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CHILDREN’S PERCEPTION OF THE LEARNING OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE AND THE TEXTBOOKS USED IN THE CLASSROOM IN THE COLONIAL/POSTCOLONIAL CONTEXT OF PUERTO RICO
ABSTRACT
The research described here is based on a qualitative study conducted in Puerto Rico, with the participation of ten middle school students attending a Laboratory school in metropolitan San Juan. The students answered questions relating to their perceptions about learning English as a second language under colonial conditions in Puerto Rico. Participants also analyzed, discussed, challenged and constructed their own meanings concerning the images and content in the stories contained within U.S. made textbooks utilized in their English class. Moreover, they had the opportunity to discuss, analyze, and contest images of themselves and their countrymen as portrayed in English stories written by both Puerto Rican and non-Puerto Rican authors.
By utilizing the Case Study research method, I was able to explore, in depth, how this group of children perceived the learning of the English language and its didactic material, i.e. textbooks under colonial conditions, and how perceptions were related to their own culture and national identity. This research method encouraged the inclusion of the researcher’s personal perspective into the interpretation; allowing reflection on both my role as an ESL teacher in Puerto Rico and on my personal educational philosophy while discussing English language issues from the students’ perspective. The theoretical framework for this study was based on colonial/postcolonial theories, following the views of Pennycook (2001), Loomba (1998), Dimitriadis/McCarthy (2001), and Phillipson
(1998), and includes critical pedagogy as described by Freire (1998) and Canagarajah (1999). Colonial/postcolonial theories helped in providing a framework for understanding the complex context in which the research project took place: English is a compulsory subject that students love, hate, and may also resist in the educational system current within Puerto Rico. A critical pedagogical perspective provided the study participants the opportunity to challenge and question the agenda of the U.S. dominant culture promoting the ESL program in Puerto Rico, and those English textbooks utilized in the program which usually reflect the predominately white middle class values and beliefs existent in the US.
One of the main objectives of this study was to provide an environment for the participants in which to feel safe to freely express their honest and genuine opinions toward the imposition of the English language in Puerto Rico, taking into consideration the colonial context. Another objective was to critically examine and discuss all images and story content contained within the English textbooks. From my position as postcolonial researcher, my objective was to make students aware of their own voice and to assist them in exercising their power as critical thinkers.
The results of this research project revealed the complex colonial/postcolonial mentality that still prevails in Puerto Rico today, congruent with a mental ambivalence common among colonial subjects who are simultaneously under the influence of two different cultures. Participants were allowed and encouraged to express their genuine concerns, (and occasionally contradicting opinions), about the ESL program in Puerto Rican schools and any connections between content and the colonial political status of the island. They also challenged and expressed strong and conflictive assumptions about the U.S. Empire, its dominant culture, and its power over the island. Additionally, they questioned the representations of themselves by Puerto Rican and non-Puerto Rican authors embedded in the English stories and were able to identify different kinds of interesting stereotypes concerning the U.S. culture as well as the Puerto Rican and Latino culture in both illustrations and story content.
The results of this study demonstrate that when students have the opportunity to make their voices heard within a safe and respectable environment, they are capable of exercising their power and of utilizing higher level critical-thinking skills.
A significant landmark would be to develop ESL and ELT curriculum that includes the perspective of a critical pedagogy in which students, as well as future ESL teachers, could reflect and discuss within the English class environment, the reality and the agenda behind the ESL program in the context of Puerto Rico. A critical pedagogy curriculum could help in empowering both students and future ESL teachers as Puerto Rican individuals who are currently studying under a colonized mainstream educational system to reflect on their own uniqueness in opposition to the images imposed on them, to become critical thinkers who could challenge the actual system, and to position themselves to bring about change in society.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
An ESL Teacher’s First Day of Class in Puerto Rico: A Personal memoir. . . . . 1
Teaching English in Colonial/Postcolonial Puerto Rico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Statement of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Description of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Research Purpose and Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Chapter 2. Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and English in Puerto Rico . . . . . . . . . . 24
Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Notions of Colonialism and Postcolonialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Imperialism, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, and Language Issues . . . . . . . . . . . 30
English as a Colonial tool around the World and in Puerto Rico . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Colonial /Postcolonial Historical Background in Puerto Rico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
ESL in Colonial/Postcolonial Puerto Rico Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter 3. Qualitative Research and the Teaching of English in Puerto Rico . . . . 65
Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Cases and Other Units of Analysis, Sites, Data Sources,
and Collection Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Participant’s Profile Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Enhancing the Quality of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Data Analysis Strategies and Related Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Chapter 4. Children’s Perception Regarding the Teaching of English 78
in Puerto Rico
Discussion of the Interview Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
English- the Universal Language, the Other Language, the Imposed Language 80
The Benefits of Mastering English vs. the Disadvantages of Not Mastering It 85
English; a Powerful Language from a Powerful Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Puerto Rican National Identity and Spanish vs.
