Imagined Community of Teachers' Identity

Imagined Community of Teachers' Identity is kind of redefinition of who they are and how they position themselves in relation to native speakers in ESL context.

Origin

The imagined community, coined by Anderson (1991), provides the fundamental stone for imagination which takes place in teacher identity. Originally, Anderson used this term to describe national identity. In fact, “imagined community” is not like real community that you can draw a circle to include. In real community, you have interaction with fellows face to face. But from a big picture like a country, it is impossible to meet and know every country fellows because of distance. Thus, people are able to form a sense of togetherness through “imagination”. According to Anderson, media is a very good tool to create “imagined community” since it can involve the whole country fellows together through news broadcast and help them reach the place, the people and the event that is far away from or they cannot spend time getting access to.

Concept in SLA

Pavlenko (2003) extended “imagined community” to non-native- English-speaking teachers identity which has been devalued and discriminated in the target country. Due to nonnative-like pronunciation, nonstandard accent or non-white skin color, EFL teachers who study or work in the target country are viewed as incompetent. That’s why Pavlenko raised this new concept to help nonnative English teachers reposition themselves in a totally different perspective. As Wenger(1980) points out, imagination, in effect, is not kind of fantasy; instead it is a sense of common belonging that non-native speakers share together. Wenger thinks “it is a creative process of producing new images of possibility and new ways of understanding one’s relation to the world that transcend more immediate acts of engagement.”(163-164). Pavlenko (2003) categorized imagined community into three parts: Native speaker community, Non-native speaker/ L2 learner community and Multilingual/ L2 user community.

Native speaker community

In the first community, only standard language is recognizable and legitimate. Other dialects like African English are viewed as erroneous. Thus, non-native speakers who think they are in this community conceptually try so hard to pursue the native-like pronunciation and grammar. But, in light of critical hypothesis, it is difficult for most nonnative language learners who do not shape his/her language accent in critical period to achieve native-like pronunciation. Thus, they suffer a lot in this community.

Nonnative speaker community/ L2 learner community

In non-native speaker community, speakers consider themselves as language learners so they come here to achieve NS competence in every aspect. Here, teachers do not have authority anymore; instead they move backward as language learners and see themselves as far less competent than they really were. Still, not every language learners with hard-working can successfully achieve full native-like competence. In this community, they are also suffered from endless pursuit of native-like competence.

Multilingual/ L2 user community

In multilingual community, speakers position themselves in a more flexible way. Instead of viewing themselves as language learners, they shift from language learners to language users. They are confident and proud because they are able to use several languages, not just one. They don’t feel they are worse than native speakers anymore. It is a similar concept to Cook’s (1992, 1999) notion of multicompetence, which entails that multilinguists have a more flexible mind and easy to accept new concepts and examine things from different angles. Non-native speakers should take advantage of their own strengths rather than devalue them. In addition, as Nieto (2000) put, the process of identification should accommodate the differences, not suppressing them though. Everyone is language user, equal to each other no matter where you come from and what accents you have.

Conclusion

From above, things go evident that the third community is the most ideal community in which nonnative speakers are released from the huge pressure of being native-like. They have motivation to keep using language with confidence and pleasure. However, one word of caution is that identity shift is probably helpful in reshaping learners’ confidence and motivation, but they still have to put effort into practice so that reality can be changed. Imagination is not enough to change the world.

References

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities. Reflection on the origin and spread of nationalism (Rev. ed.). London: Verso

Pavlenko, A. (2003). I never I was a bilingual: Reimagining teacher identities in TESOL. Journal Of Language, Identity and Education, 2(4), 251-268

Cook, V. (1992). Evidence for multicompetence. Language Learning, 42, 557-591.

Nieto, S. (2000). Puerto Rican students in U.S. schools. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers Mahwah, New Jersey

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Unuiversity Press.