sarah benesch - critical praxis

8/10/2019 Sarah Benesch - Critical Praxis

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CAMBRIDGE LANGUAGE EDUCATIONSeries Editoc Jack C. Riclnrds' ',In this series:Agendas for Second Language Literacy by Sandra Lee McKayReflecdv Teaching in Second Language Classrooms y,/ec& C.Nchatds d Charles Loc*lurtEducrtirg Second Language Chtldreh: The Whote Chitd, the WhoteCurriculum, the Whole Commurity edited by Fred GeneseeUnderstanding Communication in Second Language Classmoms ,,Ka,ren E, Johnsor

The Self-Directed Teachers Matraging the Learntug Pmcess 6.y Davrd:' Nunat and Clorice LambFunctional English Grammar: An Introduction for Second Latrguage


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CAMARIDGE UNTVERSIIY PRESS

Canbridep, New Yonq Mlboumq Ma&i4 Cape Town, Singepore,Sro Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Cambddee Univrsib, Press32 AvErue ofthe AEericas, Nes York, Nr 10013-2473, IJSAcrws,.cambddg..orgInfodnation on lhis t tle: *rf,w.camkidge.org/9780521 l2 t583

O Cankidg Unilr{sity Press 2Ol0

This publicdio is in colyright Subjecl to sairtcry cxc.ptioland lo thc prwisions of rclel/aot collectivE liccnsing agr.cnEflts,no

reproduetioo ofarypan

may takeplac

without the writienperrnissioa of Cambridec Universiry Pnss,


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vi Confents

8 Listenirg as prccess: Leaming activities fur self-appraisalandsetf-regulation 179Chrbrtne Goh

9 Materials to develop the speaking skil 207Rebecca Hughes

10 Developing outerials for discipline-specific vocabulary andphrases ia academic seminars 225Martha Jones and Norbert Schmin

PART D: MAIERIALS FOR SPECIFIC AND ACADEMIC PURPOSES

Ll Materials for univqsity essay xri.ing 251Martin Hewings

12 Writiqg for publicatiofi Corpus-iaformed materials forpostdocioral fellows itr perimtology 279Chtistine B. Feak and John M. Swqles

13 Research-based materials to dmystiry acaderdc citation


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5 Critical praxis adevelopment : Rmilitary recruitm

U S


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110 Sarah Benesch

For Spccialist James Garrovillas, edisting in the Army mca more thanjustjoin-ing thc military. It meant joining the United St8tcs... . Specialist GErrovillas isamong 20,000 military servicc mombers who have become American citizcns sincaJuly 2002, m,lny ofwhom applied ullder a fast-hack ploc$s approved by PresidentBush, . , , The new citizcnship laws have offered a po\4erful iool to requiters at atime when the military is strugglilg to meet its monthly enlistsnent quotas.

lNela, York nmes, Arg, 9, 2005; A I l)Thc Army NatiorBl Guanq which h.s Euffcrcd a Ecveto thrco-year lecruiting slump,hss bogun o rcal in soldiers in record numbers, sidcd in part by a rcw initiativethat pays Guard memberi $2,000 for each person they onlist.

(lfas hihgtot Post, Mar, 12, 2006; A0 l)

The activities and materials described in this chapter are grounded in aparticular sociopolitical cortext: attempts by the U.S. armed forces to enlistnew recruits in the faoe of growing opposition to the U.S. occupation oflraq.Given the pubtic's disenchantrnent witlr tlte war, va ous recruitnent toolswere dweloped, illustrated by the quotes above. Signing bonuses, fast-

hack citizenship,r and the Solomon Amendmsnt - legislation requiring


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112 Sa,"..h Benesch

1996: l2'l). Discourses signal membership in social groups and networks,"people who associate with each other around a common set of interests,goals, and activities" fu. 128).

Power is cenkal to the concept of discourses, an acknoy,,,ledgmeut ofhierarchical arEngemelts favoring some discourses and devaluing othersin social contexts. Power, as a theoretical tool, highlights the dominance ofcertain discursive practices and the zubordination ofothers, in texts, insti-tutions, and social interactions. Attending to power allows for an under-standing of the "ordering and dominance relations between practices andhow people select ftom amongst a ilable practices on specific occasions"(Fairclough 1995: 12). In other words, who is entitled to speak, to act, toparticipa& in various contexts, and who is silenced and excluded?