United Statian National Identity and English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Chapter 5. Participants’ Perception of Stories and Images
Embedded in English Textbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Brief Historical Background of Literature in P.R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Children’s Literature in Puerto Rico Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
English Textbooks in the Public School System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Discussion of the Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
My Name is María Isabel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Tomas and the Library Lady . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
A Very Important Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Gloria Estefan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Mami Amor’s Little Stories, Vejigante Masquerader,
The Red Comb, Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Yagua Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Sergio and the Hurricane, Juan Bobo and the Horse of Seven Colors . . 178
Conclusions About Images in Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Chapter 6. Final Conclusions and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Children’s Perceptions of ESL Learning in Colonial/Postcolonial Puerto Rico 194
Children’s Perceptions of the Stories Embedded in the English Textbooks . . . . 198
Lessons Learned From the Young Participants and From the Study . . . . . . . . . 203
Implications for ESL and ELT Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Suggestions for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Appendix A: Informed Consent Forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Appendix B: Invitation Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Appendix C: Profile Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Appendix D: Interview Questions for Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Appendix E: Book Club Discussion Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Appendix F: Interview Questions for Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Appendix G: Interview Questions for Administrators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The ESL Teacher’s First Day of Class in Puerto Rico: A Personal memoir
A warm, sunny morning at the elementary school, following a week of informative faculty meetings, curriculum preparation and classroom decoration, the ESL [1](English as a Second Language) teacher was filled with excitement at the prospect of receiving her first group of students. She was very happy to be involved and associated with such a prestigious school, where college students would do their student teaching practicum and would be assigned for frequent classroom observations. It was designated as a model school and she believed it was the perfect place to her to work after eight years of teaching both in the U.S. and in private schools within Puerto Rico.
As the little first graders entered the colorful and newly decorated classroom, the ESL teacher greeted them enthusiastically in English. She began the English class by introducing herself and describing carefully the usual classroom management rules. The teacher spoke very slowly in English and used some pictures to help with students’ understanding of this new and secondary language. She meticulously followed the ESL teaching techniques acquired during her college years in the TESOL program and designed to ensure success with second language learners. Everything seemed to be going just fine with the English class until a little boy abruptly stood up in front of his chair, folded his little arms across his chest, and shouted defiantly in Spanish, “¡Yo no se hablar inglés y a mi no me gusta hablar en inglés porque en Puerto Rico se habla en Español![2]”
The teacher reacted with shock to the little boy’s bravado. Who was this boy, where did this small voice originate, and how dare he challenge the English teacher this way? In spite of the teacher’s initial shock, she paid close attention to the first grader’s words, quickly realizing that he had a point. Spanish was the native language of Puerto Ricans; English, on the other hand, was a language they had to learn whether they liked it or not because that was how the education system functioned in Puerto Rico.
With no time to waste, the teacher decided she had to quickly make her next move to counteract the boy’s open protest before there was a riot of little first graders in the English classroom. She returned to Spanish and carefully explained to the little boy that he had nothing to worry about because he was going to have lots of fun in her class. She even made what she considered an irresistible offer to the little boy, telling him that if he still didn’t like the class after a week, she would intervene with the principal herself so that he wouldn’t have to take the English class again.
The little boy sat back down quietly on his chair, eyeing the teacher with suspicion. He would accept the deal, at least for now, but it appeared that he couldn’t quite believe her irresistible offer. (Teresita Santiago, ms. 2007)
Teaching English in Colonial/Postcolonial Puerto Rico
Such passionate resistance to the learning of the English language in the Puerto Rican colony of the U.S. was what I, as a Puerto Rican ESL teacher, experienced for the first time after eight years of facilitating that very practice in the education field. It had never occurred to me that students could (or even would) actually challenge English language classes since I always accepted the status quo and took the teaching and learning of English in Puerto Rico for granted. Certainly I had encountered some level of discomfort from students with learning the English language, particularly in the private school environment, yet no one ever openly challenged its teaching as this little boy had done. At the time, I was not aware of any strong resistance to the English language nor did I recognize ESL as the imposition of a different and perhaps colonizing language on my own Puerto Rican students. On the other hand, outside the academic field I recall occasionally noticing opposition to the imposition of the teaching of English from people who identified themselves as independentistas. These independentistas were regarded as communists and terrorists in our society who were against anything the U.S. was trying to do for Puerto Rico, and their claims, therefore, were never taken seriously by me. I understand now that the negative image created around the independentistas was one of the strategies the U.S. used to deal with resistance toward their systematic dominance. This strategy was yet another way for the U.S., legitimizing their dominance over the island by controlling any resistance or challenge.
