Is there such a thing as Christian sociolinguistics?

Berry, W., (2005). Standing by Words : Essays. City: Shoemaker & Hoard.

Coates, R., (1998). Christianity in Bakhtin. Cambridge: Cambridge Unversity Press.

Freire, P., & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Kristjansson, C. (2007). “The Word in the World: So to Speak (A Freirean Legacy)” in Smith, David I. & Terry A. Osborn (eds.),Spirituality, Social Justice and Language Learning. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Steiner, G., (1991). Real Presences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Percy, W., (2000). Lost in the Cosmos. New York: Picador USA.

Poythress, V., (2009). In the Beginning Was the Word. Wheaton: Crossway Books.


Also the pope's Verbum Domini seems important maybe.

Methods

Carmen Isabel Luján García, in her review of Sandra Mollin's 2006 book Euro-English: Assessing Variety Status (in which Mollin rejects the existence of such a variety):

"For this research, a questionnaire survey was used as the unique method of studying attitudes towards English across Europe. It was administered via e-mail, and the sampling was the population of academics across Europe, as university lecturers’ e-mails are easily accessible. The total number was 4230 addresses from 21 countries. The questionnaire was composed of three sections; the first being elicited to analyse the error correction by means of a set of sentences that had to be checked by the respondents offering a correct alternative in case of mistakes; the second section asked for personal data required as sociolinguistic variables: age, country of origin, mother tongue and branch of science (Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, or the Arts); the third targeted the respondents’ general beliefs and attitudes towards English by questioning their agreement or disagreement on a scale of five items that ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Two rounds were necessary. After both were completed, 746 completed questionnaires were obtained."

Thoughts:

1. Part 1 is a lot like what I have been proposing for my study. Good! That means it's legit.

2. 4,230 people were contacted? Yeesh! Maybe I should set my own sights a little higher. (Like sampling professors at Project 211 schools, maybe?)

3. I need to read this book.

4. García suggests the study would be stronger if follow-up interviews were used. I'm proposing to do so!

More CE brainstorming

I had a weird conversation with somebody recently: I said something like "yeah, it's interesting how English is becoming a big part of Chinese society, it's pretty fascinating since it doesn't have much of a history there compared to some other countries" [yes, I am aware that there have been English/Chinese interactions for hundreds of years, but in terms of English really taking hold in the PRC, it's relatively recent] and she made a somewhat confusing comment like "that's a very typical attitude of an English-speaking person." I didn't really get what she was getting at -- maybe she was saying that only an L1 English speaker would think English in a non-English-speaking country was fascinating/interesting/worth studying?

Anyway, I think I need to be leaning even harder than I thought on the "I'm not Chinese" angle. And I want to actually embrace the connection between native English speakers and Chinese English. I exchanged brief thoughts on this with Oliver Radtke last year -- he's interested in looking at both Chinese and non-Chinese attitudes toward Chinglish, which in his case I think refers more to the ludicrous signage one often reads about in popular articles on the topic. Most previous studies in "my field" (i.e. ESL/L2 writing/World Englishes) focus on Chinese English speakers' attitudes about CE/Chinglish. Hu included some NESs in her studies but again, those were generic 'attitude' studies.

How about just "English"?

Thought:

The best way to get at "China English" is not to call it that. Just call it English and see what happens.

IAWE 2010 = Success

Full recap coming soon -- notes:

- presented with my classmate Ai Mizuta on Chinese and English ed in Vancouver - well-received!

- Had a chance to chat with Fan Fang, Xing Fang, Xu Zhichang, Peter Sayer, & Kingsley Bolton (!) on China English stuff -- very stimulating, will definitely recap this!

- Bought Xu's new book "Chinese English," and Lo Bianco's "China and English" (to be shipped -- only $20, free shipping! Thanks Multilingual Matters!)

- A lot of fodder for thinking about how to approach my dissertation proposal

- Found out you can buy TEM transcripts from the Chinese MoE! Amazing! Can you get the writing test data? How freaking great would that be? Can get CET also, I wonder?

