Faiza Derbel is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Sfax, Tunisia, where she has coordinated the business English curriculum, teaches TESL methods, and supervises graduate students. She is currently conducting research on technology, pedagogy, and intercultural communication.
Anne R. Richards is Assistant Professor with the Department of English at Kennesaw State University, USA. In AY 2006–2007, she is a Fulbright fellow with the University of Sfax, where she teaches rhetoric and American studies. Her research interests include the digital divide and multimedia design.
Millions of nonnative speakers in periphery countries are shaping the English language teaching profession substantively as they learn English in response to the economic and cultural pressures associated with globalization. Yet Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) certification and graduate programs in the US may not reflect this sea change in the context of their subject by centrally incorporating a postcolonial component. An exploratory study of TESL programs affiliated with institutions housing highly ranked US English departments suggested that courses offered to TESL students may not sufficiently reflect awareness of and engagement with the global contexts of English language teaching. We recommend that core courses in TESL postbaccalaureate, M.A., and Ph.D. programs be created or revised specifically to facilitate understanding of (1) the history and significance of World Englishes and (2) a variety of international perspectives on English language teaching and learning. Curricular reconfiguring is necessary so that future ESL teachers who speak English natively will possess critical awareness of how and why English is being used as a global language.
It has become a cliché to say that the Twenty-First Century is an era of globalization. Indeed, this fashionably wooly term, as Block and Cameron (2002) observe, pervades “contemporary political society, technology, and culture” (1). Waters (1995) defines globalization as a condition that brings about “the systematic interrelationship of all the individual social ties that are established on the planet” (63). This definition does not suggest the quality of such interrelationships, but in the minds of many the move towards globalization predicts an interconnected world of benign hybridization and pluralism. Whereas utopians tend to characterize the effects of globalization as an intense expansion of human relationships and, ultimately, a universally empowering global culture (e.g., Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Parraton, 1999), dystopians often characterize globalization as boding the Americanization of world cultures, as described by Ritzer (1996), author of the neologism “McDonaldization.” 1 Most analysts agree that globalization entails a standardizing effect that is intensified by new technologies, most notably by sophisticated communication systems. Suffice it to surf the Web or to tune into television or radio stations anywhere in the world to realize how Western—and particularly US—cultural icons, products, and values have the potential to permeate every sphere of human activity.
Clearly, globalization involves a continuous flow of people, products, and ideas across national borders, enabling unprecedented access between center and periphery countries. We assert that the omnipresence of American culture, that characteristic ambiance of globalization, arises from an imperfect but inescapable dialogic 2, as embodied by this essay.
We conceptualize globalization as a transcultural postmodern condition whereby ideologies continuously flow between the culturally dominant and less dominant, though more insistently from former to latter, and are conveyed primarily by means of English in any of its countless world varieties. One of the few certainties of globalization is its linguistic medium. Numerous theories attempt to account for the ascendancy of English to “global language,” some of which are center-driven3 (e.g., Quirk and Widdowson, 1985; Crystal, 1997; Graddol, 2000; Brutt-Griffler, 2002; Melchers and Shaw, 2003), some of which are periphery-driven (e.g., Kachru 1985, 1986; Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 1994; Phillipson, 1992), and some of which are conciliatory (e.g., Jenkins, 2005). Our own stance is of the second type although we have hoped to provide a framework that will seem reasonable and prove useful to individuals holding a range of opinions on the subject of English as a global language.
