McEnglish in Australia
Scott Thornbury, International House, Barcelona
Abstract
A glance at many ELT materials might suggest that, on the basis of their cultural content, they are inappropriate for use in the kinds of contexts in which we are teaching. I would argue, however, that this is a kind of 'surface inappropriacy' and that there is a deeper level of coursebook inappropriacy which has more to do with the implicit educational principles they convey than the cultural values they display. To use an analogy: the nutritional value of a Big Mac may be of some concern to dieticians, but the more insidious affects of the fast-food industry go way beyond issues of blood cholesterol. In this paper I argue that it is not the culture in the coursebook that should concern us so much as the culture of the coursebook.
Introduction
In his manual New Zealand English: How it should be spoken, Arnold Wall defined standard English 'as the speech of the best-educated and conscientious […] speakers of English, especially in Southern England' (1938:1) and proposed this as the model for those New Zealanders who desire 'to keep their speech as closely as possible in conformity with that of the 'best' speakers at Home' (1938:7).
Happily, we have come a long way from the colonial mindset of those days, in which the local product (whether a New Zealand or an Australian one) was held in lower regard than a model imported from a putative homeland. Multilingualism, apart from anything, has put paid to the notion of maintaining imported anglo-derived standards. Descriptions of Australian and New Zealand Englishes abound and attest to the autonomy of each. Homegrown ELT coursebooks have started to emerge in recent years, in step with the growth of ESOL education, both private and public. And, at an international level, Australian and New Zealand representation in publishers' catalogues, on conference programmes and in journal indexes, justifies the inclusion of Australasia under the BANA banner (British, Australasian and North American (Holliday, 1994)) as representing the centre rather than the periphery of ELT. (This high academic profile is, moreover, the iceberg tip of a vast 'barefoot army' of Australasian teachers scattered throughout the globe). Finally, the assertively triumphalist title of this conference suggests that a kind of linguistic republicanism has been achieved, or is about to be achieved, even in advance of its constitutional equivalent.
In short, we have nothing to fear, it seems, from 'home', from the Inner Circle, from the centre, since we are the centre. And yet there are grounds, I believe, to guard against complacency. It still seems to be the case, for example, that the majority of coursebooks being used - in the EFL sector at least - are imported. Wallace (1998) reports on an informal survey of Australian ELICOS schools to the effect that '[Directors of Studies'] replies frequently admitted that British textbooks were the basis of their courses' (1998, 18), a fact to which he attributes a large share of the blame for relatively high levels of student dissatisfaction. Moreover, even the locally produced (or locally adapted versions of) coursebooks are often reproductions of their British or North American counterparts, informed with the same educational values, even if dressed up with pictures of billabongs and barbies.
Accumulated entities
In a study aimed at uncovering the beliefs about language and language learning that inform current EFL practice in New Zealand, Basturkman (1999) took a selection of textbooks 'that were best-sellers in Auckland' (1999:18) and subjected their back-cover blurbs to critical analysis. Consistent with Wallace's (1998) complaint that imported coursebooks were uncompromisingly grammar-driven, Basturkman found that in the seven books she examined (including one New Zealand publication) '75% of the blurbs claimed the work to be based solidly in grammar' (1999:19). A search of key words revealed that 'content referring to the language system had a high frequency of occurrence… especially words denoting grammar' (1999: 27), and she concludes 'The ELT community views language as a core of grammatical structures and vocabulary' (1999:32, emphasis in original).
These findings closely reflect a study of my own: I subjected five (British) ELT publishers' catalogues to a similar kind of analysis, using concordancing software. Analysis of key adjectives associated with the word grammar revealed a consistent emphasis on Grammar as System. Frequently co-occurring adjectives included thorough, concise, systematic, graded, comprehensive, extensive. Moreover, the most frequently occurring right-hand collocate of any word class with the word grammar was points, as in 'Explanations of grammar points are clear and short'. These findings suggest a conceptualisation of grammar as being atomistic and incremental, a system of what Rutherford (1987) calls 'accumulated entities' .
This view is further reflected in the introductions and teacher's notes to many of the books in these catalogues. To take one popular example (Soars and Soars, 1993): Low-level language learners require a very logical, step-by-step approach…New language needs to be introduced in a clear, unambiguous presentation. It needs to be practised not only in communicative, meaningful ways, but in drills and exercises where language is used for display purposes only (1993:4).
Banking on grammar
Such a view of grammar and its pedagogical treatment contrasts strongly with claims such as Long and Robinson's (1998), to the effect that:
Of the scores of detailed studies of naturalistic and classroom language learning reported over the past 30 years, none suggest, for example, that presentation of discrete points of grammar one at a time […] bears any resemblance except an accidental one to either the order or the manner in which naturalistic or classroom acquirers learn those items (1998: 16).
