Fw: GCCUNY Sociolinguistics Lecture: Aileen Salonga, 9/27 "Revisiting the role of affect in English language education in the Philippines"

[Angela Reyes]

Dear NYLAWG,

Please see announcement below/attached for a talk that will be given by the Fulbright fellow I'm hosting at Hunter: Prof. Aileen Salonga from the University of the Philippines. It's next Fri, 9/27, 2-4 pm at the GC. Hope to see you there!

Best,

Angie

--

Angela Reyes, Ph.D.

Professor, English Department, CUNY Hunter College

Doctoral Faculty, Anthropology Program, CUNY Graduate Center

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/english/angela-reyes

---

From: Sociolinguistics lunch Meeting <sociolingu...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 1:05 PM
To: Sociolinguistics lunch Meeting <sociolingu...@gmail.com>
Subject: GCCUNY Sociolinguistics Lecture: Aileen Salonga, 9/27 "Revisiting the role of affect in English language education in the Philippines"

 

You don't often get email from sociolingu...@gmail.com. Learn why this is important

* This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender before replying or clicking on links and attachments. *

Hello Everyone! 

We are happy to announce the first of our Sociolinguistics Lectures this Fall! Next week, on Friday September 27th, Dr. Aileen Salonga from the University of Philippines will present "Revisiting the role of affect in English language education in the Philippines." The abstract will be included below, as well as attached flier. 

The talk will be in-person from 2-4pm in the Graduate Center, room 7102. You can also attend on Zoom via the following link: https://bit.ly/AileenSalongaSLL (Meeting ID: 836 7546 7012, Passcode: 585791). 

We hope to see you there!

 

Best,

Mimi Urízar-Ávila, PhD Student, Anthropology

Ibrahim Abu Elrob, PhD Student, Linguistics

Aidan Malanoski, PhD Student, Linguistics

CUNY Graduate Center

Abstract: The idea that affect is a factor in the learning of foreign languages is not new. It is, in fact, a well-established area of study as evidenced in the works of scholars who have devised different strategies and methodologies with which to manage students’ anxiety in learning new languages. In applied linguistics, especially in the field of teaching English as a second language (TESOL), Stephen Krashen’s theory of affective filter has been dominant in explaining how affect needs to be low for students to learn a new language, in this case, English. In this presentation, I affirm that affect indeed plays a critical role in language teaching and learning. However, affect needs to be seen not only in terms of the psychological, behavioral, and attitudinal barriers that students as individuals face when they are learning a new language. Affect needs to be seen in the context of the wider social, cultural, and historical arrangements within which a certain language is taught, and how this impacts what happens in the language classroom. In the Philippines, for instance, where English functions as one of the country’s two official languages, and is considered as a language of prestige and value, and also hurt and exclusion, the students’ behavior and attitudes toward it should be examined in light of the country’s American colonial history, the impacts of this on current language debates, policy, and implementation, and the students’ own relationship with the language.

Using data from an Introduction to Sociolinguistics class, which I taught in my university back home, I hope to demonstrate the complex entanglements between English and English teaching and learning, the students’ hopes and dreams, and the students’ own grappling with the position of English vis-a-vis other languages in multilingual Philippines and its often damaging results. The strong but also ambivalent and conflicted feelings that these Filipino students have toward English warrants the need to re-examine the basis of an affective theory in language education, one that is grounded in the social, the cultural, and the historical.