“We might perceive an immigrant’s language as ‘limited,’ but this only mirrors the limits of our own narrow cultural perspective, and hints at the wealth of knowledge and experience we might share in. Patience, understanding, and respect for the bond of communication requires the speaker to make themselves understood, and for the listener to understand. If we value the inherent wealth in other human beings, it is easy to see that the responsibility of clear communication lies equally on each of us.”

―An undergraduate student’s writing at the University of Washington, winter 2010

With the global spread of English, the population of “English speakers” is becoming increasingly diverse. Not only do nonnative English speakers outnumber so-called native speakers (Crystal, 1997), but most people now live in multilingual settings (Kirkpatrick, 2007). While the English speakers from the “outer, expanding circles” (i.e., “World English” speakers) are trying to gain knowledge and skills to communicate with “native speakers,” current research has pointed out that native speakers are rarely encouraged to learn to understand World English (WE) speakers, which often makes intercultural communication a “one-way street” (Kubota, 2001).

Several pilot courses in teaching WE to native speakers of English were conducted at high school (e.g., Kubota, 2001) as well as TESOL graduate programs (e.g., Oxford & Jain, 2011); however, such a topic is rarely taught in college composition class, where the students’ population is also becoming more diverse. Recent research has pointed out that freshman composition often accepts the myth of linguistic homogeneity, assuming students to be native speaker students (Matsuda, 2006), and teachers are underprepared to address the linguistic diversity in classrooms (Canagarajah, 2006). Seeking to challenge the ideal of monolingualism in college composition classroom, I designed a freshman composition class around the issues of multilingualism and identity. Besides meeting the course outcomes set by the writing program at the University of Washington (genre awareness, critical reading, generating claims, revision), my goals were also (1) to raise students’ awareness of the linguistic diversity in the United States and around the globe and (2) to help students read, think, and write critically about the issue of intercultural communication, linguistic discrimination, varieties of Englishes, and values of multilingualism.

COURSE DESIGN

I taught the freshman composition class at the University of Washington at Seattle for three quarters during the 2009-2010 academic year. The students’ population represents the changing demographic of American universities: for both winter and spring quarters, half of my students were multilingual students (international as well as immigrant students) while the other half were American native speaker students (who might also have been “multilinguals”).

I chose the topic of multilingualism and identity as the course theme. For course materials, I assigned scholarly and popular readings on language attitudes and multilingual speakers’ lives: Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue, news articles about the English-only debate in the United States, TESOL articles on bilingual education, Lippi-Green’s Teaching Children How to Discriminate: What We Learn from the Big Bad Wolf, and the documentary American Tongues. For writing assignments, students were asked to write reading responses to the articles, conduct interviews with multilingual speakers, reflect on their use of multiple languages/Englishes, make arguments about language policy, and do research on the value and usage of a nonmainstream variety of English (e.g., AAVE, Singapore English).

The students’ reactions to the texts and positioning of themselves were different and dynamic, and complicated by my visible identify as a nonnative English-speaking teacher. Most students embrace the idea of linguistic diversity, and they acknowledge the shared responsibility in an intercultural communication. Some students, particularly international students, shared their feelings of empowerment; some, however, were reluctant to critique the “standard English” to which they aspire to speak and write, or resisted the responsibility to understand WE speakers.

In the following section I illustrate the specific themes emerged from the students’ writings.

STUDENTS’ RESPONSES

Theme one: There are many Englishes spoken in the United States.

After reflecting on their own use of multiple Englishes (e.g., English they use at home, academic English, dialects, “textspeak”), students acknowledge that there is no single standard English in the United States. As they put it:

“As discussed in class, there are many types of ‘English’ spoken in America. Everyone has their own dialect and everyone has their own accent. I do not believe that it is possible to decipher what ‘perfect’ English really is.”

“With one of the world’s largest and most diverse populations, spread across thousands of miles, it is impossible to say that there is a spoken ‘Standard English’ in the United States. Ranging from different accents and pronunciations to geographical and cultural slang, this variance has helped develop a culture of diversity.”

