Subject: Practice II, Didactics of ELT and Practicum Primary

School level. Practical 3: How to teach English respecting our

identity.Authors: Diego Francisco & Bretón Lucila

The purpose of this essay is to analyse language textbooks designed abroad

and in Argentina, and criticize how these materials convey a linguistic imperialism
point of view.
The teaching of English not only involves the transmission of language related
knowledge, but it also carries a strong cultural and ideological meaning.
Therefore, some authors (Barrow 1990 and Valdes 1990) state that the teaching
of a particular language involves the inevitable transmission of particular beliefs,
seen as a way of indoctrination. “Linguistic Imperialism implies a theoretical
construct, devised to account for linguistic hierarchisation, to address issues of
why some languages come to be used more and others less, what structures and
ideologies facilitate such processes, and the role of language professionals”
(R.Philipson 1997). High prestige editorials of English books reproduce beliefs,
costumes and stereotypes that neglect Latin American values. Consequently, our
responsibility as teachers of the language is to be aware and criticize this situation
so as to teach children to use language as a reflection of their own personality
and identity.
As regards the selection of activities, it becomes essential to use materials that
reflect our local environment, so as to prompt students to reinforce their national
identity. From the books that we observed, we consider that “Made in Corrientes”
performs as an excellent resource to use with young learners because it includes
aspects from our national traditions, so as learners could feel identified with the
characters and elements that appear in the book. We noticed that local food,
typical Argentinian routines and cultural heritage are shown throughout the book;
visual images of Corrientes schools represent together with local children
stereotypes. On the other hand, books from abroad do not reflect our identity. For
instance, we get to know about activities typical from the United Kingdom that
characters from the book “Today 3” realize such as visiting the Buckingham
Palace which has nothing to do with our reality. We also found a text in the book
“Howdy Friends 2” (page 39) that talks about having lunch at school and the idea
of bringing a lunch box to the cafeteria which is completely atypical for us. Despite
the fact that we consider that books made in a local context are more suitable for
teaching purposes rather than bibliographies taken from an Anglo-Saxon
countries , teachers can adapt these resources to a nearer representation of our
culture so as each bilingual learner use the language as a system to express their
own thoughts, recognizing the otherness as a part of the multicultural diversity.
Moreover, teaching English to children using these different materials can boost
phsycological and communicative abilities. Being bilingual helps solving
problems easily by taking different perspectives on reaching a solution in a more
original and creative way (May, Hill & Tiakiwai 2004; Baker, 1988 & Ricciardelly,
1992). Beatens Beardsmore (2008:77) states that learners of a second language
have a better attention span and a better operational thinking. In addition,
“bilingual children have a better understanding of semantic and syntactic fields in

1
Subject: Practice II, Didactics of ELT and Practicum Primary
School level. Practical 3: How to teach English respecting our
identity.Authors: Diego Francisco & Bretón Lucila

comparison with monolingual kids, they can recognize whether a sentence is

grammatically correct or not” (Beatens Beardsmore, 2008:76). As Hawkins
(1984), Genesee (1988), Hoffman & Ytsma (2004) explain, bilingual students
learn more easily other languages because they already have the capacity to
understand the patterns required while learning a language. Paying attention to
the social skills, a language enables students to have access to a wide variety of
areas like education, health and job (Bourdieu, 1997, 1990). It also “facilitates the
interaction with others in a globalized context” (García, 2009:45) as a result,
learners develop awareness about how culture interferes on the construction of
stereotyped and naturalized thinking and their relationship with identity (Kramsch,
1998) (Bryam, et al., 2002).

To conclude, we cannot separate linguistic imperialism from teaching a foreign

language but we should be aware of the variety of resources and strategies
teachers can use so as to make learners feel identified with their own way of living
and also to have the facility to recognize other cultures and express their thoughts
using linguistic systems. Teach English as a useful resource, not as an invasive
phenomenon or contamination to our culture.