reimagining culture in tesol

7/29/2019 Reimagining Culture in TESOL

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Re-imagining Culture in TESOLPresentation Transcript

1. Re-Imagining Culture in TESOLTESOL March 25-28, 2010 BostonUlla Connor,

PhDIndiana Center for Intercultural CommunicationIndiana University-Purdue

University IndianapolisBill Eggington, PhDProfessor and Chair, Linguistics and

English Language Department,Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah

2. Introduction: (Bill)Were going to imagine and (re)imagine culture and TESOL

Along the way, well also mention:DefinitionsBig cultures and small culturesModern

and post-modern perspectivesAirplane accidentsThe English of East LATeaching

stuffHigh School ESL classesCollege-level teacher education classesMiddle

groundsPersonal Culture DiagramsMulti-colored jacketsBonfires and AntsPower and

solidarity

3. Session OverviewWhat we are going to doWhat we hope to achieve

4. What we are going to doAttempt to address four salient questions

through:PresentationActivitiesOpen debateSmall group discussionReport back to

whole groupThe four questions are:What is culture?How do large and small cultures

work?Why does culture matter in language teaching?Are there privileged cultures

that enhance ESL competence?

5. The Outline (1)What is culture? (Ulla)Activity:Is it possible to bring the

different perspectives of culture together into a working paradigm useful for

TESOL training and teaching?Different Perspectives:Reconcilable

differencesIrreconcilable differences Report back How do big and small cultures

work? (Bill)Activity:Is it possible for small group culture to exist independent of

large group culture?Report back

6. The Outline (2)Why does culture matter in language teaching? (Ulla)Activity:How

can we teach culture more effectively in the classroom?Approaches, tips,

suggestions?Are there privileged cultures that enhance ESL communicative

competence? (Bill)ActivityWhat is the ESL teachers role in promoting or

challenging big and small cultures?

7. What do we (big we) hope to achieve?Our goalsYour goalsAnd, if possible, who

are you?

8. What is culture? (Ulla)


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9. Culture as a Burning Issue in the 21st CenturyEarly notions of culture, the

received view, consider large groups as sharing a definable culture (ethnic,

national, international)Postmodern views see culture as a dynamic, ongoing process

which operates in changing circumstances to enable group members to make sense

and meaningfully operate within those circumstances (Holliday, 1999, p.248)Culture has become less and less a national consensus, but a consensus built on

common ethnic, generational, ideological, occupation or gender related interests,

within and across national boundaries (Kramsch, 2002, p. 276) 2010 Indiana

Center for Intercultural Communication

10. Tesol & Culture (Atkinson, 1999)Two Views:Received view, geographic cause

(and quite often nationally) distinct entitiesPost modernist-influenced

conceptsunchanging homogeneous identityhybridity essentialism power difference

agency discourse resistance confrontation 2010 Indiana Center for InterculturalCommunication

11. Middle-ground approach (Atkinson,1999,continued)Acknowledge the important

place of shared perspectives and socialized practices in the lives of human

beings.All humans are individuals.Individuality is also cultural.Knowing students

individually also involves knowing them culturally. (p. 643) (Teacher has to be a

researcher.) 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

12. Middle-Ground Approach, cont.Social group membership and identity are

multiple, contradictory, and dynamic.Social group membership is

consequential.Methods of studying cultural knowledge and behavior are unlikely to

fit a positivist paradigm.Language (language and teaching) and culture are mutually

implicated, but culture is multiple and complex. 2010 Indiana Center for

Intercultural Communication

13. Get rid of old, outmoded views of language and culture butretain robust notions

of locality and solid practice.(Atkinson, 2008) 2010 Indiana Center for


14. Re-imagining Culture in TESOLNational culturesSmall culturesIndividual

cultures 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

15. Helpful Paradigm (Holliday, 1994, 1999)Big CulturesEssentialist,

culturalistCulture as essential features of ethnic, national, or international

groupSmall (sub)cultures are contained within and subordinate to large


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culturesNormative, prescribedSmall CulturesNon-essentialist, non-culturist

Relating to cohesive behavior in activities within any social grouping No necessary

subordination to or containment within large cultures Interpretive, a process

2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

16. Big and Small Cultures in the ClassroomComplexity and interacting small cultures

in an educational setting. Adapted from Holliday, 1994, 1999. 2010 Indiana Center

for Intercultural Communication

17. Activity 1:Is it possible to bring the different perspectives of culture together

into a working paradigm useful for TESOL training and teaching?Different

Perspectives:Reconcilable differencesIrreconcilable differences Report back Some

different perspectives:Big culture, small cultureModernist, post-modernist

18. How do big and small cultures work? (Bill)The relationship between big and smallcultures in particular contextsWhat the research tells usThe ethnic theory of

plane crashes (Gladwell)Non-evidential epistemic modals (Youmans)English cultural

notions of personal autonomy , reasonableness and whimperatives (Wirezbicka)

19. Starting Point: Big and Small Cultures in ContextComplexity and interacting

small cultures in an educational setting. Adapted from Holliday, 1994, 1999. 2010

Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

20. The big culture/little culture relationship in the cockpitThe KAL storyThe

Avianca storyFrom Gladwell, Malcom (2008). The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes

(Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot). In Outliers: The Story of Success.

