Author : Esther Bettney
Release : 2022
Genre :
Kind : eBook
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Book Synopsis "Speak English - Don't be Lazy!" by : Esther Bettney

Download or read book "Speak English - Don't be Lazy!" written by Esther Bettney. This book was released on 2022. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The promotion of language ideologies, policies and pedagogies that treat languages as separate and hierarchical has become a central concern for critical education scholars. In this case study, I explore how school actors at Colegio Colombiano (CC), an international school in Colombia, engaged with critical approaches to bi/multilingual education to leverage the fluid identities and languaging practices of plurilingual teachers and students. In my first data chapter, I place CC within its larger educational context by showing how a logic of coloniality informs both public and private K-12 foreign language education in Colombia. This logic of coloniality reflects a hierarchy of actors within the field of foreign language education in Colombia with external international organizations holding significant power and influence over local priorities. I build on these findings to call international schools into current conversations about decolonizing language education in Colombia. In my second data chapter, I consider how school actors' language ideologies impacted the creation and enactment of language policies at CC. I describe a spectrum to show how faculty demonstrated a significant shift away from hegemonic ideologies and oppressive language policies through an increasing recognition of the importance of Spanish. While explicit messages about English as superior were no longer officially promoted at CC, colonialistic ideologies and policies persisted which valorized English, denigrated Spanish, and completely ignored other societal and home languages. In my final data chapter, I explore how teachers and students engaged with translanguaging pedagogies. While many teachers expressed a desire to leverage their and their students' plurilingual repertoires they felt limited by significant obstacles, including the school's strict model of language separation. Elementary students generally demonstrated a willingness to engage with translanguaging pedagogies, while older students expressed a complex resistance as they negotiated their bilingual identities. In my concluding chapter, I return to the identified logic of coloniality to discuss how international school communities can unveil and interrogate colonialistic understandings of languages, language users and languaging practices. I propose the Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) framework as a tool to guide schools in the work of decolonizing their language programs.