ESL teachers' attitudes toward the classroom language. (Language Teaching & Learning).

Abstract:

This article explores the subtle relationship between teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL), their students, and the English language. There are two different approaches toward the usage of the language in the classroom. The two elementary ESL teachers whom the author interviewed thought that their immigrant children had to learn Standard English while the ESL professors thought that their international students needed to be more exposed to colloquial expressions.

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The ESL teachers need to be aware of the language that they use in the classroom. Since their students are the learners of English as a Second Language, the teachers pay close attention to how they speak English to their students. In this paper, I will explore how ESL teachers at elementary and college levels focus on the usage of their English in the classroom.

It is a worthwhile effort to briefly describe the roles of language in regard to communication and culture. According to Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1986), language has two functions: as a means of communication and as a carrier of culture. First, people use words to communicate with one another. When immigrant children learn English, it is of vital importance for them to utilize English words in a way that makes words understandable and recognizable. In the teaching of ESL, the development of communicative skills in English is often emphasized. Second, language has symbolic meanings that signify cultural artifacts unique to a language. I agree with Thiong'o in that language as culture has two important aspects.

Thiong'o first states that language is a product and reflection of history in which people have struggled to gain control over material and spiritual wealth as well as to maintain it. Language transforms itself into one that meets the needs of local people. Dialects, pidgin English, Creoles, and Ebonies are products and reflections of some regional cultural histories. Yet, language is not only a mirror of history but also a generator of history. Thiong'o points out that language generates the images of people who use the language, especially in the minds of children. Those images may or may not correspond to the realities of the people, but he claims that the whole concept of an individual self and collective selves situated in the language is affected by the image-making function of language. In short, language as culture plays a pivotal role in forming one's identity.

The informants in my research were two university professors, Nola Weissmen and Dorothy Weber, and two elementary teachers, Frances Kasowitz and Margaret Swift. All of them were identified as white females. I took the classes that the two professors taught as a requirement for international teaching assistants at North University. I attended Nola's English class for two semesters. The class took place three times a week for fifty minutes each, and the students in this class mainly worked on pronunciation, colloquial expressions and idioms, and learned American culture that was necessary to know the background of the undergraduates whom they were teaching or would teach soon. The students were required to briefly present their research that dealt with a topic unique to their specialized study in a simple way twice a semester. In addition, Nola asked her students to record an impromptu speech based on an assigned topic on a cassette tape several times a semester, and she recorded her comments on the speech on the same cassette tape. In general, this English class was interactive, and Nola encouraged her students to practice orally as often as possible.

I took Dorothy's class in the summer because I wanted to improve my English competence more. That class was also for international teaching assistants, but the number of the students was smaller. Six students usually showed up. The assignment was individualized depending on the weakness of each student's English ability, and I mainly worked on pronunciation. The class met once a week for fifty minutes for ten weeks. Sometimes Dorothy showed a TV program, and the students did listening comprehensive exercises as well as learning part of American culture presented in the program. She videotaped a popular sitcom and showed it to her students because she wanted her students to understand how professional people used the language and interacted with one another in a social setting.

Margaret Swift was an ESL teacher at Dr. Anderson elementary school. I had easy access to the elementary school because my sons were enrolled in the kindergarten at the school. She was open-minded, and thus I had no trouble eliciting interview data from her. In the fall of 1999 and spring of 2000, I often visited Dr. Anderson elementary school. During those visits, I noticed that my children were the only Asians at the school.

Margaret used songs to teach phonics. When I visited her class at one time, six students practiced singing a song that included simple vowels. She thought that music made it easier for her students to study phonics. After practicing the song, Margaret asked her students to hook a plastic plate to which a word was attached. Then she asked her students to make a short sentence out of the word that they picked. This was a fun activity.

Frances Kasowitz taught my friend's daughter who had already returned to Japan. She usually used a Total Physical Response approach to language teaching. For example, she first showed an object and then she named it orally. Her students repeated the word after her. In her class, about half of the students came from war-torn countries and needed to develop motor muscle and coordination, so she encouraged her students to manipulate objects as they wanted in the classroom. And she taught the language step by step when her students played with the objects.

The types of language that a teacher uses play an important role in the ESL classroom. All of the four ESL teachers whom I interviewed thought that they needed to speak Standard English, though they recognized that there were many variations of spoken English. They did not undervalue various dialects. Margaret Swift, an elementary teacher at Lakeside City that is located in the northeastern part of the United States, thought that she used formal and grammatically correct English in the classroom, because that was the language that her students, most of whom were immigrant children, should learn. She assumed that her students were already exposed to slang and an informal type of English in the neighborhood and that they must study Standard English in the classroom so as to be academically and financially successful in their future circumstances. She remarked that she should speak a model of English in the classroom as opposed to slang and informal language that she used outside with her friends. It is interesting to note that she made a clear distinction between the language that is encouraged to use in the classroom and the language that is used on the street.

