TESOL blog

Ethnolinguistic Diversity in Language and Literacy Education
The book begins by introducing the concept of different varieties of language, including varieties of Creole languages. The book also introduces the idea of cycles that exists in language. For example: “one cannot communicate simply by knowing the grammar and lexicon of a language, one must also understand the cultural context in order to communicate meaning.” Ethnolinguistic diversity refers to linguistic codes and cultural meaning, cultural meanings are embedded in linguistic codes but also in social structure- social structure implicates aspects of race/ethnicity and gender and social class. In defining terms like vernacular, it made me think of the issues and difficulty in defining these terms. I was interested in the section of articles that has to do with understanding the needs of students. It is important to understand their heritage and the role of their culture in their lives.
The article describes the ideologies that effect ELT and the students that are learning English. The ideology of language purism has to do with the belief in the existence of a uniform standard. This ideology leads to some unfortunate effects- people are discriminated against. Children are treated as though they are deficient linguistically, and because of this may feel deficient culturally. I believe this is an important issue to address, people should be proud of their languages and where they come from. After all, the diversity of the world is what makes it an interesting place.