Week 11

“From the Periphery to the Center: One Teacher’s Journey”

By George Braine

This chapter is very powerful in that it shares the author’s journey from the bottom of teaching to the top. It follows the author’s journey from working in Periphery countries to working in Center countries. He began his teaching in a third world country where he had no resources except for government provided textbooks. The children were very poor and had not eaten in most cases. He then received a job in Philadelphia where he was the victim of prejudice for being a non-native speaker. He talks about how ironic it is that people do not hire non-native speakers because of the multicultural background they can bring to the classroom. He discusses the publishing done by non-native speakers and how it is very hard for them to have their work published. However, there are journals starting in Asian countries to cater to the non-native teacher.

“Going Beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching”

By Vivian Cook

In this article Cook defines the native speaker. She cites Stern saying that native speakers have knowledge, grasp, ability, and range of skills, creativity, and other qualities that make them better English teachers. She says how this is a false assumption however. The use of the comparative fallacy is defined here. This is the relation of the L2 learner to the native speaker. This is a fallacy that is too surface oriented. She goes on to show how the L2 learner is constantly compared to a native speaker and this cannot be the way to judge the knowledge and abilities of L2 learners. We must look past the native speaker when we are talking about L2 learners and not compare them. We must look at what they have to offer and how they can use the language. She talks about how the minds of L2 users are different from L1 users, in that they process things differently. In other countries they are highly revered for their ability to show an interest in cultures and language. The idea of groups being compared to one another is also stressed. This should not be how we judge people; we should not compare them to another group because they are different people. They have their own norms and standards that are different from another group, which is why they are not the same. Cook goes on to talk about how L2 speakers can be made to feel ashamed because of their accent or culture. This in turn affects their identity. This is a big part of this process. The person identity can be changed through these judgments.