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REVIEWS

The TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant to TESOL


professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, these include computer
and video software, testing instruments, and other forums of nonprint materials.
Edited by ANNE BURNS
Aston University
University of New South Wales
CELIA ROBERTS
King9s College London

doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.232340

ESOL: A Critical Guide.


Melanie Cooke and James Simpson. Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press, 2008. Pp. xix + 185.
This book is aimed at teachers working with immigrants in Englishdominant countries, particularly in the United Kingdom. The world of
adult immigrants provides the context in which a number of the issues
central to migrant education are discussed. Rather than a narrow focus on
linguistic and pedagogic issues, the authors offer a compelling and
insightful account of the complexity behind the lives and needs of adult
migrants in global cities such as London. The assumptions and ideologies
underlying conventional approaches to migrant education are reviewed,
and language learning is related to issues such as identity, power, and social
inclusion. Throughout, vignettes and examples drawn from the authors
experiences working with ESOL teachers and students in the United
Kingdom are used to present the voices of those the authors write about.
The eight chapters in the book address a broad range of issues, the
content of which can only be hinted at from the chapter titles: ESOL in the
World, Being an Adult ESOL Learner, The Challenges of ESOL
Practice, The Content of ESOL Lessons, Oral Communication,
ESOL, Literacy, and Literacies, ESOL and Electronic Literacy
Practices, Learning About Teaching. As each issue is explored, activities
are included for teachers in training. These engage the teacher in further
consideration of issues as well as reflection on his or her own assumptions
and practices in the light of the topics covered in each chapter.
A recurring theme in the book is the diversity of contexts in which
ESOL courses are delivered. Classes are characterized by learners with

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different cultural and educational backgrounds, with diverse needs,


goals, and attitudes toward language learning but often sharing a sense
of marginalisation as a consequence of their status as refugees, asylum
seekers, and migrants. Against this background, the authors describe
what it means to teach English. English teachers are not simply language
teachersthey are also counselors, interpreters, and providers of means
of empowerment.
ESOL teaching is hence political and poses challenges to an
understanding of professional identity. ESOL teachers not only have
to manage classes characterized by diversity and help learners cope with
emotional stress and social needs, but also have to meet the bureaucratic
requirements of funded language programs.
The authors stress the need for a flexible approach to teaching.
Rather than depend on a prescribed method, they advocate principled
pragmatismthe use of principles developed from language learning
theory and the teaching context. Commercial textbooks often contain
content unsuitable for use with migrant learners, and examples are given
of how textbooks can be supplemented by the use of student-generated
content. The teaching of oral communication skills needs to acknowledge the difficulties faced by low-level speakers of English in work and
social settings and the effect that limited contacts with expert speakers of
English has on their speaking and listening abilities. Classroom activities
are illustrated that seek to provide learners with opportunities to take
control of classroom discourse. Use of transcripts of authentic interactions is also suggested.
Discussion of the nature of literacy in adult ESOL learning makes the
point that literacy acquisition is not simply about learning the skills of
reading and writing but should address the social practices associated
with literacy; in other words, it should prepare students for the
encounters they have with written texts in their daily lives, including
those in the domain of electronic literacy. The final chapter deals with
teacher professional development and compares the institutional view of
professionalismbased on standards and institutional requirements
with personal professionalism that is based on a sense of professional
vision. This comes about through critical reflection on teaching
practices through observation, classroom research, exploratory teaching,
and action research.
ESOL: A Critical Guide is an outstanding book that is required reading
for any teacher working with adult migrants or any teacher in training
who plans to work in this context. It provides a useful account of how
language teaching policies and practices have evolved in the United
Kingdom as a result of changing migrant numbers and perceptions of
what the goals of migrant language education should be. It illustrates the
tensions between government policy makers and ESOL providers, the
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one stressing the need for English as a means of integration and national
identity and to enable migrants to fill workplace needsthe other often
concerned with empowering adult migrants with the language resources
they need to negotiate their lives in a new environment. But in addition
it provides a powerful and thoughtful account of the experience of
teaching adult migrant language learnersone that will challenge us to
rethink many of the assumptions we have about teaching English to
migrants.
JACK C. RICHARDS
Regional Language Centre
Singapore

Second Language Identities.


