Inquiry: Teaching (Irish) heritage language)

[Scott McGinnis]

Responses may be send directly to the originator of this message, Brian
Doyle, at brian at gael-image.com

> I am part of a new "heritage" language program in Chicago that aims to
teach
> Irish-American children (8-14) their ancestral language. Classes meet for
a
> half-hour on Saturday mornings at a local community center and will run a
> total of 18 weeks. Almost all of the children have no Irish and the
language
> is not spoken in the home. These are strictly L2 learners.
>
> As a first-year grad student in linguistics, I approached my graduate
> advisor for some assistance and she graciously loaned me a number of ESL
> activity books. Previously, I did not have much interest in TESL but,
> increasingly, I see the value of the pedagogical issues it focuses on.
>
> However, I am frustrated by a number of things:
>
> My advisor explained to me that the "E" in TESL is misleading and the it
is
> really a discipline that is applicable to all language teaching. But, I
find
> that many (all) of the ESL books that I have been looking at presume that
> English is not only the target language but the medium of instruction as
> well, which itself presumes that students have sufficient competency in
the
> instructional/target language to participate in activities. This is not
the
> case in my situation. Before I can have the children practicing
full-fledged
> dialogs, I have to teach them basic sentance structure and pronunciation.
>
> How does one do this and maintain a communicative/collaborative approach?
Is
> there any literature that addresses this issue?
>
> To follow up on the previous thread regarding the marginalization/neglect
of
> language teaching in general, I feel that (American) applied linguistics
too
> often neglects the fact some teachers want to teach second languages other
> than English, to such a degree that if you type the key phrase "applied
> linguistics" into any search engine, the majority of your results will
have
> to do with TESL/TESOL.
>
> The related but distinct field of foreign language teaching is somewhat
more
> diverse but attention to less-commonly taught languages (LCTLs) is still
> sparse. Furthermore, foreign language teaching degrees prepare one for a
> career in public school systems, which is often not an option for LCTL
> teachers.
>
> I plan on attending the upcoming AAAL 2003 annual meeting in Arlington,
VA,
> and I am very pleased to see that the focus of this conference will be the
> diversity of applied linguistics. Nonetheless, it seems to me that, if the
> field is to be truly diverse and open to a wider range of academic
> interests, it would behoove university departments to review and
reconsider
> the singular, Anglocentric nature of TESL programs. Not only would this
> benefit people like myself. I believe that it would benefit TESL teachers
> too, who are too often regarding as glorified tutors and mere providers of
> university services rather than experts in foreign language teaching.
>
> Am I the only person who feels this way?
>
> Sincerely,
> Brian Doyle
> Grad student, Linguistics
> Northeastern Illinois University
>
>
>