Angel Lin

Race And TESOL: Introduction to Concepts and Theories

The field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) brings people from various racialized backgrounds together in teaching, learning, and research. The idea of race, racialization, and racism are inescapable topics that arise in the contact zones created by teaching English worldwide and thus are valid topics to explore in the field. Nonetheless, unlike our peer fields such as anthropology, education, and sociology, the field of TESOL has not sufficiently addressed the idea of race and related concepts. This special topic issue is one of the first attempts in our field to fill the gap. This introductory article will survey key concepts and theories defined and debated in various fields, including race, ethnicity, culture, racialization, racism, critical race theory, and critical White studies, to provide a foundation for future explorations.

Classroom code-switching: Three decades of research

Abstract In this paper I provide a review of the historical development of different research paradigms and approaches adopted in studies on classroom code-switching. I also discuss the difficulties and problems faced by this field of studies and share some of my own critical reflections on how this field might move forward in the future, speaking from the position of a researcher who has been engaged in this area of studies for close to three decades.

Newspaper editorial discourse and the politics of self-censorship in Hong Kong

In transitional societies where political pressure on the press is coupled with a commercial media system and a professional journalistic culture, the politics of self-censorship is likely to involve a strategic contest between the media and political actors. Language plays a significant role in this contest. The present study focuses on the case of Hong Kong. It analyzes how two local newspapers, facing an important yet sensitive political issue, constructed two different overall storylines and used two different sets of discursive strategies in their editorials to handle political pressure, market credibility, and journalistic integrity simultaneously. The elite-oriented Ming Pao constructed a storyline of the debate as a factional struggle in order to posit itself as an impartial arbitrator. This approach was further sustained and justified by the discursive strategies of balanced and qualified criticisms and the rhetoric of rational discussion. The mass-oriented Apple Daily, on the other hand, constructed a storyline of a sovereign people whose rights are encroached upon by a powerful entity. The paper was therefore much more critical towards the power center. Nevertheless, it also appropriated the dominant discourse, constructed internal contradictions, and decentralized the Chinese central government to smooth out the radicalism of its criticisms.

Conceptualising the potential role of L1 in CLIL

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a rapidly growing area of both research and practice in all parts of the world, especially in Europe and Asia. As a young discipline, CLIL has a good potential of distinguishing itself from monolingual L2 immersion education models by becoming more flexible and balanced about the role of L1 in CLIL lessons. Although recent years have witnessed increasing research on the potential role of L1 in foreign language teaching [e.g. Littlewood, W., & Yu, B. 2009. First language and target language in the foreign language classroom. Language Teacher, 42, 1–14], monolingual immersion ideologies are still dominant in many contexts in the world (especially in Southeast Asia) because of a whole host of ideologies. The beliefs affecting medium of instruction policies and practice have their roots in the traditional tenets (e.g. the maximum input hypothesis) in the discipline of second language acquisition (SLA). Although these tenets are increasingly being countered by recent research in multilingualism [see May, S. (Ed.). (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. New York: Routledge, for a critique of these tenets], SLA still has an influence on pedagogies in both immersion and CLIL programmes. In this paper, I shall first critically review these deep-rooted monolingual tenets. Then, I shall discuss how we can conceptualise the potential role of L1 in CLIL and by extension in content-based instruction (CBI), as both CLIL and immersion programmes are considered to be key approaches to CBI. I shall conclude with suggestions for future research in CLIL.

Women Faculty of Color in TESOL: Theorizing Our Lived Experiences

Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist. (Lorde, 1984a, p. 112)

Text-messaging Cultures of College Girls in Hong Kong: SMS as Resources for Achieving Intimacy and Gift-exchange with Multiple Functions

Mobile text messaging, variously known as SMS (Short Message Service), text messaging, mobile e-mail, or texting, has become a common means of keeping in constant touch, especially among young people in many parts of the world today. The research literature abounds with studies on the social, cultural, linguistic and communicative aspects of mobile text messaging in different sociocultural contexts in the world. However, almost all of these studies have been conducted outside of Hong Kong. Belowwe shall provide a preliminary literature review of earlier studies related to SMS. Then we shall present our pilot qualitative study. In the findings and discussion section, we shall interpret the findings in light of the relevant research literature.

