English 101 - Dr. Mandy Suhr-Sytsma
BLOGGING ABOUT MULTILINGUALISM
For my fourth blog post, I thought to discuss a Coca-Cola commercial in the 2014 Super Bowl that sparked controversy on social media. This arose over the fact that the song, 'American the Beautiful', was sung in different languages, not only in English. I find it very thought provoking to think that controversy could arise from the idea that a patriotic song wasn't sung purely in English. I don't think that these people are being considerate for the matter that the United States is considered a melting point, with people coming from all over the world to find opportunity in this country. For that matter, I am Finnish and an immigrant. The idea that English language brings identity to the people of the United States is appropriate, but still people's heritages should be take into consideration. That is exactly what Coca-Cola is trying to do: count for the fact that people come from different backgrounds with English not always being spoken. Furthermore, there is no officially declared language in the United States.
Tying this information to what we have covered in class, I think that the controversy that arose over this commercial represents really well the complexity of languages and identity. The people who found this commercial offensive want to make it clear that in the United States, we speak English and this is what brings us our identity; to be truly American, one has to speak English. I would argue that this brings comfort for a person as they can identify with a specific mode of communication. But to truly to be considerate, we have to account for the fact that United States unlike other countries is very a heterogeneous population. Like Deborah Miranda would argue, we have to appreciate and preserve minority languages. Article relating to the commercial: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/02/03/coca-cola-ad-super-bowl-racism/5177463/
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Youngjoo Yi follows in his research paper "ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers" two students who become certified teachers and receive Master's degrees for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) for Pre-K-12. His goal was to identify the current state of second language writing teacher education in the United States. Through group interviews, collection of exit portfolios, assignments, and teaching materials of the two students, Yi collected data to come to a conclusion of the state of ESOL writing teacher education. He found out that writing in ESOL classes is focusing on assessments and comprehension of material, rather than writing to learn about writing. Furthermore, both of the students hadn't developed writing teacher identities, as they didn't learn how to teach writing. Overall, there exists a huge gap between academic demands for writing assessments and actual writing instruction and practice in the classroom. This presents a huge disparity between adequate teaching of writing pedagogy for ESOL students and English as first language students. Yi states that there has been a huge amount of focus on writing pedagogy for English as first language students lately, and this does not fare to the education that ESOL students receive currently. This serves as a gatekeeper for immigrants, as many states - such as Georgia - require students to pass a standardized writing test to graduate. Clearly, ESOL students are at a disadvantage educationally compared to native English language speakers.
Yi, Youngjoo. "ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers." L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms. New York: Routledge, 2013. 133-48. Ebook Library. Web. 23 Feb. 2015. |
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