Chasing Encounters

Born in Yemen with Portuguese Indian ancestry, Dr. Lynn Mario de Souza joined us in this new episode to discuss his long-standing work in linguistics and language research. He describes how the social aspect of language involves understanding that many languages are spoken across time and spaces while involving language variations that have changed throughout history. He questions the nature of language education and warns us of its consumerism, he asks what languages are being taught and for what purposes. We engaged in conversations about knowledge production and dissemination and problematize why English keeps being considered as the language of scientific knowledge as there are other knowledges that are available, including Indigenous knowledges.

Sources:

Guilherme, M., & Souza, L. M. T. M. de. (2019). Glocal Languages and Critical Intercultural Awareness: The South Answers Back. Routledge.

Cite this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, November 27). CES2E7 – Ideologies of Language And Literacy Education [Audio podcast]. https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e7-ideologies-of-language-and-literacy-education

For the very first time we have two guests, Michael Karas and Patrick Huang who are quite knowledgeable with the CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) programs. Michael, falling in love with languages while travelling to France and Patrick being quite musical, today, they describe their engagement in a duo-ethnographic approach to do research. First, they describe the bolts and nuts of what it means to teach and learn to get the CELTA certificate. Then, they both critically discussed their experiences teaching English in Canada and abroad as they use their conversations as data for their research. Finally, they encourage our audience towards a more reflective approach to teaching and to do research as a fertile ground to explore introspection and criticality in teacher education programs.

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Bio

Patrick has been an ESL teacher and teacher trainer for 15 years, working on CELTA (Certificate for English Language Teaching to Adults) - a pre-service qualification from Cambridge English - as well as Delta (the diploma level qualification after CELTA) courses in different contexts. He is a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto.

Michael completed his PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Western Ontario. He currently teaches in the Master of TESOL program at Western. His research interests are broadly situated within Language Teacher Education and TESOL, and he has taught English in South Korea, China, and Canada.

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Sources:

Anderson, J. (2016). Initial teacher training courses and non-native speaker teachers. Let Journal, 70(3), 261-274.

Lowe, R. J., Kiczkowiak, M. (2016). Native-speakerism and the complexity of personal experience: A duoethnographic study. Cogent Education 3(1), 1264171.

Ramjattan, V. (2019). The white native speaker and inequality regimes in the private English language school, Intercultural Education, 30(2), 126-140.

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621-647.

Sawyer, R. D., & Norris, J. (2013). Duoethnography. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Cite this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, November 6). CES2E6 – Duoethnograhy and Language Teacher Training [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e6-duoethnograhy-and-language-teacher-training

Farrah, a former fashion enthusiast, teaches us about her work in central Asia. She worked with local, foreign teachers and counsellors as part of academic (English, maths and science) upgrading programs for students in the region. The goal of these programs was to help students get stronger grades in language so they can perform better in the local labour market. Farrah explains how she supported students by involving them in cultural activities with music, dance, food, film and poetry, in this way anxiety is reduced and trust is built therefore sending the message that this was not only about the English language. We problematized why and how international organizations bring English language skills training programs to different places in international contexts and who these programs are for ultimately.

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Bio

Having served at consulting Program Manager for Aga Khan Education Services Tajikistan and Director of Academic Upgrading Programs for the University of Central Asia, I was privileged with the ability to serve in a capacity where I could directly impact high school students from various socio-economic backgrounds across Central Asia, while bridging the gap between expatriate and local expertise in curriculum and program design and delivery for English as Second Language learners. It is this experience coupled with what I will take away from my MA experience that I hope fully better inform my work in the international education arena; research focus is Foreign and Local teaching experiences within NGO academic programs in Central Asia.

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Sources:

Links: https://www.ucentralasia.org/

AKDN: https://www.akdn.org/

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Suggested citation for this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, October 29). CES2E5– Central Asia and Language Programs [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e5-central-asia-and-language-programs

Questioning the Iranian Education System

After the Iranian revolution, there was an education revolution trying to modernize it and thus threatening the traditional values. From Teheran to Toronto, Hooman delves into his critiques of the current Iranian system of education as he asserts that school became an ideological and revolutionary space that is currently empty to give priority to nation-building. He argues that Iran has a segregated system that affects psychologically and socially certain students. Although the system favors science and mathematics, education still revolves around some religious ideologies. He invites us to engage in questions such as: Who is the system for? who are the universities for? What is the quality of education for the current Iranian population? What are the concepts of development in a country in tension with the rest of the world?