In order to understand the reasons for a Puerto Rican ESL teacher such as myself to take the presence of English for granted, we must also look briefly at the history of the teaching of English in Puerto Rico.
Since the United States invaded and occupied the island in 1898, the colonial system’s educational policy has imposed the English language, as well as the history and culture of the U.S., on our students through the vehicle of English textbooks (Negrón de Montilla, 1975). Our Puerto Rican history, on the other hand, appeared only in a summarized and simplistic manner in textbooks that carefully avoided the topic of any challenges towards U.S. dominance of the island. This deliberate intention to substitute everything Spanish with U.S. culture and the English language was then referred to as “the Americanization process in Puerto Rico”. The teaching of English in schools was used as the most effective medium to Americanize the Puerto Rican people in the beginning of the 20th century (Negrón de Montilla, 1975). By the time I started school in the 1960’s, Spanish was then the primary medium of instruction. However, the curriculum and didactic material used in class was very much influenced by the U.S. education system. I learned to accept the U.S. system as the norm. As a result, from the perspective of adulthood I still could not perceive the political agenda existent behind the English program since the political issues and historical background related to the teaching of English in Puerto Rico were never discussed thoroughly or critically within the TESOL program at the
B.A. or Masters levels. Consequently, I never questioned the hidden agenda behind the English education program I had become a party to and was expected to perpetuate.
This obvious distance between the ESL program and political ideologies in Puerto Rico could be explained by what Pennycook (1994) and Phillipson (1992) describe as reasons for ignoring ideological concerns in language teaching. They claim that English Learning
Teaching (ELT) discourses and practices are influenced by roots established during the colonial period, which resulted in limiting the ELT definitions of language learning and teaching to virtually non-political activities.
“The professional discourse around ELT disconnects culture from structure by limiting the focus in language pedagogy to technical matters
… to the exclusion of social, economic, and political matters” (Phillipson,
1992:48).
Canagarajah (1999) adds to the discussion that the dominant Enlightenment period in the West has also helped in this non-political view of language teaching by, “providing a scientistic and positivistic cast to ELT, and by encouraging its perception as an apolitical, technocratic, and utilitarian enterprise” (p.20). It is very interesting to realize that as an adult student in the English teaching education program in college, I never had the opportunity to discuss or challenge the imposition of English in P.R. Theorists, such as the ones mentioned above, have helped me realize that the ESL research methodology and theoretical background courses I experienced during my undergraduate studies were based on the western and U.S. colonial, dominant ideology. ESL theory discussed in class at that time legitimized the U.S. dominant culture thus causing me to internalize its values.
As an Americanized and colonized ESL teacher, I was startled to encounter such a young student, as the one mentioned in the opening narrative, expressing his agency and making a clear distinction between his national identity, with the language it represents (Spanish), and the “other” language (English) as represented by the U.S. I interpret the little boy’s protest from my perspective now as the way he used to defend both his native language and national identity. He felt threatened by a foreign language he claimed he didn’t know, and felt he did not need, since he already knew and used a language that he believed could serve him very well. At the same time this young student was questioning the established language policy of his school. Why did he have to learn English in Puerto Rico if he already knew how to speak the language used there in daily life? Why couldn’t he choose whether or not to take the English class? This little six-year old boy voiced through his challenge the very complex situation existent with the concept of learning English in the colonial/postcolonial context of Puerto Rico.
Statement of the Problem
“¿Por qué nos tenemos que tragar el Inglés aunque no queramos? ¿Por qué cuando los Americanos vienen a P.R. ellos van a escuelas bilingües? ¿Por qué ellos no aprenden Español cuando vienen a P.R.?
(Why do we have to swallow the English language even when we don’t want to? When Americans come to P.R., why do they go to bilingual schools? Why don’t they learn Spanish when they come to P.R.?)[3]
The statement above can be better understood as representative of how the imposition of a language has been a colonizing tool up to the present time in Puerto Rico, after review of the colonial history of the island.