At the inception of the first global century, most speakers of English are nonnative or second-language speakers (Crystal, 1997; Graddol, 2000). Today, the majority of the world’s speakers of English are no longer monolingual speakers living in the center countries. In Graddol’s (1997: 10) estimate, there are 375 million inner circle, 375 million outer circle, and 750 million expanding circle speakers of English. Following Kachru’s (1985) divisions, the majority are bilingual and even multilingual speakers in the outer and the expanding circles of English language use. Communication exchanges are therefore more likely to be carried out between the peoples of the outer and the expanding circles in some variety or another of world English than to involve speakers of a form of standard English connected with an inner circle country. For example, in regions of Africa where English was imposed historically (Phillipson, 1992), local varieties of English have evolved into important additional languages in the everyday lives of the general population (Kachru, 1986; Bisong, 1995; Brutt-Griffler, 2002). Lowenberg (2000) remarks with reference to the use of English in the ex-British colonies that
[i]n these countries, English is used by non-native speakers in the absence of native speakers, in non-Western sociocultural contexts and in constant contact with other languages in multilingual speech communities. As a result, it often undergoes systematic changes at all linguistic levels, from phonology and morphology, to syntax and semantics, to discourse and style. (69)
This unprecedented situation has created new parameters for the institutions charged with educating teachers of English as a second or foreign language (ESL or EFL) (Rajagopalan, 2004).
Furthermore, the reality of English language classrooms in global cities of the center countries is one of multilingualism and multiculturalism (Harris, Leung, and Rampton, 2002; Extra and Yağmur, 2004). How much more so for English language learning in the outer and the expanding circles, where English is increasingly taught and learned by bilingual or polyglot nonnative speakers of English! Vast numbers of English students are learning or will learn English without ever having to engage, outside of the classroom (if there), in direct communication with speakers of English from the inner circle. But despite the geographically and ethnically diverse character of the majority of the speakers/users of English as a global language (Kachru, 1985; Graddol, 2000), there remains among English language professionals a pronounced tendency—here, most crucially, among native speakers of English—to look upon English as belonging to users of the inner circle and upon native speakers and their worldviews as reference points for all “other” speakers of English. Many native speaker teachers cherish an image of themselves as custodians of the English language (Widdowson, 1993) and therefore assume that their discursive and pedagogical norms merit universal transfer (Holliday, 1994; Canagarajah, 1999). Native speaker as well as nonnative speaker professionals often hold views of the ideal English language school or classroom as staffed by native speaker teachers and filled with second language learners attempting to emulate the pronunciation of inner circle speakers (Prator, 1968). The image of expatriate teachers exercising linguistic and cultural prerogatives over backward indigenous populations will haunt the TESL profession (Canagarajah, 1999; Pennycook, 1994) until the economic self-interest at the heart of this image is deconstructed thoroughly (Pennycook, 1989).
Yet countries of the inner circle, and the teachers produced in them, are not solely to blame for the longevity of the unidirectional approach to the teaching of English worldwide. In the outer and expanding circles, it is common to find departments that offer students a degree in “English” with an emphasis on inner circle linguistic varieties, to the exclusion of Canadian, New Zealander, or Australian Englishes. Other outer circle and expanding circle nonnative varieties of English often are not dealt with as sociolinguistic varieties though attempts may be made to include literary texts by authors who choose to write in English as a second or other language. This state of affairs in many outer circle and expanding circle countries results in the perpetuation of the dominance of one variety of English (whatever is recognized as its central version).
Instead of constituting a language-medium facilitating the forging of intercultural networks, English serves in this example, as it does all too often, as a vehicle of cultural domination. An alternative to this time-honored use of English, and one we espouse, is suggested by Guilherme (2002), who envisions an intercultural speaker who crosses frontiers. We are in no way advocating that a “nonstandard” international variety replace an inner circle variety in teaching or communication. What we are advocating is that TESOL teacher preparation programs develop in their students awareness and knowledge of international varieties of English so that, ideally, the ESOL classroom becomes a site for constructing the interconnectedness of speakers (Pakir, 1999). It is precisely because English is the lingua franca of the globe that the English language teaching profession is poised to generate crosscultural understanding.
Although we focus, in this paper, on the challenge of preparing teachers of English coming from largely monocultural backgrounds in the inner circle such as the US, the complex of problems we have identified is not endemic to that situation. We have mentioned the case of departments in the expanding and outer circles functioning within the canons of the West through the privileging of cultural constructs such as Anglo-Americanism. According to Gavardhan, Nayar, and Sheorey (1990), even an organization such as Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), whose membership is highly diverse, was not sufficiently cognizant of the issue we foreground in this essay. Upon examination of the content of some 120 M.A. TESOL programs in the TESOL Directory, those authors were unable to “identify any program that [was] quintessentially geared toward preparing ESL/EFL teachers for teaching abroad” (122). Following upon the research of Gavardhan and colleagues, we conducted a small-scale study of ten TESL/applied linguistics programs in top-ranked English departments in the US in order to expand our sense of the possible need for curricular change. Before providing recommendations to TESL teachers interested in expanding their coursework to better prepare students for a successful professional experience in the globalizing economy, we briefly discuss our findings.