Such an outright dismissal of the accumulated entities approach goes unheeded by publishers, and by many teacher educators as well. For good reason: representing grammar as being atomistic, systematic and incremental offers a means of making language teaching 'scientific', hence, safe, predictable, manageable and uncontroversial. It is consistent with the 'culture of positivism' (Giroux, 1997) in which 'knowledge becomes identified with scientific methodology and its orientation towards self-subsistent facts whose law-like connections can be grasped descriptively' (1997: 11). Self-subsistent facts are particularly desirable in language teaching: without them there would be only medium and no message. Grammar provides language teachers with what otherwise would be missing: a subject. And a subject, of course, confers power and authority upon those who dispense it.
Canagarajah (1999) reaches a similar conclusion in his critique of an imported coursebook that has been a core text in Sri Lanka for 'over a decade' (1999: 85):
The assumptions about language and learning that inform the book's approach are expressed in the note 'To the Student and Teacher' at the beginning. What stands out is the concern with providing practice in the 'fundamentals of English' which intermediate-level students 'still cannot seem to use correctly, easily and as automatically as they would like'[…] In its concern with 'correctness' the book arrogates to itself the authority in the classroom to arbitrate, evaluate, and thus define knowledge. The 'fundamentals of English' are considered to be autonomous, value-free grammatical structures (much in the fashion of American structuralism) excluding the cultural and ideological values that inform the language. Little consideration is given to how the students' own lingusitic and cultural backgrounds might affect or enhance their language acquisition (1999: 86).
Canagarajah writes from the perspective of the colonised 'periphery' where a 'dependency on imported products has tended to undermine the alternative styles of thinking, learning and interacting preferred by local communities (1999: 104). Nevertheless, it is my contention that this is not only a periphery problem. A diet exclusively of grammar-driven materials creates its own dependency culture, its own periphery, wherever it extends its reach. To use Freire's (1970, 1996) metaphor, the packaging of grammar into discrete units for delivery to learners, irrespective of their own learning behaviours, needs, and predilections, is a banking model of education. According to this view, education is an act of depositing 'in which the students are the depositeries and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat' (1970, 1996: 53). Of course, a discrete-item, rule-driven approach to language teaching fits neatly into such a paradigm.
New conservatism
Freire's banking metaphor shares many characteristics with the 'new conservatism' in education, which works to 'promote passivity and rule following rather than critical engagement on the part of teachers and students' (Giroux, 1997: 89). A current expression of new conservatism in Britain is the close association of literacy with numeracy in popular discourses on education. Thus, Chris Woodhead, Chief Inspector of Schools, argues (in the Electronic Telegraph, 17th January, 1998) that
The [newly introduced] literacy and numeracy strategies ought to ensure that the standard of teaching improves rapidly and substantially….
The connection between literacy and numeracy becomes apparent later in the same article:
These are 'traditional' methods, in the sense that phonics will be at the heart of the teaching of reading and the mastery of number will be central to everything that is done in mathematics.
The call for a 'back to basics' approach is echoed in this rueful comment in the teacher's guide (cited above) to Soars and Soars (1993):
We feel that there is a danger in our profession of always rejecting the 'old' in favour of the 'new'. This has led to a certain neglect of many tried and tested approaches, activities, and exercise types which benefited generations of teachers and learners (1993:4).
Is it too fanciful to find, in this plea for 'a very logical, step-by-step approach' that includes such 'tried and tested approaches' as 'drills and exercises', echoes of Prince Charles' much cited complaint (quoted in The Daily Telegraph, 29th June, 1989) that:
We've got to produce people who can write proper English… We must educate for character. That's the trouble with schools. They don't educate for character. This matters a great deal. The whole way schools are operating is not right. I do not believe English is being taught properly. You cannot educate people properly unless you do it on a basic framework and drilling system.
Stubbs (1996) notes that 'many everyday ideas about language fit very firmly into a schema which contains terms such as standard, standards, accurate, correct, grammar, proper, precise...Grammar has a wide range of connotations: discipline, rules, authority' (1996:162). Of course, I am not claiming that the authors of popular coursebooks like Headway are deliberately setting out to impose discipline and authority, least of all 'educate for character'. Nevertheless, the ideological trappings associated with terms like grammar need to be unpacked if we are to make informed decisions about the choice of materials and methods we import into our classrooms. Claims regarding the status of knowledge, as Pennycook (1989) points out, are never disinterested: claims for grammar least of all. It should not be surprising if some of the conservative baggage adhering to grammar in popular discourse had not also percolated into TESOL. Pennycook observes that 'both the theories and practices of ELT take place in the context of these popular discourses on English' (1998:154) and that 'we need to see English language teaching as located in the domain of popular culture as much as in the domain of applied linguistics' (1998:162). As evidence, he identifies instances in EFL coursebooks where the superiority of English, and its authority as a world language, are trumpeted. One could also point to the recurrent association of grammar with correctness, with its underlying assumption that the only authoritative model of accuracy (and, hence, acceptability) is the native speaker.