Puerto Rico is the smallest island of the Greater Antilles located between the Atlantic
Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The island population of Taínos was first colonized by the Spaniards in 1493. This event launched four hundred years of Spanish colonization, one of the, “most brutal systems of subservience and exploitation of both indigenous and
African populations in the Americas” (Murillo, 2001). After nearly exterminating the Taínos through cruel and bloody battles, imposed hard labor, and diseases brought by the Spanish, black people were imported from Africa whom they enslaved to continue their exploitation of people and of the island’s natural resources for their own economic gain and expansion plans. Eventually, the fusion of these diverse peoples (Taínos, Spanish, and African) constituted the Puerto Rican people of today. The Spanish occupation lasted until Puerto Rico became a possession of the United States as a result of the SpanishAmerican War in 1898. “The Treaty of Paris which ended this war and the territorial clause of the United States Constitution gave the United States Congress full and complete legislative authority over the territory of Puerto Rico and its people.”(Document on the Constitutional History of Puerto Rico as cited by Negrón de Montilla, 1975). Thus Puerto Rico became a colony of the United States over a hundred years ago and virtually remains so up to the present time.
This colonial status is clearly apparent today as manifested in many aspects of our lives, especially the political, economical, and educational systems. The education system in Puerto Rico emulates the U.S. educational model and imposes English as a mandatory subject in schools beginning in kindergarten, in spite of the fact that Spanish is the vernacular language utilized in daily life. It is precisely the public educational system, and particularly the English language program currently existent in our schools, on which I focus my research.
During the late 1890’s, in the initial stages of the Americanization process, many attempts were made to impose the teaching of the English language on schools all over the island (Negrón de Montilla, 1975). The ideology behind this process was that via the education system and the teaching of English, Puerto Ricans would learn to appreciate the American culture, its principles of liberties, and all of its affairs related to the economic world (General John Eaton in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1901, cited by Torres, 2002: 98). The establishment of a forced English curriculum, which relegates
Spanish to a second position in relation to this U.S. ideology, relates to what Freire (2002) states in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire describes how the oppressors are the ones who act upon the people to indoctrinate them and adjust them to a reality, which must remain untouched (2002: 94). Once the U.S. military arrived on the island they began to indoctrinate Puerto Ricans through the imposition of a new English language policy based on the understanding that Spanish was sort of a, “patois … with little value as an intellectual medium” (Victor S. Clark in the U.S. Senate, 1900, cited by Torres, 2002: 103). Eventually Puerto Rico’s political superstructure generated ideological practices that supported the “supervaloration of English” while fomenting the idea of the Spanish language as one of “underdevelopment” (Barreto, 1998).
In the early 1900s the federal government established the Foraker Act in which English became the official language of the island thus positioning Spanish as unofficial or secondary in importance. This language policy, more than a bilingual initiative, was a way to, “facilitate government activities for Anglophone administrators from the U.S. mainland” who didn’t speak Spanish (Barreto, 2001). The Foraker Act led to the establishment of a new public school system and created the first English language curriculum, supplanting the Spanish curriculum already implemented by the Spanish government in 525 schools, mostly in the San Juan area (Tirado, 2003). Under this new language policy, English became the medium of instruction at every grade level while
Spanish was set aside as a special subject (Torres, 2002). This English language program was based on political and economic agendas instead of linguistic methodologies (Muntaner, 1990), and encountered strong opposition from the Puerto Rican people who refused to have English imposed at the expense of their native language. As a result, from 1900 to 1949, language programs interchanged Spanish and English as the medium of instruction, trying sometimes many complex combinations of language teaching within the public education system. These attempts were eventually opposed once again by teachers, parents, and politicians (Negron de Montilla, 1975).
As observed, “Puerto Rico’s educational development and conceptions of education have historically contributed to issues of language imposition on the island. Foreign control of the language in Puerto Rico has more to gain in terms of its goal to preserve ‘American
Values’ through means of education” (Roderíguez-Galarza, 1997, p.31). It was not until
1949, when the first Puerto Rican governor appointed a Puerto Rican Commissioner of Education that Spanish was finally established as THE medium of instruction in the public school system and English was finally designated as a second language subject (Tirado, 2003).
Presently, the medium of instruction used in schools is Spanish or English, depending on whether the school is a public or a private one (Torres, 2002). The language policy of public schools states that Spanish must be used as the language of instruction and English must be a second language subject from Kindergarten through high school. Private schools are autonomous, and some of them still offer English immersion programs. The instructional materials and methodologies utilized to teach English have routinely been imported from the U.S. For the most part, these English textbooks portray the everyday life of peoples in the context of the U.S., have questionable relevance to the reality of the majority of our Puerto Rican students, and provide for an imposed cultural disconnect.
