The Grand Old Duke of York

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

This is one of my all time favourite pictures. It’s a picture I took of Clifford’s Tower in York, England, on a cold December day back in 2009. What I love about this image are the streaking lines made by the sledgers on the hillside and the lonesome figures trudging up the hill in the snow. Originally I took this photograph in colour but edited to black and white given the contrast of the snow and bleak tower.

Clifford’s tower was the site of the most shameful episode in the history of the city of York when 150 Jews were massacred on March 16th 1190 after taking refuge against a mob. This shameful tragedy has been well documented in the history of the city, although rarely referred to, it was also very sadly a common event at the time in medieval England.

This tragic historical moment and place reminded me of the ‘nursery rhyme’ ‘the Grand Old Duke of York’. Of course Nursery rhymes are able to retain a nation’s heritage in just a few memorable lines, (and they are also great in the nursery and primary classroom). But, I don’t know about in your country and language(s), but English nursery rhymes all seem to reflect a life that was so brutal. I suppose this is not surprising really, I mean after all nursery rhymes are ‘folk’ verses, they belong to the people and reflect their concerns and experiences of the time. When I start thinking of nursery rhymes they all seem so grim, for instance; (a table from Wikipedia on nursery rhymes)

Title	Supposed origin	Earliest date known
“Baa, Baa, Black Sheep“	The slave trade; medieval wool tax	c. 1744 (Britain)
“Doctor Foster“	Edward I of England	1844 (Britain)
“Goosey Goosey Gander“	Henry VIII of England	1784 (Britain)
“The Grand Old Duke of York“	Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in the Wars of the Roses; James II of England, or Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany Flanders campaign of 1794–5.	1913 (Britain)
“Humpty Dumpty“	Richard III of England; Cardinal Wolsey and a cannon from the English Civil War	1797 (Britain)
“Jack and Jill“	Norse mythology; Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette	1765 (Britain)
“Little Boy Blue“	Thomas Wolsey	c. 1760 (Britain)
“Little Jack Horner“	Dissolution of the Monasteries	1725 (Britain), but story known from c. 1520
“London Bridge Is Falling Down“	Burial of children in foundations; burning of wooden bridge by Vikings	1659 (Britain)
“Mary Had a Little Lamb“	An original poem by Sarah Josepha Hale inspired by an actual incident.	1830 (USA)
“Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary“	Mary, Queen of Scots, or Mary I of England	c. 1744 (Britain)
“Old King Cole“	Various early medieval kings and Richard Cole-brook a Reading clothier	1708-9 (Britain)
“Ring a Ring o’ Roses“	Black Death (1348) or The Great Plague (1665)	1790 (USA)
“Rock-a-bye Baby“	The Egyptian god Horus; Native American childcare; anti-Jacobite satire	c. 1765 (Britain)
“There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe“	Queen Caroline of Ansbach; Elizabeth Vergoose of Boston.	1784 (Britain)
“Three Blind Mice“	Mary I of England	c. 1609 (Britain)
“Who Killed Cock Robin?“	Norse mythology; Robin Hood; William Rufus; Robert Walpole; Ritual bird sacrifice	c. 1744 (Britain)

The Grand Old Duke of York is interesting in itself as the tune and the lyrics have changed hands frequently though history, apparently it was used in reference to Napoleon and many others.

I was wondering about the nursery rhymes that  you remember, or perhaps are simply important to you in some way. Please do let me know of nursery rhymes in your langauge,  you could translate them in English and explain the meaning and how it connects with your history and culture. Now that would be an interesting project

Learning to Be

This post on language and identity is a follow-up to the meaning of a word is in its use and is part of a bigger conversation over on Scott Thornbury’s blog, an A-Z of ELT.

In reply to my comment Scott replied;

…cognitivists would take issue with the ‘social action’ metaphor, on the grounds that this is a theory of language use, not language acquisition. Of course, a sociocultural view argues that such a distinction is invalid, and that acquisition is use, and vice versa. Moreover, use implies contexts of use, and contexts of language use are always social. The absence of a social dimension in the cognitivist account seems to be its biggest weakness.

Scott, I would like to take the opportunity to build further on the point you make, being

…a sociocultural view argues that such a distinction is invalid, and that acquisition is use and vice versa. Moreover, use implies contexts of use, and contexts of language use are always social.

In taking a metaphor of langauge as social action we can make that connection between language in use and langauge acquisition through a notion of ‘identity’ – i.e. we are who we are through what we say and do, being not only representative of who we are but is also constructive of who we are. Hence we can say we are constructed as individuals, socially, in dialogue with others.