Little, Brown and Company

21. Power Distance Index (based on Hofstede, Geert. Culture's Consequences,

Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations

Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 2001)Top FiveBrazilSouth

KoreaMoroccoMexicoPhilippinesBottom FiveUnited StatesIrelandSouth

AfricaAustraliaNew Zealand

22. The relationship in the cockpitGladwell, Malcom, The Ethnic Theory of Plane

Crashes (Captain, the weather radar has helped us a lot) In Outliers: The Story of

Success. Greenberg wanted to give his pilots an alternative identity. Their problem

was that they were trapped in roles dictated by the heavy weight of their countrys

cultural legacy. They needed an opportunity to step outside those roles when they


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sat in the cockpit, and language was the key to that transformation. In English,

they would be free of the sharply defined gradients of Korean hierarchy formal

deference, informal deference, blunt, familiar, intimate and plain. Instead the

pilots could participate in a culture and language with a different legacy. (p. 219)

23. Criticism of Hofstedes PDIThe Construction of the Modern West and the

Backward Rest: Studying the Discourse of Hofstedes Cultures Consequences

Journal of Multicultural Discourses Vol. 2, No. 1, 2007Martin Fougere and

AgnetaMoulettesThis paper studies the discourse deployed in Hofstedes Cultures

Consequences(1980, 2001), the international best-seller that introduces a model

classifying nationalcultures according to four (later five) supposedly universal

dimensions. Noting thatthis management-oriented scholarly discourse has had a

huge impact in both thebusiness world and academia, we take a critical stance

towards the Western-based,ethnocentric perspective that characterises it. Ouraim is not to merely repeat thealready formulated objections to the model,

concerning its ontology, epistemologyand methodology, but rather to focus on the

very words of Hofstede himself in hissecond edition of Cultures Consequences

(2001). With a broadly postcolonialsensibility, drawing on authors such as Said and

Escobar, we contend that Hofstedediscursively constructs a world characterised by

a division between a developed andmodern side (mostly Anglo-Germanic countries)

and a traditional and backwardside (the rest) and discuss the cultural

consequences of such colonial discourse.

24. The big culture/little culture relationship in a multicultural communityYoumans,

Madeleine (2001). Cross-cultural Differences in Polite Epistemic Modal Use in

American English. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development Vol. 22, No.

1, 2001001) Table 1: Greatest differences in non-evidential epistemic modal use per

20,000 wordsEpistemic modal Anglo uses Lemon Grove usesCould: Advice 37.73

3.11Can: Suggestion 33.34 1.55Think: Mitigating 30.71 0You know: Soften

suggestions 18.43 0Maybe: Polite hedge 21.94 0

25. The relationship in a multicultural communityYoumans, Madeleine (2001), Cross-cultural Differences in Polite Epistemic Modal Use in American English Journal of

Multilingual and Multicultural Development Vol. 22, No. 1, 2001This study compared

the use of selected epistemic modals in English speech of Chicano barrio residents

and Anglo visitors to the community. Transcribed conversations served as the

database. The Chicano speakers tended to use the epistemic modals only to index

the evidential weight of propositions, whereas the Anglo speakers tended also to


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use them for numerous non-evidential functions, most frequently for negative

politeness. In this paper, I discuss those epistemic modal functions used the most

disparately between the two groups. These differences in epistemic modal use are

shown to relate to cross-culturally different uses of epistemic modality for

politeness. Sociocultural explanations for this disparity are proposed: the differentpatterns of epistemic modal use which emerge are argued to be tied to different,

culturally based epistemologies held by the two groups.

26. Anna Wierzbickas

researchhttp://arts.anu.edu.au/languages/linguistics/AnnaW.aspFrom:Natural

Semantic MetalanguageCultural Script TheoryCulture embedded in lexical

semanticsWhimperativesPersonal autonomyHigh influence wordsReasonableFair

27. Activity 2: What are the big group cultures that impact your students?What

are the small group cultures that impact your students?How do your students small

group cultures interact with their big group cultures?