It is interesting to observe that after twelve years of mandatory ESL instruction in the public school system, and in spite of all these U.S. made materials and methodologies, many students still lack sufficient proficiency in English to even carry on basic communicative functions (Pousada, 2000). Such a negative outcome, according to Pousada, an English professor in P.R., has been attributed to the resistance against an imposed language, the betrayal of the Spanish language that represents the students’
Puerto Rican national identity, and the lack of quality English instruction. Aloise, a late English professor, highlights other interesting factors that have contributed to the alleged ineffective English program in Puerto Rico (1998). Among these factors Aloise mentions, “the ‘colonial’ mentality whereby instructions are followed without question which is the result of Puerto Rico’s history first as a colony of Spain and now as a colony of the United States; some are economic, e.g., the misuse of monetary resources by supporting a top-heavy educational bureaucracy” (1998: 236).
It is clearly notable that Puerto Ricans have demonstrated their resistance toward the domination of the U.S. as reflected in their conscious choice of the Spanish language over English, even when English has been imposed in various ways throughout its colonial history until the present. They have also retained their Puerto Rican traditions and culture despite the introduction of the U.S. culture through a strong Americanization process in which even U.S. holidays were consistently celebrated at schools. Puerto Rico, while officially referred to today as a “territory”, is in reality a virtual colony of the U.S.
Consequently, my discussion concerning both the learning of English and the textbooks utilized for that purpose will be set within the colonial/ postcolonial context of Puerto Rico. The colonial and postcolonial terminology and their relevance to this study are developed in more detail in chapter two.
Postcolonialism in Puerto Rico could be interpreted following Pennycook’s view of this debatable concept. He defines postcolonialism as, “a political and cultural movement that seeks to challenge the received histories and ideologies of former colonial nations and to open a space for insurgent knowledges to emerge” (2001: p. 66). Postcolonialism for Pennycook is more than just resisting the political and economic dominance of the colonizer, but it is also challenging the ideologies or claims of rationality, enlightenment and logic created by the imperial entity. Although Puerto Rico is not technically a former colonial nation, I understand Puerto Ricans have demonstrated a postcolonial attitude towards the U.S. domination through their resistance towards the English language domination policies and their persistent attachment to Puerto Rican cultural traditions despite the strong Americanization process they were subjected to following invasion of the island. Puerto Rican authors Flores (1993), Dávila (1997), Torres (2002), and Duany (2000) have been producing postcolonial literature in which they challenge U.S. dominant ideologies that have described the Puerto Rican people as inferior and incapable of governing themselves.
Juan Flores, professor of sociology at CUNY and Puerto Rican by birth, states that in the case of Puerto Rico the island could be described as a “modern colony” which retains non-independent status and relations with the U.S. under conditions of postcolonial globality (Flores, 2000). Puerto Rico is not an independent country and not a state, yet the
U.S. does not refer to the island as a colony either. After 1949 the U.S. finally permitted some autonomy in the island, and Puerto Ricans were allowed to vote for their first
Puerto Rican governor. This process also allowed for the creation of a Puerto Rican
Constitution, although subjected to the constraints of the U.S. Constitution (Tirado, 2003). These views describe Puerto Rico’s actual situation as a colony of the U.S., as I will demonstrate through my research.
In acknowledgement of this complex historical framework as context, I researched Puerto
Rican students’ perception of the English language learning in the postcolonial colony of Puerto Rico.
What do students have to say about the imposition of English instruction in Puerto Rico? What is their perception of the textbooks employed to teach English? How do students interpret images of Puerto Rican characters existent in U.S.-made textbooks? What messages are these textbooks representing concerning the U.S. culture and their Puerto
Rican culture?
Description of the Problem
“¡Yo no se hablar Inglés y a mi no me gusta hablar en Inglés porque en Puerto Rico se habla en Español!” (“I don’t know how to speak English, and
I don’t like to speak English, because in Puerto Rico we speak Spanish!”)[4]
As an ESL teacher in Puerto Rico during the past sixteen years, I have taught English in both the private and the public school systems. While I worked in the private school setting, most of the students’ attitude towards English appeared to be positive. Moving from the private sector to the elementary laboratory school of the University of Puerto
Rico (a semi-public school, part of the State University on the Island but not of the Department of Education) required a significant change in my teaching style. It was in this setting that I first experienced resistance toward the teaching of English, as I explained previously through the incident of the first grade student.
Following this challenging incident, I realized that I had taken the teaching of English for granted, not questioning the imposition of this different language on my Puerto Rican students. I had not yet recognized the political agenda behind the English program as the political issues and historical background related to the teaching of English in Puerto Rico were never discussed thoroughly in my BA or Master’s courses. Freire’s (2002) discussion of different kinds of oppression in an unequal society caused me to realize that limiting the amount of different perspectives and ideas in the education field is actually another form of oppression, a way of keeping the colonized learners ignorant of other realities that could challenge the dominant colonizing ideology.
