A periodic newsletter for TESOL members.

October 2005 Volume 7 Number 2

On NNES Teacher Trainees’ Narratives in the Classroom Discourse of a TESOL Program

Lisya Seloni, The Ohio State University, seloni.1@osu.edu, and Yesim Bektas-Cetinkaya, The Ohio State University, cetinkaya.1@osu.edu 
 

The purpose of this article is to call for more attention to be paid to the importance of the narratives of nonnative English speakers (NNESs) in the TESOL classroom discourse and on the positioning of NNESs in this discourse. Language used in any discourse is neither a transparent communication vehicle nor simply a mirror of reality; instead, language involves complex social, cultural, political, cognitive, and linguistic processes (Fairclough, 1993). Often, these complex processes are packed into personal narratives, which not only describe a sequence of events but also consciously or unconsciously carry some moral judgments and ideologies and contribute to the construction of NNES professionals' identities.

Much research has been done on the self-perceptions of NNES professionals, especially on their language proficiency and other features that are connected to their nonnative status (Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 1999; Kamhi-Stein, 2000; Liu, 1999). These studies mostly focused on the self-perceptions of NNES graduate students and on how to empower them through different graduate classes adapted to their needs. Research on issues that pertain to NNES professionals is relatively new, and little has been said on what is happening inside TESOL classrooms, a place for academic enhancement and professional identity construction.

In this article, we discuss how NNES teacher trainees at an American university position their professional identity in TESOL classrooms through spoken discourse, and how this positioning influences the construction of Self as Other. In light of the fact that social knowledge is revealed in the performance of speech events, it is important to examine the speech events of NNESs within macro discourse, which involves the social, cultural, and historical contexts surrounding the micro discourse of the classroom. We believe that focusing on NNES teacher trainees' narratives and the classroom interactions of linguistically and culturally hybrid TESOL students can provide invaluable insights into the ways to accommodate NNES teacher trainees' needs. It also contributes to our understanding about how to create a classroom interaction in which both NESs and NNESs can work collaboratively, and in which NNESs can make attempts to enhance their self-esteem.

An Insider Observation

On the basis of our observations as NNES teacher trainees in a TESOL program, classroom research, and discourse analysis of classroom interactions, we argue that many NNES teacher trainees in the observed TESOL program are inclined to position themselves as passive agents rather than active agents of the TESOL program community. For instance, NNES teacher trainees are generally not willing to take initiatives in classroom discussions, they are hesitant to share their ideas, they occasionally take the floor in class discussions, or they simply remain silent during the whole class time. We think that this type of participation might lead to a low-profile social identity, which contributes to marginalization or silencing in the classroom, eventually affecting NNES teacher trainees on more macro levels in the academic arenas of TESOL.

Unlike what NESs say in class, many of the stories that NNES teacher trainees tell in class involve narrative statements based on their personal experiences rather than evaluative or commentary statements. For instance, usually teachers encourage NNES students to tell their personal stories as language learners or EFL teachers. Although this kind of sharing helps NNES teacher trainees participate in classroom interactions, it is important to unpack these NNES personal narratives in order to see whether they could lead to self-marginalization. In these personal narratives, it appears that NNES teacher trainees have a tendency to overemphasize their failures rather than tell their success stories. For instance, in some observed classes, when the discussion topic was English proficiency or teaching English, some NNES teacher trainees made comments such as "our English is never good enough," "we fail in spoken tests more than three times," or "I can never speak as good as a native speaker." In most of these narratives the endpoint was negative-a failure or a loss. These student teachers' narratives were full of sad endings, which generated a disempowering discourse. One of the most common themes of the narratives was that NNES teacher trainees study hard to do their best to be legitimate participants of the TESOL community but constantly fail.

NNES teacher trainees' negative perception of their identity is not surprising considering their general positioning in macro discourse. There is a common misconception that White monolingual English speakers who use English own the language (Norton, 1997). The social construction of native speaker and nonnative speaker identity seems to exclude bilinguals, who have native English speaker proficiency, from being authentic native speakers because they know another language (Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 2001). Moreover, NNES professionals are discriminated against on the basis of race regardless of their language proficiency or pedagogical experience (Amin, 1999), and NES professionals are generally believed to be better English teachers. Furthermore, by defining communicative competence in relation to this idealized native speaker, NNESs become necessarily dependent on the authority of mythical monolingual NESs (Alptekin, 2002).

