English Teaching in Today's Multicultural Climate
Teaching English may seem to be, on its surface, the mere teaching ofa discipline, much like teaching history or science. More likemathematics, however, one could contend that teaching English involvesteaching skills that spill over into a variety of disciplines across thecurriculum, beyond that of the English classroom itself. A student'sunderstanding of history will be limited, for example, no matter how greathis or her interest and emotional and intellectual involvement with theevents of the past, if the student is incapable of formulating his or herthoughts logically and coherently, in a literary and structured formatabout historical topics-ditto for scientific topics or economic topics as Thus, when developing a national curriculum for teaching English, itis critical that English education is considered to be a skills-relateddiscipline, in other words, that it involves the skills of grammar,sentence structure, essay structure, and writing, as well as involving the
(Feller, 2004) There are several ways to deal with this, the first and most obviousof which is to make note of the proportion of the student body that does ordoes not speak English as its first language when evaluating suchstandardized test scores. The other, however, is to integratemulticultural and multiethnic aspects of history and literature into theEnglish classroom, so that English language instruction becomes not alwaysor merely a test of exposure, or even grammatical aptitude, but also has anexpressive component, in which all students can have a chance to shine andshow their unique personalities, while still learning the basics. Multicultural English language instruction also makes the teaching ofEnglish seem less ideological and Anglo centric in its orientation, as manygreat writers from a variety of ethnicities and lands, from James Joyce toToni Morrison to Amy Tan, have used English to exhibit a multiplicity oftruths and cultures. The national curriculum has made Englishlanguage instruction part of its core, tested disciplines, in both multiplechoice and essay-writing forms. Literacy is becoming less of a concern even in the dominant culture, and itis the duty of all English teachers to both resort English's prominence asa subject of excellence and importance for students, while institutingcurricular reforms for the changing racial and ethnic composition oftoday's student body. Furthermore, schools canexhibit a hostile attitude to non-English language speakers as a result ofthe emphasis on state-based standardized testing and national testing, asESL students are often seen to be bringing scores downward, because oftheir lack of native fluency. This can make the ubiquity of English seem ideological, as wellas educational, as English and the need to express one's self in anarticulate manner, in English, becomes a requirement for full participationin so many extra-and co-curricular activities. slips in education ratings," is aheadline that has been seen as recently as September 14, 2004 in theDetroit Education News, and as early as one can remember, as over thecourse of the 1980's, when it was feared the United States was fallingbehind Japan in national educational rankings. However, the pervasiveness and need forEnglish education exists not simply in terms of measuring English languageproficiency, but in the need to develop a love of using words in a way thatis interrelated historically, literally, and also in terms of all forms ofinstruction that require individuals to communicate effectively. Problems regarding English language usage, moreover,and expression, are not endemic only to ESL students--"A Third of WorkersFail at Writing," proclaims a 2004 article from the Chicago Sun Times. (NCTE,2004) One of the concerns regarding English language instruction, however,is when one is dealing with a student body that is not entirely Englishlanguage speaking, or for whom English language is not its primarylanguage. of learning literary analytical technique or vocabularyparticular to literature.
Common topics in this essay:
Teaching English,
Detroit Education,
Times Literacy,
Multicultural English,
Tan English,
english language,
Fail Writing,
english language instruction,
language instruction,
teaching english,
student body,
regarding english,
english classroom,
english ideological,
english education,
regarding english language,
national curriculum,
|
Acceptance Essays