Bio

Hooman Razavi was born in Iran and moved to Canada in 2002. He holds a B.Ed degree and has experience with teaching in Toronto and China for the past thirteen years. He is in the second year of the M.Ed program at OISE specializing in leadership and higher adult education as well as in the collaborative program of comparative international and development education. He has a broad interest in education and particularly interested in qualitative research about international students' experience in their study-work transition in the GTA.

Sources:

>Friedrich W. Affolter (2007) Resisting Educational Exclusion: The Baha'I Institute of Higher Education in Iran, Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 1:1, 65-77

>Iranian Rap singer - Amir Tataloo https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAmirTataloo

>Challenges of Iranian Education System: Past and Present by Dr. Nahid Hosseini from York University (In Farsi): http://asre-nou.net/php/view.php?objnr=47721

>Changes in the Iranian Education System after 1979 Revolution- Podcast in 3 Parts by Dr. Saeed Peyvandi (In Farsi): https://tinyurl.com/iraneducation

>Luxury schools in Tehran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhT9iH1-aRI

Cite this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, October 15). CES2E4 – Questioning the Iranian Education System [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e4-questioning-the-iranian-education-system

Yojana from the Andes in Peru teaches us how foreign names clash Indigenous ways of naming children and how people are accepting modernity in contemporary Peru. She describes how the Quechua language has been forbidden in some schools and the society bringing discrimination and exploitation of Indigenous women while living in the city. She shares her stories of struggle and survival with her family and the community as being an important conduit for resilience in times of scarcity. She finally helps us question who education is for and how the system streams the most marginalized peoples to trade education putting them at the margins of society. Her research is related to how indigenous communities are organized to counter mining companies that rapidly change the Andean ecosystem and how this is affecting the new generations of children who reject their own Indigenous cultures and languages by dropping out of high school because they want to work for the corporations as they are motivated to earn money.

Bio

Yojana Miraya Oscco is from Peru, born and raised in a Quechua-speaking Indigenous community of the Andes (Apurimac) and her village is called Calcauso. She is pursuing a PhD in the program of political science at the University of Toronto.

Sources:

More information about Yojana

http://yojanamiraya.dx.am/about.html

MadeinUSA (film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0476298/

Cite this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, October 2). CES2E3– Peru – Language and Culture [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e3-peru-language-and-culture

From a journey through different places, east to west Canada and the USA, Jacqueline Beaulieu helps us understand the connection between family, community and student collective decisions. In the first part of the podcast, we discussed how universities manage the ancillary fees and the policies that oversee the decision-making process. Jacqueline describes how opting out of services fees may or not affect vulnerable student population at universities. In the second part of the podcast, she describes how her experiences as a graduate student have inspired her to help students by providing guidance throughout her Instagram and YouTube accounts and also giving inspiration and uplifting suggestions to folks as graduate school is challenging.

Jacqueline Beaulieu is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Higher Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her research examines the outcomes and implications of a provincial policy (Ontario, Canada) that requires universities to co-determine compulsory non-tuition-related ancillary fees (that recover costs of student services) with students.

Sources:

Elrod, H. (2012). The Miracle Morning: The Not-so-obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life Before 8AM. Hal Elrod International, Incorporated.

Subscribe to her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGDL2eCkGGQAFU3chy96k_A?

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phdessentials/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacquiebeaulieu

Cite this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, September 24). CES2E2– Implications of provincial policies [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e2-implications-of-provincial-policies

In this new season of Chasing Encounters, we have Dr. Jonathan Rosa from Stanford University who inspired us with his vast knowledge at the intersections of race and language. From his connections to Canada and Chicago, Dr. Rosa enlightens us with ideas of how the way race plays into perceptions of domesticity and foreignness and how his experiences have shaped his interest in broader sociopolitical questions about language, identity, history and colonialism. We also discussed what a theory of raciolinguistic ideologies means internationally and how different contexts can be used to interrogate the legacy of colonial relations as we imagine of the possible sociopolitical futures.

Sources:

Bauman, R., & Briggs, C. L. (2003). Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge University Press.

Rosa, J. (2019). Looking Like a Language, Sounding Like a Race. Oxford University Press.

Silverstein, M. (2017). The Fieldwork Encounter and the Colonized Voice of Indigeneity. Representations, 137(1), 23–43.

Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument. CR: The New Centennial Review, 3(3), 257–337.

