ESL Writing for Indie Rockers/Confidence

Here's an illuminating post from Miho Hatori's blog. Hatori was the musician who first made me interested in exploring the use of English as an L2 in pop music, with her great band Cibo Matto. She wrote:

I had a dinner with my old friend Ami and talked about blog.
I am shy about writing in English in public ( I love talking in English ).
I often got nervous that people judge me about my bad grammar.
But you know what ?
The year of 2008, my slogan is....
"Who cares ? I don't care. A horses ass is better than yours."
Cibo Matto song, Beef jerky.
Going back to my principle of Art.
I just need to write here for my own sake.

Anyway,
Ami said "Miho, Don't worrrrrrry !!!"
So I believe my old friend.

So, I will have wrong grammar on this blog.
You can correct my English if you want.
That's the reason of comment section for.

I do think it's interesting that somebody whose English lyrics are often brashly weird -- really this is one of her great strengths as a vocalist/lyricist -- would still express reticence about writing in English. Still, this post displays the kind of creativity and confidence that I've come to appreciate about Hatori's music over the years. And it's the kind of creativity and confidence I hope my students can learn to have regarding their own use of English.

---

Another great post from David Crystal, "On Learning English," offers some encouragement to learners as well. It reads, in part:

...if you have adopted English as one of your languages, then you are able to adapt it - to take personal ownership of it. One of the great joys of making headway in a new language is that you can use it to talk about what you want to talk about - and if that means inventing new words, to express your local experience, then do not hesitate to invent them. Just translating the culture of your school and town into English - such as the names of localities and personalities - will immediately add dozens of new expressions. Don't restrict yourself to the words that are already in the dictionaries. English is yours now...

World Englishes, Pop Musics, and Writing about Writing about Music

"I even have a column in Ebony magazine called 'Musings.'"
- Tracy Morgan as Tracy Jordan (NBC's 30 Rock), on the subject of whether or not he is illiterate.

• Writing about writing -- that is, studying professional, published writing -- seems like a dangerous thing to do if you want people to like you. I don't mean being a critic, writing about whether or not you think Joan Didion's new book is any good, because we seem to have a pretty well-accepted system set up for that kind of thing. I mean being a rhetorician, and making a study of people who write. This is on my mind because I've been kicking around (for some time now) the idea of studying music reviews -- how they're written and why, all their attendant tropes, expectations, and biases -- and it seems to me that what I'm thinking about is nothing short of, you know, kind of ripping on my colleagues. How could it not be? You know, something like "Sexism in Pitchforkmedia.com reviews" or "Music critics' portrayals of Japanese women." It's like to be "critical" in every possible sense of the word, yes? How can I do this? I specifically want to start looking at the way music critics write about Chinese rock bands.

A further question: does this fall under the general heading of "cultural studies," a discipline which I have claimed to hate for the last two years? Or is this simply rhetorical analysis? I have this scary feeling that it's cult-studs. Noooooooooo!

• Still doing a lot of thinking about a program of research that involves studying the use of English in rock/pop music in "non-English-speaking" countries (i.e., "expanding circle" countries, particularly China, because if you are interested in the global spread of English, how can you not study China? Plus, I live here).

Potential research questions include:
What influences a band/singer's choice to sing in English vs. any other language?

Codemixing in songs -- for example, throwing in English words like "yeah," "uh huh" or "come on" in a song that's otherwise not in English. Why?

How do fans react to the use of English in pop music?

How and why do bands/singers choose English pseudonyms/band names?

How do a country's language policy and planning decisions affect/interact with the use of English in pop music? (For example, the Singaporean government's enlisting of rappers in Speak Good English campaigns.)

How do English learners in China use English-language pop music (by Chinese artists and otherwise)? What about the weird pseudo-genre my students refer to as "English songs," which is basically songs in English that nobody outside China has ever heard and which are often translations of Chinese pop songs?

What I need to do to investigate this:

First and foremost - listen to more expanding circle pop music, esp. Chinese pop and rock. Need to find a balance between indie rock and big pop stars, but I'll have much easier access to China's indie rock bands if I want to actually interview musicians.

