English Language Teaching in its Social Context

ofTESOL-related macrostructures, and only assume implications for language classroomsrather than reporting empirical observations of the classroom itself for how domination isexperienced and oppositional tendencies are formed there. We can understand the“ambiguous areas” (Giroux, 1983, p. 109) of student response, where a confusing range ofaccommodative and oppositional tendencies are displayed, only if we take a closer look atthe day-to-day functioning of the classroom and the lived culture of the students. It is bydoing so that we can attain a realistic understanding of the challenges as well as thepossibilities for a pedagogy of resistance in TESOL. The objective of this chapter is not tooutline one more pedagogy of resistance, but to interrogate the range of behaviors studentsdisplay in the face of domination ~ the awareness of which should precede and inform anydevelopment of such pedagogies. The ethnographic study below of an ESOL classroom inSri Lanka creatively complicates the pcrspectivcs on domination and resistance presentedby Pennycook and Peirce.Contextualizing the studyEver since the British colonial power brought the whole island of (then) Ceylon under itscontrol in 1796 and instituted English education to create a supportive lower administrativework force, English has functioned as a valued linguistic capital over the local Sinhala andTamil languages to provide socioeconomic advantages for native Lankans. Although since1956 (8 years after independence), “leftist” governments have professed to raise the statusof Sinhala (and, to a limited extent, Tamil), it is the English-speaking bilinguals who havedominated the professions and social hierarchy. On the other hand, the democratization orpopularization of English promised by “rightist” governments has only amounted toproviding limited mobility into lower-middle-class rungs for aspirants whosc newly acquiredEnglish is marked as a nonprestige “sub-standard Sri Lankan English” (see Kandiah, 1979).These developments have historically disgruntled the monolingual majority to make themperceive English as a double-edged weapon that frustrates both those who desire it as wellas those who neglect it (Kandiah, 1984). Similarly, in theTamil society, whereas the emergentmilitant nationalism has unleashed a Tamil-only and even “pure Tamil” movement, suchparallel developments as the exodus to the West or the cosmopolitan capital as economicand political refuges have bolstered English to assure the dominance of English bilingualsand to attract monolinguals.As for English language teaching, the teachers, administrators, and general public inSri Lanka agree that English language teaching is a“colossa1 failure” (de Souza, 1969, p. 18)considering the vast resources expended on this enterprise by the state and Western culturalagencies. Though all identify the problem as one of student motivation, they differ as towhy students are unmotivated. Hanson-Smith (1984), a U.S. TESOL consultant, andGoonetilleke (1983), a local professor of English, fault the educational system. In theuniversity, for instance, they perceive that the requirements for English are not stringentenough to motivate students to take the subject as seriously as other subjects. Both, however,are in agreement that English does a world of good for Sri Lankan students: “English islearned not primarily to communicate with other Lankans . . . but to converse with theworld at large ~ and not just the world of technology and machines, but also of dreams,aspirations and idcals”(Hanson-Smith, 1984, p. 30). Because Kandiah (1984), on the otherhand, is of the view that the dreams encouraged by English are illusory (as English learningdoes not challengc but in fact perpetuates inequality) and its ideals are suspected by studentsof resulting in cultural deracination, he sees the problem of motivation differently: “[The]