Suggested citation for this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, September 3). CES2E1– Raciolinguistic Ideologies [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/ces2e1-raciolinguistic-ideologies

Chasing Encounters Special Summer Episode

“ I thought I was getting a Canadian teacher,” Vijay Ramjattan says when an English student thought he was a white English teacher. In this special Summer episode of Chasing Encounters, Vijay delights us with a provocative conversation about how race, whiteness and accent intersect. It is not only in Canada, but a global issue that white native speakers are preferred in the English language teaching market, especially if they speak the American variation. We discussed how a raciolinguistic narrative permeates in society through our bodies - people judge based on the relation of body/accent. White people = perfect English, People of Color = low-rated English, thus less knowledgeable. Race is the floating signifier and accent becomes the tool to whiten a person. We problematize how we read bodies and use that to determine what type of language to use in what context. Vijay urges us to unravel the ideologies representing good accent and he warns us of the so call accent reduction programs as he invites us to focus on pronunciation training instead.

Sources:

Agha. A. (2003). The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication, 23(3-4), 231-273.

Derwing, T.M., & Munro, M.J. (2009). Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication. Language Teaching, 42(4), 476-490.

Ramjattan, V.A. (2015). Lacking the right aesthetic: Everyday employment discrimination in Toronto private

language schools. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 34(8), 692-704.

Reyes, A. (2016). The voicing of Asian American figures: Korean linguistic styles at an Asian American cram school. In H.S. Alim, J.R. Rickford, & A.F. Ball (Eds.), Raciolinguistics: How language shapes our ideas about race (pp. 309-326). New York: Oxford University Press.

Rosa, J. (2019). Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of Latinidad. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Roth-Gordon, J. (2017). Race and the Brazilian body: Blackness, whiteness, and everyday language in Rio de Janeiro. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Suggested citation for this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, July 8). Chasing Encounters – Episode – 13 – Race and Accent [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters/chasing-encounters-episode-13-special-summer-episode-race-and-accent

From London, Ontario (Canada) and background roots in Greece, Maria help us understand how not only education has been a doorway for opportunities and experiences in life but can be a site for oppression. While attempting to challenge patriarchy and hyper-capitalism, she warns us of dangerous conceptions of freedom of expression that further invisibilize marginalized people’s voices. Maria invites us to connect back to our communities to counter notions of competition, progress and development. She questions our role in society in relation to healing and spirituality as acts of resistance by being able to have real conversations with each other that address issues such as climate change and a sustainable future for our planet earth.

Bio:

Maria is an educator, facilitator, curriculum designer and researcher whose work centers on how to best create engaging and visionary learning and leading experiences that inspire creative, equitable, and regenerative change. She has significant experience working with transformative paradigms of education and pedagogy, with a focus on social and climate justice, equity, holistic perspectives, arts-integration, the tensions between decolonization and global citizenship, and innovative problem solving. She is interested in supporting emerging generations of youth leaders as they grapple with complex issues and problems.

Sources:

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. (2015). Light in the Dark (Luz en lo oscuro): Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Battiste, M.A. (2013). Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Limited.

Fernandes, L. (2003). Transforming Feminist Practice: Non-Violence, Social Justice and the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism.San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.

Woodbury, Zhiwa. (March 2019). Climate Trauma: Toward a New Taxonomy of Trauma. Ecopsychology. 11(1), 1-8.

Suggested citation for this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, May 3). Chasing Encounters – Episode – 12 – Life Connected [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters

Dr. Nancy Carvajal, a human being under construction, helps us to understand our purpose in life as academics and as people in the making. We discussed how social justice looks from Western USA house-less peoples to displaced youth and children in rural Colombia. Interconnectedness is paramount in responding to the needs of the community and as good listeners without judging others, our roles become center to education. Decolonization not only means as a rhetorical concept but resisting Western education in which human beings are not put into boxes. Latinx, Chicanx and Indigenous epistemologies have allowed Nancy to question what has been imposed by society in terms of relationships and knowledge production. We are very diverse and our stories are important as part of a decolonial project in which teacher education is coupled with social justice lens to design courses that address struggles from our communities and that ultimately transforms students’ perceptions of life.

Bio:

With a B.A. and M.A. in language teaching, Nancy has taught applied linguistics, critical thinking, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) didactics, and EFL research methods to pre-service teachers for 10 years in Tunja Boyacá, Colombia, where she spent the majority of her life working and studying. She also teaches at the master’s program in Language Teaching at Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia-UPTC.

Cite this podcast (APA):

Ortega, Y. (Producer). (2019, April 25). Chasing Encounters – Episode – 11 – The Educational Researcher as a Storyteller [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/chasingencounters

Sources:

Medina, N. E. C. (2015). Fleshing the spirit: spirituality and activism in Chicana, Latina, and indigenous women’s lives. Intercultural Education, 26(3), 252–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2015.1042238