Find out who is doing research on this stuff. Obviously Pennycook is looking at language, identity, and hip-hop; I need to start trolling his bibliographies. Lily Kong looks at geography and pop in Singapore, but I haven't found anybody who is specifically looking at English + pop music + China. (Maybe this means I am original! Until some PhD student reads this blog and steals it!) Search back issues of World Englishes and other WE-related journals, and also relevant pop music-related journals.

Start writing more about it in a popular capacity (newspapers, magazines). Find some outlets who are interested in Chinese indie rock and start covering it for them! If possible, make trips to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong and make contacts in the indie rock scenes. Make money while doing research! (...just call our toll-free number...)

Mystery of the (dry) Salty Peanut

The mystery: why is the Chinese word gan (土) inexplicably -- and frequently -- translated as everybody's favorite English swear word? I myself enjoy snacking on a local brand of packaged, salted peanuts, the label of which reads: "Salty to F*** the Peanut."

The mystery is solved by a couple of bloggers, including Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania.

Please visit these links if you're up for a frank discussion of 土, which is supposed to mean "dry," but often isn't translated that way, with hilarious results. Plenty of pictorial evidence.

The Language Log (UPenn)
The Etiology and Elaboration of a Flagrant Mistranslation
Bokane.org
F***ing Stationery

esl vs efl

Maybe, just maybe, this is the case:

Purpose of ESL writing in the US: Teach Ss the conventions of English academic writing for use in "content" classes, in which they'll be graded by professors who are well-versed in "inner circle" English writing.
Purpose of EFL writing in China: Teach Ss formula for "a good essay" which will earn them high marks on the TEM and CET exams -- which will be graded by English teachers who may be grading them "Chinese-style*" -- therefore allowing them to graduate from college.

This isn't always true, but it's making me rethink the way I teach. This semester, I mostly taught the writing process and focussed on clearly expressing original thoughts and ideas. We've been going through it step by step, with, I'm sorry to add, little explicit grammar instruction. (Shamefully, I'll try to make up for this in coming weeks.)

Perhaps what the students need -- as much as it goes against my own training and beliefs -- is instruction that's heavy on "correctness." I need to do a lot more thinking about this!

* I don't mean this pejoratively; I just mean that in some cases, writing in a more "Chinese" style may be preferable to writing in a "Western" style. I'm too tired to explain this properly.

Every Coin Has Two Sides*

(*or, Every Chinese Student's Favorite Maxim)

Just now, I found myself unable to answer a student who asked me whether it's OK to argue both sides of an issue in an essay. I suddenly felt conflicted, even paralyzed, first thinking:

Of course you can't do that. If every essay argued two different sides of an issue, then every thesis statement would be "moderation is good."

(Or would it be "moderation has both good and bad aspects?")

But wait, is this cultural imperialism? You know, "you must take a stand, fight for your individual opinion, show why you are right like a good American..."

Then I started going through all the contrastive (now called intercultural!) rhetoric stuff: do I believe "Chinese logic is circular" -- thanks a lot, Kaplan 1966 --or not? And, do I have to teach American writing conventions, or do I leave room for them to write "Chinese-style" essays in English? And how can I tell the difference between Chinese rhetoric and poor "Western" rhetoric?

And then I got even more concerned: Am I even teaching them about how to come up with thesis statements at all? So far we've talked a lot about "topics," and I've told them that their thesis needs to be supported by detailed, specific examples, but how much time have I put in to making sure they know how to craft worthwhile thesis statements? Is every thesis statement simply going to be "we should do X" or "X is bad?"

Which led to the other ultimate concern which plagues me every time I speak with the other sophomore English writing teacher, who focuses more on mechanics in his classes: Have I gone too far altogether by focusing on ideas and arguments instead of sentence structure, mechanics, grammar, vocabulary, diction?

I have a long way to go if I ever want to get as far as this guy...(ha ha!)

Chinese English (pt 2): "I have right to speak English in this way."

After my students read Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" (yes, I realize this is utterly unoriginal in terms of comp class readings), I asked them this question:

Amy Tan believes that there is not only one way to speak English, but many different “Englishes.” Do you agree or disagree? We know about “American English” and “British English,” but can you describe “Chinese English?”