The Dilemma of the ESL Ghetto in Vancouver

"When entry into an English-speaking students’ peer group was not deemed feasible because they were taking ESL courses and English-speaking students were taking mainstream courses, they turned to students of the same ethnic origin for friendship. By the same token, once the high school Chinese immigrant students in this study decided to seek company of fellow compatriots and to continue being part of the Chinese-speaking community, learning English could become peripheral to them. They could minimize their investment in English and invest more in Chinese to keep the membership of a compatriot peer group."

- "Identity and Language Functions: High School Chinese Immigrant Studentsʼ Code-Switching Dilemmas in ESL Classes" by Liang Xiaoping

Textbooks for TESOL & Culture Class - ideas?

Re-opening comments for the first time in a couple of years for this question...

I'm teaching an "Intro to Teaching ESL" course later this summer as part of a sequence of classes. The first class will cover a lot of the "practical" aspects -- teaching the 4 skills, methods, materials, strategies, etc. -- and my portion will mostly cover "cultural" aspects of TESOL.

Question: what textbook should I use? The hope is something broad, not too theoretical, and cheap.

Ideas so far (with Canadian price):

Language and Culture by Claire Kramsch ($23) - short, many short collected readings, but not TESOL-or-teaching-focused per se

Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice by Patrick Moran ($40) - tons of exercises, examples, etc, but written by a foreign lg teacher (French) and focused on teaching culture rather than "cultural issues" in teaching

Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning by Eli Hinkel ($22) - I like this one, and I think even though it was written in 1999 it gets at a lot of issues (and has stuff by a lot of different authors)...leaning toward it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

From the new issue of World Englishes

Always a fascinating journal, but these articles particularly caught my eye. Hope to read soon:

Chinese perceptions of Inner Circle varieties of English

from World Englishes by BETSY E. EVANS

Research from populations around the world on attitudes to varieties of English is essential in order to have a better understanding of how the complexities of globalization play a role in the form of English as a world language. To that end, university students in China were asked to name countries around the world where they believe English is spoken and indicate what kind of impression they have of those varieties without the presentation of voice stimuli. This type of data elicitation enables the participants themselves to provide the researcher with evaluative categories and avoids problems associated with using voice stimuli. The results indicate that the effect of the cultural hegemony of US English as a variety is complex, and that, contrary to assumptions, US English is unlikely to be a model for a 'standard' variety of world English in the traditional sense.

Linguistically privileged and cursed? American university students and the global hegemony of English

from World Englishes by CHRISTOF DEMONT-HEINRICH

This paper analyzes written discourse generated in response to an open-ended questionnaire administered to 136 students at two different universities in the southwestern United States and to 15 non-American students at a large Danish university. The questionnaire aimed to inspire reflection about the impact of the global rise of English on American mother-tongue speakers of English as well as on those who do not have English as a mother tongue, especially with respect to the question of mono vs. multilingual practice. Most American and non-American respondents represented the learning of a foreign language as something American mother-tongue speakers should do but as something which is not necessary. There was widespread, though not unanimous, agreement that English is necessary for non-mother-tongue speakers. Responses are also grouped, discussed, and analyzed in terms of the instrumental, multicultural, or mix of multicultural and instrumental logic used. The author is especially concerned with the intersections between the global hegemony of English and the learning of foreign languages. The study and analysis conducted here offer insight into these intersections. Given that so much is at stake in terms of the relationship between the global expansion of English and foreign language learning, the author concludes that further research into this relationship is needed.

Ying Ge Li Shi

Is this racist? I got distracted by YouTube videos of people of Asian heritage showing "how to speak with a Chinese accent" (aka making fun?) a while back and Sarah told me to stop because she thought it was racist.

You can see that the person who made this video is using one of those books which purports to teach "English" by giving Chinese characters that are vague equivalents of English sounds. See if you can tell what she's saying. And whether you think it's mean.