In an attempt to appease my “oppressor teacher” guilt, I worked harder than ever to make the English class fun and enjoyable and tried more innovative methods to motivate and facilitate learning. I applied what I had learned during my TESOL Master’s program and implemented Krashen’s (1987) affective filter hypothesis, which states that affective variables have a strong relationship with the second language acquisition process. Implicit was my belief that the more I motivated my students by creating a positive environment immersed with English, the more likely the students would learn the target language. Many appeared to have learned English acquisition well from this effort. However, this ESL methodology didn’t take into consideration any political, social, or economic factors involved in the teaching of English and I perpetuated a western
“mainstream pedagogical tradition” of ESL education by participating in an educational program devoid of any socio-political realities (Canagarajah, 1999). None of my efforts made to create a positive learning environment could ever change the fact that English was, and is still, imposed due to our complex political relationship with the United States, and that some students still resist this imposition.
Not all students exhibited a negative attitude towards English; some students achieved competency in English and of anything “American” such as T.V. shows, video games, and movies. Occasionally these students even exhibited an attitude of superiority over those who were not as successful in English acquisition or as knowledgeable regarding “American” media.
I admit that I also experienced this feeling of superiority while in high school when everything in the English media – music, TV shows, and movies – was considered “cooler” than any produced in our own Puerto Rican culture. English represented the powerful country with the advanced technology and media that we in P.R. could not have due to our lack of resources. Additionally, only one side of the story was represented in the history textbooks where U.S. patriotic individuals were frequently portrayed as heroes whose only objective was to help the needy or save the world from evil. These history textbooks in actuality were, “accounting for and legitimizing the rise of a particular nation-state, such history is written solely from the advantage point of the most powerful”
(Nealon & Giroux, 2003: 105). Whether history books were produced in the States or in Puerto Rico, before dissemination they were subject to U.S. approval. History books practically excluded the other side of our history, avoiding portrayal of any Puerto Rican intellectual whose position was anti-U.S. occupation. This is the partial knowledge
(Kumashiro, 2002) we were receiving at school during the 1960s. Partial knowledge was taught indirectly to our subconscious through the vehicle of U.S.-made T.V. shows and movies. Media often employed stereotypes of minority groups, while the U.S. characters almost always represented the heroes, the people in power, or the superior race. In this atmosphere, I began to embrace English as part of my identity and desired to become a “Gringa”. Ultimately this attitude of superiority led me to despise my own Puerto Rican music, native language, and culture. I comprehend now that I was exhibiting one of the symptoms of being colonized. “The first ambition of the colonized is to become equal to that splendid model and to resemble him to the point of disappearing in him. In the name of what he hopes to become, he sets his mind on impoverishing himself, tearing himself away from his true self” (Memmi, 1967).
The sense of power I felt that came with my acquisition of the English language could have been one of the reasons behind my decision to become an English teacher. Ironically, I have come to realize that as a colonized individual, I became a colonizer. Being an English teacher in Puerto Rico coopted me to be a participant in the federal system and thus our own government which was imposing the English language on our students.
Moving to Penn State to pursue my doctoral degree has been a new learning experience, awaking my awareness of this postcolonial dilemma. I discovered through the courses and readings by Freire, (1990), (1997), (1998), (2002) Memmi, (1967) Hooks, (2000)
Weiler, (1998) and others, what oppression is all about and have realized how
“colonized” my mind is still. I have also read the work of authors like Anzaldúa, (2002), Hall, (1996) and Castells, (1997), who have developed interesting theories regarding the notion of identity. I can admit now that there is a very close relationship between my national identity and the colonized status in which I live. I have evolved through a personal journey from desiring to become someone I was not, the “Gringa”, for the sake of feeling superior and having power, to reaffirming my Puerto Ricaness. I also recognize that I still retain fragments of a colonial mentality, since I have found myself inescapably comparing the situation of our students in P.R. against those in the U.S. even though we are in very different socio political and economical contexts. United States is a free, large, and powerful nation with plenty of resources while Puerto Rico is a small colony with limited resources. It seems that the process of decolonizing my mind after so many years of colonial education in the island has only just begun and is a work in progress as I keep examining more about my colonial historical past.