I expected that I'd get a lot of answers telling me the Chinese English (or "Chinglish," as some call it) is sub-standard and that students should work hard to improve their English. Why did I expect this? Because a lot of times, students like to give the answers they think we want to hear. I've read a ton of freewrites that end with something like "I know I must be a good student and study harder."

Actually, though, about 90% of the responses concluded the following basic points (my paraphrase):

1. Chinese English is as valid as any other English.
2. Chinese people can understand each other when they use Chinese English, so what's the problem?
3. As long as the basic meaning comes across, it's not necessary to use "correct" English grammar.

some even added:
4. Chinese English will eventually become known as a standard English*.

One of my favorite responses reads, in part:

"Sometime we use the wrong tense that American cannot understand what we say but we think we do the good work. And most of us pronunciation is not correct. It is easy misunderstanding. But I have right to speak English in this way."

Some responses indicated a pretty sophisticated understanding of language (as in, who decides what is the right way to speak English anyway?), while some were more nationalistic. One thing's clear: these students have no problem with Chinese English. What does this mean for me as a teacher of "academic English writing" in China? I don't know yet...

* I'll also mention here that almost all of my students, when unscientifically polled, believe in the inevitability of Chinese replacing English as the "international language" in the future.

Briefly: OWL

The more I use Purdue's OWL (online writing lab), the more I appreciate it. It's a rich resource for students and teachers alike. I just did a lesson on plagiarism based mostly on stuff I found there. (Irony alarm goes off.)

More to come on Chinese English; I have a lot to say about it and so do my students.

Starting to think about next semester's courses. I've been really re-energized by the book Teaching Large Multilevel Classes by Natalie Hess. The schedule here is still not ideal -- seeing students only once a week for speaking, and even worse, only twice a month for writing -- but I think we can do some cool stuff next term.

All night lesson planning extravaganza

4 am, Beijing Time:

I'm in the middle of what may become my first all-nighter since I was a junior in college.

Note to self: don't do this ever again.

Chinese English (pt 1): Culture and Context

The questions of Chinese English have been on my mind a lot lately -- questions like "what is it?" and "does it exist?" and "what do people think it is?" and "how do people (Chinese and non-Chinese) interpret its use?" I'll be exploring it some more in the coming weeks, but for now, let me share with you a paragraph I recently read from a textbook written for Chinese elementary school students.

Why Can't You Drink Cold Water Right After Sport?

After you play some sport, you often feel thirsty. So you like to drink some water or some orange juice. But you mustn't drink anything cold. It is not good for your stomach. If you have a cold drink, you may be sick. Your parents will worry about you. And you can't go to school. You can't see your friends. You can't play outside.
Why can't you drink cold water right after sport?

Although I disagree with the premise of this paragraph, since I didn't grow up with the Chinese belief that cold drinks are bad for you, in some ways I'm heartened to see that English is being used to transmit Chinese cultural norms. Too often, English textbooks use "Western" examples and scenarios, which I think must be somewhat alienating. By now, learning English is not like learning a foreign language "just for fun" that you'll never use, and so the idea that it must be tied to learning American or British culture is beginning to become a bit less relevant. I'm always trying to tell my students that a language can be used by anyone, and that their goal is not to become like "Western" English speakers, but to develop their own use of English as individuals with a Chinese cultural identity. (Not in so many words, of course.)

Briefly: Plagiarism, Shaoxing Phonology, and Grading

I. A great discussion of plagiarism in ESL and EFL contexts. Sage advice from Paul Stables:
...the best way to help undergraduate students avoid plagiarism is to set assignments that are not plagiarism friendly. Very specific essay questions rather than vague general term papers can help the student to approach the original source material from a particular angle which assists with the selection of material to be included and excluded.

II. If I actually knew anything about linguistics (or Chinese), I'd be devouring this PhD dissertation by Zhang Jisheng, which is a comprehensive analysis of the sounds which comprise the language spoken by most of my neighbors. As it is, I'm just skipping the phonology stuff (90% of the paper) and reading interesting trivia about the language. Apparently, Shaoxinghua has influenced some Japanese and Cantonese words -- and it has eight tones, compared to the four tones of Putonghua (Mandarin). I'll post any other interesting tidbits. Also, I considered changing the name of this blog and my field of study to "Totally Not Real Linguistics" or "Pretend Linguistics."

