Kuma 11 and Leki

Chapter 11: Ensuring Social Relevance

Standard variety is prestigious because of social, political, and economic factors.

Recognition of varieties of English is essential in the ESL classroom to help students.

It is interesting to me that the book talks about two situations, one in Britain and one in Sri Lanka, where the use of the L1 seems to be fairly heavy. I suppose it depends on the level of the learner but I think it would be fairly difficult to use the learners native tongue if you, as a teacher, don't know it or are not familiar with it. I liked the idea of a bilingual aid but that can become expensive for the school to pay another person to help in the classroom. I feel this could become difficult in terms of getting the school to hire a bilingual aid. They may say that you shouldn't be using students' L1 and that doesn't not include taking into account the different languages of students. This is especially true in Britain and the U.S. because you are dealing with a classroom which may have many different native languages present. It presents an interesting problem. Though I still believe that acknowledgement and use of the L1 can be extremely helpful when learning your L2.

Leki

Lekis' article makes an interesting point because we, as teachers, may believe that we are not included in those who look upon the ESL student as their ESOL representation but, as Leki states, “that would be missing the point.” I find myself in that boat as well. I don't think I would look upon students according to their representation in society and the media but, even if I think I don't, how do I address those issues in the classroom? There is always some kind of underlying bias due to our own social conditioning and this is also true for students in the classroom. Being in an open dialogue about this topic could become difficult if we are convinced that we do not hold these views about the ESOL student. It is an interesting dilemma, one that I'm not sure how to solve or work on.