Brown
chapter 26 begins by questioning the reader: What drives you in your
professional life? What purpose propels you through teaching each week? Somehow,
teachers are “guided by a sense of mission, of purpose, and of dedication to a
profession in which they believe they can make a difference” (Brown 512). Even
though I’m not an actual teacher yet, I’ve obviously been asked why I want to
be a teacher. The main reason I say when I answer this questions is because I love
the content area that I’m going to teach (Spanish). I love it so much that I
want to teach it to others. I’ve had many situations during college that have
helped confirm my wanting to be a Spanish teacher. Most of these situations involve
tutoring. Every time I tutor students I know that I am meant to be a teacher.
This is what drives me in my “professional” life. One of the ways that I want
to make a difference when I teach is to show my students the importance of
learning a second language. I think that this is important to incorporate into
lessons, even if it is very briefly, since many students don’t see a point in
learning a language.
Branching
off of the importance of teaching the significance of learning an L2 is the
topic covered in Kumar chapter 11: Ensuring social relevance. In order to make
L2 learning relevant in the eyes of the students, it’s important for them to
recognize that the “broader social, political, historical, and economic conditions
that affect the lives of learners and teachers also affect classroom aims and
activities” (Kumar 239). Through what goes on in the classroom, students need
to see how the L2 ties in with social, political, historical, economic, etc.
conditions. When teaching English, it’s important to acknowledge the status of
English as a global language in order to help students understand the importance
of learning. Discussing this idea can help justify their learning of the
language. This chapter also discusses the question of how to determine the “standard”
variety of a language? This is a topic that is very interesting and puzzling to
me. It makes me wonder how schools chose what variety of English to teach their
students since there are so many. Also, should ESL and EFL teachers introduce
students to other varieties of English even if that’s not the variety they
focus on? There are so many unanswered questions
on this topic since it’s so difficult to determine a “standard” variety of a
language.
Kumar
chapter 12 talks about raising cultural consciousness since it’s important for
L2 learners to be conscious of the L2 culture. Robinson’s theory of second
culture acquisition makes sense to me. Her theory is that second culture
acquisition is the “integration of home and target culture” (Kumar 270). She
calls this the Color Purple. I agree
with this theory since when you learn about a new culture you also learn more
about your native culture thus creating a second culture that includes parts of
both. In order for someone to develop critical cultural consciousness they have
to recognize that there isn’t one culture that embodies the best and worst of
human experiences. To help develop cultural consciousness in students it’s important
to treat them as cultural informants as well, not just the teacher. Teachers can
do this by identifying the cultural knowledge their students bring to the classroom.
I think this can helps motivate and involve learners more since they’re
discussing their knowledge.
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