5060 has been an amazing learning experience and in the last few days, many things struck me. I can’t stop thinking of Peter Elbow’s “Inviting the Mother Tongue” in particular. Initially I like his idea of making students feel “safe” in the classroom. However, as I continued to read and came across Elbow’s solutions to the problems that students face, I realized that it was an exercise in futility.
“I may sound perverse to some readers, but my main goal in this essay is to show how the writing classroom can be a safer place for such language than most sites of language use-a place where, for a good deal of the time, students can put out of mind any worries about whether anyone might consider their language wrong or incorrect,” says Peter Elbow in Inviting the Mother Tongue. I found it interesting how Peter Elbow defines “mother tongue” as dialects of English and “not languages other than English,” and with one sleight of his pen, strikes out any possibility of acknowledging the difficulties that international students face in a “foreign” classroom.
For international students, the classroom is perhaps one of the most unsafe places for not only improving their English or writing skills, but also for acclimating to a new culture and country. When it comes to “mother tongues”, international students have myriads of those, and yes, they are all dialects of English. Check out this link to get an idea of the kinds of Englishes we speak in India:
The point that I’m trying to make is that although I like Elbow’s idea of making the classroom safer for speakers of “mother tongues”, I know for sure that it is impossible. More so, when we ignore the fact that the dialects of English are not limited to dialects of “American English”. They go beyond to the dialects of world English as spoken in different parts of the world- which is, differently. So is making the classroom a “safe” haven for “bad English” after all, a good idea? Well, I don’t think so. I grew up in a small Indian town, Shimla, which used to be the “summer capital” (so British- they needed to move to a cooler place during the summer!) of the British in India and over time became more Anglicized than the British. Schools in Shimla are known to be among the best in the country because they offer an education that prizes English language over anything else. I remember being fined ten bucks for speaking in Hindi once. Safe, as far as using one’s “mother tongue” was concerned, was the last thing I felt there. This is after I grew up in a household where my father liked to converse in English, my brother and I in Hindi, and my mother in our local dialect, “pahari”. Honestly, I don’t know what my mother tongue is. Am I most comfortable while speaking Hindi mixed with English, which is called “Hinglish” by the way, or am I comfortable speaking just English?
Consider those students who speak combinations of English and Tamil, English and Telugu, English and Marathi and so on. Regional languages in India are increasingly turning into dialects of English. Hindi has been “infiltrated” by English to such an extent that you will never hear anyone speak “pure” Hindi. What is Elbow even talking about!
I think I would rather let students face the dangers of the classroom ( I won’t fine them. though). Can you learn how to swim if you never enter the water? What we can do is that we can make the classrooms more welcoming not just for international students, but also for native English speakers. I intend to do this by employing the same rules and conditions for everyone, irrespective of their “mother tongues.” We are teaching writing in English, after all.
Kind words. I'm glad these connections in our readings are starting to make sense. There are thousands of readings in composition and theory history, and it's difficult to draw from them in consistent ways. Very good points about how "mother tongue" really should include more attention to ESL, to cultural differences, and moving beyond dialect of world English. Classrooms, relative to workplaces, are much safer places, I'd say. So how should we teach cultural context or "intercultural communication competence" within the composition classroom? How do we speak about a university of audience types rather than simply those who disbelieve our thesis? The world is a far more complex place and demands more attention to diversity and diverse perspectives.
ReplyDeleteI do want to see Shimla some day!
I love when you say you don't know what your mother tongue is. This is something I have never been exposed to, so it's nice to get a different outlook of the "mother tongue." My mother tongue is Spanish, later on I learned English, and I lived in Laredo, which is at the border of Mexico and the US. My prominent language was definitely Tex-Mex, a mix of Spanish and English, something I most definitely miss speaking.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say that you would rather "let students face the dangers of the classroom," you are really connecting with the idea of giving students a safe place in the classroom. Like you said, you wouldn't fine or judge a student for failing to speak by the rules and conditions you've established, which would make them so much more comfortable with trying to speak SWE.
Even though you might not agree with Elbow, I can clearly see how you're still trying to mix-in his philosophy with yours.
Ira