Yet, language-as-discourse in critical applied linguistics does not concep-tualize power as indomitable, but instead theorizes agency, the Foucauldiannotion ofresistance to power, Rather than viewing powff as deterministicand all-encompassing, Foucault (1980) theorized the interylay ofpower and

resistarce, that is, humans actively engaging in the mechanisms of powerth th d i t th f conrol P "signifies level ofcoDflict

:wr

:


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114 Samh Bonesch

fixed ideological position on the issue, I allowed my opinion to be informedby the rich, multilayered clas$oom discussions. This is not to say that I hadno opiniofl atthe outset- Rather, I was initially opposed to military recruiterson college campuses, wanting to shield students from their intimidatingpresence. However, as shdents expressed and elaboratcd their responses tothe issue, my views changed. I was convinced by their arguments that thepresence ofreoruiters could provoke students to formulate various rcsponsesto these replesentativs ofthe military from approval to opposition, leadingto opon disoussion and informed decision making, both in and outsidc ofclass. Had I bad a ffxed position on the issue before the disoussions began,such a modification in my thinking would have been impossible.

Praxts

Pennycook (2001)posits praxis, "a constant reciprocal rclationship betweentheory and pmctice" (p. 3), as a contlal concern of cdtical applied linguis-tics. Yet, there continues to bo a shofiage of examples ofthe practice side

of praxis, some exceptions being Goldstein (2003), Lin (2004), Morgan) d Ri 999) M f l f iti l t h


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116 Sarah Benesch

Critical praxis: Responding to military recruitment

Va ous antiwar, civil librties, religious, and student groups have developedcouoter-recruitment materials as a rcsponse to the prcsence of militaryrccruiters on U.S. high school and college campuses. These materials serveto inform parents and studerfs of their ghts ao4 more generally, to offsetthe impact of the morc widely available, and more expensively produce4recruitnent materials. Howeyer, my aim in this section is not to desc becertain pro- or counter-recruitment matcrials. Rathe , I will discuss howI intoduced the topic, bow students respooded to it and how I modifiedmy teaching according to students' responses. That is, in critical teaching,there is reciprocity between the materials and praxis, or, to put it anotherway, critical praxis can be seen cs materials development.

lntroducing the topic

I introduced the topic of military recruitrnent on campus in an ESL readingclass during the spring 2005 semester by distributing a reading that debated


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118 Satah Benesch

However, like the others he, too, does not bcliev that recruiters persuadepeople u/ho do not $,ant to join the military to do so.

ln addition, R3 includes an observation found in the response of thcnext group of "no" rcsponses: Remuitels prwide useful information tostodents. This theme assumes that recruiters are no different from otherjob rccruiters. Their role, according to this positior, is to offer helpfulinformation students might use in making a career ctoicc. Not surprisingly,this is the argument nnade by supPorters of the Solomor Amendment whoolaimed that tlo military is equivalent to any company seeking emplctyeesand that it, like other employe$, shor:ld be pemitted access to collegestudents to dist bute its information.

I note that though R4 focuses on information provided by recruiters in a igeneral way, R5 goes beyond, expressing the opinion that the U.S. military .pays college tuition for stBdents who enlist. This cloim can be found inrcquitment materials, belying the fact the goal is to sign up sotdie$, notsuppo students Snancially while they are earning degrees:

R4: My opinion is college should allowed to military recruiters. ln my view collegeb


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intormanon, a ItroYe Jrrw ''"'-*'- --',"fhev knolw Chinese will fail boothome. one young Chinese man Joked.eoui]1il"A'*"J'r"..ed to be ancamp." Despite the lsughs his- comm ^L--:^ --",,^h.td er teest trom

had been recruiled. Wc noted tlrat none ofthe Russian or Polish-students

iill iiJ" "trtJ;, and thatof se'e" chinese srudents' onlv one had

been

l"r.ri"ri rl",n"*ever, had gone voluntarily to the military recruitmcntlilri"Ii'"-rr*n

"lr',"ot

jou rali the year before and had offered' contact

###;"; ;;'; shc regretted after-receivine 1;1;::::,:it[,?t":::

