StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Practice of English Language Teaching - Literature review Example

Cite this document
Summary
The paper “The Practice of English Language Teaching” dialogues the links between social and linguistic under which gender is defined, constructed, and propagated. Gender tends to be embedded in actions, desires, beliefs, and institutions such as schools. …
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER96% of users find it useful

Extract of sample "The Practice of English Language Teaching"

Language and Gender Name Course Lecturer Date Teaching English in countries where it is commonly a second language may manifest various gender issues which are attributable to social contexts in the society. As Silberstein (2001) argues, the language through communication strategies and linguistic forms apply to articulation, construction and deconstruction of gender phenomenon. In general there are no individuals who use the language the same way, but specifically this is manifest in gender conscious communities. According to McKay & Hornberger (1996), gender tends to be embedded in actions, desires, beliefs and institutions such as schools. This maps language usage through interaction, communication and social order establishment. This paper dialogues the links between social and linguistic under which the gender is defined, constructed and propagated. Silberstein (2001) further observes that, men and women are expected to speak differently since gender is an influence on how language varies. The patterns are shaped by social norms in gendered language use. Varieties of speech may be associated with a particular gender. In countries where men dominate such as Saudi Arabia Islamic country, the different understanding and practices of their social world that shape differentiations and segregations fundamentally reflect in language. Girls commonly use registers that are reveals their inferior roles in their society. The social orientation and forces require them to use linguistic forms that reinforce and reflect their subordinate roles. In most cases girls in schools use tag questions as a way to give the other parties options and beg for agreement. They use tags like you think so, are you sure and the fact that they are polite make them tentative giving the listener opportunity to affirm or reject. Unlike girls, boys who take dominant roles tend to use competitive illocutionary force. For instance boys mostly start a question by ‘I want to ask…’ which show demand or ordering. Politeness is rare among boys who tend to take dominance roles that require less consent, more so from women. Women in general and girls in particular are less forceful when asking questions as they use low intonation in extreme cases. The boys on the other hand are commandeering and forceful in questioning specifically when dealing with those under aged and their gender counterparts. The arrangements of gendered and social opportunities having taken roles like control and police forces on men make them more used to strong directives compared to women’s weak directives (Hornberger & McKay, 2010). Since female sex is a subordinate group due to male supremacy and effects of patriarchy the difference in speech and communicative styles results. However, the English language is not primarily male-centered as it is not considered the standard. The differences are manifest of social inequality as boys and girls are socialized into different sub-cultures since childhood. The result is varying styles of communication rooted in cultural differences. In comparison of conversation and its goals, boys commonly use report style as a way of communicating factual information. Girls and women in general tend to use rapport style as a way of building and maintaining their relationships. However to some extent individual speakers may utilize differently as they find it fitting. In schools and colleges the pervasive differences are seen across speech, face-to-face conversation, secondary schools written essay, walls and toilet graffiti. As Hornberger & McKay (2010) argues, social contexts where there are lines of separation between boys and girls learning and out-school training emphasize on emotional labor where girls are expected to smile, express intonation, show rapport or empathy and give minimal responses when dealing with seniors and in services industries. Girls are more polite and tend to use words like excuse me, please, thank you and sorry. Politeness is taught right from the beginning it is a social role. The integration of social locus in linguistic practice and system is deployed by gender categories. The situations are more pronounces where the school system separate boy and girls. Communicative style develops in those contexts; gender differences in such single-gender groups permeate (Coulmas, 2005). This is unlike in mixed schools where mixed-gender; boys and girls the linguistic differences are limited. Fundamentally, apart from social prescribed notions that manifest in English language there are manifest patterns in lexical, phonological and gender-specific vocabulary differences (Coulmas, 2005). Girls efficiently take new and media related terms and master them easily. They also use and move toward the use of Standard English mostly used in media and in school. This tends to be so to those schools dominated by foreign lecturers and teachers in the schools which afford to get them. Most boys on the other hand use non-standard which enable them to fit well in their routine relationships. It also helps them avoid stigma of trying to dissociate from ‘normal’- in this case the common pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The common way of language is manifestation of masculinity and a way of aggression which in most cases differentiate performance whereby girls perform well in spoken and written English than boys. According to Silberstein (2001), gender differences in language are also experience in areas such as lexicon, syntax and dialect. Where English is a second language, girls are observant and rightly use prefixes and suffixes such as un-, dis-, re-, -ful, -ness, and so on. Boys on the other hand, mix them mostly in less used terms. In writing girls excellently master the use of