Focus on Learners: Identity, Community and Language Learning

Catalog description

Explores how individual identities shaped by cultural differences, social positioning, institutional roles and structures influence English language learning and teaching. This course explores how individual identities shaped by cultural differences, social positioning, and institutional roles and structures influence the learning and teaching of English in an increasingly globalized world. This course will enable students to: a) recognize the multiple dimensions of one's cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds, b) understand the roles and values associated with varieties of English, c) become sensitive to the complex social, cultural, political, and institutional factors that affect adult English language teaching and learners' language learning in diverse instructional settings, d) create culturally responsive curricula that is appropriate for adult English language learning communities in diverse instructional settings. The major topics covered include: developing an understanding of language identities; recognizing diverse instructional settings as cultural contexts of learning; and applying these understandings to adult English language teaching. Students will engage in a variety of practical activities in which they reflect on their own language learning and cultural experiences, conduct an exploration of a bi/multilingual/cultural community and its related instructional settings, and write a final reflective paper that examines learners' identity, community and English language learning in diverse instructional settings. This course is one of four required courses in the Post-Baccalaureate Credit Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).