Reading through Collier, I had several agonizing flashbacks to preparing to take the Sheltered English Immersion MTEL exam (an exam I had to take three times before passing). Much of what she describes is best practice for ELL educators, specifically for bilingual educators. Attaining an SEI endorsement is challenging enough, but the demands for bilingual teachers are staggering. The quote that stood out to me the most highlights the less-academic challenges bilingual educators must face:
People untrained in linguistics, particularly politicians, tend to believe that if limited
English proficient students can converse with their monolingual English-speaking peers,
then these English-language learners can compete with them on an equal footing. (225)
This embodies so much of what’s wrong with the bureaucratic influences that dictate how our students are taught and how they are held accountable to perform on an “equal footing” on an imbalanced playing field. Conversational English (L2) proficiency is not the same as academic L2 proficiency (which holds true even if the student is a native English-speaker). Throughout Collier, which I read second, I kept coming back to Rodriguez’s “Aria,” whenever native language (L1) was pushed to the back burner in her examples of “what NOT to do.”
Rodriguez’s piece was the more engaging of the two articles for this week, especially in all the places where I saw language acquisition connecting to acquiring the tools of the culture of power (Delpit). Rodriguez’s story is a jarring example of how L2 acquisition can lead to lost proficiency in L1 and a diminished sense of culture, identity, and agency. L2 (English) becomes the culture of power, as it is the language of politics, education, and business. Without L2 proficiency, access to the culture of power is cut off; oftentimes, L1 is pushed aside in favor of acquiring L2, power, and a public identity. In considering how public identity is achieved by assimilating into the culture of power (in this case the language of power) I found myself asking, Does assimilation into public life always require losing a sense of private individuality? Then I thought about the implications of asking that question: Is my white, native English-speaking privilege allowing me to even ask such a question? My private individuality is so inline with the dominant ideal (SCWAAMP) of public individuality that I can’t dismiss my privilege here.
If you have time, please check out this “Immersion” short film if you’ve never seen it, it’s definitely worth the 12 minutes.
"Does assimilation into public life always require losing a sense of private individuality?"
ReplyDeleteChris, I think unfortunately, because of the codes of power, this is always going to happen. It is interesting to me though that you thought about your privilege when asking that question and if you even had the right to ask the question.
I think the points you brought up about Delpit connect directly to that piece. Although I thought about Delpit while completing the reading, I didn't make a connection as well as you did! Thank you for bringing that to light.
Chris, love your post as usual. However, could next time explain the abbreviations used? Not sure what is ELL MTEL, I know you did in the other ones and helped a lot to understand. I like everything you said, and I am still curious what is the expectations for college students. "Conversational English (L2) proficiency is not the same as academic L2 proficiency (which holds true even if the student is a native English-speaker)". Students come here and each school ask for a minimal score, but because not everybody is the same, should international students be graded like american ones? or should we keep thinking "you are in college now, figure out!"?
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