By conducting an exploratory study of the curricula of highly ranked English departments in the US, we hoped to develop a sense of whether TESL students were being prepared to engage with nonnative speaker counterparts and learners of English who inhabit a range of sociocultural positions and for whom learning an “international” version of English is key to their participation in a global world. In this new context, it is not in the best interest of nonnative speakers to focus exclusively on inner circle varieties of English; rather, prospective ESL teachers coming from the inner circle will be professionally advantaged by developing an awareness of World Englishes in addition to expertise in standard varieties. We considered two content areas, i.e., the history and significance of World Englishes, and postcolonial perspectives on TESL (henceforth, our areas of concern), essential for prospective TESL professionals originating in center countries such as the US. Knowledge in these interconnected domains should increase student awareness that nonnative speakers are using English on their own terms and as a result substantially shaping and enriching the English language.
To examine how English language faculty at high ranking US institutions were addressing our areas of concern, we subscribed to U.S. News and World Report’s America’s Best Graduate Schools 2004 . This report ranked the top 81 English departments in the US, a list we narrowed to the top 60. From this group, we selected every tenth program and then searched each institution’s Web site to discover whether it had a program in TESL or a related field (henceforth, relevant program). If the institution did not have such a program, we studied the next institution on the list (see Appendix A for a list of schools studied), and so on. We focused on English departments rather than linguistics departments because we wished to increase the likelihood of interdisciplinary crossfertilization, e.g., among faculty in the same department studying literary or cultural theory and applied linguistics.
It seemed reasonable to us to assume that Web sites in the context of this exploratory study of ranked educational institutions in the US would be highly descriptive sources of information. Academic Web sites are strategically constructed to present institutional ethos (real or imaginary) and are the most important sources of general information available to prospective and current faculty and students; for example, the university with which one of the authors is affiliated is engaged in re-accreditation and pursuing a Quality Enhancement Program on the subject of global learning. As a result, the homepage of the university is carefully aligned with this topic and frequently highlights news on the theme of global issues, e.g., the “Year of Kenya,” visiting international scholars of repute, and memorandums of understanding between her university and other international institutes of learning. Regarding the Web sites we studied, if all references to courses or to units within courses on our areas of concern (including the hyperlinked full-text catalogues and dozens or hundreds of other course listings) were absent, we concluded that the issue was neither present nor salient: Simply put, it was not one the department considered integral to its ethos.
We collected our data in October 2003 and analyzed them to uncover the following: references in (1) introductory materials, (2) primary program materials, and (3) course descriptions to our areas of concern. Introductory materials we defined as text appearing on the relevant program’s homepage. Primary program materials were additional Web pages that could be linked to from the homepage and that were directly relevant to the program. Course titles and descriptions included both the names of courses offered by the departments/programs, and the catalogue copy associated with each course. Occasionally, we had access to only the former. Unless the course description suggested otherwise, we considered “introduction to language in society” or similarly-titled courses likely not to imply substantive attention to our areas of concern. Of the ten schools we studied, five offered postbaccalaureate certificates, five offered master’s degrees, and three offered Ph.D.s in a relevant program. We emphasize that this study constitutes no more than an initial exploration of the seriousness with which TESL programs in the US may be infusing curricula with postcolonial perspectives, broadly conceived.
It was difficult to determine from the course descriptions, and even more so from the course titles, the extent to which individual teachers engaged with our areas of concern. Insofar as catalogue copy can be created years in advance and remain unrevised for lengthy periods and yet new teachers are regularly assuming responsibility to teach these courses and do so in novel and sophisticated ways, and insofar as teachers have significant latitude to teach courses as they see fit, future research along these lines would benefit greatly from incorporating faculty input. We hope that future researchers will consider studying the infusion of courses on English in its global contexts into the curriculum of US TESOL programs, subsequently addressing the limitations of our study by adopting alternative designs (case study) and data collection methods (participant observation, interviewing).
