"Crucial to this shift is the exploration of the way one subject position interacts with others in students' language practices. So researchers are exploring how identities like gender, race, ethnicity, or one's immigrant and 'nonnative' status impact language learning."
Focusing on different aspects of one's identity is highly crucial in learning a language. Many times, teachers or researchers focus on one aspect of one's identity; whether they are non-nnative or native speakers is one that particularly comes to mind. Because everyone is so different, there is no way to put a generalization on all non-native or native speakers. Many studies in the past have only focused on those particular characteristics and have failed to mention whether participants were male or female, Japanese or Russian. Because of this, their data tends to be very one-sided and highly biased. By having teachers and researchers be more aware of the different sides that makes up one's identity, they will better be understand how a Colombian female may learn a language differently than a German speaking male. They will no longer have to categorize them in the same group.
In the classroom, teachers will be able to better gauge where each student learning a second language is at if they take into consideration the different aspects of their students' identities. Instead of making a blanket statement, they will be able to better assess which student may need more help than another if they were to focus on each individual rather than focusing on them as an entire group. Students will also be able to feel more comfortable with the language being learned if they know their teachers are paying individual attention to their needs.
I appreciate how you recognized that ELLs don't always fall so nicely into the category of "native" or "non-native". We overlook the INDIVIDUAL contextual factors we oversimplify the situation with those two mere groupings. Identity is an extremely important concept that must be taken into account if we wish to make all efforts in engaging our students, both academically, socially and culturally. Good points.
ReplyDeleteI was going to comment on the "native" or "non-native" point that you brought up as well. When you and I presented for the discussion facilitator, we kind of touched on this idea that researchers are only focused on one aspect of ELLs--whether or not they are native or non-native speakers. Our ELL students are going to have so much more to their identities, that as future ESL/EFL teachers, we have to try to not categorize our students into one of these two categories. Instead, we need to look at their identity as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI not only agree with you, but also the two comments listed before! I think it's really important to include several identities in the classroom, remembering that our students should add English to their languages and cultures. With this, and the idea of native, nonnative, and World Englishes, my paper is going to detail the problems with accent reduction classes and how those really affect the ideas of putting students into figurative 'boxes,' and categorizing them. Thanks for sharing your input!
ReplyDelete