Job Discussion Forums

[guty]

The UK is in Europe. There are many ESL students in the UK

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

ESL is not really a great term. It is used for when someone is learning a language within a geographic area where the target language (the one being learned) is used as a common language of everyday life (there are actually different circles- the narrow ones for the countries where the culture of English language has grown- England- and to a lesser extent the other countries in the UK, deciding when it is an imported culture and when it is a native culture is not easy- the US, Canada, Australia, etc and wider ones for where it is so deeply routed that it is an imported language that is now in common use but the culture itself is not very similar to the orignal cutlure of English- that of England. These countries are places like India, Malaysia, Singapore etc so it's already obvious that there is a built-in cultural bias which, due to immigration patterns, is less and less connected to reality as time goes on)

The fact that the student may be on their fourth or fifth language when they study English in an English speaking area really has no importance to the term ESL. It's the second language in that it is immersion into another culture for the learner. Again, it may be third fourth etc depending on how much these people move around. It contains an assumption that if people are say Anglo-Canadian and move to Japan, then Japanese culture will become their second culture, but if they then move to Korea and start learning Korean, then everything that they got from the Japanese culture will drop away and they will once again be a Canadian learning Korean language and culture as a second one. Another way to think of it is in terms of the hyphen in Canadians etc. There are Korean-Canadians, Japanese-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians Irish-Canadians, Italian-Canadians etc. If an Italian person moves from Italy to Spain, and learns Spanish as a Seond Language- SSL, then eventually that person may come to identify themselves as an Italian-Spaniard. If that person then moves to English Canada and learns English etc, that person will then likely be called either an Italian-Canadian or a -Spanish-Canadian depending on which they feel most closly conected, but they will likely not be called an Italian-Spanish-Canadian because that somehow sounds like one parent was a Spaniard and one parent was an Italian. This doesn't mean that I think this is the corret way of looking at culture (I reallydon't at all) but I think it is the way the term functions.

I am now studying JSL (Japanese as a Second Language). Japanese is my fourth language (English, French and German all came before it- athough I'm not fluent in any of those except English). Most Canadians are learnign French as a Second language without any opportunity to actually meet with French people other than on TV or the radio and maybe the odd small pocket. Most French Canadians in Quebec don't have a huge amount of interaction with English Canadians in their daily lives either. The term has political meaning as well as a functional one.

[Jerezgirl]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Using EFL in English medium countires seems to emphasize the otherness of the language learner and put barrier in place so that that person can never be accepted as belonging in the adopted country without assimilating to one or other of the dominant cultures of the country, and I think that's bad.

I've never lived in the States either. I'm Canadian.

Canada is a salad bowl- a mosaic of cultures. America is a melting pot. The assimilation theory (melting pot) is considered old-fashioned and disciminatory in Canada, and many people try to maintain ties to the country from which their relatives came in their own houshold. Because of this, the hyphenated system is widely used in Canada.

So would your kids be Spanish or British? What if they held both passports and grew up bilingual?

[Deicide]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

One of my professors in my "Cultures" class put it this way:

Imagine a Venn diagram, one circle representing the student's first culture (maybe Chinese); the other representing American culture. Once they come to America, they become part of our culture, yet they still want to maintain their identity as Chinese.

The place where the two cultures become integrated (or where the two circles intersect) is the hyphen, hence, "Chinese-American."

This may seem imperialistic or racist, but not when you consider that in Asian countries one will always be considered a foreigner, with no chance of attaining a hyphen!

Agreed that the term ESL is a political one, and I'm sure it will be replaced by a more PC term in the not-too-distant future.

[Jerezgirl]

[Sherri]

When I taught in London, I had both EFL and ESL classes. EFL classes were for the students who intended to return to their home country and ESL classes were for students (in this case political refugees) who intended to live in the UK long term.

Sherri

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[Guy Courchesne]

I can completely relate to the story, GBBB, without even crossing national borders. As an English-speaker of French-Canadian name, it's hard to identify with one group over another....I would prefer to defy the hyphen, since neither English- nor French- fits. I am not a French-Canadian, nor an English-Canadian, though each group would certainly pigeonhole me in the other for the most superficial of reasons. Rather than say I am both, or neither, I am something else, and from that, I find a great source of strength.

[Gordon]

[movinaround]

Well, I'm British-Canadian. My grandmother would sing the Welsh anthem all the time when I was a kid and I guess I have a few habits that I tend not to see in many other people back home. But I don't consider myself British at all. Then there has been my five years abroad (with a lot more coming) so that I don't truly think of myself as Canadian as much anymore. And even when I was in Canada, I spent half my life in Toronto, the other half in a much smaller town in the Maritimes. Did I consider myself from Toronto or the Maritimes? I guess a bit of both. Or maybe neither. In the end, I never say I am British Canadian, I barely ever say I am even Canadian when talkign to people (and I never start out conversations with, "Where are you from?" either, a common classic among expats). I was influenced by my environment, but I refuse to allow it to define me. I guess I define myself as human, but in the end, I am me.

I don't know if I said anything useful in that, but eh?

[Jerezgirl]

[movinaround]

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

My suggestion is that everyone remain on topic and not post any comments regarding Moderator actions if this thread is to remain active.