Chilean English teacher identity and popular culture: three generations

Abstract

Recent discussions on English as an International Language have highlighted the important role played by English language popular culture for the identities and bilingual development of diverse global citizens who learn and use English. However, there has been little attention to connections between popular culture and teacher identity. In this article, based on life history interviews with Chilean English teachers, I draw on a Bakhtinian theoretical framework to illustrate similarities and differences between generations of teachers in their appropriation of English language popular culture. I examine discursive connections between these investments and their English teacher identities, outline teachers' perspectives on popular culture and English language pedagogies, and conclude by discussing the links between pedagogy, bilingual development, and English teacher identities in an era of globalization.

Keywords:

• English language teachers
• identities
• globalization
• popular culture
• Bakhtin
• Chile

Acknowledgements

The research in this paper was partially funded by the US/Chile Binational Fulbright Commission and by University of California Davis. A version of this paper was presented at the Pacific Second Language Research Forum, University of Hawaii Manoa, 2008. I thank Christina Higgins and Alan Firth for comments on that version.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms.

2. It could be argued that people would not mention their desire to learn English for economic reasons because it constructs them as opportunists, and would instead focus on their attraction to English language music and media because it constructs them as sensitive and informed citizens of the global world. However, the discourse connecting English with economic opportunity seemed to have no negative connotations for these teachers: they appeared to sincerely hope that English would somehow bring economic opportunities to students. At the same time, in becoming English teachers, they had chosen a relatively low-paid occupation for people at their level of education, so the rewards they were experiencing were not primarily monetary.

3. My use of this term is based on Makoni and Pennycook's (2007) discussion of national imaginaries, and Norton's discussion of ‘imagined communities’ (2000).

4. Information about the availability of English in the city where this research was conducted is based on the 4 months I spent there between 2004 and 2006 (plus a 2008 return visit). I am not arguing that all residents of the city can afford English popular culture consumption, but simply that English is visible as an object of consumption (rather than as a means of communication) in all parts of the city.

5. The central political events in recent Chilean history were the replacement of the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende by the Pinochet rightwing dictatorship in 1973, followed eventually by Chile's return to democracy in 1990. However, an in-depth analysis of the effects of these political transitions on popular culture consumption is beyond the scope of this current paper (but see Menard-Warwick 2008). Throughout the same time period, and to a large extent as a result of these political events, Chile became increasingly immersed in the global economy and global culture, and it is this immersion that is the explicit focus of this paper.

6. See transcription conventions (Appendix 1).

7. All excerpts from Reuel are translated by the author from Spanish.