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The document discusses the importance of Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) for indigenous students from Valle del Mezquital living in New York City, emphasizing its relevance due to globalization. It outlines methodologies such as Total Physical Response, Communicative Language Teaching, and Task-based Language Teaching, which are designed to help students learn English while expressing their own cultural identities. The ultimate goal is to develop students' communicative skills and enable them to share their culture without losing it in the process of learning English.

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8 views3 pages

Essay

The document discusses the importance of Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) for indigenous students from Valle del Mezquital living in New York City, emphasizing its relevance due to globalization. It outlines methodologies such as Total Physical Response, Communicative Language Teaching, and Task-based Language Teaching, which are designed to help students learn English while expressing their own cultural identities. The ultimate goal is to develop students' communicative skills and enable them to share their culture without losing it in the process of learning English.

Uploaded by

D García
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Teaching English to indigenous students from Valle del Mezquital living

in New York City


Aguilar Mota Luis Armando
Aldana Cortés Diego Adolfo
García Martínez Darianne
Hernández Trejo Mauricio Adonay
Melo Flores Yennifer

First and foremost, Teaching English as an International Language has become


increasingly relevant in the last decades due to the impact of globalization and social
media (McKay, 2016). In education, TEIL can have a positive impact in the case of
indigenous students moving to New York City.

To begin with, McKay and Brown (2016) state that, in TEIL, English is not only of
native speakers or to communicate exclusively with them (in Mozaheb and
Monfared, 2020). In this way, students may feel more encouraged to learn this
language as it does not seem out of reach. For instance, these clases are designed
by teachers who are both non-native speakers and bilingual, who are appropriate
models to students.

In addition, TEIL “must iInclude materials and activities based on local and
international situations that are recognizable and applicable to the students’
everyday lives, pertaining to both NS-NNS and NNS-NNS interactions (Mozaheb
and Monfared, 2020: 31)”. In the case of our plan, we selected activities such as
‘Guess who?’ and Where am i?’ as to identify their own cultural elements and
compare them with their new environment. As a result, Our classes not only focus on
learning about native speakers' culture but students can also express their own as
well. Therefore, students feel proud of their culture and contribute to the international
body of knowledge in English

Moreover, students are provided with strategies and behaviors to handle linguistic
and cultural differences in order to establish friendly relations with English speakers
from any culture (Mozaheb and Monfared, 2020). For example, in our plan the
‘where am I?’ activity depends on both linguistic strategies and understanding non-
linguistic elements (e.g. body language, context etc.) to communicate meaning. As a
result, students become mini-ethnographers and overcome linguistic barriers.
We consider that the best methodologies for our unit plan are Total Physical
Response (School vocabulary), Communicative Language Teaching (Describing
people and introducing themselves) and Task-based Language Teaching (giving
directions). We chose these methodologies for the following reasons.

We chose TPR because according to Richards and Rogers (2001) it is a natural


method. Students are first exposed to language and then they speak. This
perspective is shared with the methodologies proposed for EIL, in which it is stated
that students must be exposed to a variety of corpora. In our activity students are
exposed first to several commands with accents of the inner circle and the
expanding circle.

In the case of CLT, we selected it because one of the principles of this method is that
students do not need to have a native-speaker-like pronunciation, they only require a
comprehensible pronunciation (Richards and Rogers, 2001). This feature is also
shared in the curricula for EIL as it seeks to respect linguistic and cultural diversity.

Finally, we picked TBLT because one of the principles of this method is that students
can learn a second language by interacting communicatively and, once again, this is
a feature shared with EIL.

Also we can connect these methods with the two models of second language
proposed by Littlewood (1984): Creative construction model and skill learning. In the
case of creative construction

learners construct a series of internal representations of the second


language system. This occurs as a result of natural processing strategies
and exposure to the second language in communication situations.
Provided the right kind of exposure takes place, the learner’s internal
representations develop gradually in the direction of native speakers (Pp.
69).

It is also important to mention that this process is unconscious and for that reason
language is acquired. We can see that TPR takes part of this model because
students are first exposed to the language, then they go through a “silence period” in
which they process the language and then, after a considerable amount of time, they
are told to produce utterances.
On the other hand, the skill learning model says that language can be learned
through the guidance of a teacher to produce certain characteristics of language and
after practice, students can internalize the language until they can use the language
without conscious reflection (Littlewood, 1984). We can appreciate that CLT and
TBLT fit in this model because in these methodologies students work with certain
parts of the language that are taught in the beginning in the case of CLT and
reviewed and practiced at the end in the case of TBLT.

In conclusion, students in our plan would benefit from TEIL when living in New York.
Since the main purpose of our class is for students to develop communicative skills,
they will learn how to overcome problems when interacting with English speakers
regardless of their origin. Furthermore, students will be able to use English as a tool
to share their culture without being absorbed by the native speakers’ culture. As a
result, students contribute to the International body of knowledge in English.

References

McKay, S. L. (2016). English as an International Language: a Time for Change. In


Alsagoff, L., McKay, S. L., Hu, G., & Renandya, W. A. (2016). Principles and
Practices for Teaching English as an International Language. Routledge.

Mozaheb, M. A., & Monfared A. (2020). Exonormativity, Endonormativity or


Multilingualism: Teachers’ Attitudes towards Pronunciation Issues in Three Kachruian
Circles. Journal of English as an International Language. Pp. 27-51. (15) N2.

Littlewood W. T. (1984). Foreign and Second Language Learning: Language-


acquisition research and its implications for the classroom: Cambridge University
Press.

Richards, J. C. & Rogers T. S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language


Teaching: Cambridge University Press.

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