Theme two: Victims of the powerful monolingualism (“ESL” students’ hardship stories)

When asked to reflect on their language learning experience, many immigrant and international students shared their “shame” and struggles of not being able to speak native-like English. One Taiwanese international student wrote:

“Because of my ‘broken’ English, I am afraid of speaking in English in public. . . . I pretended that I was an introverted person when taking [sic] to a native speaker. However, there was a strong desire that I wanted to fit into this country. I have even prayed to the God. I said I was willing to sacrifice some of my Chinese skills to become a better English speaker.”

Interestingly, because the immigrant and international students are “victims” of the power of “standard English,” they are more resistant to critique it and acknowledge the value of nonmainstream varieties. They tend to believe that an English-only environment will better assist immigrants’ assimilation and help them learn English more quickly.

Theme 3: Ambiguous and multilayered “multilingual”

Although I am aware that terms such as “native speaker,” “nonnative speaker,” and “standard English” are problematic, labeling is inevitable in teaching this topic. I tend to use “multilingual” to include all speakers who use more than one language; however, this term has taken various connotations in students’ writings.

(a) “Multilingual” gains negative connotation as “nonnative speaker.” Many students focus only on the fact that “multilinguals” don’t speak English natively, rather than that they speak multiple languages, as seen in the following examples:

“…bilingual programs distract multilingual speakers from learning English fluently.”

“Despite the fact that multilingual speakers struggle with standardized English…”

(b) “Multilingual” has allowedinternational and immigrant students to construct positive identities. There is a clear change in those students’ writings that they start to appreciate their ability in multiple languages:

“At times I have to translate and explain to others my mom’s message, but after being exposed to her English, many people such as my mom’s business clients start to adapt and understand her. My mother’s experience has allowed me to realize that people who are multilingual, have the ability to communicate more effectively. Integrating both my Vietnamese and American cultures has allowed me to understand other cultures better…”

“Being multilingual is actually a big advantage compared to those who are monolingual. As I work in the ‘Asian industry,’ it is required that I speak more than one language because most of our clients are like Amy Tan’s mother whose English is also ‘limited.’”

(c) Some immigrant students, although labeled as “multilinguals” by outsiders because of their family background or race, are frustrated at not being able to speak their parents’ language. Their writings also show a complex picture of what a “native speaker of English” is like today:

“. . . because my mother speaks Mandarin and father speaks Cantonese so English is the predominant language spoken in the house. This is very annoying being Chinese but not being able to speak either of the main dialects and I have to tell people this in every conversation that brings up this subject.”

“My mother, born and raised in China, is someone that I have at times understood the least about because of the language barrier between us. Having never known Mandarin, I could never follow her conversations, and her culture and history along with that of her family has been left unknown to me.”

Theme 4: Getting to understand language learners

One of the common misconceptions people have about language learning is that anyone can quickly learn a native-like proficiency when immersed in the environment. However, research has shown this is not the case (Kubota, 2001). For my students, their prior experiences of traveling abroad and studying a foreign language, as well as the interview assignment, made them understand the hard reality of learning an additional language.

A student who has studied in Norway wrote: “My fractured combination of Norwegian and English could express basic needs and ideas, but I couldn’t articulate what I really meant, and I felt masked. I excelled in math and art, mostly because those were the subjects that circumvented my ‘handicap.’ I can empathize with Amy Tan’s struggle in school, and admire her ability to take the more difficult route.”

By interviewing immigrants in the United States, students also realized how long it would take to learn English fluently: “a 21-year-old business student at the University of Washington and second language English speaker, said that while she had about 3 years of English classes in the Ukraine, it took an additional 2 or 3 years in the US to learn to converse in English.” Students’ understanding of language learners helped them to delve deeper into the English-only debate.

Theme 5: Sharing communicative responsibility

The most successful result of this class was that almost all students realized the shared responsibility in an intercultural communication, especially for native speakers. I was glad to see the following responses:

“For native speakers, there is a need for tolerance and patience. While it is understandably frustrating trying to translate sub-par English into something understandable constantly, they should not immediately dispense judgment that they should ignore these people simply because they think their English reflects their intelligence.”

“Then as the listener we have a responsibility to consider with patience and offer encouragement. This simple paradigm shift, if applied to all conversations by all people, would help raise English proficiency by creating an environment where people feel uninhibited and safe.”