Books for me to check out

keep this in mind for teaching this summer -

Writing across the curriculum in secondary classrooms : teaching from a diverse perspective

• Author: Harriet Arzu Scarborough
• Subjects: English language -- Composition and exercises -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- United States ; Interdisciplinary approach in education -- United States ; Multicultural education -- United States
• Description: Introduction / Promoting Literacy in Science Class / Math and Science in My English Class? Why Not? / Writing in a Law-Related English Class / Using Writing for Political Awareness / La Voz Liberada: Writing to Learn in a Sheltered English Class / Writing to Learn as a Way of Making Sense of the World / Real Live Audiences for Real Live Communication: Writing to Learn and the Possibilities of Technology / Writing Teacher Learns / "Forever on the Morning Wind": Expanding the Canon of American Literature / Place Poetry: A Form of Self-Expression / Perspectives on the Three-Voices Narrative / Bridging the Gaps and Spaces among Learners in a Writing-to-Learn Classroom / Making the Transition from High School to University Writing Across the Curriculum / Rearranging Desks /
  
• Publisher: Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Merrill
  
• Creation Date: c2001
  
• Language: English
  
• Format: vi, 218 p. ; 24 cm..
  
• ISBN: 0130224898
  
• Type: Book

ALSO THIS

Language and learning across the curriculum

• Author: Marion Crowhurst
• Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) ; English language -- Study andteaching (Secondary)
• Publisher: Scarborough, Ont. : Prentice-Hall Canada
  
• Creation Date: 1994 [i.e., 1993
  
• Language: English
  
• Format: xi, 311 p..
  
• ISBN: 0205161340
  
• Type: Book

"long time" and "no see" separately

This could be interesting, too.

for example, from the OED:

No-see-um

1842 N. Amer. Rev. Jan. 100 In some parts of New England and Canada, is a kind of midge..which is sufficiently formidable to the feeling, though so minute to the eye that the Indians in Maine give it the name of No-see-'em.

---

"long time" in "standard English" has been around forever (like, "it took a long time for that egg to cook," or whatever), but look at these uses of "long time" in Jamaican English:

1961 F. G. CASSIDYJamaica Talk vi. 107 Long time means long ago (‘Him gone long time’). 1971 Jamaican Weekly Gleaner 3 Nov. 5/1 Tams are also in (well, we did have that long time).

Google as Corpus - "I took GRE" vs. "I took the GRE"

As a native speaker of English, for some reason I have this intuition that "I took the GRE" is preferable to "I took GRE."

However, "I took GRE" yields over 66,000 hits on Google, whereas "I took the GRE" only shows about 44,000.

So either I'm wrong (possible) or more non-native speakers take the GRE than native speakers (also quite possible).

It could also have something to do with "I took GRE classes" or sentences like that.

But still:

"I took GRE yesterday" - 587

"I took the GRE yesterday" - 241

However:

"I took SAT yesterday" - 2

"I took the SAT yesterday" 157

So...maybe more NNSs are taking the GRE and writing about it on the internet, while more NSs are taking the SAT and writing about it on the internet?

Long Time No See: Etymology

I'm now apparently obsessed with the etymology of "long time no see." I have a hunch that it is based on making fun of non-native English rather than a direct translation from Chinese, but I don't know how one might "prove" this. I'll let you know what I come up with. The earliest instance I can find it in written form is in Glenanaar: A Story of Irish Life from around 1895-1905 or so. That would certainly allow for contact with Chinese Pidgin English to make its way to England. But how trustworthy is early documentation of CPE? Then again, am I being unfair when I think it can't be "accurate" because it was so blatantly racist?

"Long Time No See" = "Chinglish" or not?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "long time no see" is an expression which originates from (American) Native speakers making fun of Non-native speakers of unspecified L1 background. The first recorded usage the OED has is a reference to Native American (not Chinese) speech.

While its similarity to 好久不見 (hao jiu bu jian)is notable, I haven't seen any proof that this is actually a "loan translation," and I'm not sure you could ever "prove" such a thing.

c. Colloq. phr. (orig. U.S.) long time no see, a joc. imitation of broken English, used as a greeting after prolonged separation.

1900 W. F. DRANNAN 31 Yrs. on Plains (1901) xxxvii. 515 When we rode up to him [sc. an American Indian] he said: ‘Good mornin. Long time no see you.’1939 R. CHANDLER in Sat. Even. Post 14 Oct. 72/4 Hi, Tony. Long time no see. 1940 [see HIYA int.]. 1959 D. BEATY Cone of Silence viii. 105 ‘Hello, Clive.’ ‘Long time no see.’ 1959 C. MACINNES Absolute Beginners 68 Hail, squire... Long time no see. 1971 D. E. WESTLAKE I gave at the Office (1972) 164 ‘Hello, Arnold,’ I said... ‘Long time no see.’