Them and us
In fact, more than anything else it is the them-and-us dichotomy, instantiated in the non-native speaker/native speaker distinction, and built into most EFL teaching materials, that supports my claim that the classroom is at risk of being colonised. So long as learners are construed as deficient, rather than simply different, they will be forever dependent on handouts from the grammar bank. (And mercifully - for those who trade in this raw material - there is no limit to the amount of grammar in the bank). A deficit model of education, as embodied in a (grammar) presentation methodology, assumes that there is something the learner doesn't know and it the teacher's job to fill the gap. Grammar 'mistakes' or 'accented' pronunciation 'are treated as signs of L2 users' failure to become native speakers, not of their accomplishments in learning to use the L2' (Cook, 1999:194-5).
In a them-and-us dichotomy, learning is subordinated to teaching. As Freire put it, "the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects" (1970, 1993: 54). This relationship is captured in the di-transitivity of the verb 'to teach': 'I taught them the present perfect'. The teacher is construed as agent, the learners are objectified, and language itself is reified. The coursebook itself simply serves as vehicle for the delivery of deposited knowledge. Challenging the hegemony of coursebooks, at least in their traditional role as 'teaching materials', Allwright argues that what we now need are 'learning materials' and alludes to a 'general change in the conception of teacher and learner responsibilities for the management of language learning' (1981, 1990:143). How would this power shift impact on published materials? Allwright suggests that 'something much less ambitious, probably locally produced, would seem preferable' (1981, 1990:142).
But simply dressing up coursebook materials in 'local colour' is not a solution. It is not the culture in the coursebook that is the problem: it is the culture of the coursebook. Coursebooks that are predicated on the banking model are unlikely to empower learners, whether written and published in London, Auckland or, for that matter, Poona. Nor, for that matter, are they likely to empower the teacher either, who is reduced to 'nothing but a technician trained to transmit a fixed canon of knowledge' (Pennycook, 1989:612).
Moreover, the chances of a major devolution of power to local contexts, including recognition of the authority of L2 standards and models, is unlikely to occur while so many interests are vested in maintaining the status quo, as Nayar (1997) makes abundantly clear:
The politics of linguistics is such that the [native speakers] of no language will support any move that will threaten their expert power or subvert their sense of ownership of and cultural identification with the language. In the case of English, even more powerful issues like control over the global discourse of language teaching and over a multimillion-dollar ELT enterprise are involved. Therefore, for reasons of political expediency, the distinction between native Englishes and nonnative Englishes will continue, at least given the present geopolitical climate (1997:32).
The present geopolitical climate is one of commodification and globalization. The marketing of English, like the marketing of fast food, depends on an acquiescent public who identify sufficiently with the way the product is represented as to welcome it with open arms (and pockets). As I have argued elsewhere (Thornbury, 2000), an industry has evolved not only to service this desire but to inflate it and perpetuate it. The industry trades on the values attached to grammar, representing and commodifying grammar in ways that are designed to have irresistable appeal to its consumers. As well as being 'scientific', grammar is packaged as fun: in my survey of publishers' catalogues, this was another recurring theme. Grammar frequently co-occurs with adjectives such as lively, stimulating, motivating, imaginative. Like the consumers of hamburgers, teachers and learners are 'blissed out' by this constant diet of (junk) grammar. Everyone is kept happy and no one complains. The McDonaldization of grammar provides the perfect means for capitalizing (literally) on the global spread of English.
Un-covering grammar
What is the alternative? Substituting roo-burgers for beefburgers is not an alternative. What is needed is recognition of the autonomy of learners, and their capacity to shape their own meanings and purposes independently of the miserable diet of grammar McNuggets they are fed by coursebooks. This requires recognition of the fact that learners too are users, and have a grammar that has its own communicative potential even if it is different from an L1 user's: 'The learner variety is a system in its own right, error-free by definition, and characterized at a given time by a particular lexical repertoire and by a particular interaction of organizational principles' (Perdue, 2000:300). Cook (1999) recommends that 'L2 users be viewed as multicompetent language users rather than as deficient native speakers' (1999:185).