Table One contains all courses addressing the issues of World Englishes and postcolonial theory in relation to TESL and mentioned on the web sites of relevant programs in our sample. Our research suggested that (1) course requirements in these US programs/departments we studied did not reflect our areas of concern and (2) catalogue copy for course descriptions were, at best, not up to date; at worst, they reflected our areas of concern rarely. Not a single TESL course description from among all those we examined contained the key term postcolonial; only three descriptions contained the key terms World Englishes, international varieties of English, or near matches. Of the three courses we found dedicated to our areas of concern, all were at the undergraduate level. Only one program included a course dedicated to our areas of concern under its curricular requirements. Students were required to choose one of the three courses within the knowledge domain Courses on Social Perspectives on English, and the course we refer to was one of three. Additionally, we were disappointed to find that one of these high ranking departments assumed that ESL programs excluding nonnative speaking teachers deserve increased respect. The issue of the relative value of native and nonnative speaking English teaching professions has since been clarified by the International TESOL organization, in its March 2006 “Position Statement Against Discrimination of Non Native Speakers of English in the Field of TESOL,” which is available on the International TESOL website. The statement acknowledges the “long-standing fallacy in the field of English Language” that native speakers are de facto better ESL teachers than nonnative speakers and labels as discriminatory any hiring practices or work assignments reflecting such assumptions. Personal experience suggests, however, that whether native knowledge of English should constitute a teaching credential or employment preference, and indeed to what extent a teacher’s native knowledge of English can compensate for ethnocentric pedagogy in a multicultural (or any) classroom, are issues individual members of the TESL profession have yet to resolve.
Table One. Complete list of courses dedicated to our issues of concern, partly addressing them, and possibly addressing them in October 2003, as offered by our sample of English departments named “ America’s best” by U.S. News and World Report.
English Sociologistics. ENGL 355. University of Arizona.
Global Spread of English. English 332. University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Language, Power, and Identity. English 404. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
African American Vernacular English. Ling 73/273. Stanford University.
English Dialects. University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Foreign Language Materials Development. APLNG 597a. Penn State University.
Introduction to TESL: Overview. Engl 445. University of Arizona.
Laboratory Phonology. LING 597C. Penn State University.
Language Development and Acquisition. Ed. X349.12 UC, Santa Barbara.
Pidgin and Creole Sociolinguistics. Ling 251. Stanford University.
Seminar. Linguistics 607. University of Oregon.
Sociolinguistics. Linguistics 490/590. University of Oregon.
Teaching American English Pronunciation. APLNG 410. Penn State University.
The Study of Language. LING 001. Penn State University.
Crosscultural Communication. Ling X495.2. UC, Santa Barbara.
Cultural Dimensions of SLA. Engl 620. University of Arizona.
Cultural Diversity in the Classroom. Ed x329.12. UC, Santa Barbara.
Education of Immigrants in Cities. Ed 271x. Stanford University.
English in Society. English 336. UW, Madison.
Language and Culture. Anthropology 430. UW, Madison.
In sum, a few of the departmental Web sites we studied suggested engagement with our areas of concern, but the majority did not foreground, and some did not mention them (see Appendix B). Our areas of concern were not salient features of departmental ethos in most cases.
To help configure TESL programs so as to awaken in practitioners a thoroughgoing critical awareness of the sociocultural contexts of learners of English as a second or other language, we propose the addition of an international dimension to TESOL preparation core courses, a proposal that is meant to serve as a general guide. Our belief is that including such an international dimension in TESOL programs will contribute to the promotion of a conception of the learning and teaching of English as a multicultural project. We anticipate that such a curricular emphasis will help develop in students
An important component of prospective TESOL teacher knowledge is knowledge about the subject they are teaching—English. Component one addresses specifically the situation and status of English in the world. It aims to shift the attention of prospective TESOL teachers towards Englishes as the subject matter in English language teaching and what adjustment this reality requires of them as future teachers (Norrish, 1997).
