Race and Culture in the Critical Language Classroom: Why “Doing the Stereotype Thing” “Never Works for Me”

• In Event: Race and Language Learning in Multicultural Canada

Abstract

While many in the field of English as a Second Language (ESL) may agree that language and culture remain inextricably interconnected, there is less consensus about what we mean by “culture” and the subsequent implications on pedagogical approaches to culture in the ESL classroom. As reflected in more recent ESL literature on language and culture (e.g., Byram & Feng, 2005; Holliday, 2009; Holliday, Hyde, & Kullman, 2004; Kubota, 2003), Pacific University’s ESL program, located in a demographically vibrant and culturally-diverse metropolis in Canada, viewed culture as an analytical process rather than as discrete facts. The program thus aimed to assist students in the development of an exploratory and introspective inquiry into language and culture through a “critical dialogic approach.” However, a lack of clear conceptualization of a “critical dialogic approach” to language and culture was apparent, and instead, the pedagogy manifested itself in many classroom discourses which centered on processes of a cultural “compare and contrast”.

Data excerpts from document analyses, classroom observations, questionnaires, and interviews with students and instructors at the program thus highlight how “critical” dialogues around “culture as process” (as described in the program’s curricular discourses) consisted of the overt teaching of stereotyping “skills” and positioning students as cultural experts/representatives through lines of questioning such as, “Do guys think like that in your country?”, “What about in China?”, and “What about in Japan?” As such, “critical” explorations of culture became based on problematic cross-cultural essentializations of racialized identity and cultural difference which subsequently reproduced dichotomies of Self (i.e., the predominantly white teaching staff) and Other (i.e., the predominantly Asian students). The study thus serves to illustrate how colonial discourse predicated on the legitimation of a racial hierarchy is played out in the vocabulary of cultural difference, essentializing the racialized subjects (Self and Other) while eliding the experiences of the racialized Other (racial minorities) both in Canada and the students’ home countries.

Research analyzing how racialized discourses shaped both the pedagogical practices at Pacific University’s “critical” ESL program and the processes of marginalizing student identity construction within the program’s classrooms speaks to the moral imperative for the field of ESL to consider how anti-racist theory--theory long-existing in other fields of educational research but only gaining visibility within the field of language education in recent years--has much to contribute to advancing our knowledge about English language education. Thus, in the vein of the AERA’s 2012 conference theme, “Non statis scire: To know is not enough”, it behooves English language educators to more seriously and thoughtfully develop critical multicultural and anti-racist approaches to ESL (cf. Kubota, 2004; Kubota & Lin, 2006; Motha, 2006) and to critically reflect on “learning to teach intentionally while learning to recognize the hidden ways we often teach unintentionally” (Kumashiro, 2002, p. 84).

Author

• Ena Lee, Simon Fraser University