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January 30, 2005
Project ing
I am a bit uncertain how I actually want to approach my topic at this point—I’m not sure what part of what I am thinking about is most important to me, but I could generally name it “Composition as an Imperial project.”
I would focus geographically on a selection of Universities in Turkey which require first year English classes modeled, on some level, after the American first year composition requirement, and who present themselves as ‘English medium’ institutions. My motives for pursuing this project are personal as well as professional—as I have spent most of the last ten years ‘teaching English overseas,’ and will most likely do so again. Before I do, I would like to spend some time exploring the theoretical, practical and global implications of the practice of exporting the English language and English Composition, specifically.
I would need to come to terms with the development of English language teaching as part of the English Imperial project (as a motor producing endless language teachers) and the appearance of the ‘backpacking-native-speaker-nomad.’ I would need to seek the emergence the of the first year English requirement. Possible questions include the following (the scope is too large at this point):
1. What are the perceptions held by students, instructors and administrators of the English requirement?
2. What are the practices of teachers and students in the classroom (arguably, I cannot do this unless I go and observe classes)?
3. To what extent is the practice of teaching composition (as a foreign language) complicit with the homogenizing forces of globalization?
4. To what extent might certain teaching practices in composition represent anti-Imperial challenges to the homogenizing forces of globalization?
On the other hand, in the context of White’s text, I might be interesting to look at ways that the “story” of English is told at different times and from different perspectives (from the savior narratives of Empire and religion to the savior narratives of critical thinking and democracy to the pragmatic stories of the market, global competition and tech writing) and to explore ways that a feminist transnational perspective might complicate those stories. I’ll stop there. It was helpful to write…
Posted by gpcoskan at January 30, 2005 06:34 PM
Comments
This is a fabulous idea. Will it become your dissertation? What you describe here doesn't seem appropriate to a composition history course, but I can see where a composition history component would make important contributions to your larger question. Here are two possibilities:
1) A 611 project that investigates the history of the FYC requirement in U.S. colleges. You could then use that as a basis of comparison with the emergence of EIL (English as an international language) instruction.
2) A 611 project that traces the history of EIL instruction in selected universities in Turkey. You'd want to ask questions such as these:
—When was EIL instituted?
—What formal and informal rationales were offered?
—How has the instruction and its rationales changed, and why?
And one of the background sources you'll want to consult is Pennycook, Alastair. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. London: Longman, 1994.
Posted by: senioritis at February 6, 2005 11:27 AM
Hi Becky,
Glad you seem to be doing better and thanks for the feedback.
I've actually become more interested in the last paragraph of my project idea--I sort of wrote to it, and it has captured my imagination since then more than the first part. Basically, I would attempt to place the contemporary appearance of composition (Internationally) within a larger historical context of international English language teaching .
I wouldn't actually want to 'write the history of EIL.' Rather, I would want to look at how that history has been written at different times and places and to use a sort of 'Whitian' analysis of the ways that the story has been emploted. I am interested in the ways that 'power' circulates in this discourse, and in the ways that agency shifts (I hypothosize) as the desire to spread the language as a disciplining function of Imperialism is transformed into a demand by the 'postcolonial subject' (this term doesn't quite work here, but I'm using for now anyway) for foreign workers (intellectual labor?) to teach English-for-International-Business.
It would be against this backdrop that I would conduct interviews as well with both Turkish and non-Turkish instructors (all in Turkey) in order to look at the 'stories' they tell as to why they teach and compare them to historical accounts. I could also probably get friends to ask student to write to me--maybe they could have them do in-class writing or something like that.
Also, Jen and I might collaborate on some level--at least in the research stage.
Anyway, the Pennycook definitely sounds relevant--I've always quite liked him, but I've only read this text through other writers.
I need to think more about what questions, exactly, I am asking—or how I want to formulate them. I would like to finish White and reread a couple articles on methodology and historiography as I work this out further.
Posted by: gale at February 6, 2005 07:51 PM