III. I may have alluded to this before, but as a rule, Chinese universities place a huge emphasis on final exams at the expense of any other classwork. My students' final exam is required to constitute 80% of their grade in my class, while participation, attendance, and all other homework must only account for 20%. As a result, I've discovered that I'm giving way too much homework, which is a problem because a) the students don't take it seriously and b) it's boring as hell to grade 180 notebooks of grammar and sentence structure exercises. So, I'm planning to emphasize in-class writing activities much more during the rest of the semester -- so they can practice the skills they'll need for the final (and, more importantly to me, beyond the final).

Authentic Language and the Language of Authenticity

Earlier this week, I read Alastair Pennycook's article “Language, Localization, and the Real: Hip-hop and the Global Spread of Authenticity” from the JLIE. It's quite exciting to see that the direction I want to go in my profession -- to study the confluence of language, music, and social practices involving them both -- is starting to gain traction in academic circles.

The article itself was really interesting, and I'll have more on it later, but I also wanted to note that there's a debate about "realness" and/or "authenticity" as it relates to race and class happening now in the world of music criticism.

The hullabaloo in Rock-Crit land (aka “Cultural Studies Jr.”) strikes me as a bit more territorial and opinionated (what is real for real? And why don't indie rockers sound more Black?) compared to the current understanding of “realness” that seems to be put forth by Pennycook and others. While Carl Wilson and Sasha Frere-Jones write about the problems of indie rock, they don't seem to be that interested in how people “use” indie rock. It's almost as if – and I'm just kind of thinking out loud here – it's now possible to be a prescriptive cult-studies practitioner, the way you can be a prescriptive grammarian. Isn't the nut of Frere-Jones' argument something like “indie rock should be more conscious of race?” This is fine, I guess, but I'm more interested in figuring out the way people use music, the way people shape music and music shapes people, than in diagnosing any particular problems with it. Perhaps I should be more concerned with justice and all that. The politics of critical applied linguistics remain a bit beyond my ken at this point, but I find the direction of Pennycook's research exciting, to say the least.

Final half-formed thought

Hybridity is a big buzzword these days – along with localization – and these words seem to me to offer a compelling understanding of the way our world works, linguistically and otherwise, these days: we take what we've got, even if what we've “got” is the product of an evil-sounding and suspicious thing like cultural imperialism, and shape it to our own ends, yielding particular – but thick and deep – meanings in local contexts.

More later?

Stuff I've Been Reading

This week, I started a new regime of reading to (I hope) work on my academic chops. Here's what I read. Comments are welcome, though this collection of readings is a bit esoteric.

Shi-xu (2006). Editorial: Researching Multicultural Discourses. Journal of Multicultural Discourses. 1(1): 1-5

The Journal of Multicultural Discourses is an exciting (if at times theoretically impenetrable by a novice like myself) journal based at Zhejiang University, just the next town East of where I live. This editorial sets the research agenda for the journal, which seeks to sort of "liberate" discourse studies* from its Eurocentric biases. I'm most interested in Shi-xu's desire to "reflect upon and re-create discourses in order to restore and elevate humanity" as well as to "engage in egalitarian intercultural communication, critique, and cooperation in discourse scholarships." Im unfamiliar with a lot of the terminology used in this editorial, but intrigued, so I'm going to poke around in this journal's archives and try to find an article that advances the mission laid out here.

(*NB: not discourse analysis in a sociolinguistic sense; this is more like Cultural Studies)

Kanno, Y., & Norton, B. (2003). Imagined communities and educational possibilities: Introduction. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 241-249.

This intro to a special issue of JLIE explains the current use of the theory of imagined communities in language learning research. These are communities which exist only in the minds of their members -- for example, nations. Kanno and Norton argue that "learners' affiliations with imagined communities might affect heir learning trajectories," and that these communities can include potential future relationships (like professional communities which people hope to join).

