The Transnational Teacher: Moving Between Languages, Schools, and Cultures With No Home

• In Event: Beyond National Boundaries: Transnational Ways of Knowing and Belonging in Mexico

Abstract

Objectives: This session aims to show how migration is no longer a single movement event. It is a constant part of the educational and social development of many individuals. This transition, that leads to the term transnational challenges some of our basic assumptions about education, language learning and its teaching.

Theoretical Framework: With the current socio-political relationship between Mexico and the United States, more and more young adults have returned to Mexico after living extensively in the United States. The participants speak both languages but they do not completely meet the social expectations of both educational communities on either side of the border. When they are back in Mexico they are aware of this cultural and linguistic capital they possess. Participants make sense of this particular phenomenon of returnees in Mexico and draw connections to broader border-crossing work all educators are called to do (Elenes, 2001; Giroux, 2005) when incorporating transnational students in pre-service English teaching programs.

Methods and Data Sources: Methodologically the research approach was qualitative in nature, utilizing narrative inquiry. From autobiographies and interviews participants relate how their transnational experiences shaped their identities and ethnicity and how they influence who they are as English teachers in Mexico. This data was filtered through a constant dialogue between researchers and participants. In this presentation, a U.S.-based and Mexican-based pair of researchers (from each of these countries) focus on how 22 pre-service English teachers in two Mexican public universities, studying a BA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), reflected on issues such as identity and ethnicity.

Results: Results show that their transnational experiences of living in, and transition into, two countries were at the forefront of their professional identity construction, defining who they are and who they want to be. These transnational migrants returned with language skills that are in demand in the Mexican educational system, as English is now required in K-12 education. They are perceived as having an edge over their counterparts; specifically, their linguistic ability in English denotes a ‘native-like’ proficiency and transnationals are immediately classified as ‘native speakers of English.’ These discourses of native-speakerism can produce “realities of exclusion, discrimination and rationalisations for intervention and ‘cultural correction’” (Kabel, 2009, p. 17).

Scholarly Significance: We provide an argument for recruiting more return migrants as a manner to provide educational opportunities for them. Yet at the same time the data highlights two powerful discriminatory practices. On one hand the transnational English teacher suffers social and cultural rejection in two cultures. On the other, the unsubstantiated myth of ‘native speaker’ gives them labor advantages over other Mexicans. This implies a need to readdress the concepts of migratory movement and transition between countries because it is no longer a one time event. People’s dynamic movements across borders parallel the need to approach educational discourse as temporary and organic. Their experiences suggest the need to revise curricular design and instructional practices in education and in particular pre-service English programs to take advantage of this timely and symbiotic social transition.

Author

• Irasema Mora-Pablo, Universidad de Guanajuato