In “Social Linguistics
and Literacies: Ideologies in discourses”, J.P.Gee beautifully focus on the
relationship of the words with their meanings. He gave the example of coffee, bachelor
and work to show that words don’t have fixed meanings. According to him,” Meaning
is something we negotiate and contest over socially……, two people don’t need to
share a culture to communicate” (Gee, p13). I agree to him to an extent, but I believe
sometimes it becomes obligatory to know the other person’s culture in order to
comprehend some conversations. For instance, some words might have different meaning
in one’s culture than the others. So in order to communicate, both speakers
should agree on the same meanings associated to one word. Here, as we see
nowadays, ‘Bad’ don’t have negative meaning associated to it as back in the
days. People don’t mind to be called ‘Bad’ among friends. But for some culture,
it can be an endpoint for a friendship among friends.
“Languages are always deteriorating
over time because uneducated and other deliberating social forces change them. (Gee,
pg. 17) “I agree with him. Language is kept on changing, but not only
uneducated but some educated people are involved in this change as well. Nowadays
we all observe it in all social networking sites like twitter, Facebook and
instant messaging; children use codes and abbreviations instead of using the
correct language. They believe that Language is just a source of communication
among people, if another person can understand what these codes mean and convey
our message, we don’t need to write the whole thing. But if we observe this
evolution of English language on a big scenario, it becomes very difficult for
the non-native speakers to speak and understand the language as the guidelines
for the correct language is vanishing somewhere. English is a
language that has a specific writing form. If is not followed, it will become
obsolete. For the new learners that could be a challenging task.
As in the article” From outsider to insider:
studying academic Discourse communities across the curriculum”, Eleanor Kurtz uncovers,”
it is not uncommon for ESOL students to attribute difficulties with academic
courses- both current problem and those they anticipate having – to their level
of mastery of English (Kurtz, p77). I believe teachers have a big
responsibility to make the student feel an insider of academic discourse
community by allowing him to share the difficult words and concepts with each
other. Sharing not only helps the student to increase the understanding towards
a concept but it also bridges the gap between them. Social interaction is very
imperative in the development of language skills. This week, I started my field
work in a public school where I came along with different ethnicities and
languages spoken. I saw the ELL students struggling in conveying their thoughts
to their teacher. It was very frustrating for them. But at one point, when
teacher told them to share their favorite part over the summer vacation, they
used their cultural words to explain the events; they used art to depict their
culture. They felt the complete ownership of the topic. Their work was
completely different from the work where language was a barrier and hurdle for them.
It was pleasant to know new cultural words for the teacher as well. I believe that
English should be used as a source of communication but other native languages
should also be encouraged among students so they don’t forget their native
language which helps them to make a bond and stick to their cultural roots.
I also agree that teachers have some responsibility to make students feel as insiders in the classroom. During my field observation, I remember I was in a class where there were 5 students who just recently came from China. I noticed that they were the “outsiders” in the classroom. The teacher would always group them together because of the fact that they didn’t understand or speak English. I thought that it wasn’t the best idea for the teacher to group them together because then there would be no way for them to engage with other students or encourage them to learn English. I felt that it would have been a better idea if they were able to collaborate and give confidence in them to talk with other students and share their culture.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you Ana. If being a teacher, we are unable to bridge the gap between them, they will be left alone in this learning process.In order to make them feel insider, definitely we need to encourage the collaboration and engage these ELL/ESL students with other students that will help them improve their linguistic skills. As it is a known fact that student learns from the teachers as well as from their peers.
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