This component is designed to expose TESL students to divergent narratives and models of the spread of English (Trudgill and Hannah, 1982; Quirk and Widdowson, 1985; Crystal, 1997; Graddol, 2000; Brutt-Griffler, 2002). One approach might be based on Brutt-Griffler’s division of the history of English into three periods: (1) the spread of English in the British Isles; (2) the spread of English from the British Isles to America, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; and (3) the spread of English to Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world. The component might focus on analysis and critique of these versions of English, as a logical prelude to the notion of World Englishes (Kachru, 1983; 1985), and might present students with a clear picture of the processes that have led to change in the English language and its international varieties.
This first component also would focus on critiquing sociolinguistic notions such as “deviation,” “variation,” “pidginization,” “creolization,” and so on as defined by “mainstream” sociolinguists and discuss how they can be reconsidered in light of the history of English as a world language (Kachru, 1983).
Exposure to texts in World Englishes would suggest to monocultural TESL students why English-using bilinguals of the expanding circle and the outer circle might resist concepts as constructed from the perspective of monolingual, monocultural native speakers of English—for instance, concepts such as “native speaker” and “homogenous speech community,” both of which have been extrapolated from Chomsky’s linguistic theory. This component aims to further a critical examination of political and ideological debates surrounding the popularity of English as a world language and to provide students with a broader view of tensions resulting from the dominance of English at different geopolitical sites. Students would be presented with situations in which the promotion of English resulted in the death of minority languages and in the drop in status of other once-dominant languages. Recommended readings would include Crawford (2000) regarding the US, and Phillipson (2003) regarding Europe.
The goal of this component is to introduce monocultural native speaking students to alternative views of the non-Western world. 4 The component might begin with an examination of the issues of power, language, and representation in the context of research on English language teaching. According to dominant discourses in English language teaching (Pennycook, 1994: 160), native speaker expatriate English language teachers and “specialists” consider nonnative speaking fellow teachers and their learners as intrinsic “Others” failing to grasp the pedagogical superiority of colleagues from the center. To address this dichotomization of the English language teaching profession, students might be exposed to core readings such as Edward Said’s Orientalism and Representations of the Intellectual, in which the author identifies and explains key concepts in postcolonial theory. As mentioned earlier, Pennycook (1994) provides samples of professional writing that reflect views of the “Other” student and nonnative speaking professional. Literary works by authors, preferably of English expression, who have “crossed borders” (by writing in the genre of migration literature, e.g., Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera) or been part of a diaspora should also be included. Ngũgĩ’sDecolonising the Mind is seminal. It might be best to focus on literary works written in English by nonnative speakers so that students will realize that literary creativity, and even brilliance, in a second or other language is possible and that nonnative speakers of English can use the language with extraordinary facility even though their modes of expression will be “different.”
Another aim of this component is to examine models of modernization and social change and their roots in liberal rational thought. Students would be exposed to readings that could help them identify dominant development paradigms in the West, paradigms that are inadequate for all/other countries and cultures. 5 This part of the course should lead to in-depth discussions of colonialism and postcolonialism. Teachers might draw on case studies of strategic economic development plans in Third World (especially African) countries and the clashes between local values and development aid, which Waters (1995) has described as “only infrequently altruistic or recipient controlled.” All too often, such aid has been “directed to ex-colonies or established spheres of influence; it was often linked with military aid as a way of maintaining a particular ideological cast on the host state; and it frequently insisted that aid monies be spent in purchasing items from the donor society” (108). Consequently, readings might focus on key concepts in western economic thought and the ideological construction of Western superiority. Readings might include works that summarize, on the one hand, Western views of modernization (Moore, 1955; Parson, 1959; Lipset, 1963; Bloom, 1987; Levy, 1996) and, on the other, views of economic dependency (Amin, 1976, 1980; Wallerstein, 1976; Frank, 1979). 7 By examining these juxtaposed views, students should come to recognize the link between economic aid and ethnocentrism and to detect the problems associated with uncritically invoking binaries such as “developed” and “underdeveloped,” “industrialized” and “industrializing,” and “modern” and “traditional.” Because the promise of English as a tool of economic advancement is contended, students might also be introduced to studies focusing on one or more of the many countries in which utopian visions of English language use have dissolved because it has gone hand in hand with increasing economic and political inequality. Studies such as García’s (1995) in the US and Canagarajah’s (1999) in Sri Lanka demonstrate that the connection between English usage and economic progress can be tenuous.