comas, apostrophes, quote marks, colon and semi-colons. They are also less likely to misspell words as compared to their counterparts. They master the use of exclamations and conjunctions more than boys. This makes story and essay writing more appealing and explanation for girls than boys. Boys commonly code-switch English with national language like Arabic as a way of excluding the third party or pride of their nationality. It also shows authority or desire to emphasize a point (Holmes, 2007). This marks their intentions, where marked use is mostly for exclusion. Girls are less likely to code-switch in school scenario but outside the school as a way of showing others that they are educated. Sometimes girls exhibit intra-sentential code-switching but less likely to use inter-sentential but both are mostly in use by boys. Generally boys run toward the informal styles in the continuum while girls move toward the formal. Boys spoken and written English is more of slang while the girls’ use jargon. In both cases most students has both the standard and non-standard and regularly switch dialects using the two varieties; the English acquired through earning and the other acquired through contact (Multilingual Matters). As Eckert & McConnell-Ginet (2003) argues, consciously or unconsciously both boys and girls manifest generic use of pronouns in the order of he/she than she/he. Gender speech contrast is observable in phonology, grammar, vocabulary, movements and body stances that accompany speech. Phonologically, boys pronounce vowels in a more centrally manner while girls more peripherally. Girls’ vocabulary and grammar reveal a tendency of being careful of uneducated speech; boys adopt less standard class speech with few exceptions of those pursuing media studies and international related courses in technical colleges. There are pronunciation makers where sounds present in language are absent in ethnicity. English grammar is affected by ethnicity where concord agreement specifically between nouns and verbs is common. Traditionally and in Saudi Arabia, girls less forceful and use polite expressions like oh dear, goodness and use of adjectives with words like adorable, sweet, charming, cute, lovely and divine compared to boys who use terms like damn, hell, shit and so on. There are manifest differences in terms used in different fields such as sports and fashions. Girls incline more and have multiple terminologies for fashions, color and cosmetics while men are more familiar with sports terms and automobiles. Another difference is seen in words that are spoken quickly or slowly where girls tend to master quickly than boys (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003). Recognizing and managing them. According to Holmes (2007) a challenge exists to recognize, identify and deal with the social settings that are gender mapped. Gendered attributes involved in linguistic labeling include such functions as the articulation of gendered phonological, pragmatic, semiotic and onomatopoeic function and linguistic features. This exhibits in projection of self and other , attitude and stance, affective flow of talk and ideas coloring, tone and pitch of the voice that elicit gendered overtones. There is also choice of vocabularies which serve gendered inferences and discourse, metaphor, grammar and euphemisms patterns. However, it is complex for categories to get noticed and labeled with controversy over labels and categories, their support, localization and perpetuation of gender practice. According to McKay & Hornberger (1996), gendered issues in language can be dealt with by an attempt to use linguistic together with non linguistic practices which conflate various gendered specific categories and shifts towards a more collaborative and accommodating trends. Since communication styles are products of contexts, where gender differences are most pronounced with single-gender groups, it is possible as a teacher in mixed-gender contexts to drive differences in language towards overarching style of person in the interaction. As Harmer, (2007) observes, as a way to anchor these concepts which are in gender discourse, it requires community participation within the practices which involve learning of various values and fields attached to these categories. As Crystal (1997) argues, another way to counter these variations is encouraging students to pursue higher education. As students move geographically they are exposed to foreign language speakers and they assimilate the differences moving closer to the formal and standard styles. References Bristol/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters. Coulmas, F. (2005). Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices. Cambridge: CUP. Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language. Cambridge: CUP. Eckert, P., McConnell-Ginet, S. (2003). Language and gender. Cambridge: CUP Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching. (4th ed.). Harlow: Longman. [ch.1]. Holmes, J. (2007). An introduction to sociolinguistics. 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Hornberger, N. H, & McKay, S. Lee (2010) (eds.). Sociolinguistics and language education. McKay, S. L., & Hornberger, N. H. (eds.) (1996). Sociolinguistics and language teaching. Cambridge: CUP. Silberstein, S. (2001). Sociolinguistics. In Carter, R., & Nunan, D. (eds). The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages (pp. 100-106). Cambridge: CUP. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(The Practice of English Language Teaching Literature review, n.d.)
The Practice of English Language Teaching Literature review. https://studentshare.org/english/2061321-language-and-gender-discuss-issues-around-gender-and-language-that-you-might-encounterhave
(The Practice of English Language Teaching Literature Review)
The Practice of English Language Teaching Literature Review. https://studentshare.org/english/2061321-language-and-gender-discuss-issues-around-gender-and-language-that-you-might-encounterhave.
“The Practice of English Language Teaching Literature Review”. https://studentshare.org/english/2061321-language-and-gender-discuss-issues-around-gender-and-language-that-you-might-encounterhave.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Practice of English Language Teaching