Pidgin English Sing-Song by Charles Leland

Free on Google Books -- "China English" (supposedly) from 1887!

The way he writes about it is super racist, but it's amazing how similar it is to the way we talk about "Chinglish" today!

Language in, as, for, and of development

"English has already played and will continue to play a significant role in the Lao PDR’s present socio-economic development (language in development).

[In East Timor] English is perceived by many as playing an important role in the country’s development. And there is plenty of aid money to support ELT both as an end in itself (language as development) and as a tool for other domains of development (language for development).

In order to become a legitimate speaker in project management, far more is needed than language competence and the right to speak at meetings. In part, this raises the question of the language of development, or the discourses that construct the ways in which development happens."

quotes from Language in development constrained: Three contexts by Ros Appleby, Kath Copley, Sisamone Sithirajvongsa, Alastair Pennycook

Upcoming papers

Just turning a corner from 2 weeks of being sick and 5 days of being really, really sick. On track to do 3 papers in the next 3 weeks. Yeeks!

Paper #1 is going to be something about foreign teachers in China, but I also want to tie it to the idea of development. I guess I could see it going one of two ways:

A) Role of FTs in the discourse of "English for development/modernization"

B) FTs in China: new models (look at 3 things: Nottingham, Shantou, & Amity -- one prob is that Snow has already - ably - covered Amity quite well.) DUE APR 12

Not sure how both could be combined, but if it's possible, I'd like to do it that way. I could situate the whole thing within the idea of "the purpose of English" and then talk about which of the 4 models ("regular" plus the 3 others) comes closest to facilitating this purpose. Could be more like "the purpose of FTs in China: 4 models" - maybe that'd work.

Paper #2 has to do with a rationale for studying written forms of world Englishes -- esp. China English, of course. Why study writing (since a lot of stuff has focused on speaking); where to look for this writing (media, online, education, academic publishing, etc?); what actually makes it "authentic" CE (problematic, since the definition is loose/not agreed-upon), things like that. There's a lot out there for this but my ideas are still kind of amorphous. DUE APR 20

Paper #3 is on research methods but I'm unsure what exactly it'll be about. Need to figure it out pretty quick, though. Something about L2 writing would be good. DUE APR 16

Review

My review of Christian and Critical English Language Educators in Dialogue is in press with the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. I'm really happy to be publishing this!

Is the Answer in the Question?

Imagine the following two items on a survey.

A) Read this a text written by a Chinese person and published in China. Please identify any vocabulary, grammar, phrasing, sentence, word choice, etc. which strikes you as nonstandard, unusual, or unique in any way.

or

B) Read this text. Please identify any vocabulary, grammar, phrasing, sentence, word choice, etc. which strikes you as nonstandard, unusual, or unique in any way.

I'm beginning to think that you could do a study comparing the results of A and B. For my purposes, I may want to go with the wording for B...

I'm still thinking that Chinglish is in the eye of the beholder. A sign on the building I work in reads "WELCOME ANYTIME PARKING." In China, that would be Chinglish. In Vancouver, it's just a sign.

Employment

I got a job teaching a real live undergraduate course at UBC this summer - "Language Across the Curriculum in Multilingual Classrooms: Secondary." May 17-June 25. Yeah!

Remaking of Face

Ouyang, Huhua (2000) Remaking of face and community of practices: An ethnographic study of what ELT reform means to local and expatrate teachers in today's China. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.

Read it here.

Hugely eye-opening to anyone who is or is considering becoming a foreign teacher in China. I read chapter 3, which is about the students' and administrators' complaints about foreign teachers and how they go about voicing them. Another major part (which I didn't read) is an explanation that Chinese universities are based on the danwei ("work unit") system, which is a kind of Maoist/communist community, which doesn't necessarily hold as much currency in the job market in today's China.

It's stuff I didn't really know at all -- definitely worth a read as an explication of why the "foreign expert" system is deeply flawed, and (in my view) why other emerging models of NEST/NNEST integration (I promise to stop citing Ningbo and Shantou as soon as I learn about others) may be better.