The long-term aim of this component is to present students with the background knowledge enabling them to spot development issues in postcolonial contexts and to situate the role allocated to English within globalization. An examination of language policies in a number of countries recipient of foreign aid can help students identify the link established (for ill or for good, or both) between the projects conceived by donors in the West (e.g., national governments and international nongovernmental organizations) and their effect on the local politics of English language teaching (Pennycook 1994, 1998; Phillipson, 1992).
English is a global language and as such is used in an extraordinarily broad range of contexts—the world’s speakers of English are diverse, as are its socioeconomic and political sites of teaching and learning. That such diversity is currently beyond the comprehension of many ESL teachers who have not traversed the boundaries of monoculturalism and monolingualism should concern members of the English teaching profession and certainly should concern the future professionals themselves. ESL teachers are uniquely positioned to grasp the insights of postcolonial theory, and we believe that those who wish to should be able to come to terms with its insights and ambiguities. The curricular components we have suggested constitute one of many possible approaches infusing into TESL classrooms a critical examination of the worlds of English, sites at which millions of nonnative speakers are transforming the language. We have attempted in this paper to deconstruct the issues surrounding an array of complex situations and have suggested two components that can be introduced in mainstream TESL preparation curricula targeting native speaking ESL teachers wishing to slip in and out of Kachru’s three eccentric circles of English as a global language.
1.Ritzer (1996) defines McDonaldization as “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world” (1). This standardizing effect can be found in shopping malls, movie theatres, broadcasting corporations, etc.
2.We use dialogic here in its Bakhtinian sense (Bakhtin, 1981), to emphasize the two-way flow of communication. English speakers living in the Center countries are drawn into the dialogic by globalization forces and obliged to learn to engage in communication with English language speakers in the periphery.
3.Following Kachru’s stratification, inner circle speakers-users of English are found in countries where English is the “primary” language, e.g., the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The speakers-users of English of the outer circle are found in ex-colonies of the British Empire, e.g., India, Nigeria, Zambia, Singapore, and many other countries that adopted English as an “institutional language.” The expanding circle, which is in constant growth, includes speakers-users of English in countries such as China, Indonesia, Greece, Japan, Korea, and a number of European countries.
4.This is not the problem of NS students only—obviously, non-native English speaking students enrolled in TESL programs may lack the cultural sensitivity and global
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Appendix B. Web Site Data
In October 2003, when we collected our data, Stanford University offered a Ph.D. minor in applied linguistics and a concentration in the learning, teaching, and translation of second languages, whose coursework involved six major themes. Although the concentration description stated that “This focus within the Ph.D. minor in Applied Linguistics is designed to prepare language instructors to teach languages in a variety of post secondary settings to an array of populations,” none of the six themes was associated directly with our areas of concern. Nor were any of the courses required for the concentration.
Stanford did offer a minor concentration in educational and policy applications of linguistics, a concentration “oriented toward a combination of conceptual and research foci regarding language minority populations and their educational welfare.” Students pursuing that concentration were offered the following courses: “Language Policy and Planning: National and International Perspectives” (Ed 335x), “African American Vernacular English” (Ling 73/273), and “Education of Immigrants in Cities” (Ed 271x). The department also offered a course in “Pidgin and Creole Sociolinguistics” (Ling 251)—but, like the courses we have just cited in the minor concentration in educational and policy applications of linguistics, it was not a requirement for students in the teaching concentration.
