Peter Sayer

Ambiguities and tensions in English language teaching: Portraits of EFL teachers as legitimate speakers

Chapter 1: Exploring the contradictions of language teaching Setting the scene Chapter 2: Three English teachers Chapter 3: Squeezing more juice: Portraits of local English teaching in Oaxacan communities Chapter 4: Legitimacy, symbolic competence, and teaching English Chapter 5: So they can defend themselves a little: The meanings and contradictions of teaching English Chapter 6: Hey, take it easy!: Ambivalence and language ideologies Chapter 7: I lasted one day and then I was gone: Performing legitimacy Chapter 8: Conclusions: (Re)legitimizing through tensions and ambiguities

English language teaching in public primary schools in Mexico: the practices and challenges of implementing a national language education program

Over the past 15 years, many state governments in Mexico have initiated local programs to introduce English at the primary school level. In 2009, the Mexican Ministry of Education formalized the Programa Nacional de Inglés en Educación Básica (PNIEB) as part of the national curriculum, based on the argument that increasing the number of English speakers in Mexico is necessary for the country to be globally competitive and to follow the trend in other developing economies of augmenting English instruction in public education. This paper focuses on the implementation of PNIEB and the state programs that preceded it. The authors document the practices and challenges associated with the program based on data collected from interviews with the main stakeholders involved (students and parents, teachers, school principals, and program coordinators) and from classroom observations. The total data-set consisted of over 200 interviews and classroom observations spread over several years from 2008 to 2012. Several challenges are described, including the development of materials, the role of English in relation to other subject areas, and the training of teachers who often speak English but have uneven formal preparation. The status of the teachers, both as second-class citizens within the schools and the instability and irregularities with their contracts, was identified as the most significant challenge to the successful implementation of the programs.

Expanding global language education in public primary schools: the national English programme in Mexico

The paper examines the recent national programme of English language instruction in the Mexican public primary schools, called the Programa Nacional de Inglés en Educación Básica (PNIEB). The programme, initiated in 2009 by the Ministry of Education as part of the national curriculum, represents the largest expansion of English teaching in Mexicos history, entailing the hiring of 98,000 new English teachers. It is the result of an explicit educational policy intended to prepare Mexicans for the twenty-first century by emphasising linguistic and digital abilities: meaning a massive increase of English and computer skills in public schools. The launch of the programme also coincides with a major reform of basic education, as well as the extension of compulsory education from 9 to 13 years. Nevertheless, implementing the English programme, nationally and simultaneously throughout Mexicos 32 states, presents considerable challenges for a public education system that is already under-resourced. The author describes the complexity of the programme in several local contexts. The Mexican programme is analysed as part of a growing trend to expand public primary English language teaching (PELT) in Latin America and developing countries as part of an educational policy to make them more economically competitive.

Differentiated Linguistic Strategies of Bilingual Professionals on the U.S.-Mexico Border

The authors present three distinct cases of English-Spanish bilinguals on the U.S.-Mexico border to illustrate how legitimate and authentic language use functions as forms of symbolic capital (P. Bourdieu, 1991). Language practices in the occupational domain exemplify how varieties of English and Spanish come into contact, are negotiated, and strategically utilized to situate oneself in a position of power within a linguistic market. The authors argue that because bilinguals have access to different forms of linguistic capital, in a highly bilingual context such as the U.S.-Mexico border, they develop differentiated strategies for employing language resources. The three strategies identified are avoidance, distribution, and engagement. Employing English-Spanish bilingualism through these differentiated strategies, participants exploit or compensate for their particular linguistic repertoire to meet the multilingual demands and language expectations of their workplace and, in doing so, reveal how languages are used in occupational settings as commodities with exchange value that can be transferred to other forms of capital. The authors suggest that the translanguaging practices (O. Garcia & L. Wei, 2014) observed serve in efforts to obtain symbolic capital in Laredos linguistic market.

Teaching culture beyond nationalist boundaries: national identities, stereotyping, and culture in language education

The authors take a critical language pedagogy approach to examining a 2011 controversy over disparaging comments towards Mexicans made by commentators of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s automotive show Top Gear. In particular, they focus on the characterization of groups and individuals according to their nationality and examine the ubiquity of nationalism and its ability to shape our conception of culture and in turn our understandings of others as members of ‘X national culture.’ The fact that humor is often a justification for national stereotyping and that these stereotypes are also connected to racist discourse are also explored. In the second part of the article, the implications of the stereotyping debate for language classrooms are considered. The authors argue that the controversy itself can be used as a tool for critical engagement that helps students deconstruct the underlying nationalist paradigm in L2 classrooms and build greater intercultural awareness. Español: Los autores examinan, desde una perspectiva de la pedagogía crítica del lenguaje, la controversia que surgió en el 2011 debido a los comentarios nocivos hechos hacia los mexicanos por los locutores del show automotriz del BBC, Top Gear. En particular, se enfocan en la caracterización de los grupos e individuos de acuerdo a su nacionalidad, y examinan la ubiquidad del nacionalismo y su capacidad para darle forma a nuestra conceptualización de la cultura y, a su vez, nuestra forma de ver a otros como miembros de una ‘cultural nacional X’. Los autores también exploran el hecho de que a menudo se utiliza el humor como una justificación para los estereotipos nacionales, y que estos estereotipos también están conectados al discurso racista. En la segunda parte del artículo, se consideran las implicaciones para la enseñanza de idiomas del debate sobre los estereotipos. Argumentan los autores que la controversia en sí se puede utilizar como una herramienta para promover una postura crítica que ayude a los alumnos a deconstruir el paradigma subyacente del nacionalismo en el salón de lenguas extranjeras y fomente la conciencia intercultural.

Early EFL Instruction and L1 Literacy

This study investigates the relationship between early English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and L1 literacy development in Mexican public schools. Researchers sought confirmatory findings about whether and in which ways early EFL exposure may affect students’ L1 literacy skills via a study evaluating the L1 Spanish literacy of 61 first graders using an adapted literacy assessment. Experimental group participants received EFL instruction during grades K-1, and those in the control group did not. A one-way independent samples comparison of means on the literacy assessment revealed that participants from the experimental group who had received EFL instruction scored significantly higher on all sections of the assessment than those participants in the control group. Results may inform programmatic decision-making about simultaneous or sequential approaches on the impact of early EFL on biliteracy development, with broader implications that examine who has access to early EFL instruction, and whether it will ultimately lead to higher L2 proficiency.