Decolonizing Curriculum Discourses? Identities and Ideologies Within a TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) Masters Program for International Students

• In Event: Language, Identity, and Citizenship in International/Transnational Contexts

Abstract

This paper presents research investigating the curriculum discourses circulating in a TESOL Masters Program for international students at a Canadian university and focuses on issues around academic and professional identities and language. By interrogating our own practices as educators within this program, we attempt to denaturalize and historicize discourses available within it and align internationalization and TESOL with ethical practice. We question the imaginary of the ‘public good’ in globalized contexts to unpack the internationalization of higher education as an ideological endeavour complicit in a narrative of acculturation to the practices of Western educational institutions. How might curriculum discourses and practices of TESOL programs afford possibilities for constructing positive academic and professional identities within globalized economic and institutional conditions?

Authors

• Bonnie L. Waterstone, Simon Fraser University

• Roumiana Ilieva, Simon Fraser University