But how does this all relate to learning, and in this case langauge learning (or language acquisition for the purists)? Well, if we understand individuals as being socially constructed through the language they use, then their identity shifts according to the langauge they have access to (or not). Language learning therefore requires the ‘taking on’ of new identities. I see language learning as an embodied process, this means that as we learn we understand the world in new ways, and our relationship with that world changes in some slight way, as it very much does when we learn languages. Through langauge learning we are able to see the world in a different light – there is a shift, however slight, in our identity (Kress, 2010 – Multimodality). Our learning is part of us – it is not an isolated process, and therefore cannot be defined solely in cognitive terms.

As I’m aware that I’m probably not making any sense at all, I’m going to illustrate this concept through personal experience and in relation to the teaching of academic writing.

Learning to be

Over the last couple of years, my own professional life has very much been in transition from my work as an ESOL teacher to working in EFL contexts to university tutor. During that time, I’ve become aware of my own shifting identities, which on occasions are very much odds with the circumstances at that moment. Being a teacher requires coming across as ‘credible’ to the students, being credible in ESOL, EFL and in the university context requires a taking on of new langauge, new ways of speaking and acting in each case.

Taking on new language and behaving differently requires the taking on of new identities. You may well feel like the same person as an ESOL teacher or a uni tutor, but you have to be someone different in each case, at least in the sense of how you claim to be credible in each case. For instance, personally, there is a huge tension between ‘being academic’ while retaining my ‘learner-centred’ outlook on teaching, and that tension exists in the way I speak and behave generally, and one that exists because of the changing relations of power in each case.

And in the way I write. This tension is for me at the heart of teaching English academic writing to speakers of other languages as writing academically requires a taking on of the academic identity (at least the one which is identifiable in academia). Therefore, writing in any form cannot be understood (nor taught) as a ‘neutral skill’, it cannot and does not exist in isolation from the individual. Learning to write academic English is an embodied process of learning.

Language learners in all situations experiences these tensions, in being someone else through new langauge. Langauge should never be understood as an inanimate object to be acquired but rather as a living part of who you are.

Thank you for your time in reading this and the opportunity to engage in these lively discussions on your blog.

Richard Gresswell

roses in the rain

It’s been raining quite a lot here recently, even for this green and sodden land. This week I’ve been spending more time working from home than usual, resisting brave attempts to venture outdoors for fear of one of those downpours. Despite this strategy, however, my timing remains impeccable, and more often than not I manage to intersect the torrential falls on my outings, returning feeling rather damp and envious of those in warmer and drier climes. But it’s these moments that disrupt a sense of everydayness, where contingency plans are made on venturing out for every meteorological outcome. Although this is nothing new for us hardened Brits, mustn’t grumble and all that, the weather is becoming, shall I say, testing.

From my kitchen window I can see the garden, and for over a week now, I’ve been looking at the fallen flowers from my neighbour’s ‘rose-tree’ that droops most gracefully over our side of the fence. When I look at these petals that lie scattered on the ground, I sit back and admire the beauty of the scene. I’ve been waiting a whole week for the right light to capture these glorious flowers, perhaps an early evening glow of sunshine. But the sun hasn’t come, and I’m not sure I have the patience to wait. Besides, there is something innately attractive about the way the water is hanging off each petal, a moment of tension before falling to the ground. I won’t wait any longer.

The meaning of the word is in its use

 
This post is a comment on ‘M is for Mind‘ from Scott Thornbury’s fascinating blog an A-Z of ELT , where Scott discusses cognitivist vs social views of second language acquisition and the implications of our understanding for the teaching of English to speakers of other languages.

Hi, Scott, great post as always. At the end of your article you suggest a need for alternative or perhaps complementary metaphors beyond perceiving second language aquisition (SLA) as a ‘mental’ process. You then go on to consider what the implications of broadening our understanding from a social perspective might hold for methodology in the ELT (English language teaching) classroom.

To me language learning is inseparable from its social use, after all as Wittgenstein famously said,

‘the meaning of the word is in its use’,

and I don’t think the cognitivists would disagree with that either.

But as you point out it’s the view of SLA as a mental process that remains central and dominant and is clearly reproduced in the day to day classroom practices of English language teachers. So how about alternative metaphors then? Well, I would like to mention the work of Norman Fairclough and in particular his book ‘Discourse and Social Change’ (1992). The reason why I mention Fairclough’s work is because of the way he so clearly articulates the significance of the ‘language in use’ perspective in his ‘social theory of discourse’. This is what he says (p63);

In using the term ‘discourse’, I am proposing to regard language use as a form of social practice, rather than a purely individual activity or a reflex of situational variables. This has various implications. Firstly it implies that discourse is a mode of action, one form in which people may act upon the world and especially upon each other, as well as a mode of representation.

Language as ‘social action’ is the metaphor I would like to bring into this important discussion, one that ties language use and of course langauge learning to the lives of the learners in every respect. But what does this mean for the ELT classroom, why is language as social action significant?