Towards Transformation of Knowledge and Subjectivity in Curriculum Inquiry: Insights From Chen Kuan-Hsing's “Asia as Method”

Abstract Chen’s book, Asia as Method (Duke University Press, 2010), and his theorization on topics of de‐imperialization, de‐colonization, de‐cold war, as well as on foregrounding epistemologies and frames of reference situated in the diverse contexts in Asia have contributed to empowering scholars and researchers situated not only in Taiwan, but also in many parts of the world. His critical cultural studies project in linking up scholars both inside and outside of Asia and in putting forward counter‐discourses to the binary “the West and the rest” knowledge structures and knowledge production practices has important implications for critical curriculum and education work. My essay review will focus on the implications of his notion of “Asia as Method” and his “strategy of critical syncretism” in exploring and designing critical curriculum and education inquiry that seeks to transform deep‐rooted colonial, imperialist, and cold war subjectivities. These subjectivities are part of the cultural and psychic aftermath of various imperialist, colonial, and cold war histories, the impact of which is still with us today.

Hard Times: Arab TESOL Students' Experiences of Racialization and Othering in the United Kingdom

■ This article reports the findings of a small-scale study into the significance of racialization to five male Muslim Saudi Arab learners in a TESOL graduate programme at a university in the United Kingdom. By racialization we mean the ways in which the idea of race might contribute to an experience of Othering (Kubota, 2001, 2004; Palfreyman, 2005) for these learners. A particular interest was how far and in what ways recent political events involving Arabs and Muslims, as well as an increasingly racialized discourse of Islamophobia in the UK media and wider society, had affected their experiences in this learning community. In recent years a considerable body of literature has stressed a need to acknowledge that TESOL classrooms are embedded in and thereby

What's the Use of “Triadic Dialogue”?: Activity Theory, Conversation Analysis, and Analysis of Pedagogical Practices

Developing research methodologies to both understand and describe instructional communication has been a major topic in educational research literature. A key area of study is classroom discourse analysis or classroom interactional analysis. This area covers a wide range of studies that focuses on different aspects of classroom phenomena, depending on the researchers interest. Interesting as they are, the discourse analysis methods employed in these studies tend to focus more on microanalysis of teacher–student communication/student–student interactions and relationships than on the holistic description and understanding of pedagogical practices and why they are difficult to change. Other quantitative tools (e.g., various classroom-behaviour coding systems) also tend to be piecemeal or fragmented in nature and might not help teachers to capture the dynamics or a holistic view of their pedagogical practices. In this article the analytical tools offered by activity theory and conversation analysis will be drawn upon to develop some practical research tools for conducting analysis of pedagogical practices. I will discuss how some of the activity-theory and conversation-analysis analytical tools can help educational researchers and teachers to both gain a deeper understanding of their pedagogical practices and to analyse for any inherent contradictions and tensions in their practices that could serve as an entry point for initiating pedagogical change to better achieve the educational goals in specific contexts.

Local interpretation of global management discourses in higher education in Hong Kong: potential impact on academic culture

Abstract In this paper the colonial history of university education in Hong Kong, and recent changes in the governance of university education driven by global management discourses are discussed. With the systemic penetration of global economic rationalism, Hong Kong university education has gone through structural changes that include funding‐linked evaluative policies and practices. Market imperatives and institutionally defined notions of research performance based mainly on English‐language, overseas journal publications are exerting strong influence on the cultural practices and life styles of academics and stand to significantly change academic and intellectual culture in higher education in Hong Kong. The long‐term consequences of these local interpretations and adaptations of global processes will be discussed in terms of their potential impact on academic freedom, the shaping of intellectual space, the intensification of competitive institutional research output, and the risk of privileging certain forms of knowledge production that puts aside local societal needs, indigenous knowledge and epistemologies. The views of experienced Hong Kong academics in the humanities and social sciences, as expressed in in‐depth individual interviews, are also discussed. These are then interpreted with reference to Habermas’ notion of different kinds of knowledge‐constitutive interests (Habermas 1971) and Foucault’s notion of the technology of discipline power to uncover the state’s implicit transformation and shaping of the social and epistemological bases of academic and intellectual pursuits and the increasing trend of individualization of intellectual communities into isolated, individualistic, competitive knowledge workers (Foucault 1977).