David Block. London, England: Continuum, Pp. x + 322.
The content and organisation of Second Language Identities had its
origins in the authors lectures to his students at the University of
Londons Institute of Education. Seven chapters elaborate the definition
offered by social scientists [who] frame identities as socially constructed, self-conscious, ongoing narratives that individuals perform,
interpret and project in dress, bodily movements, actions and language
(p. 27). A series of examples, woven into theory, bring this definition
alive by making links between the effects of adult migration on peoples
language use and on their identity.
The author uses the first chapter as a quasi-index, allowing readers
with specialised interests to waste no time hunting for their topics. Thus
someone who wants to reflect on adult migrant contexts could turn
straight to chapter 4, whereas foreign language contexts are dealt with
separately in chapter 5.
The first theoretical chapter (chapter 2) presents current views on
identity as held mainly by social scientists. This allows applied linguistics
readers to fill in some gaps from a different, though related, discipline.
Discussions of aspects of identity such as race, nationality, gender, social
class, and language form the background to the data presented in the
rest of the book. A useful table (p. 43) summarises these identity types.
Block then steps back in chapter 3 to review the work of earlier
researchers, revealing a variety of data-gathering methods as well as of
interests. Lambert and Gardner were influential from the 1960s on, with
their Canadian-based work, particularly in the area of bilingualism.
Guioras special interest was in learners pronunciation. Present-day
researchers with their answerability to ethics committees will be

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interested to read of the part played by valium in the latters


investigations. Later in the 1970s came Schumanns Acculturation
Model, based on migrant workers responses to questionnaires and
interviews. From the 1980s, Block chooses to highlight the work of H.
Douglas Brown, although, as he notes, the word identity appears in
Browns writing only briefly. Baileys diary studies, published in the early
1980s, revealed competitiveness and anxiety as particular factors in the
language learning process. Scovels (1978) emphasis on anxiety is also
acknowledged, although his more recent summary of the role of
motivation (Scovel, 2001) does not appear later in the book. Also from
the 1980s comes Schmidts work, including his own learning of
Portuguese, illustrated by interviews and diary entries.
Chapter 4 highlights the cases of particular groups by focusing on
current studies of Lambert and Gardner, mentioned above. Adult
migrants (the focus of this special issue) are defined as those who have
moved across geographical borders and immersed themselves in new
cultural and linguistic environments (p. 75). There is pathos in many of
the case studies, such as the report of a Moroccan in Paris who failed to
make himself understood when he wanted to buy a ticket home. Although
this was not the point of the example, one gasps at the stupidity of the
clerk who failed to read the intended meaning behind the speakers
broken French. Identity problems among this group are further
illustrated by the Peruvian woman in Canada who spoke very little at
her workplace in case people mistook her for an immigrant (p. 90).
The identity of foreign language learners is examined in chapter 5,
almost half of which is taken up with data gathered by Block from
students at a language school in Barcelona. Here the language teacher
will find valuable accounts from students with their knowledge of what
constitutes good and effective language teaching practice (p. 126). The
chapter concludes with an interesting glimpse into identity as it develops
through Internet mediated language learning (p. 140).
In chapter 6 Block investigates learners in study abroad contexts, a
group that has been under-represented in other works on identity,
possibly because the learners experience is only temporary. Half of the
report is taken up with the negative aspects of sexual harassment and
gender identity but equally negative were the examples illustrating the
roles of host families. Block recommends further investigation into the
experience of these students.
In a final short chapter, Block gives suggestions for further research.
Block would like to see social class given more attention, especially in
relation to middle-class migrants [for whom] the issue of economic,
social and cultural capital is turned around (p. 189). Another understudied group includes bilingual to multilingual language learners.
There is mention of the many lingua francas that emerge, such as in
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the communication between speakers of Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian


immigrants in Toronto.
Inevitably, in a topic as complex as identity when using a second
language, some stories are left untold. In his first chapter the author
refers to some of these gaps, such as children studying in mainstream
classes all over the world and learners in postcolonial settings.
Gaps aside, it is a pleasure to read a book which is simultaneously
scholarly and yet accessible to readers, such as Blocks own students, who
are just starting to be interested in the field. One question that came to
mind was, Who translates all this fascinating material into a form that
could be enjoyed by the group described in chapter 4, those whose
motivation for language learning is that they have crossed geographical
and sociocultural borders and whose feelings of a stable self are
upset (p. 20)? It seems only fair that while academics and teachers are
becoming better and better informed on learners identities, the
subjects of all these studies should also be fed some of this information
in a form they can access.
REFERENCE
Scovel, T. (2001). Learning new languages. Boston, Massachusetts: Heinle and Heinle.
Marilyn Lewis
Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics
University of Auckland, New Zealand

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