I really like the direction that Kanno and Norton take their research, because it sheds some light on an often-neglected aspect of language learning: the hopes and goals of the learners. However, I think we do people a disservice when we call these communities "imagined." Regardless of positive connotations (imagination, creativity, etc), the term has the effect of minimizing the potential or actual reality of an individual's self-perceived identity or group membership. For example, Norton talks about one ESL learner's "imagined professional community" when in fact the woman had already built a professional identity as a teacher in Poland. Wasn't she, in some real (un-imaginary) sense, a teacher, a member of that professional community?

Kanno, Y. (2003). Imagined Communities, School Visions, and the Education of Bilingual Students in Japan. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 285-300

Kanno looks at four different bilingual education programs in Japan, each of which, she argues, "imagines" a unique (possible) future community affiliation for its students. This article feels practical, which isn't always true of this kind of research. I learned a lot about bilingual education in Japan, and I think she offers some valuable insights about the effect an institution can have on its students.

Holliday, A. (2005). How is it possible to write? Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4(4), 304-309.

Canagarajah, S. (2005). Rhetoricizing reflexivity. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4(4), 309-315.

Holliday's work on "small cultures" in ELT research was influential to me during my time at HSU, and I enjoyed this short essay on using reflexivity to understand and negotiate a researcher's position as a priviledged, "Western" academic studying and working with those poor, helpless Others we so often do in this profession. Holliday talks about the necessity of understanding that "Center" scholars cannot claim to speak for the (marginalized/othered) people they work with, but instead can claim their research as their own narratives and learn something about the relationship between themselves and their research and "subjects."

Canagarajah warns against the temptation and possibility of researcher navel-gazing in "postmodern"/reflexive applied lingustics research by showing how an article written with a fervently pomo perspective (and a raving capacity for neologisms) actually does very little to advance the progressive concerns of critical qualitative research, whereas an article written in a modernist/post-positivist vein can, using traditional academic language, actually reveal some ("critical") truths about the researcher-researched relationship.

Interlanguage Disfluencies

Don't be scared; I'm only using those big words to sound cool. Interlanguage is a stage of language learning during which the learner is building his or her own conception of the L2, but which is in fact a system distinct from both the L1 and the L2. It's kind of like making your own map of a new city -- you can get some of it right, but until you've been there for quite a while, you'll have to constantly revise the map as you discover new information ("Oh, OK, this road intersects the highway...") "Disfluencies" are little words that break up the meaningful parts of utterances -- words like uh and um in English.

In Chinese, the most common disfluencies -- the closest analogues to English's uh and um -- are nei ge and zhi ge (they sound like nei-guh and juh-guh). (Another popular one is en, though it's not as frequent, to my knowledge.)

I've noticed that some of my students, when speaking in English, use English disfluencies(uh, um), some use Chinese disfluencies (mostly nei ge), and some seem to create new ones all together. My favorite sounds roughly like "bluh-blup-blup!"

Similarly, we had an American friend visiting a month or so ago who made a phone call for us, mostly in Chinese, but peppered with English disfluencies and conjunctions. He'd say things like " [Chinesechinesechinesechinese]....OK, so, like, [Chinesechinesechinese]?"

The point is, I guess, that, especially in the case of "bluh-blup-blup," interlanguage is at work.

Not a very exciting point, I guess. I just think it's interesting.

Next up (which is a sure sign I won't write about it): Is the term "imagined communities" insulting to language learners?

Glocal Linguistic Flows, brief updates

1. I would really love to be able to see the new JLIE (Vol 6 Issue 2 of the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education), which is a special issue on global hip-hop. Can anyone help me out with PDFs or scanned copies of any of the articles? (Jeremy, are you out there?)

2. What do you think about "Teaching English in China" as a cultural readymade (Ramage) -- a pre-existing social role with attendant behaviors and expectations, ready for young Americans to step into at will? It seems to be turning in to something like a Gap Year, a way for recent graduates or young married couples to sort of get out there in the world, as it were. I'd love to hear some feedback on this. There's kind of a whole syntagm (I dare you to look it up, I'm not sure I used it correctly) swirling around the identity of the young American Teaching English in China -- culture shock, blogging (ha!), 'adventure,' lack of professional interest in TESOL (maybe, maybe not), and so on. Further study, as they say, as needed.

