Conversational Capabilities in Literal and Metaphorical Senses
Neither literal participation nor engagement can be taken for granted in conversation across linguistic and cultural difference in classrooms. There is growing evidence of failure in both senses in schools and other institutions. The research shows that white, monolingual English speakers do not necessarily engage with ELLs with interest and enthusiasm. Rather, they sometimes arbitrate what counts as “good English,” reject speakers of so-called “accented” English as conversation partners, and do not carry a fair share of the burden to achieve understanding in conversation. Programs to improve the participation of ELLs in classroom talk thus need to help white, monolingual speakers critique their exercise of social power in conversation, develop an ethics of care for others, and understand the difficulties of learning and using a second language.
The concept of’ plurilingualism (Council of Europe, 2001) provides a useful perspective on conversational development in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. It assumes that individuals’ experience of language expands from the cultural contexts of home to those of various communities, including the languages of other peoples. During this process communicative competence is built up from an individual’s total stock of experience and knowledge of languages. In particular communicative encounters, the individual is able to call upon different parts of this competence. The crucial point is that learning even a first or only language is a lifelong endeavor. In negotiating understanding with others who use unfamiliar dialectic or learner varieties of the language, monolingual English speakers’ communicative competence is potentially expanded.
This article suggests ways of developing students’ conversational capabilities in both the literal and metaphorical senses. The focus is not only on learners of English but also on students who are first or monolingual English speakers. Given increasing flows of people and products across borders in recent decades, given connection through the World Wide Web, the lives of these latter speakers are shaped, sometimes unexpectedly, through contact with linguistic and cultural others whom they would once have not encountered (Appiah, 2007). Moreover, the intercultural encounters in which they find themselves are likely to entail not only multiple cultures and languages but also diverse Englishes emerging in a world where there are vastly more second than native speakers of the language.
An ethos of cosmopolitanism promises ways of living together in these conditions of difference (Appiah, 2007). It assumes that our obligation to others extends beyond kin and fellow citizens, and further, that all human lives, irrespective of difference from our own, not only matter but are also worthy of care and interest. In this way, the notion of cosmopolitanism enables us to understand our social and ethical responsibilities in contexts of unexpected or perplexing diversity.
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