MY REFLECTIONS AS A NONNATIVE ENGLISH-PEAKING TEACHER (NNEST)

Although scholars have pointed out that “NNESTs are well positioned to promote and teach English as an International Language, because of their multicultural competence and experiences” (Llurda, 2009, cited in Sharifian, 2009), for me it was a constant struggle to establish authority teaching this topic. Being young, female, Chinese, and a novice teacher, I found myself hiding my real stances and positioning myself as a competent English writing instructor, instead of an NNEST who speaks multiple languages. Because language diversity was apparently valued under the class theme, I tended to face blunt challenges from white, male, monolingual students who felt alienated by the topic.

One student revealed his attitudes toward nonnative teachers in his reading response to Amy Tan’s essay:

“Throughout my entire education career I have had teachers whom English wasn’t their first language, and admittedly, my first reactions were not always good. For many, it wasn’t a big deal at al [sic] and as soon as I learned how to interrupt that [sic] they had to say it was almost as if they spoke English their entire life. For the others, it wasn’t quite that easy. Sometimes I felt as if they couldn’t understand my questions, which in turn caused me to question their intelligence, all of which caused me to not take their class seriously, all of which did not help my grades at all.”

At first reading I was hurt emotionally at his “unpleasant experience” with nonnative teachers. Also, as a novice teacher I did not know what the best way to handle this was. But I knew at least this student did not understand the shared responsibility in communication as we discussed in class, so I decided to respond to his reading comprehension of the text instead of responding to it personally:

“Thanks for being very honest on this issue. So what do you think now after you have read Tan’s essay and our class discussion? What kind of claim can you make here based on your personal experience? (It is ok to disagree with Tan if you can support your claim well).”

I framed his problem as a writing problem, when I felt my legitimacy as a competent writing teacher was being challenged. But challenges from students are unavoidable when “multilingualism” may downgrade monolingual students, under this course theme. Because language and identity is intimately related, it takes careful scaffolding to present materials to this relatively immature population.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

One limitation of my class is that although we were critiquing standard English ideology as the class theme, students still had to produce standard academic English in their writing. This reinforced the dichotomy between mainstream English (“serious” text) and nonmainstream English varieties (literary, informal text). To encourage students to use their vernacular for formal purposes, Canagarajah (2006) has suggested instructional practices that integrate code meshing—not just in personal and informal writing but also in academic writing (Tardy & Hobmeier, In press). This means that as English writing teachers we can encourage students to use multiple languages/varieties of Englishes in their writing and discuss the rhetorical effects the “code meshing” could create. There are many potential reading materials that facilitate such writing; for example, the chapter “Ain’t So / Is Not: Academic Writing Doesn’t Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice” in Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say I Say elaborates on how students can practice code-switching in their writings.

Finally, although college composition is mostly taught by graduate students in English literature and cultural studies, there needs to be a more linguistically diverse faculty including TESOL-trained professionals who can address the needs of the changing demographics of American undergraduates.

REFERENCES

Canagarajah, A. S. (2006). The place of World Englishes in composition: Pluralization continued. College Composition and Communication, 57, 586-619.

Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes: Implications for international communication and English language teaching. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Kubota, R. (2001). Teaching world Englishes to native speakers of English in the USA. World Englishes, 20(1), 47-64.

Matsuda, P. K. (2006). The myth of linguistic homogeneity in U.S. college composition. College English, 68(6), 637-651.

Oxford, R.& Jain, R. (2011). Students’ evolving perspectives on World Englishes, non-native English speakers, and non-native English-speaking teachers based on a graduate course. In A. Mahboob (Ed.), The NNEST lens: Non-native English speakers in TESOL (pp. 239–262). Newcastle upon Tyne, England:Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Sharifian, F. (2009). English as an international language: Perspectives and pedagogical issues. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

Tardy, C., & Hobmeier, A. (In press). Advocating for multilingualism in college writing instruction: The role of the TESOL/BE professional.

Xuan Zheng is a PhD candidate in language and rhetoric at the University of Washington. She grew up in Wuhan, China, and has been studying in Seattle since 2007. In China and the United .States., she has taught EFL and ESL, college composition, and Chinese as a foreign language. Her research interests include World Englishes, intercultural communication, and non-native- speaking teacher identity.