3. I was planning to apply for a Fulbright but have decided not to. Maybe next year. I am doing a lot of reading about Singapore English, if that gives you a hint about my current interests.

4. Slow going with language learning, though I did have someone at a DVD shop compliment me on my Chinese before showing us to the super-cheap-isn't-this-still-in-the-theaters section. Haven't started taking formal classes but am hoping to.

5. Huge internal struggle on the To PhD or Not To PhD question continues, but I am tentatively researching all kinds of options. The gut says that I should avoid scary stuff (which includes words like comprehensive oral examination and fifth year and dissertation defense) and do stuff I know I enjoy (which includes words like getting paid and rocking out and book proposal). But the gut -- well, it says a lot of things, doesn't it?

The Emptiness of Words; Expectations

Today I had a couple of conversations with some fellow teachers at the college that I found really informative. Two different people were complaining about the students' constant use of "general" language in their writing. "Chinese students like to use a lot of empty words," one of them said. I wasn't sure what she meant. "You know, words like lovely, beautiful..."

Actually, the (over)use of these words is also something I have kind of been marveling at. The view of my colleagues, generally, is that the students are being lazy when they use this kind of language, that they need to work harder at expanding their vocabularies and at describing things in detail. From my (naive) perspective, though, I find this language oddly moving. It's not at all unusual for a student to write a sentence like "I think my mother is the most beautiful woman in the world" or "My friend is a lovely, sweet, and kind girl." When I see this, I think, wow, they're expressing a lot with a limited L2 vocabulary -- good for them! But maybe I just want to believe I can see a wealth of meaning and feeling behind these "empty" words; maybe the other teachers are right. I suspect the truth, as it often does, lies somewhere in the middle.

***

Expectations: well, they can and should change. I went into the writing classes not knowing what to expect, but assuming that my students would be fairly competent English readers at this point. Now that I've seen them once and seen their writing, I've had a chance to rethink my ideas and adjust the type and amount of work I hope to do with them.

Also, I expected that I'd have a pretty big degree of freedom in designing my course, since all the instruction we got when we arrived here was "here are your books, use them if you want to, or not, no problem." However, 3 weeks into the semester, I've learned that I am supposed to consult with another (Chinese) teacher -- who's teaching the other sophomore writing classes -- and make sure our courses are "the same," or as he diplomatically put it, "basically similar." Apparently the issue is that feathers will be ruffled the powers that be get to feeling like our students aren't learning the same information in our respective courses. (Cause, I guess, that would be like dis-orderly or something? I think this may be a cultural thing that's beyond me.)

Luckily, my colleague and I -- though we have different ideas about how to approach the course(s) -- have a lot in common*: we're both new at this university, we both find it a bit frustrating that we are being asked to compromise, and we both agree that as long as the students are learning fundamentals of writing, there shouldn't be a problem. Of course, I'll let you know later whether we agree on what the "fundamentals of writing" are...

(*Also, he is only L2 English speaker I have met here who regularly and correctly employs the word "sucks" -- as in "their writing sucks" -- in conversation, which makes me feel right at home, somehow.)

AWL

Briefly:

I know I'm way behind on topics I was planning to cover (see last entry), but I'm pretty sure I am the only person reading this blog, so I'm not sweating it too much.

Right now, I'm wondering if I can do anything useful with the AWL, or Academic Word List (Coxhead 2000) for my writing classes. The problem is, even the first sub-list of the 570 words seems to be way beyond my students' comprehension.

My classes are 2nd-year students at a Chinese college -- a college which accepts people who perform relatively poorly on their entrance exams (the Chinese SAT). They are English majors, but I'd say most of them are between (roughly, and vaguely) "low" and "low-intermediate" in most of their English skills. Of course, I want to try to help them increase their knowledge of academic English, but I'm worried about overwhelming them. Still, knowing these words -- really knowing them -- will only be beneficial in the long run. We're talking about words like: analyze, constitute, establish, indicate, occur, role.