As an ESOL teacher, my position has been, over the last few years at least, that the way the learners can construct themselves as people in the classroom is so fundamental. I became aware through my work, that ESOL literacy learners, those who had been denied opportunities to education as youngsters were being further marginalised in mainstream adult education in the UK, on account of the challenges ‘written text’ posed for them. What struck me was the way these often ‘multilingual learners’ constructed their identities as ‘illiterate’ within the ‘skills’ driven perspective of ESOL provision. Educationally, literacy is considered as a skill, a quality of the individual, a sub-set of skills, acquired by the individual through mental processes. The implications of this are that learners are identitfied as being good, able, motivated, lazy, stupid etc etc, identities that are falsely ascribed as a consequence of an understanding that ‘learning’ of any kind is an ‘ability and responsibility’ of the individual. incidentally these are the same ‘ascriptions’ of identity (Blommaert, 2005) that are levelled at teachers, good teachers, bad teachers and all that – and we all know the challenges of working within the walls of educational social structures, don’t we? So we can’t and mustn’t ignore the social perspective – we must take on board a notion of language as social action.

But what does this mean for the classroom and everyday practice. If langauge is action, i.e. we act on the world, ourselves and each other, then we must consider the significance of the access learners have to langauge resources in the classroom that enable them to act, what it is they can use, what it is they can ‘bring in’. For instance, in my opinion, first language(s) (L1) is a resources that the learners may need to draw on in order to negotiate their language learning tasks, it is also a language they construct their identities through as a human being. Banning L1 in the ELT classroom is like handcuffing a student behind their backs. The forbidding of L1 in the ELT classroom is a practice based on ‘immersion’, skills’ perspectives (practice makes perfect) and an imperialism to boot in ELT.

There is a lot more I would like to say about this, but at I recognise that I’m moving well beyond a ‘blog comment’, I do think this discussion in relation to SLA and methodology should be brought in more centrally to teacher education. What I mean is that we need to address our core beliefs regarding how we understand langauge learning in formal education and how these understandings permeate our practices as teachers – central to language teacher education.

Scott, as always you seem so able to hit the most fundamental discussions in the most interesting way – thank you.

Richard Gresswell

Babble

Originally I liked the word babble as a blog name in the meaning of the first definition below, as a metaphor for the infancy and emerging language of the Internet. However, since looking up the word in the dictionary, I’ve realised my blogging meets all four definitions very nicely.

1. a stage in child development and a state in language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words.
2. to utter sounds or words imperfectly, indistinctly, or without meaning.
3. to talk idly, irrationally, excessively, or foolishly; chatter or prattle.
4. to make a continuous murmuring sound

By the way, apparently the poster says ‘Don’t babble – keep your tongue behind your teeth’ – so Google informs me anyway.

Omnishambles and the meaning of literacy – the journey of a word

I’m hoping that this is going to be the first in a series of posts on ‘Questions Worth Asking in ELT’, I say so tentatively as experience tells me that good intentions don’t always bear fruit. Nevertheless, my blog is beginning to feel like my textual home, a refuge where paradoxically I can be alone with my thoughts, while like many bloggers seeking the almost instant gratification of comment and support from the community. So my hope is that this growing need to return will lead to my being able to eke out what I consider to be the critical issues and concerns facing English language teaching and education as a whole.

The journey of a word: Omnishambles

Last night I heard for the first time the word ‘omnishambles’

In the TV studio behind the presenters we see

#omnishambles

It got me thinking about the journey of this word, and how it’s meaning and form were being transformed along its way. A journey starting with its creation in a political sit-com to its use as a lexical weapon in a house of commons question time brawl to its illustration in the TV studio preceded by the evermore ubiquitous Twitter hashtag.

New media such as Twitter and not so new media such as Television, not only lead to the creation of new language but also it’s transformation and use. Words weave along paths intersected by social practices, culture and technologies, where people along that path take on such words and make them their own, giving new voices to the word.

Take omnishambles as a case in point. Here is only part of the journey.

A scriptwriter writes a political sit-com script, perhaps on paper, or using word-processing software.

The script is acted out in spoken dialogue and it’s watched by millions of TV viewers, on TV, or on their computers?

Omnishambles is taken into new conversations in the home, in the street, in the workplace?

We see the word taken from the TV show by a politician who uses it with great effect (but we don’t know if he wrote the script), playing on its original use in the sit-com, but adding a new voice to the political debate, but whose voice?

The TV and newspaper media, seize the moment and give the word new voices, and we hear further voices through the addition of the Twitter hashtag – a popular voice, perhaps?

Someone is sitting in the library again, writing a blog post and asking…What does literacy mean?

I’ll be coming back to this in my next post. Promise This wasn’t the post I was going to write today, but that’s blogging for you.

The three ‘ologies’

In my previous post I started to scratch the surface on literacy and identity in education. Encouraged by the warm responses I’ve received and interest shown in this blog post and elsewhere on Twitter and Facebook, I’m enthused to venture … Continue reading →