Learners Motivation within the EFL Setting

11 Pages (2750 words) Term Paper

The Primary Framework for Literacy and Mathematics

The 12 strands also create a direct link to the Early Learning Goals and aspects of english inside the National Curriculum.... The Frameworks for Secondary English and Mathematics The Primary Framework for Literacy and Mathematics The Primary Framework for literacy and mathematics, which replaced the National Literacy Strategy Framework for teaching YR to f6 (1998) in October 2006 applies to students within the age of 3 and 11.... hellip; This Framework consolidates the learning that has taken place since the original Frameworks for teaching literacy and mathematics were introduced in 1998 and 1999....
17 Pages (4250 words) Essay

Materials and technology in English language teaching

Materials and Technology in english language teaching ... For Levy, CALL is the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning.... The significance of the english language for all students when using computers outside of their studies is clear to see from the response to Q2.... However, the dominance of the english language on the internet can also make it difficult for some students as exemplified by a comment from an EF....
10 Pages (2500 words) Assignment

Second Language Teaching and Learning

Module title: Second language teaching and Learning Module number: 0913615 SLTL2 Discuss the following issues, with reference to a group of learners with whom you are familiar: What are the main speaking, listening, reading or writing skills that they need to acquire?... Communicative language teaching (CLT) 4.... Task-based language teaching (TBLT) 4.... Therefore, a teacher should be asking basic questions related to his/her own language teaching to help learners to achieve the goal effectively....
13 Pages (3250 words) Essay

Critical Reflection of Classroom Observations

This essay "Critical Reflection of Classroom Observations" describes that the aims of the teacher for the lesson were to simply ensure that tasks are set up clearly and effectively, to elicit the meaning of key vocabularies in the text from the students as much as possible.... hellip; By the end of the lesson, the students were expected to generate a general idea of conversation starters through the completion of a specific task....
10 Pages (2500 words) Essay

A Great Deal of Patience and Understanding During Learning English Language

This paper focuses on the english language that is difficult to teach to a group of mixed adult learners.... This is when the different types of teaching aids will come handy.... This will enhance the student-teacher interaction and each conversation will encourage the student to increase the confidence to speak in english.... This exercise will serve to reinforce knowledge, to give SS the opportunity to practice phonetics in an exercise that becomes gradually more difficult to provide a verbal record of structure and to allow SS to work without fear of embarrassment....
3 Pages (750 words) Coursework

Business Language Acquisition

Traditional approaches to language learning courses developed were concerned with selected lists of linguistic features like grammar, vocabulary, pronunciations as well as experiential content like topics and themes.... The core of this course introduces relationship between tasks and language focused exercises.... hellip; It teaches ways of business language acquisition through task performance using the target language. ... These will also serve as source texts for reflecting on learner autonomy in language learning....
14 Pages (3500 words) Essay

Cross-Cultural Communication Breakdown

This forms the basis of this report which seeks to analyze cross-cultural communication breakdown between English and Arabic language and examining how the causes of the breakdown can be averted to ensure effective learning of english as a second language among Arabic speakers ... According to Kim, different people from different cultures have different bodily movements or body language that means different things depending on the context.... The ability for human beings to communicate and specifically to use language is the one characteristic that distinguishes human beings from other animal species....
12 Pages (3000 words) Assignment
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us