Inspired by Freire’s (2002) book, Education for Critical Consciousness, and reflecting upon my own experience of learning English in P.R., I was motivated to survey two fifth grade groups that I was teaching then as a pilot study to fulfill the course requirement. The survey questions were related to their perception towards the teaching of the English language in Puerto Rico. I was interested in learning what the students really thought about the English language issue, something many of them seemed to take for granted while others appeared to resist it. From the perspective of a postcolonial researcher, I also wanted to give the students a voice and help them exercise their power. Freire’s (2002) notion of oppression made me realize that, as an educator, not only I am in a position of power in the classroom, but I am also participating in the system that is imposing the English language on the students. It was my intent to give the students the opportunity to express their honest opinion about the English program in P.R. within a safe and respectable environment. My premise is that educators could learn from their students’ opinions, that these could be very helpful for English teachers in becoming aware of how the students perceive the English program, and could also have interesting implications for the application of English curriculum in the future.
The survey was conducted at the end of the school year, while I was their English teacher, but the timing did not provide for the opportunity to discuss the results with the students. A notable result of the survey was the indication that out of thirty six students, thirty four percent of them felt Puerto Rican when they spoke English while fourteen percent felt American and twenty six percent felt both Puerto Rican and American. This segment of the research indicates some interesting responses related to the English language and its relationship with Puerto Rican national identity. I was motivated to question what I observed as a distinct connection between the mandatory English education program, which represents a colonial status requirement, and the students’ perception of their Puerto Rican national identity. Why do some indicate that they feel both Puerto Rican and American when they speak English? What does it mean to feel both Puerto Rican and American in colonial /postcolonial Puerto Rico?
A year later, fulfilling the requirements for another doctoral course, I discussed the results of the first survey with the same students. During this first opportunity to present the results of the pilot study, they mentioned the lack of representation of Puerto Rican intellectuals in the textbooks used in class and the relationship this lack may have with the fact that Puerto Rico is a colony and that most of the didactic material emanates from the United States. I then scrutinized the textbooks used in the English classrooms. Even today, the stories within the English textbooks, “carry and transmit the ideological assumptions” of the U.S.A. culture (Nodelman and Reimer, 2003).
If this is true, then what could these stories and their illustrations be telling our students about the U.S. culture? What can the positioning of Puerto Rican characters, or the lack of their inclusion in the textbook stories, tell our students about themselves?
Research Purpose and Outcomes
“La ciudadanía Americana es un papel político, no un sentimiento. Nuestra ciudadanía Puertorriqueña es lo que nosotros sentimos y es lo que queremos ser.” (“American citizenship is a political paper, but not a feeling. Our Puerto Rican citizenship is what we feel and what we want to be.”)[5]
According to Goodman, (1972: 717) as cited by Muntaner (1990, p.27), “a national language serves as the nerve center of a national memory because it produces a sense of cohesion among its people by nurturing and transmitting national traditions”. Spanish has been the language used to transmit our national traditions for more than four centuries and the language used in our daily lives in the island today. Consequently, Spanish has become the symbol of our national identity despite the fact that it represented the language from that other colonizing empire in our history, Spain. As a result, when P.R. was colonized by the U.S. in 1898, the imposition of English as part of the Americanization process encountered resistance from the Puerto Rican people.
Since then, the English program has gone through many transformations due to the fact that it was not based on language methodologies but was rather based on expansionists’ and colonialists’ political agendas. Freire (1998) has claimed in many of his writings that,
“education is a political practice” in which teachers hold some kind of power over the students. This dissertation studies the imposition of English instruction in Puerto Rico using Freire’s critical pedagogy view that education is a political practice in which teachers must decide for whom they are working and how to be consistent in justifying their teaching practices with their political choices. Educators must be aware of the,
“concrete world in which their students live.”(Freire, 1988) In the case of Puerto Rico, English teachers must be aware of the realistic needs students have to learn English under a colonial status and must take into account their students’ “likes, beliefs, fears”, and any desires formed that may not be easily accepted by the “teachers’ own worlds” (Freire, 1998). Studies exist that deal with historical accounts, descriptions of the language and our national identity issue in Puerto Rico, (Barreto, 2001), (Barreto, 1998), (Muntaner, 1990), (Torres, 2003); many others have discussed the situation of the English instruction in the island (Montilla, 1975), (Rodríguez, 1997), (Aloise, 2001). Other studies have taken place in the U.S. describing the education of Puerto Ricans outside the island (Ruiz,
1999), (Soto, 2001) (Nieto, 2000). However, very few studies have been carried out in Puerto Rico from the perspective of the young students, focusing on their view of the language dilemma, and its relationship to their cultural and national identity. Consequently, it is my intent to give voice to the Puerto Rican children and investigate how a group of intermediate students from a laboratory school in Puerto Rico perceive English language learning and the textbooks used for instruction, while taking into consideration the colonial/postcolonial context of the island.
