TESOL and Modernity
Josh Harness
Professor Xxx Xxx
English XXX
X Xxx 20XX
Is TESOL a Modernist or Postmodernist Practice? According to Bressler (2007), Enlightenment thinkers, such as Benjamin Franklin, along with “modernity’s spirit of progress,” have had a strong influence on human thinking “well into the twentieth century” (p. 98). In Bressler’s (2007) summation, the fundamental features of modernity include the ideas that not only are truth and reality discoverable through rational thought, but also truth and reality are universal. As such, “for Franklin and other modern thinkers, the primary form of discourse is like a map,” and this map “is a representation of reality as known, discovered, and detailed by humanity” (p. 99). In the 1960s, with the coming of postmodernist thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, this map notion was called into question. Because there is no ultimate truth or reality for postmodern thinkers, discourse can be represented by a collage instead. As Bressler (2007) explains, “unlike the fixed, objective nature of a map, a collage’s meaning is always changing,” and “the viewer of a college actually participates in the production of meaning” (p. 99). In other words, for postmodernists, reality is a human construction, and “since many truths exist, we must learn to live side by side in a pluralistic society, learning from each other while celebrating our differences” (Bressler, 2007, p. 100). To me, this sounds very much like the current stage of TESOL. We have students from many cultural and linguistic backgrounds trying to gain competence in English. Gone are the days of the audiolingual method with its unified from of English that had to be mimicked and memorized through listening and drill. Through contrastive analysis and studies in second language acquisition (SLA), we know that a student’s first language (L1) certainly has an effect on how he or she will acquire lexicogrammar in the target language. From current methods and practices in TESOL, we
Professor Xxx Xxx
English XXX
X Xxx 20XX
Is TESOL a Modernist or Postmodernist Practice? According to Bressler (2007), Enlightenment thinkers, such as Benjamin Franklin, along with “modernity’s spirit of progress,” have had a strong influence on human thinking “well into the twentieth century” (p. 98). In Bressler’s (2007) summation, the fundamental features of modernity include the ideas that not only are truth and reality discoverable through rational thought, but also truth and reality are universal. As such, “for Franklin and other modern thinkers, the primary form of discourse is like a map,” and this map “is a representation of reality as known, discovered, and detailed by humanity” (p. 99). In the 1960s, with the coming of postmodernist thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, this map notion was called into question. Because there is no ultimate truth or reality for postmodern thinkers, discourse can be represented by a collage instead. As Bressler (2007) explains, “unlike the fixed, objective nature of a map, a collage’s meaning is always changing,” and “the viewer of a college actually participates in the production of meaning” (p. 99). In other words, for postmodernists, reality is a human construction, and “since many truths exist, we must learn to live side by side in a pluralistic society, learning from each other while celebrating our differences” (Bressler, 2007, p. 100). To me, this sounds very much like the current stage of TESOL. We have students from many cultural and linguistic backgrounds trying to gain competence in English. Gone are the days of the audiolingual method with its unified from of English that had to be mimicked and memorized through listening and drill. Through contrastive analysis and studies in second language acquisition (SLA), we know that a student’s first language (L1) certainly has an effect on how he or she will acquire lexicogrammar in the target language. From current methods and practices in TESOL, we
References: Bressler, C.E. (2007). Modernity and postmodernism: Structuralism and deconstruction. Literary criticism: An introduction to theory and practice. (4th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Ma, Q. (2012). Upholding standards of academic writing of Chinese students in China English. Changing English 19(3), 349-357. Youmans, G. (1990). Measuring lexical style and competence: The type-token vocabulary curve. Style 24(4), 584-599.