For this practical, we were supposed to contribute on the forum twice.
My first contribution was a comment on Ana Moreno's publication. She published the following:
How can we teach English respecting plural identities and avoiding linguistic imperialism? - By Ana Moreno.
"In order to start answering this question, I'd like to say that we, as teachers, should bear in mind that students are not 'empty boxes' when they come to school. They bring with them their own social and cognitive constructions. Therefore, it's important that, in the classroom, they find rhe oportunity to explore and value those differences. In the context of an English classroom, we have the advantage that we are dealing with cultural diversity all the time, so that makes it easier to teach English respecting these plural identities at the same time we strengthen our National Identity. One important point to consider at the time of teachng the English language is that our aim should be that students learn to manage the language of another culture, in order to give meaning to their own culture and identity. They shoud be able to use the language as a source.
Now, related to avoiding linguistic imperialism, I think that it's crucial to teach our students (or to make them see) that discourse in general (any discourse) is a reflection of voices that they should be able to distinguish. Language is always connected to power. In that way, and hopefully, students will understant that they should (must I'd say) make their own voices heard. Another thing I believe that is important to face linguistic imperialism is working as teachers with topics that are of our interest and of our students'. We should work with topics related to issues they face or may face in their daily lives, or pieces of news that affect them direclty or at least they know about, for example. If we use material from our context (La Pampa, Argentina) we would be contributing to this idea of using the language as a tool to give meaning to our own culture and Identity."
As I was interested on these topics, too, I decided to make this comment on Ana's publication:
- "I agree with Ana. I think that our main purpose as teachers is to help our students to build up a complex identity bearing the diversity instead of only considering a dominant and excluding axis. And in order to do this, we have to give them the opportunity to interact with texts, people and situations belonging to different cultures, so as to enrich the way they see the world, their socio-cultural environment and their own role in that context."
The last comment on this discussion was from Estela Braun, the teacher in charge of the subject:
- "Good Oriana. It is fine to think about situations and people, and not only texts, to provide this rich encounter with other cultures."
My second contribution on this forum was also a comment on a classmate's publication, but this time my classmate was César Rasilla. He started the following topic of discussion:
- How has the approach to teach English changed from the past till the present? Do you thhink this change is necessary? - By César Rasilla.
"I believe that the main difference is given in the fact that in the past the English lessons were restricted just to teach grammatical or functions applied to situations of the daily life, totally different from the real life that students were used to. That is to say students couldn't find connections between their real lives and the ones that they were shown in english language lessons. It means that they had to, in a way, leave their identities behind in order to "apprehend English" (in some cases they even had to change their names, or its pronunciation); they had to be someone different from who they actually were.
Now, taking into account several activities such as the ones regarding Molina Campos' paintings, students can assemble the grammatical structures and functions mentioned before with their own experiencies. They can associate it to their traditions, to the places and values they know. In this way, they can appropriate a system based on a foreign language to signify issues related to their every day lives, which makes, in my opinion, the learning of the language easier and strictly related to their reality. And, more importantly, it allows students to preserve their identities but respecting and recognizing the diversity of cultures. It has been an extremely important advance for the education nowadays."
My comment on this publication was the following:
"I agree with Cesar about this difference between teaching English in the past and teaching English now. Before it was only based on teaching grammar structures and the different topics were introduced using examples of situations which were not familiar for the students, as they were not related to their everyday lives, their culture, or their national identities. These were lessons based on a foreign model and students had to adopt an identity different from their own and act as if they were somebody else. This process was naturalized, so the students didn't criticise it, and this was supposed to allow them to get a better job or have the opportunity to study at university.
But nowadays, every situation presented during the lessons has to be somehow related to the students' own lives, so that they can be able to feel identified with those situations and also to discover that there is a wide diversity of identities. And I think this change was totally necessary because it enables students to better understand the subject.
However, I think that a similarity between the two eras is that having English as a subject at school has always been power-related, as it was imposed in order to empower students. It is a source of empowerment because it allows students to value the rest of the people regardless of their gender, ethnicity, social class, religion, age, physical appearance, etc."
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