The AWL omits the 2,000 words from the GSL or General Service List, a list of the most commonly used words overall in English texts. My students may not be that familiar with some of these words, either, so I wonder if a good strategy would be to start with some high-frequency words from the GSL (starting around the 100s or so, since the first words are "the" and "and" and stuff like that) and move on to the AWL, or mix them. I think I might take a bit from both.

*****

The haphazard nature of my posts on this site is, I'm afraid, indicative of my general disorganization re: my teaching right now. Luckily (?) classes are canceled tomorrow because of an impending typhoon, so maybe I can take some time to get it together.

HELLO

If you've had the experience of being a "foreign-looking" person in China, you have heard one English word over and over: "Hello." It's so common to have this word shouted at you as you walk past a business (or a group of young dudes playing basketball) that some China guidebooks and websites recommend strategies for "dealing" with it, including:

- Ignore
- Say "hello" back
- Pretend you don't speak English
- Reply in Chinese (if you know it)

Although English has become a cornerstone of Chinese education in the last ten years or so, most Chinese of a certain age don't speak it, and many who have been educated speak very little -- but everyone knows "hello." Consequently, I've been thinking about this word a lot lately, especially in the Chinese context.

One thing I really can't wrap my brain around -- a curse of most monolingual people, I think -- is how to understand the relationship between relatively equivalent expressions in two languages. Like the idea that "ni hao" and "hello" might mean the same thing. My brain is perfectly able to process the meaning of this sentence:

"Ni hao" means hello. (Which it doesn't, of course. It literally means "you good.")

But the reverse feels almost absurd to my monolingual brain:

"Hello" means ni hao.

So far, I can't get that to make sense. And I don't think I'd be able to unless I were bilingual.

Coming next time: A brief report from the local "English Salon."
And after that: Stuff about how I am now a real ESL teacher!

(Have you noticed that this blog has begun to live up to its name? I'm "doing" applied linguistics in real life!)

On Foreignness

One thing that some applied linguistics textbooks recommend is taking a language class before or while you teach one, to help you to empathize with your students and to get some insight into the language learning process. I think this is a great idea, although I haven't taken a language class since one quarter of college Spanish that I barely even remember attending. (I took Spanish in high school.)

On the language/culture tip, though, I must say there is nothing quite like actually being in a foreign country to help with the whole "empathy" thing. I swore I'd be above all the China cliches, that I wouldn't write about the same stuff that everyone seems to, that I was better prepared. But the reason people write about that stuff is: it's in your face, all the time. When I go out in public, I am painfully aware that I am often the only non-Chinese, non-Chinese-speaking person within, say, a one-mile radius (probably more - though it usually feels like I am the only one in the world). I know that this country being what it is, "foreigners" are more of a novelty, more notable (we don't really have much of a concept of "foreigner" in the US nowadays), but I will say that I have a whole lot more respect and admiration for the "foreign" English language students I worked with in the U.S. Being a foreigner is hard work.

Options

Advice from Paul Matsuda's blog, which strikes me as an awfully sane thing for a professor to write:

If you feel like you are sacrificing something else when you read and write in your field, entering a Ph.D. program may not be the right career decision. If you have that much discipline to complete the degree requirements without really enjoying the process, you might consider choosing from many other career options out there that don't require a Ph.D. and that you might actually enjoy.

Speak Good English

One small irony of Singapore's Speak Good English movement is that for most Americans, the phrase "Speak Good English" would probably be treated with suspicion as potentially ungrammatical, thanks to the same instinct that makes us think we should say "I feel badly" instead of "I feel bad."

Even I, non-prescriptive-grammarian that I am, have to pause.

Speak English Correctly?
Speak English Well?
Speak Better English?
Speak English More Properly?
Speak Proper English?

You have to wonder what they really mean, though. "Speak Good English," in Singapore, I imagine, is code for "don't speak Singapore English." Which some would go so far as to say is code for "don't express your identity in the way you feel most comfortable." I'm not sure I'd say that. But when the name of the movement makes a "native speaker" like me trip up, you gotta wonder what's going on ah.