Tag: monolingual ideologies
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Critiques of Translanguaging Approaches
Over the past few years, translanguaging as a theoretical framework has risen in popularity (at least in my circles) and this means that critiques of it have also become more vocal, something I definitely noticed attending the recent AAAL Conference. Critique is a necessary part of academic work and theoretical development, so this is important. Personally, I’m always interested in critiques of ideas I feel strongly about (to the extent that I frequently google “critique of ________” just out of curiosity). However, I honestly haven’t found the critiques of translanguaging I’ve encountered compelling, so I thought I would discuss them here.
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Does a multidialectal approach mean teaching all of the dialects?
This is a question I get frequently when I advocate for a multidialectal approach to learning Arabic. The short answer is no.
The longer answer is also no, but with a much lengthier explanation, which I thought I’d give in this post. In general, there are two types of people who ask this question. The first category is those who want to discredit dialect teaching completely (every village has its own dialect, how can you possibly choose, MSA is the answer). The second category is people who find the idea appealing, but the process confusing (does this mean teaching every word in major dialect groups? Isn’t that a lot to ask of students? How do you do this all in class?) This post is aimed at that second category, as those coming from the first have an ideological perspective I will always be at odds with.
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Summer Blog and Podcast Recommendations
I traditionally take the summer off of blogging, so this is my last post until August! So, I thought I’d provide a roundup of some of my favorite blogs and podcasts for you to consume, as if you enjoy my blog you will probably enjoy some of these as well.
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Variation and Standardization in the Language Classroom: Are We Asking the Wrong Questions?
Variation is inherent to languages and language users, yet is it often the subject of consternation in the language classroom, especially at lower levels. Essentially, the questions center around which variety to teach? Can we teach multiple varieties? Will this confuse students? Will they understand how to use them? What if they mix varieties? Per the request of a colleague, this post discusses the issue of variation and standardization in the language classroom. I suggest that rather than worry about the challenges of variation, we should be questioning practices of standardization and the inequities they reproduce.
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Language Learning in Study Abroad: The Multilingual Turn
Next month marks the release of Language Learning in Study Abroad: The Multilingual Turn, a book I am very excited to see in print!. I’m a co-editor, along with Wenhao Diao, and thought it would be fun to write a post highlighting how this book came about, as well as the chapters themselves and the insights they provide into language learning during study abroad.
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Ideologies of Study Abroad: Language Immersion
In the Spring, I started a new blog series on ideologies of study abroad with a post on study abroad as tourism. It’s time for the second post, and this time I’ll be focusing on one of the most prevalent and pernicious ideologies of study abroad as it relates to language teaching, that of study abroad as language immersion.
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Reframing Monolingual Ideologies in the Language Classroom
Wednesday is the one day I teach in person this semester, and this past Wednesday was the first time I’d been to my office on campus since March. I was excited to discover the 2019 volume of the American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators, and Directors of Foreign Language Programs (AAUSC) in my mailbox! The editors are Beatrice Dupuy and Kristen Michelson, and the collection is called “Pathways to Paradigm Change: Critical Examinations of Prevailing Discourse and Ideologies in Second Language Education”. As you might imagine if you regularly read this blog, this is exactly the shift in second language education I think our field needs! I’m excited to read all of the chapters in this book, and today I’ll be highlighting my own contribution, which I’m excited to see in print.
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Language Ideologies in the Wild: Science of Learning
As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I think it is really important for language teachers to be aware of our language ideologies as there are major implications for our classrooms. The funny thing is, once you start noticing your own language ideologies, you also see language ideologies, and even more so the lack of awareness of them, everywhere!
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Are monolingual models making us ask the wrong questions? Translanguaging in the language classroom.
(ACTFL), and then for the Arabic Language Conference at AUC, I’ve been having conversations with language teachers (mostly Arabic ones) about translanguaging in the classroom, and why I think it’s so important that we take this perspective. Or why, even if you don’t want to take a translanguaging perspective, it’s important to realize that you are taking a perspective (probably a monolingual one), and this upholds certain types of language ideologies. Mostly, I think we need to ask ourselves different questions about our teaching, a point I’ll return to after revisiting the concept of translanguaging.
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Monolingual Ideologies and Plurilingual Realities
Two weeks ago, I attended the Integrationists Conference at Penn State University, whose theme was “Integrationism and Philosophies of Language: Emerging Alternative Epistemologies in the Global North and the Global South”
While I had not heard of Integrationism as a linguistic theory until I saw the announcement for this conference, I was interested in learning more about both Integrationism and Southern Theories, as they seemed to align with the direction my own research is taking. As it turns out, this was an excellent choice! I got to meet up with some of my favorite study abroad colleagues, and also learn from presenters that came from a wide range of disciplines, theoretical backgrounds and geographical locations. In this post, I’m giving a summary of my own presentation called “Monolingual Ideologies and Plurilingual Realities: U.S. Arabic Learners in Study Abroad and Telecollaboration”.