NNES teacher trainees positioning themselves as passive agents and their negative narratives may be explained with the construction of NNES teacher trainees as the Other. As Kubota (2001) argued, the American school system appears to essentialize the culture of NNESs and perceives it as fundamentally different from the idealized perception of Self culture by creating the dichotomy of Self and Other. The process of Othering (i.e., defining other groups in opposition to self) closely relates to issues of power. Power is exercised to create and maintain certain knowledge of Self and Other as truth. When applied to the case of NNES teacher trainees, NES teacher trainees are perceived as the legitimate owners of the English language, but NNES teacher trainees are perceived as speakers of Other languages who are essentially different from the idealized NESs.

Whereas NESs are expected to participate in classroom interactions by stating their opinions and questioning authority (Kubota, 2001) in order to indicate their critical thinking and authority, NNESs are not expected to be autonomous or critical but instead are commonly believed to be passive and reluctant to question authority. As a result of this dichotomy, the expectations and the practices of instructors and NES teacher trainees lead NNES teacher trainees to take certain roles and act in certain expected ways. Instructors who expect different things from NNES and NES teacher trainees in terms of their participation patterns may disable NNES teacher trainees by forcing them to take a passive role.

Suggestions

As NNES teacher trainees, we acknowledge the struggles that an NNES teacher trainee experiences in many domains of the English teaching profession. We work hard to improve our language proficiency as well as our content knowledge, and, most important, we adjust our behaviors to be accepted as legitimate participants of the TESOL community. However, we believe that in our narratives, we need to reconstruct our identities as active agents by underlining our success stories in which we face many struggles but finally succeed. It is in these stories that we include our worldviews, judgments, and experiences. So NNES teacher trainees need to focus more on their success and create a positive discourse.

We think it is time to believe in ourselves and emphasize our resourcefulness rather than continue to see ourselves as inferior or incompetent. As Canagarajah (1999a) mentioned, most of us get the feeling that a "gloomy profession" is waiting for us with all its obstacles and problems, but whatever profession one enters, the possibilities of discrimination and obstacles exist, regardless of one's first language. We believe that focusing only on the gloomy part of our profession will not do any good for our language and teaching development.
 
As mentioned earlier, the NES/NNES dichotomy (Self and Other) creates a discriminatory practice. Following the resistance theories' definition of power (Canagarajah, 1999b), we believe that power does not always come in a top-down manner. Power is not necessarily tied to specific groups or identities; we can negotiate our roles and identities through language in different contexts and situations. As NNES professionals, we have to negotiate our roles and must not readily accept the identities that are given to us. We need to be aware of how "we" represent ourselves in relation to how we are perceived by others and negotiate our place in this power flow chart in the TESOL field.

Last, as members of the NNES community, we need to be actively involved in both local and international organizations, and we need to keep telling our success stories to show how much we contribute to the field. It is time for us to be active agents, using our differences as resources rather than perceiving ourselves as victims of the mainstream. The change may come slowly, but it will never come at all unless we open ourselves to collaboration and more dialogic learning in TESOL classrooms.

References

Alptekin, C. (2002). Towards intercultural communicative competence in ELT. ELT Journal, 56(1), 57-64.

Amin, N. (1999) Minority women teachers of ESL: Negotiating white English. In G. Braine (Ed), Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching (93-105). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Amin, N. (1997). Race and the identity of the nonnative ESL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 580-583.

Brutt-Briffler, J., & Samimy, K. K. (1999). Revisiting the colonial in the postcolonial: Critical praxis for nonnative English-speaking teachers in a TESOL program. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 13-32.

Brutt-Griffler, J., & Samimy, K. K. (2001). Transcending the nativeness paradigm. World Englishes, 20, 99-106.

Canagarajah, A. S. (1999a). Interrogating the "Native speaking fallacy": Non-linguistic roots, non-pedagogical results. In G. Braine (Ed.), Nonnative educators in English language teaching (pp.77-92). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Canagarajah, A. S. (1999b). Resisting linguistic imperialism in teaching English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fairclough, N. (1993). Discourse and social change. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

Kamhi-Stein, L. D. (2000). Adapting US-based TESOL teacher education to meet the needs of nonnative English speakers. TESOL Journal, 9(3), 10-14.

Kubota, R. (2001). Discursive construction of the images of U.S. classrooms. TESOL Quarterly, 35(1), 9-38.

Liu, J. (1999). Nonnative-English speaking professionals. TESOL Quarterly, 33(1), 38-102.

Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 409-429.
Lisya Seloni is a third year PhD student in the foreign and second language education program at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include (critical) discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, language and power issues, and issues related to nonnative English speakers. She has taught English and Turkish to learners of different ages.

Yesim B. Cetinkaya is a PhD candidate in the foreign and second language education program at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include issues related to nonnative English speakers, intercultural communication, and teaching English as an international language. She has worked as an English teacher in her native country, Turkey, and has presented several papers locally and internationally.

NNEST Newsletter October 2005 Volume 7 Number 2: Table of Contents