Reine Azzi
Department: Graduate School of Education
Discipline: Education
Research Centre/Unit: EdD TESOL
Project Summary
‘I speak to my kids in English because I want them to learn the language.’
‘Teachers should only use English when teaching in class.’
‘Fluency in the English language is necessary for the future. Other languages don’t have much added value.’
These are just some of the assumptions that I’ve personally heard regarding the use of the English language in Lebanon. Since the late 1990s, there has been an unprecedented embrace of English for all purposes: academically, socially, and personally. Whether writing research papers, Facebook posts, or love letters, Lebanese of all ages are beginning to value English over all other languages, including Arabic. Phillipson (2017) attributes this to the vast economic and political power of the English language. As academics, we work within a network of mostly British and American publishing houses and other institutions, and this affects the way we approach the teaching (and learning) of the language. This also affects other languages. Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) warns of language death, and even ‘language genocide’, as English comes to monopolize the way we view all languages.
Where does that leave us in Lebanon, where the majority of English language teachers are Lebanese, teaching predominantly Lebanese classrooms?
My research interests aim to construct a narrative of the current attitudes, assumptions, and myths pertaining to the teaching (and learning) of the English language in Lebanon. Whether through the books we use, our classroom strategies, or even our institutional values, what approaches do we, as academics, share when we reflect upon our current practices?
My objective is to provide opportunities for language teachers to discuss these assumptions and evaluate them. Through individual interviews, focus groups, and discourse analysis, my study aspires to bring together middle school, high school, and university teachers in order to create a picture of the current attitudes to our field.
Emphasis on critical approaches to applied linguistics will also allow me to identify areas of focus so we could aim at praxis - critical reflection and action (Freire, 2005). This would allow the use of critical theory as a means not only to ‘reflect the current situation’ but as an opportunity to change it. This active process is what Pennycook (2001) calls ‘problematizing givens’ where we embrace ‘constant skepticisim’.
Focusing on teaching language alone will not suffice though. Inherently, language and culture are intertwined, which is why I will be including the necessary reflection on the cultural aspects of our practice. How do language teachers view their ‘cultural’ role? Do they see themselves as agents of a general ‘target’ culture? Or do they attempt a more particular insight into their own specific culture and that of their classrooms (Kumaravadivelu, 2012; Troudi, 2005). This is why working within the focus groups will also allow me to identify specific teaching practices, especially concerning the way teachers deal with the material ‘handed’ to them through course books published, for the most part, by British and American publishers aiming towards a more global audience.
All of these questions are meant to provide increased awareness of our connection to this language we’ve come to rely on, especially in academia. Unearthing our latent assumptions will ideally open up more dialogue and allow us to be critical of our current approaches on both the individual and institutional levels.
Authored Publications/Reports
Reine Azzi (7th November 2013) War in White Sheets: The Public Invasion of the Private Female Space in Women’s Literature, Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2 (10), 37-44
Azzi, Reine (7th December 2020) Linguistic Imperialism and Attitudes Towards Learning English in Lebanon: An Exercise in Critical Pedagogy, In Critical Issues in Teaching English and Language Education International Research Perspectives Editors: Troudi, Salah (Ed.), 97-122
