of "Decolonizing English." Since English is becoming the common business language of the world, it is easy to fall into the pedagogy of "English is the best and most useful", without even giving importance to the LLs own language. Also, we must also be careful to not force the ideologies of our culture on the LL community, since language and culture go hand-in-hand. GREAT BLOG.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statement in that as future teachers, we shouldn't force English down our students' throats. English shouldn't be used as another means of dominance in our students because that only creates so many negative things such as resentment from the students. I liked how you said that English shouldn't be a language substitution. I believe that knowing English improves your life but not at the cost of losing your history and your culture.
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