:1Ti;#":H'"#'#""$ 'i"ii'-"1"fi'v'*n*iswas upheld' at least rrom

ii,.-..^ii1"rt"r". The only two students who had been approachedon

i"*p.. #J"1-d*,i, 1111":::"t"i[fi: ",1''n,1'*** response thatIt may seem surprisins that "*: ;:i1;:,ir";,"*y tr,"i.i"yin ,"r,oor.more students are willing to leave sctt

il;;;il;r; sripports the ob"ervation that Nigerian-born students

secmcd to have bcen enlisting tn dtsnronortionatenumbefi ln addition'

:il";il;;. from the university ttitt"a in tt"q at that time'two were

Nigerian-boml responses' most stdking

is thatwhileTo sum uP the findings ot thc mrtlar j } i

12o SaE,h Benesch


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122 Sarah Benesch

In rehospect, I believe I could have done more to highlight the cen-tality ofpower in interactions betw8en young immigrants and rePresonta-tives ofthe military. Though power was discussed implicitly when shrdentssought shategies for avoiding or deflecting rccntiters' pitches, it was notforegmunded in those discussions. Having had lime to think about lhelessons, I rcalize that there miSht h3ve been ways to laiso awaleness ofpower differentials between students and recruiters, in terms of age, status,and other social factors, including gender, in cases where young womenarc being recruited by men. Such a discussion would allow students toexamine the assumption expressed in R2 that studcnts can 'Just say no" toreouiters. It might lead them to consider why it is hard for some to just walkaway.

Alother approach to issues of power would have been to pose the fol-lowing questir:n: If stude[ts can choose for themselves ',irhether or not tojoin the military, why are lecruit$ necessary? I believe that this ques-tion would get at the actual physical power of recruiters (their size and

experience as fighters) and their symbolicpower (their

uniformand social

t t ) O th i were g g d I could ask the following ques


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124 Sarah Benesch

Gutierrez's life back to an impoverished childhood in the mountains of.\,ulrsrrsz -u IlPvYvrreuvqGuatemala, his life on the stre;ts of Guatemala City as an oryhan, and hiseventual flight to the United States, riding dangerously on top of trains that

'

took him thiough Mexico to the U. S. border and then to Los Argeles' Gutier'rez was assigned a foster family, eamed a high school dcgree, and attended

community aollege briefly. He then joined the U.S. Marines. After complet'ing boot camp, Gutierrez was sent to Kuwait and ther to lraq whgre'

-on $efir;t day of lhe U.S. invasiorL he was killed, apparently by "ftiendly fire"l . ''"fbn Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agree- ,

ment'' had been on my ofrce door all summer, when, one day in the fall 2006

semester walking toward my office, I saw a young man reading it intently' As

i apfroactred thJOoor, I introduc6d myselfto the young man, he introduced

himself, and I invited him into my office. I asked 'Angel" fuseudonym)what had made him stop to read the list. He told me that he lYanled to join

the U.S. Army, but was only l7 years old and needed his mother's permis- ..ior. si" *uJ orr;ted. When t asked why his mother refused to sign the l

nc""r ury pupe.s, he told methat she aln'ays worried about him' Next I

k d ieihir h as a t d t at the college He was an4 according to

:

'

:.


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'l2A Sarah Benesch

this chapter might fiucl equally pressing issues confronting 0reir studentsas topics for critical academic engagement.

Discussion questions and tasksBeflection

l, which aspccts ofcdtical theory did you find most aocssible? Whichdid you find more difficult to grasP?2. Hor easy or difficult do you think it woutd b to apply criticol theory

to selecting and developing materials?

3. What might be somi advantages for language leamers of e cdtic-alapproach to materials and teaching, in terrns ofskills dwelopment? -

4. What challenges might students face when using materials grounded

in criticat theory? How could you try to address these challenges as(i) a teacher; ard (ii) a matedals designer?

5. ihe materials described in this chapter were designed for lgamers in

a postsecondary setting in the United States. To vr'hat extent could a


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128 Sarah Benesch

Simon, R. I. ( I 992). Iea ching against the grNew York Bergio & Garvey.

Washingto,t Post (2006). Army guard refilnew rccruits. March 12, A0l.

w$,w.afsc.org/resources/documents/ 1 opts-wvw.counterecruihnentguide,orgrf,ww.law.georgeto. wn.edr/solomon/solomoo,ht

sarah benesch - critical praxis

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