Apparently was published as a book in 2004, but maybe in Chinese - I can't find any references.

Thinking about my possible role in the future as a teacher-trainer / someone with etic/emic knowledge of ELT in China. Don't want it to define my career, but I think it could be a rewarding part of my future work.

Chinglish debate is about what, exactly?

I feel like a debate on terminology (we should call it X vs Y) or even preferred terms (X is bad English, Y is good English) obscures the fact that a) English in China does have its own characteristics, b) People who think it's bad also think anything other than inner circle Englishes are bad, and c) It needs to be described if there is any chance of changing b. Then again, that whole Ebonics debate didn't turn out so well.

Books on China/English - to be contd

Bolton - Chinese Englishes (2003)

Adamson - China's English: A History of English in Chinese Education (2004)

Liu - English Language Teaching in China: New Approaches, Perspectives, and Standards (2008)

Lo Bianco - China and English: Globalization and the Dilemmas of Identity (2009)

You - Writing in the Devil's Tongue: A History of English Composition in China (2010)

Feng - English Language in Education and Societies Across Greater China (in press)

Journals with short lead times

Selected ournals with an average time of less than one year (preferably closer to 6 months) from submission to publication, from "How to Get Published in ESOL and Applied Linguistics Serials" by TESOL, 2007

listed in months for review / months till publication / total average time from submission to publication

Obv. some are more prestigious than others; I haven't heard of some of these

Asian Journal of ELT - 2-3 / 6-9 / 8-12 (CUHK http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ajelt/)

Assessing Writing: 3 / 3 / 6

Canadian Modern Lg Review: 5 / 2/ 7

Essential Teacher: 2 / 3 / 5

Journal of Asia TEFL: 2 /3 / 5 (http://www.asiatefl.org/journal/journal1.html)

Journal of Basic Writing: 1 / 4/ 5

JLIE: 2 / 6 / 8

JSLW: 3 / 3 - 12 / 6 - 15 (mentioned bc I should aim for this one)

The Language Teacher: 2 / 2 / 4 (JALT http://jalt-publications.org/tlt/)

System: 2 / 10 / 12

TESL Canada: 4 / 4 / 8

TESL-EJ: 2 / 4 / 6

Reflections on ELT: 4 / 3 / 7 (Singapore http://www.nus.edu.sg/celc/publications/reflections.htm)

"There is Something Furtive"

Suresh Canagarajah's 2007 article, "There is Something Furtive About the Behavior of Evangelicals in TESOL," touches on themes later discussed in his chapters of Christian and Critical Language Educators in Dialogue -- which should be required ready for any MATESOL student at a religious institution. The whole article is worth a read.

Perhaps we should propose a semantic shift and ask that our critics change their pejorative terms for a positive experience. Evangelical teachers are not being furtive, stealthy, deceptive, and separatist. They periodically bond together and recharge themselves in safe houses for a very social/public mission that is holistic, integrated, embedded, all pervading, deeply ingrained, transformative—in short, incarnational.

P.S. Looking at a review of the book Controversies in Applied Linguistics, I came across this quote:

No doubt Phillipson would argue that the dominant threat of linguistic imperialism is such a vital issue in the world today that adopting a measured, respectful approach is not appropriate and that it is only by aggressively attacking those who are perceived to be defending this hegemony of English that one can hope to achieve anything in the struggle against the new imperialism. I remain unconvinced.

Chinese School - BBC 4 Documentary

Filmed in 2008 (the only full calendar year I was in China!) in Anhui province.

Caught an episode on TV yesterday and plan to watch the rest ASAP!

Sometimes TESOL feels like

white academics arguing with each other about what's best for poor people in other countries.

CE/CR idea

China English and Contrastive Rhetoric: The Challenge to (non-Chinese / Western) ESL Writing Teachers.

Yeah?

Notes on Fulbright to China

Country info: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/program_country.html?id=22

2-3 years of studying Mandarin at the college level required!