The introductory materials of Columbia University’s postbaccalaureate certification program in TESOL stated that it catered to national and international teachers of ESL and reflected “the latest theories and techniques of TESOL.” Although this text placed instruction abroad before instruction in the US, none of the descriptions of the six required courses on offer indicated an interest in our areas of concern. For instance, the description of “Curriculum Design and Material Development,” the course most likely to be relevant, read:
Students explore criteria for using textbook lessons in different classroom settings. They also learn how to adapt and supplement textbook lessons to meet the needs of specific classes. Students study curriculum models and materials for a variety of adult language-learning settings: second and foreign language classrooms; academic English programs; community programs and ESP (English for Specific Purposes). They also examine the use of non-print materials such as video, audio, computer, and the Internet.
Thus, the Columbia program might not actually have addressed the issue of “the status of English as an international language” or “current theories” in regard to this topic.
Likewise, primary program materials for the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin, Madison included, out of more than eight single-spaced pages of course titles, three courses that seemed to address our issues of concern, one of which was offered outside the department (“English Dialects” [Eng 331], “English in Society” [Eng 336], and “Language and Culture” [Anthro 430]). The degree requirements did include a four-course minor in a number of areas including nonnative varieties of English, however. And the university ran a TESOL certificate program that offered a course on the global spread of English.
According to its introductory materials, the Division of English as an International Language at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, offers an MATESL graduate degree program whereby students decide whether to follow a pedagogy or research track. The primary program materials for both tracks referred to our areas of concern. The pedagogical track was meant to provide students with “practical approaches and experiences that are central to the development of candidates as teachers of English as an international language”; and the research track included among its relevant topics “varieties of English worldwide” and considered competency in the area of “culture in language learning” a prerequisite to successfully completing the degree work. Under the elective courses for the research track, which listed 21 courses, and for the pedagogy track, which listed 24, only one course appeared to address our areas of concern directly, however.
Pennsylvania State University at University Park offered an M.A. in TESL. Its introductory materials referred to the program’s “special focus on English in a wide range of both domestic and international contexts.” None of the courses listed as required for graduate study seemed directly related to our areas of concern, but other courses available to TESL students suggested attention to these issues. The description of “Teaching American English Pronunciation” (APLING 410) addressed the issue of accent in a way that might engage prospective TESLers in reconsidering their own attitudes towards accents within their country and when dealing with “other” speakers of English, for the course was meant to address “the sources of attitudes towards accent and the implications of these attitudes” and to develop in students “an awareness of how accent is socially constructed.”
The description of “Foreign Language Materials Development” (APLING 597A), unlike the Columbia course in curriculum design and materials, stated that cultural values would be given attention. “How are the L2 and its speakers portrayed? Is there representation of an L2 culture or cultures? If so, how can it be characterized in terms of breadth and balance? How are learners expected to react vis-à-vis this representation?” The description of “The Study of Language” (LING 001) included these questions: “What is the link between language and culture? Why do people have such strong opinions about others’ language use? What is the impact of language loss in human society?” And “Laboratory Phonology” (LING 597C) seemed to question the concept of “native speaker intuition.”
The University of California at Santa Barbara’s introductory materials for its TESL Professional Certificate Program began by constructing nonnative speaking students as a windfall. “ California has a significant number of visitors and residents whose primary language is not English, resulting in ever-expanding opportunities for teachers of English as a second language in public and private sectors of education and business,” stated the introductory materials; the primary program materials stated twice that course work could be applied toward “career advancement” and/or “salary increases.” Like many of the web sites we examined, UCSB’s asserted that it would teach students “the most current methods” and address “the most recent developments in the field” of teaching ESL. But the only course that students pursuing the TESL Certificate were required to take that might address our areas of concern was “Crosscultural Communication” (Ling X495.2). Looking closely at the list of topics covered below, it is not clear whose culture is in focus and less obvious whether the “crosscultural” classrooms being referred to are in fact situated out of the US:
Both teachers and learners of English must understand the cultural diversity represented inside and beyond the classroom. This course focuses on several aspects of cultural diversity and crosscultural communication. Topics include
According to the primary program materials, students could choose an elective course that addressed the issue of teaching abroad; none of these courses seemed to address our areas of concern, either. “Language Development and Acquisition” (Ed. X349.12), which identified “sociocultural and political aspects of second language acquisition,” might have, however.