The Americanization process continues to take place in Puerto Rico through the education system and in a differing manner through the media. As Barreto (1998) suggests in his thesis, after the 1950’s, the Americanization process has become more suggested than imposed. I have observed first hand how this is implemented on young children. Many students constantly discuss in the school environment the most recent U.S.-made movies or TV shows, U.S. singers, or the latest U.S.-made toys or video games, commercially available all around the island. Puerto Rican music, singers, or TV shows are a less desirable topic. Many prefer to eat Mc Donald’s cuisine to eating the rice and beans available at home. Others show a preference for English books rather than Spanish ones. Does this mean that our students have been assimilated to the U.S. culture through this suggested Americanization process or are they maintaining a distinctive
Puerto Rican national identity as Morris (1995) states in her study of Puerto Rican adults? Some children in my pilot survey claimed to feel half Puerto Rican and half American, or both, when they speak English. These preliminary results made me wonder how our children perceive the learning of English within this U.S. saturated environment. Considering the historical background and my experience as an ESL teacher in Puerto Rico, I devised the following main research question:
– How do Puerto Rican children perceive the learning of English as a second language and the English textbooks in the complex colonial/postcolonial context of
Puerto Rico?
I would also address the following questions related to my research:
- What do Puerto Rican children have to say about the English textbooks being used in their English class today?
- What does an ESL teacher have to say about the designated English text books?
- What could the stories and illustrations within the designated textbooks be communicating to our students about either the U.S. culture or Puerto Rican culture?
- How are Puerto Rican children interpreting U.S.-made images of themselves in children’s literature?
- How are the stories within these textbooks being comprehended by the Puerto
Rican children?
Research Design
The methodology employed was discussion through interviews with the students using the questions presented in Appendix D. These questions were developed as a guideline to help the students discuss how they feel about the teaching of English and the English language in general, and how they feel about their Puerto Rican national identity in contrast with U.S. national identity with the understanding that the Spanish language represents the Puerto Rican culture while English language represents the dominant U.S. culture. The students wrote the answers for these questions individually, and then, based on their written responses, a group discussion followed in which their varied opinions were openly discussed.
The participants analyzed the English stories and illustrations located in a sixth grade textbook used in the English class at the time. Although the students were in eighth grade by the time the final interviews took place, the sixth grade text book was a convenient vehicle for eliciting responses as picture books are no longer used in the middle school.
We also had the opportunity to compare the picture books with the actual stories that appeared within their eighth grade English textbook. The stories and the interpretation of the images were discussed with the group and also individually following the questions presented in Appendix E. Additionally, U.S.-made stories with Puerto Rican characters, not necessarily used in the English curriculum in Puerto Rico, were discussed in order to have a broader variety of images, since very few were located in the English textbooks. Book club discussion questions were developed to motivate participants to reflect on the characters in the story. The concept was to have participants describe how they felt about the images in the stories and what clues there were as to whether a character is Puerto Rican or not. Seeking to identify the portrayal of Puerto Rican characters led to the discussion of how this image was being promoted by the illustrators of the stories. Participants answered the questions once again in a written form individually first, and then a group discussion followed based on their written responses.
The results could have interesting implications for the teaching of English in Puerto Rico and the implications this may have concerning portrayal of, and perception of, our culture and our national identity. Even within a colonial context, there is value in giving children the opportunity to express how they feel about themselves under an imposed English curriculum. Open discussion could help children feel empowered and valued. This feeling of empowerment could lead to a more positive, and equitable learning environment. Listening to what children have to say about themselves or their culture could even assist teachers to better understand who they are within the complex scenario of contemporary times in Puerto Rico. Ideally, it could help English teachers better understand their own Puerto Rican students within the English classroom context, which could lead to a more powerful learning environment.
Encouraging children’s honest, open, and critical feedback of the English textbooks can motivate teachers and students to read English books more critically instead of taking them for granted and not considering their effect. I have realized that we can learn about a powerful culture through the English language and we can also use the English language as a lens to learn and value our own culture and our own national identity. It is possible that this study could also have implications for ESL programs globally concerning the effect the teaching of English may have on the second language learners’ perceptions of themselves and their national identity.
[1] ESL is the terminology used in Puerto Rico to refer to the teaching of English as second language. Spanish and English are both official languages of the island, even though English is not utilized in Puerto Rican’s daily domestic life except for some commercial, industrial, and tourism activities. English therefore becomes the language of commerce and does not represent the vernacular.
[2] “I don’t know how to speak English and I don’t like to speak English, because in Puerto Rico we speak Spanish!”
[3] Fifth grade student discussing the teaching of English in P.R
[4] First grade boy upon his first encounter with an English class.
[5] Eighth grade student discussing his Puerto Rican national identity.