28. Why does culture matter in English language teaching? (Ulla)

29. Helpful Notion:Culture as a verb; culture never just is, but instead does.

(Heath & Street, 2008)Culture is not a fixed thing.Gradations of change in habits

and beliefs, discourse formsEthnographers sort and describe what happens and

help reveal the wealth of meanings.Implication:Teacher as an ethnographerStudent

as an ethnographer 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

30. How to Consider What & How Cultures DO! Example from a WorkshopExamples

from Teaching 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

31. Example from an Intercultural Workshop on Business Communication at

ICICTraditional Concept of Cultural Differences in Business

CommunicationIndividualism vs. collectivismMasculine vs. feminineHigh context vs.

low contextPower distance between membersDegree of uncertainty avoidance


32. Personal Cultural Diagram3 M.A.s, Ph.D.JoggerGardenerIndiana, Washington

D.C., Wisconsin, Florida, FinlandSuburb livingWifeMotherLutheranFull-time job at

universitySpeak Finnish and English 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural

Communication


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33. Negotiation/Accommodation: A Key to Successful Communication Both sides

converge to accommodate communication at the levels of ideology, discourse,

language use, and nonverbal messages. Both sides need to know and value others

preferred/habitual patterns. 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural

Communication

34. Example from TeachingHigh School ESL ClassBigSmallIndividual 2010 Indiana


35. Example from Teaching, cont.College-level Teacher Education

ClassBigSmallIndividual 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

36. Example from Teaching, cont.An ESL student from Mexico in a U.S. elementary

schoolBigSmallIndividualConnor, U., Robillard, M., & Aino, A. (2005, March). Case

study and contrastive/intercultural rhetoric as alternative methods to assessbilingual childrens literacy. Paper presented at the TESOL Research Symposium.

Left Behind: The Contribution of Alternative Research Methodologies to

Understanding and Evaluating English Language Policy and Practice in the NCLB Age,

San Antonio, TX. 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication

37. Example from Teaching, cont.Ministry of Finance ESP Program(Connor, Rozycki,

& McIntosh, 2006)Big culturesChineseSmall

CulturesDisciplinaryGenerationalGenderIndividual 2010 Indiana Center for


38. Example from Teaching, cont.ESP Program for Postdoctoral ResearchersBig

culturesChineseKoreanSmall culturesDisciplinaryGenderGenerationalIndividual


39. Example from Teaching, cont.International Medical Graduate

ESPProgramBigSmallIndividual 2010 Indiana Center for Intercultural

Communication

40. Effectiveness of post-modern approaches to culture in the classroom (Menard-Warwick, 2009)Post Modern Approach 1. problematizes cultural representations 2.

emphasizes dialogue 3. emphasizes critical awareness & interactionMenard-Warwick

did not find much success in creating intercultural speakers using the above

approach

41. Ullas Culture Jacket


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42. The 6th conference on intercultural rhetoric and discourseHosted by Georgia

State University in Atlanta, Georgia Friday, June 11th & Saturday, June 12th,

2010Plenary Speakers:Suresh Canagarajah Kirby Professor in Language Learning

and Director of the Migration Studies Project at Pennsylvania State UniversityUlla

Connor Barbara E. and Karl R. Zimmer Chair in Intercultural Communication,Director of the Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication at Indiana

University-Purdue University, IndianapolisEric Friginal Assistant professor in

applied linguistics at Georgia State UniversityGuillaume GentilAssociate Professor

at Carleton University's School of Linguistics and Language Studies in Ottawa,

CanadaFor more information about the conference, please contact:Diane Belcher

404-413-5194 [email protected] Nelson 404-413-5190 [email protected]

43. Activity 3: Design Your Own Personal Cultural Diagram (Ulla). 2010 Indiana


44. Activity 3: (Ulla)How can we teach culture more effectively in the classroom?

Approaches, tips, suggestions?Report back

45. Are there privileged cultures that enhance ESL communicative competence?

(Bill, 15 minutes)Technology and its relationship to language and cultureRelationship

between technology and big culture communicationGlobal villageGlobal discourse

communitiesGlobal speech communitiesWhat are the linguistic requirements of

participation in the world village?What are the cultural requirements of

participation in the world village?Modernist perspectivesPost-modernist

perspectivesCultural and linguistic imperialism vs. natural human social evolution

46. Is there something more to human, social and intercultural relationships than

power?Given that, as Kubota (2003) has argued, images of culture (in language

education) are produced by discourses that reflect, legitimate or contest unequal

relations of power (p. 16)Power axisSolidarity axisPlus power and plus solidarity

47. A power/solidarity perspective

48. The Bonfire and the Ants AlexsandrSolzhenitsyn translated by Michael GlennyI

threw a rotten log onto the fire without noticing that it was alive with ants.The log

began to crackle, the ants came tumbling out and scurried around in desperation.

They ran along the top and writhed as they were scorched by the flames. I gripped

the log and rolled it to one side. Many of the ants then managed to escape onto the

sand or the pine needles.But, strangely enough, they did not run away from the


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fire.They had no sooner overcome their terror than they turned, circled, and some

kind of force drew them back to their forsaken homeland. There were many who

climbed back onto the burning log, ran about on it, and perished there.

49. Activity 4: (Bill)What is the English teachers role in promoting or challenging

big and small cultures?Report back

50. Conclusion (Ulla and Bill)

reimagining culture in tesol

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