Page 32 - elgazette/ELG1812

REVIEWS .

THE MULTILINGUAL INSTRUCTOR:
Claire Kramsch and Lihua Zhang
ISBN: 978-0-19-421737-8
Oxford University Press

he outcome of an intersection of
two life trajectories, this title is co-
authored by a Chinese citizen who
Tstudied German in Shangai and then
went on to teach Chinese in the US, and a
French citizen who studied German in Paris
and then taught this language in the US.
Why, though, did they both study German
and not the then more popular English, and
why did they each choose to up roots and
settle on the same faraway shores? Their
intriguing answers are revealed within.
The Multilingual Instructor concerns
the meaning that teachers give to their
professional lives and how they deal with
their multilingual experiences in the
classroom. The many oral testimonies around
which most chapters are based, beginning
with that of co-author Lihua Zhang, have
a curious history: they were each collected
over several years, during monthly pot-luck
dinners organised by faculty members of a
university in the US.
nitially disappointed at being unable to
find a position teaching German in the US,
Zhang relates her excitement at being able
Ito tell her students in a Chinese class there
about China’s cultural revolution and Mao’s
call to settle in the countryside. But such
critical incidents are not always value free,
two electronic surveys of seventy-eight Multilingual
and might possibly lead to the teacher being
called to the Director’s office for a quiet chat.
Chapter two illustrates points from
the quantitative data gathered through
via the media, visits or professional contacts. mind maps
multilingual native and non-native
instructors carrying out their language
teaching in the US, and who have remained
in contact with their native or target country

The following chapter focuses on
challenges to an instructor’s legitimacy
caused by, for example, gaps between their The tale of two non-natives teaching in New York
personal biographies and their professional
lives. Using transcripts from recordings, the poses intriguing question says Wayne Trotman

later chapters discuss sensitive historical events for their American Multilingual Instructor is at times rather
students. Examples provided include the
a technical read. It’s worth the effort,
possibilities for change (alleged) Armenian genocide, Korean though, as it shows us the challenges
by analysing the ethical comfort women, and the Japanese whaling facing instructors proficient in two or more
industry.
languages, along with the importance of
responsibility of the ater chapters discuss possibilities understanding their experiences.
Apart from the general reader of applied
mutlilingual educator and for change by analysing the ethical linguistics, this title would be of most
responsibility of the mutlilingual
the potential they have Leducator and the potential they have value to those pursuing research in auto-
for transforming foreign language education.
ethnography or cultural studies.
for transforming foreign Of particular interest are chapters involving
language education each of the co-authors engaging in self- Wayne Trotman is a
analysis of what happens in their lessons
when they attempt to bridge historical and teacher educator at Izmir
next two chapters illustrate how and why educational gaps. Katip Çelebi University,
instructors at times tend to engage in self- As the authors adopt what they term ‘an Izmir, Turkey.
censorship in the form of ‘narrative erasure’ ecological approach’ and use a ‘complexity
so as to deal with what they perceive to be thought model’ to examine identities, The
32 November/December 2018

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