Host institutions for Education

Anhui Normal

Beijing Normal

Huazhong Normal (Wuhan)

Nanjing Normal

NE Normal (Changchun)

SWU (Chongqing)

NW Normal (Lanzhou)

Sichuan Normal (Chengdu)

Hosts for Linguistics (maybe not suitable for my project)

BFSU

B Lg & Culture U

Huazhong

SISU

XISU

Years of Chinese lg study required to be considered for Critical Lg Enhancement Award: 2

The equivalent of one year of college-level language study includes but is not limited to:

a summer of intensive language study,

two semesters of study (audited or for credit)

or a year of private tutoring.

A typical academic year is 9 months (36 weeks). A typical language course is 3-5 hours per week or 108-180 hours per academic year of language instruction.

Applicants may not count use of Rosetta Stone, conversational “language exchange” or web-based/distance learning classes as part of their one year of study. Study outside of the above mentioned categories will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Super in-depth fine print on the CLEA: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/thinking_clea.html#overview

2011-2012 ideas

2011 is the year I plan to start my PhD research in China. Aside from the fact that the project is still really nebulous, here are some thoughts on things I (might) want to do during that time.

July - August: Lead a team for Amity Foundation's Summer English Program (volunteer English teacher to middle school English teachers in rural areas). This would be really cool, but Sarah is not keen on teaching, so trying to figure out how we could swing it.

August 23 - 28: AILA, Beijing

Sept - January (or entire schoolyear): Research based at a Chinese university.

Here's where it gets sketchy -- which university? Some options....

- Get my old job at Zhejiang University (or even Shaoxing!?)

- Go to one of UBC's partner universities:

Fudan

Peking

Shanghai Jiaotong

Uni. of Nottingham Ningbo (already know some people there)

- UBC also has some partners in Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong (didn't know much about their Eng ed/applx, but see that they do focus on World Englishes and have some well-known faculty) and Hong Kong University. The latter has a well-established research unit on English Education in China - could be an awesome place to be based, but not sure about the cost of living. Good thing about HK is their academic year matches up with UBC's, but Chinese universities don't.

Anyway! This is just the beginning. If I had to rank my preferences at this moment:

1. HKU

2. UNNC

3. ZJU

4. CUHK

5. Fudan/Peking/SHJT

FUNDING POSSIBILITIES:

- UBC scholarships from research office

- Fulbright? (Look into this) Would change the possible host institutions.

- Does the Chinese gov't give any money to stuff like this? Look into it

- RA for my profs research projects in China (Duff, Shi)

- Work PT at whichever university I go to (would have to be FT to get accommodation at ZJU, not sure if working for accommodation $ is the same at all these places) - would be great to get some undergrad courses at an EMI institution in Asia

Phillipson on Nottingham

One wonders how it can be that monolinguals are seen as experts in second language acquisition. I fear that this foundational principle is carried over into the export of English-medium universities worldwide. Thus the University of Nottingham’s subsidiaries – its campuses in Malaysia and at Ningbo, China - give the clear impression that what is being exported, even in degrees in such subjects as Education, English, Applied Linguistics, and Content and Language Integrated Learning, is not only the British English medium but also British content. The Ningbo website proclaims: ‘All undergraduate and postgraduate programmes …. are conducted entirely in English with the same teaching and evaluation standards as at the University of Nottingham, UK.’ Can this really be considered culturally, linguistically or pedagogically appropriate in Asia, with teachers either from Nottingham or controlled by Nottingham? If such campuses are a meeting-place for UK expertise and Asian needs and realities, is the interaction uni-directional, or open and reciprocal, and how is the project being implemented and perceived?

-Robert Phillipson, from "Disciplines of English and disciplining by English" in the Asian EFL Journal, Dec 2009.

Duly noted. As far as I know, of the 4 professors in the English Studies unit at Ningbo, only one is "monolingual" in the way Phillipson means, which seems like a good thing for sure; of the 50 or so tutors in the first-year EAP program, many are English monolinguals, but a fair number are not.

It's interesting to compare this setup to a place like Shantou University's English Language Centre, which has an equal number of "foreign" and "local" teachers and is set up so that both groups work together. That system seems more amenable to the "open and reciprocal" ideal Phillipson favors. Then again, I'm willing to bet a degree from Nottingham holds a lot more cache in China than a degree from Shantou does. I'm not arguing for or against anything here, I just think it's kind of interesting to see the different models for ELT or English-medium education that are emerging in China now. I'd love to learn about others as well, but these two are the ones I'm most familiar with.

