English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
English Language Teaching in its Social Context
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
274 ANGEL M. Y. LIN21, 1998). Besides, <strong>English</strong> rema<strong>in</strong>s the mcdium of <strong>in</strong>struction <strong>in</strong> most universities andprofessional tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g programmes.It can be seen that the symbolic market is embodied and enacted <strong>in</strong> the many keysituations (e.g., educational and job sett<strong>in</strong>gs) <strong>in</strong> which symbolic resources (e.g., certa<strong>in</strong> typesof l<strong>in</strong>guistic skills, cultural knowledge, specialized knowledge and skills) are demanded ofsocial actors if they want to ga<strong>in</strong> access to valuablc social, educational and eventually materialresources (Bourdieu, 199 1). For <strong>in</strong>stance, a Hong Kong student must have adequate <strong>English</strong>resources to cnter and succeed <strong>in</strong> the <strong>English</strong>-mcdium professional tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g programmesand <strong>in</strong> order to earn the qualifications to entcr high-<strong>in</strong>come professions.To see how the larger social context can pose local dilemmas on teachers and studentsand how they can exercise their creative discursive agency <strong>in</strong> dcal<strong>in</strong>g with their dilemmas,let us compare and contrast four different classrooms.4 A story of four classroomsTaken from the database of the author’s ethnographic and classroom discourse study of eightclassrooms <strong>in</strong> scven schools from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds <strong>in</strong> Hong Kong, thefollow<strong>in</strong>g four classroom scenarios arc meant to give the reader a sense of the diversity ofdiscursive practices that can bc found across even similarly constra<strong>in</strong>ed classrooms (e.g.,Classrooms R, C, and D). To protect the anonymity of the schools and the participants, allnames are pseudo-names and all identify<strong>in</strong>g details of the schools and teachcrs are left out.In listen<strong>in</strong>g to these very different stories, however, you will sense a prcoccupation with arecurrent question: To what extent arc classroom participants shaped by thc larger socialstructures such as sociocultural and familial background and to what extent arc they freeto transform their lot (and habitus)? We shall return to this question <strong>in</strong> section 5. For cachclassroom I shall first describe the background, with <strong>in</strong>formation based on questionnairesurveys and <strong>in</strong>terviews ofthe students, and then an <strong>English</strong> read<strong>in</strong>g lesson. All four teachersare Hong Kong Ch<strong>in</strong>ese, shar<strong>in</strong>g the samc mother-tongue with their students.Classroom A: a scenario ?fcompatihle habitusBackgroundThis is a form 3 (grade 9) class of thirty-three students, aged from fourteen to fifteen, <strong>in</strong> aprestigious girls’ school. The majority of the students came from families <strong>in</strong> the expensiveresidential area <strong>in</strong> which the school is located. Their parents were professionals, bus<strong>in</strong>essexecutives, or university professors, whose education level ranged from secondary,university, to postgraduate. They spoke mostly Cantonese at home, but sometimes also<strong>English</strong>, for example, when speak<strong>in</strong>g to their Filip<strong>in</strong>o domestic hclpcrs.They read a varietyof extra-curricular materials, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g both <strong>English</strong> and Ch<strong>in</strong>ese, both serious and nonseriousmaterials; for example, comics, Ch<strong>in</strong>esc newspapers, <strong>English</strong> ncwspapers, <strong>English</strong>fashion magaz<strong>in</strong>es, <strong>English</strong> detective stories, science fiction, pop youth magaz<strong>in</strong>es,TV news,Rcadcr’s Digest (both <strong>English</strong> and Ch<strong>in</strong>esc editions), and Ch<strong>in</strong>ese translations of foreignclassics (c.g., Gone with the W<strong>in</strong>d). The students were fluent <strong>in</strong> their responses to theteacher’s questions and could claboratc their answers with the teacher’s prompts.Teacher A’s <strong>English</strong> was the best among the eight teachers who participated <strong>in</strong> my study.<strong>English</strong> seemed to be a tool she readily used <strong>in</strong> her daily life and not just <strong>in</strong> academiccontexts. She spoke to her students about her daughter, her shopp<strong>in</strong>g hab<strong>its</strong>, Mother’s Day,