For many English language teachers, learning another language was the route into the profession. This was true for me. Raised in the Midwestern United States, in a community where the home languages of my own family and those of my classmates were already assimilated into English (or at least invisible in school), I first encountered a second language in the classroom. The choices were French and Latin: the first taught by audiolingual methodology and the second taught by grammar-translation. Creative communication was neither goal nor pedagogy for either.

It was in the hills of southern Vermont in 1972 when I first experienced a different approach: a 3-week immersion course in modern Greek in preparation for a semester abroad in Greece with the Experiment in International Living. With a homestay in northern Greece and 2 months of study and individual travel later, I learned to communicate with others in a second language at a level I have not achieved since. This experience in language and cultural immersion created the foundation of a life spent in English language teaching (ELT) to international students in the United States, along with an immense sympathy for the dynamics of language study and the conditions that facilitate or hinder it.

I returned to the United States to continue my education, which included years in a Chinese-speaking immigrant community during graduate school. As my professional life developed, however, I found myself increasingly immersed in an English-speaking world, punctuated by travel and work outside the United States. Teaching English in Mexico, traveling to other countries in Latin America and Asia, enrolling a large population of Arabic-speaking students at our language center in Philadelphia—all these led to intensive short-term language study or what Henry, Davydenko, and Dörnyei (2015) refer to as directed motivational currents for language study.

However, these experiences only underscored the reality of my language use. English was not only the language of my family and wider community but the language of my profession. In fact, I felt that it was my professional responsibility to use English with my students, beyond symbolic words of welcome. Even with international friends, colleagues, visitors, and neighbors, English became the default language, especially in mixed groups and for those with high proficiency. For those with low proficiency, I understood how to modify my language, become the sympathetic interlocutor to scaffold conversation with anyone, even the lowest proficiency speaker. This became a competency I relied on to facilitate communication.

However, I began to feel inauthentic. Administering an intensive English program, I lived in a world of student language learners who were pursuing language study. I went to events sponsored by the modern languages and area studies departments and continued to extol the virtues of second language study to my university colleagues on global studies committees. All this while not having a serious second language to call my own.

How could I ever hope to become fluent or gain any real competency in a language other than English in the face of professional and family responsibilities and the lack of a genuine context for communication? Increasingly, I began to see my situation as indicative of a larger problem within the ELT community. At the university-based intensive English program that has been the center of my professional life, many faculty do have ongoing use of a second language through family, friends, travel, or study. However, there are also others like me, long-termers in the field who no longer have a serious second language study. Within the United States and even when traveling overseas, given the worldwide spread of English, it has become increasingly easy to live in an English-only world or at least an English-speaking world with only marginal, symbolic excursions into other languages.

I began to see the question of second language study as a professional development issue for our field. At TESOL 2015, I proposed a discussion group on this issue, with the purpose of examining “issues relating to our developing a continuing L2 language learning practice throughout our lives as language teachers.” I was curious and just a little nervous about whether anyone else would be drawn by this topic. Did it concern only me?

Twelve to fifteen people came to this discussion group, some with curiosity and some with a great deal of eagerness to talk. The majority were native English-speaking teachers with much the same experience that I had—an early interest and competence with a second language that had dwindled over time. Another participant was a nonnative English-speaking speaker who felt he was losing competence in his first language as an ESL teacher in the United States without other members of his speech community to converse with. Several others did not share their stories but just listened.

Notable to me was the hopelessness expressed by several participants about reclaiming the lost fluency of a second language competency achieved years ago or achieving fluency in any language in the future. As language teachers, we understood the effort, purpose, and ongoing context for communication that is needed to facilitate and maintain fluency in a second language. This goal had come to seem unachievable in light of the English dominance of our personal and professional lives.

The most encouraging aspect of our discussion was when we began to reformulate the goal from fluency to the notion of a practice. Perhaps there would be value in engaging in language study just as we might engage in meditation or exercise, as a focused activity with intention, a practice rather than pursuing the elusive goal of fluency. What would this look like? How would we establish a practice? What goals would we set? How would we find others with whom to communicate? We had time only to begin considering these questions. We talked about how we missed language learning for its own sake. Indeed, personal benefits and enjoyment are prominent among the 700 reasons for studying languages enumerated by Gallagher-Brett (2005). We noted that new neurolinguistic research shows that even short-term study of a second language results in changes in the brain (Yang, Gates, Molenaar, & Li, 2015).

Beyond personal benefits, however, continuing language study can be seen as an aspect of teacher competency and even teacher identity. It will take a change in the way ELT has conceptualized teacher identity to put this item squarely on the agenda, both for teacher education and for continuing professional development. Until now, teacher identity within ELT has often been phrased dichotomously in terms such as “native” versus “nonnative” speaker. The nonnative speaker has often struggled in the eyes of the profession and employers to find a legitimate space in the profession (Holliday, 2006). I propose that we reconceptualize the competency base of ELT to include ongoing study or use of a second language. In short, I propose a different framing—between those who continue to learn or use a second language and those who remain monolingual or have no continuing practice or involvement with a second language. This way of framing moves beyond essentializing identity as fixed (native vs. nonnative) to one that is emergent and within everyone’s control, with intention.

I have begun a second language practice, and I hope to maintain it. Finding authentic purpose and context in my self-directed study continues to be challenging, but resources abound in today’s connected world, and I am exploring them. This morning, for example, I listened online to the Nicaraguan poet Claribel Alegría read her poem “Carta a un Desterrado” (ViveNicaragua, 2010) and received helpful support from Google Translate when needed. This delightful “Dear John” letter from Penelope to Odysseus took me back to my first study abroad experience in Greece so long ago. The pleasure of language study remains deep, and I feel good that I am the one making the effort to understand another language instead of relying on the rest of the world to learn mine.

I have written this piece for TEIS because I believe that this is an appropriate venue to discuss the importance of establishing a second language practice as part of ELT professional identity. I hope other teachers will consider joining me, and I welcome your comments and suggestions.

References

Gallagher-Brett, A. (2005). Seven hundred reasons for studying languages. Southampton, England: University of Southampton, Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics, Area Studies (LLAS). Retrieved from www.llas.ac.uk/700reasons

Henry, A., Davydenko, S., & Dörnyei, Z. (2015). The anatomy of directed motivational currents: Exploring intense and enduring periods of L2 motivation. Modern Language Journal 99(2), 329–345.

Holliday, A. (2006). Key concepts in ELT: Native-speakerism. ELT Journal 60, 385–387.

Yang, J., Gates, K. M., Molenaar, P., & Li, P. (2015). Neural changes underlying successful second language word learning: An fMRI study. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 33, 29–49.

ViveNicaragua. (2010, May 6). Claribel Alegría lee su poesía [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tQYXQp64tc

Dr. Barbara Hoekje is an associate professor of communication at Drexel University, where she directed the English Language Center from 2001 to 2015. She presents and writes on issues of sociolinguistics and language teaching, learning, assessment, and administration.