Finally, the bold text above (my emphasis) is an example of why I can never get 100% on board with Phillipson, even when I agree with the general thrust of his arguments.

Conferences 2010 and beyond

TESOL (March 21-27) - Doctoral Forum poster session accepted, professional development scholarship awarded (free registration for conference and pre-conference institutes), but flying to Boston is not cheap. Not sure I'll attend and have to make up my mind by Jan 21. ACCEPTED! (BUT GOT SICK AND MISSED MY PRESENTATION.)

EMP Pop Conference (April 15 - 18) - submitted abstract in Dec, will hear back in Jan. I have been rejected by these guys 3 or 4 times and would really, really like to make it this year. REJECTED! AS ALWAYS!

BC TEAL (April 30 - May 1) - Got a cool idea for a worshop on world Englishes and professional development which I'm sure would be accepted, but not sure I'd have time to do it. Still, it's after spring courses end, so maybe I should go for it....ACCEPETED!

IAWE (July 25-27). I'm on the committee (it's in Vancouver), and am scheming a paper with a classmate. Deadline FEB 28. ACCEPTED!

AILA 2011 (in Beijing, August 2011) - Brainstorming China English stuff - was thinking about trying to do a panel but not sure it's possible. Deadline Feb 28 (Actually Feb 27 in USA). ACCEPTED!

Prisencolinensinainciusol

Anyone know where the myth that this song is meant to represent "what American English sounds like to foreigners" or whatever? Seems a little fishy. Is this idea that far removed from saying that Chinese sounds like "ching chang chong," which is to say, it's totally wrong?

The song is pretty great, though.

See more funny videos and Music Videos at Today's Big Thing.

NES/NNES Shibboleths?

I'm almost positive

* use of articles

* use of prepositions

Maybe

* -s for third person verbs

* -ed for past tense verbs

* þ and θ pronunciation

What is an English dept for in a non-English speaking country?

Does the focus on humanities/cultural studies impede the improvement of ELT by conflating Western civilization, literature, etc. with actual everyday usage of language? Maybe that's not even an issue.

See: "English departments in Chinese universities: Purpose and function." by Chen Zhaoxuang.

TEML isn't

Pennycook and Coutan-Marin (2005), in an article of the same name, refer to the evangelical Christian practice of English teaching as "Teaching English as a Missionary Language." This is an inconsistent use of the TE(x)L acronym. In common usage, (x) is an adjective modifying language (think of EAL, ESL, EFL -- additional, second, and foreign, respectively) and referring to the learners' relationship to the language. TEML suggests that English is being taught for the purpose of later being used, by the learners, as a language for missionary work, which, while such a thing is possible, is not at all what Pennycook and Coutan-Marin are talking about.

I'm just saying.

PS - this article, or at least the version of it I can see online, contains a completely fake quote from George Bush about non-Christians "burning in hell." Did the authors bother to consider that if the piece they quoted was listed under "humor" on an atheist website, it might just be, you know, a joke?

Bibliographies I Would Like to Assemble Someday

-- Comprehensive Bibliography of articles on China English (as a variety of English -- not just English in China) -- published in both English and Chinese. (I was on my way to doing this and then I lost a bunch of data -- still hope to do it within the next 12 month)

-- Critical approaches to critical pedagogy -- both research-based and conceptual papers critiquing traditional concepts of critical pedagogy. (Cuz maybe it's been reified enough for us to start talking about it as "traditional") Important to have sources that are explicitly in favor of CP and those skeptical of it, not only one side.

-- Variety of perspectives on religion and TESOL. Separate sections: Christianity and TESOL (specifically interested in a variety of perspectives on how Christianity and ELT are integrated, mainstreaming/making explicit Christian perspectives, goals, purposes of ELT, etc.) Islam and TESOL, other relgions and TESOL (what's out there?).

-- World Englishes / EFL in pop music. (English as a Language of Popular Music??? ELPM?)

Chinglish vs China English, again (and again)

This distinction between Chinglish and China English is going to be more important than I thought.