For Margaret, Standard English is "predominantly in the written form, in the book, especially in the textbook." She acknowledged that to master Standard English opened many paths for her students' future, and she primarily emphasized the difference between Standard English and street talk in the following way:

   You [students] want to get a job eventually. You can't say, "I ain't
   got.... "Let's say, the job situation. If I want to get the position where
   education is required, the person interviewing you will think that you are
   in the lower class. If you say, "I ain't got that kind of degree," the
   person immediately looks down on you, and thinks that you are probably not
   having a good education, probably not motivated, not going to succeed.

Street talk is for active kids in the neighborhood, and Standard English is for business persons and indicates a quality education. Margaret recognized that English vernaculars have the flavor of ethnic culture within the United States, but she firmly believed that they impeded academic and financial success.

For Frances Kasowitz, another elementary teacher whom I interviewed at Lakeside City, Standard English is "what would be acceptable in a formal public setting." According to her, Standard English has correct grammar, correct pronunciation, a level of vocabulary that is used with educated adults, and it should employ complete sentences. Frances demanded a high level of Standard English in the classroom after her students acquired basic fluency in English.

In addition, she strongly believed that speaking Standard English also accompanies good manners. To allow street talk in the classroom leads to a more frequent use of slang that is not appropriate for an educational setting: "Even `shut up' can foster the worst language that they [her students] heard on the bus and on the street." Frances was adamant that this kind of street language was not acceptable at school.

By sharp contrast, Nola Weissmen, a professor at North University in Lakeside City, tried to create a mixture of formal and informal language in the classroom. Since her students were international teaching assistants who were expected to conduct lessons in a present time or in the near future, she thought that they should be exposed to the kind of language that her students face at North University. It is not easy for international students to realize two-word verbs and colloquial expressions at first, and she thought that it was important to paraphrase expressions:

   When you say things like.... Come on you guys. Let's get this work done.
   You have got to keep the ball rolling. They [her students] looked at me
   [her]. Keep the ball rolling. What is she talking about? And then I
   paraphrase. You have to keep working on this project.

The assumption that Nola made concerning her students' exposure to colloquial expressions was that they are not used to hearing and recognizing all those colloquial expressions so that she thought that she had to provide her students with a lot of opportunities to hear those expressions. She believed that "you want them [her students] to hear the way Americans speak it [the language], and if they don't understand it, then you [as a teacher] have not achieved anything." Offering students synonymous phrases was a good way of letting them remember the expression that she intended to teach. Colloquial expressions are well remembered when rich contexts in which those expressions are actually used are provided, so Nola intended to repeat the similar phrases in meaning to provide the context of the phrases. Redundancy is necessary to reinforce the meaning of colloquial expressions.

Dorothy Weber, another professor at North University, thought that it was less rewarding to use informal type of language in the classroom: "I try to avoid too much slang or even two-word verbs." She did not want to waste time to explain the meanings of slang that American people usually use. Yet, she occasionally tried to use commonly spoken slang to make her students aware of how the slang is spoken outside classroom because eventually Dorothy's students hear this type of language in the classroom.

It is important to make a distinction between the range of language that is acceptable and that is not acceptable in the classroom. The two elementary teachers clearly distinguished the span of Standard English and street talk and demanded that their students should acquire Standard English. Most of their students are immigrant children who are going to stay in the United States for the rest of their lives, and it is essential for these children to master Standard English in order to have access to a higher education and a good job. In other words, the elementary teachers were under the pressure to impose Standard English on their students. They firmly believed that their educational objectives could be achieved by enforcing Standard English in the classroom.

By contrast, the two professors thought that their international students needed some exposure to slang and colloquial expressions because they would hear many variations of English from American undergraduates in the classroom. Both professors assumed that their students had only studied Standard English before coming to the United States, and in order to be competent teaching assistants, their students had to become accustomed to the nuance and subtlety of the obviously informal type of language that some American students speak in the classroom. Dorothy considered it important to a certain extent to prepare her students for handling the informality of student's language. I think that teaching a variety of Englishes in the classroom is a luxury that the professors have, because they do not have to consider the harsh reality that immigrant children face every day.

In conclusion, ESL teachers need to consider the type of the classroom teaching language, depending on the social circumstances in which their students are placed. There are two distinctive approaches toward the language spoken in the classroom, and ESL teachers should be aware of the fact that they are under the influence of social milieu surrounding them and their students in teaching English.

Reference

Thiong'o, N. (1986). Decolonising the Mind: Politics of Language in African Literature. London: James Currey Ltd.

Satoshi Tsukamoto, Aichi University, Japan

Satoshi is a lecturer and his areas of research include the philosophy of education, sociology of education, and qualitative research. He holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.