What kind of pedagogy is consistent with a view that the learner comes to the classroom with unrealised communicative potential? One possible approach is to adopt a task-based one, in which learners' meanings and needs are the starting point of instruction, rather than the end point. Unlike a presentation-based methodology and its assumptions of deficit, a task-based methodology is predicated on the belief that there is something the learners can do - it is the teacher's job to scaffold their attempts to do it. That is to say, it is a pedagogy of possibility.
Such a learning-centred pedagogy might also entail a text-driven, discovery approach as Willis (1994) suggests:
In helping learners manage their insights into the target language we should be conscious that our starting point is the learner's grammar of the language. It is the learner who has to make sense of the insights derived from input, and learners can only do this by considering new evidence about the language in the light of their current model of the language. This argues against presenting them with pre-packaged structures and implies that they should be encouraged to process text for themselves so as to reach conclusions which make sense in terms of their own systems (1994:56).
This emphasis on process contrasts strongly with the product-oriented tradition advocated by proponents of genre theory (e.g. Martin, 1989), for whom process writing, for example, is anathema. But, in replacing the grammar syllabus with a syllabus of genres, genre theorists are simply subsituting one set of discrete-items for another: the hierarchical transmission structure of the traditional classroom is left intact. As Cook (1994) points out:
The effect of genre-awareness, like the effect of some schooling, can be very much concerned with inducing conformity (Martin 1989). Notions of genre operate rather like school rules, which take no account of the individual (1994: 46).
Both task-based and text-based approaches offer viable alternatives to a grammar-based approach, but they do not perhaps take sufficient account of the fact that language is a sociocultural artefact and that learning is socially constructed, principally through interaction and dialogue. In contradistinction to his banking model of education, Freire (1970, 1996) proposed a pedagogy called dialogic (or dialogical), i.e. one in which teachers and students share responsibility for learning as they engage in problematizing the borderland between different cultures, languages and social groupings:
In contrast with the antidialogical and non-communicative 'deposits' of the banking method of education, the program content of the problem-posing method - dialogical par excellence - is constituted and organized by the students' view of the world, where their own generative themes are found (1970, 1996:90).
Central to this border pedagogy 'is the important task of affirming the voices that students bring to school and challenging the separation of school knowledge from the experience of everyday life' (Giroux, 1997:159). A pre-selected list of grammar items, as realised in the typical EFL coursebook, is an an unlikely platform for such a radical program.
Finally, a pedagogy of possibility needs to take account of the fact that language is a complex and emergent phenomenon - not something that is imposed from without (in the sense that teachers cover grammar) but rather something which emerges - given the right conditions - from within: it is un-covered. This ecological view underlies Sridhar's (1994) call for a theoretical 'reality check':
What we need is a more functionally oriented and culturally authentic theory [of SLA], one that is true to the ecology of multilingualism and views the multilingual's linguistic repertoire as a unified, complex, coherent, interconnected, interdependent, organic ecosystem, not unlike a tropical rain forest (1994:803).
In order to capture this organic quality of language development, Larsen-Freeman has suggested that the term second language acquisition should be replaced by the term second language emergence (personal communication). An emergent view of grammar is incompatible with a pedagogy that sees grammar as being an 'out-there' phenomenon, organised by linguists, based on descriptions of native speaker competence, and conveniently packaged into a sequence of units in a coursebook. It may in fact be the case that the internet - inherently 'unified, complex […], interconnected, interdependent organic' - is the medium best suited for delivering the kind of 'tropical jungle' affordances that provide the ripest conditions for language emergence. As van Lier (2000), argues
knowledge of language for a human is like knowledge of the jungle for an animal. The animal does not 'have' the jungle; it knows how to use the jungle and to live in it. Perhaps we can say by analogy that we do not 'have' or 'possess' language, but that we learn to use it and 'live in it' […] We 'learn' language in the same way that an animal 'learns' the forest, or a plant 'learns' the soil (2000: 253, 259).
Or, to bring the metaphor closer to home, in the same way that the wombat learns the bush.
Conclusion
English in Australia? Australia in English? I have argued that, finally, issues of cultural appropriacy are of little consequence if the pedagogy that mediates these cultural factors is a colonising one at heart. A colonising pedagogy is one that instils a them-and-us mentality; one that asserts a prestigious 'home' ethos, setting standards that learners may never realistically achieve, and denying them, both literally and metaphorically, a voice. The alternative is a dialogic pedagogy - a pedagogy that engages learners through talk and across borders, in an evolving conversation out of which their language needs are shaped and crafted, a pedagogy that, in Kramsch's words, 'should better be described, not as a blueprint for how to teach foreign languages, but as another way of being a language teacher (1993: 31).
References
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