Essay

1. PRACTICE II, DIDACTICS OF ELT and Practicum Primary School level.
Angela Lopez, Solange Cortese.
Practical 3: How to teach English respecting our identity.
For our analysis about how textbooks designed abroad and in Argentina serve to
convey Linguistic Imperialism, we followed the line of thought and arguments of
some authors such as Balboni, Phillipson, Canagarah, Widdowson, Byram. In the
following essay, we are going to present our findings and some strategies that we as
future teachers can use to counteract the hidden agendas of the prescribed
materials.
To start, we consider it necessary to define Linguistic Imperialism. According to
Phillipson, the teaching of english from a imperialism perspective aims at shaping
and conditioning the subject’s identity through its linguistic habits. Linguistic
Imperialism imposes a hierarchical perspective where English is at the top. So, the
English language is given a major status, a certain prestige and priority. This
linguistic phenomenon is causing the extinction of other languages, and with them,
their cultures.
In the course book, “Howdy, friends!”, page 5 we found a situation in which students
are encouraged to study about the social context of Australia. But, the thing is, how
can children from La Pampa sympathize with these Australian children if they don’t
even know the country and the people who live there? And how could they feel
identified with the content of this lesson? This example coincides with Barboni’s view
in the following way: If we were teaching to students from Santa Rosa this lessons
about the situation in Australia, we are presenting them with a reality that has
nothing to do with their own. The same situation can be found in Argentina, however
they decided to show the one about Australia. It a clear example that reflects
linguistic imperialism. It would be better if we provide them with a lesson
contextualized in Argentina.
Considering that many books used nowadays for teaching english are produced in
Argentina, Made in Corrientes, for example, we can affirm that Barboni’s Enseñanza
de Inglés e Identidad Nacional, in some way, has been interpreted by professionals.
It has made teachers more critical and aware about the social context. Almost 10
years later its publication, we have got materials produced locally. These materials
allow students to learn English without adopting cultural patterns of english native
speakers. They don’t need to pretend to be someone else. As Widdowson claims,
learning english is not threatening to learners identity as long as they appropriate the
language to express their individual and collective identity, in this way, we can
counteract the indoctrination, as well as the cultural and ideological colonization.
Learning english with locally produced materials will result in a serie of cognitive,
social and communicative advantages that will impact on the rest of students’ lives.

2. From a cognitive point of view, being bilingual encourages operational knowledge, in
which students develop the capacity to apply what they know to different situations,
so students that learn english using contextualised materials can apply their new
knowledge in their everyday lives. Being bilingual also helps students develop their
creativity, their capacity to discriminate irrelevant information and better their
attention span.
With regards to social advantages, teaching english to children with locally produced
materials will strengthen their own national identity and at the same time
acknowledge diversity, which lead them to question the steorytiped and naturalized
way of thinking. A educational system that offers to everyone a bilingual education
can be transformative as it has a bond with power distribution that allows the
democratization of the knowledge. Second language acquisition gives students the
advantage of being a good communicator because as they acquire a new language
they develop cultural awareness. Such cultural awareness is formed through the
development of knowledges, skills and attitudes that makes it possible an encounter
with other cultures,allowing an awareness of how the culture intervenes in the
building of the thought and identity.
In relationship with communicative abilities, as students know two languages, they
rely on more choices about what to do in the face of a communicative situation. They
also have the capacity to predict and evaluate their interlocutors needs and provide
them with answers that really adjust to the speaker’s particular context.
D. Read the article on “Six reasons for using coursebooks” by Dave Dogson
(2019) in Modern English teacher and write an answer providing your point of
view on what kind of textbooks we should use.
It is necessary to admit that the coursebooks serve as a guide for teachers but it
would be better to consider the situations of the students and their contexts. Instead
of adjusting to a book, we should adjust to students needs. Taking as an example
the course book Made in Corrientes Corner, we should work with non-artificial
contents that deal with local social issues, with our traditions, what we feel identified
with, so as to strengthen our national identity and to feel proud of what we are. All
these contents should be taught using innovative, creative and catching methods.