I think that in popular discourse, all of the following are "Chinglish" :

- funny or ungrammatical English signs/menus/other printed stuff in China that is the result of bad computer translations

- funny or ungrammatical English signs/menus/other printed stuff in China that is the result of human error

- Unusual but grammatical signs/menus/other printed stuff in China

- Any"ungrammatical" thing a Chinese person says or writes in English

- Any vaguely "non-standard" but grammatical thing a Chinese person says or writes in English

In other words, this just-now-made-up hypothesis is that if it looks/sounds weird to a native speaker and it is physically located in China or came from China, it is Chinglish.

I'm not sure I really think that, but I'm not going to go on a sanctimonious mission to change everybody's mind. I'm just going to keep slowly changing the Wikipedia page on Chinglish until it reflects a broader scope of issues related to English and China.

Evidence that you speak "real" English -

-- if you (an NNS) can disagree with somebody else about what is proper usage and be confident that you are not wrong.

In reality, the Chinese editors with profound understandings of local context orientated the textbook writing for Chinese students’ benefits and ensured the localized textbook to achieve the local education objectives. There was evidence that the Chinese editors did not believe that “nativeness” means expertise (Rampton, 1990), as they took advantages of their knowledge of Chinese cultures to deal with the China-related content and also made good use of their English knowledge to deal with language accuracy and appropriateness without feeling disadvantaged as non-native speakers.

from NEW ENGLISH: A STUDY OF THE EDITORIAL DOCUMENTS OF A CHINESE-BRITISH JOINT EFL TEXTBOOK PROJECT by YONG FAN (MA thesis at UBC)

Round 2...Fight!

Phillipson's back with Lx Imp Cont'd. Suggested subtitle: How English Poisons Everything

Turning my SSLW Presentation into a paper

Supervisor says "explain how you have developed the questionnaire items, which should be connected to your lit review" which means that I have to now do what we talked about in class yesterday (a strategy a lot of writers, L1 and L2 use): go back to the literature and pretend I got my ideas from experts instead of just making them up off the top of my head. Luckily, you can always find a way to connect your ideas to others' if you have some rhetorical deftness.

I really think I've gotten this far in my academic career simply by knowing how to craft good sentences, not by having good ideas. But maybe those are more related than I give myself credit for.

Anyway, here comes Mohan and Lo 1985: "We suggest that if there are differences in the ability of Chinese and Western students to organize essays in English, the source of these differences does not lie in a preference for “indirectness” in the language and culture of Chinese. Rather, it lies in the emphasis of the English language instruction programs to which students are exposed."

That's what I'm sayin', bro.

Also potentially useful:

International students in English-speaking universities: Adjustment factors (Maureen Snow Andrade)

and more, I'm sure...加油

CP pro and con

...just off the top of my head...

pro:

recognize inequality and try to make it better

recognize "real life" outside the classroom

treat students like human beings

encourage students to question (unjust) behaviors and practices in society

emphasize agency in learning, transforming, and using knowledge

con:

assumes a certain political views untenable to most people

hegemony of hegemony (sort of), pessimism

students tend not to want teachers to talk about political issues

theory is distant from practice to a high degree

PS: According to Google no one has ever typed the phrase"I don't believe in hegemony" on the internet. Until now. I'm not saying I know enough about it, but it does seem to be at the heart of CP, and that heart could be the part I find unsatisfying. This book by a Canadian philosopher posits "affinity" as a construct for social change instead. Not totally sure what it is but I think I kind of get it.

TEIL

It seems to me that "teaching English as an international language" in the sense of teaching someone to use/master "English as an international language" is impossible. Canagarajah's idea of Lingua Franca English (is it even teachable?) makes more sense, because there are bazillions of possible contexts in which people use English internationally, and they call for very different things.

"Teachers have to develop in students a readiness to engage with a repertoire of codes in transnational contact situations"

"we now have to train students to shuttle between communities by negotiating the relevant codes"

"we have to focus more on communicative strategies rather than focusing only on mastering the grammar rules of a single variety"

"the relativity of norms"

this is hard!

EIL ≠ local variety

EFL ≠ EIL

No one variety of English = English as an international language

There is no international variety, there is only how people use language to communicate

Right?