The introductory materials of the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities’ M.A. program in TESL did not allude to any of our areas of concern in the description of its curriculum, which stated that the program “emphasize[d] research in language analysis, language acquisition, teaching methodology, materials development, and uses of technology in language teaching.” The description for the course promisingly titled “Practical Language Learning for International Communication” (TESL 3501) read, “Getting a handle on language learning. Having a sense of one's learning/language strategy preferences. Motivation to learn languages in general and a given language in particular. Motivation to do specific language tasks.”
Like UIUC, the University of Arizona has a well-established M.A. TESL program. According to its introductory materials, 755 M.A. students had matriculated between 1999 and the program’s founding in 1969. One of the required courses for the degree was “Cultural Dimensions of SLA” (Engl 620), whose description cited as its focus the relations between language and culture. The course description for “Introduction to TESL: Overview” (Engl 445) read, “Development of the field of English as a second language with emphasis on current trends, the influence of linguistic theory, and the international role of English”; and that for “English Sociolinguistics” (ENGL 355) mentioned “regional and social dialectology, attitudes towards variation and change . . . power and politics.” The latter seemed particularly relevant to our areas of concern.
The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, offered an adult/university-level TESOL Graduate Certificate as well as an M.A. in English Language and Linguistics. Required courses for the certificate include “Language, Power, and Identity” (English 404), which addressed “[t]he use of distinctive language varieties to construct identity and maintain power relationships within a society.” This course sounded promising although the descriptive material did not mention having an international focus. It addressed our areas of concern if it helped TESL students understand that “accent reduction,” or emulation of native speaking pronunciation standards, is of limited usefulness to most international ESL students.
Finally, the University of Oregon offered an M.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics. Topics addressed in “Sociolinguistics” (Linguistics 490/590) might have included “dialect geography, social and ethnic dialects, language contact, bilingualism and multilingualism, pidgins and creoles.” The seminar course (Linguistics 607) addressed “language contact, pidgins and creoles. . . , language and culture.”
The university also offered, in conjunction with Hanyang University in Korea, a joint TESOL program. According to a “welcome message” from the Program Director, the universities’ international collaboration demonstrates how, “at the beginning of this new century, we are launching a new era in applied linguistics at Oregon.” Together, the two institutions award a TESOL Certificate. “Global interdependence has created an unprecedented and urgent need for quality instructors of English who are well oriented in the linguistic aspects of Western academic and business culture,” stated the primary program materials. “In partnership with one of America's most prestigious universities, the joint Hanyang/Oregon TESOL Program prepares students for the realities of global education in the 21st century. Through this prestigious program, our graduates aspire to the highest level of advanced English instruction available anywhere in the world.”
The “stated mission” of the program was “to prepare an high ranking corps of highly motivated and proficient professionals trained specifically to meet the national and international needs for academically and globally-oriented English language instruction.” This mission was accomplished in part by prohibiting nonnative speakers of English, and teachers from non-US institutions, from joining the faculty. Or, put another way,
we recruit only the most qualified faculty, all of who are native English speakersand have earned a Ph.D. in English, Linguistics, Education or a closely related field. . . . In addition, all of our faculty are required to have a professional affiliation with a major U.S. university as a requirement for appointment. . . . We have consolidated the international dimension to our program through a linkage of primary and secondary partnerships with prestigious American universities. Most notably, the highly rated University of Oregon is a full program partner, directly responsible for academic content and curriculum development [emphasis added].
The only required Oregon-Hanyang course that alluded to any of our issues of concern was Teaching Pronunciation (Ling 511), whose description reveals a center-driven perspective. Indeed, we read that “the primary focus of this course is on the elements that comprise production, transmission and reception of speech and the phonological systems that govern the behavior of linguistic sound systems in North American English.” This came as no surprise from an institution allowing only native-speakers with American academic affiliations to teach in a program out of the United States and holding a monopoly over the program’s academic content and curriculum development in that foreign institution.
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