This course will introduce students to major themes situated at the intersection of race, empire, and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), through an exploration into the works of established scholars and contemporary theorists in applied linguistics and TESOL. Using race and empire as our primary analytics, we will interrogate the ways in which the teaching of English overlaps with racial formations, colonization, globalization, language minority rights, representations of English as a lingua franca, evangelism, the supremacy of native speaker identity, and constructions of multiculturalism. What does it mean to become an English teacher in a global context in which English(es) carry tremendous cultural and social capital and economic power? How do we as teachers support our students’ access to privileged forms of English while maintaining a critical eye towards racial inequities of linguistic hierarchies? How can teachers negotiate the racialized nature of the English language as we are teaching it? How does our consciousness of our own identities become salient in our pedagogical practice? How does the recent emergence of the non-native English-speaking teachers (NNEST) movement complicate notions of English language ownership, legitimacy, and nativeness in the TESOL profession? Successful participation in the course will give students a firm grounding in the historiography of English language spread and a critical understanding of present-day debates surrounding the racialization of the profession and the larger implications of English language spread.

 

Goals:

·       Students will be supported as they reflect on the relationships among racial formations, empire, and the teaching of English

·       Students will extend their understandings of the sociohistorical contexts of English language teaching and of the ways in which historical legacies shape current pedagogical practice and policy

·       Students will reflect on the implications of the profession’s racialized and colonial legacy for their current pedagogical practice

·       Students will explore ways of participating in the broader professional community, including preparing conference proposals and conference papers and chairing and responding to mock conference panels

·       Students will participate in building a community in which exciting ideas can be explored and experimented with in a supportive and stimulating environment