Comment on Bonny Norton Pierce (1995) and TQ chapter 4

The notion “investment” rather than “motivation” reminds me of many happenings of mine as an L2 English speaker, when I read Bonny Norton Peirce(1995) and TQ chapter 4. Let me write down some of things going around in my mind;

1. Why do I sometimes speak English well and sometimes not?
2. What is the biggest obstacle to me? What is my biggest anxiety in conversing in English?
3. What would be their difference of investment between a poor, single, not-pretty Asian girl and a rich, single, handsome Arabic guy?
4. How could we trace back the beginning of the unstable, unfixed, ever-changing subjectivity/identity while we teach L2 learners? (the difficulty or problem of the real reason of the L2 learners’ investment is hard to detect or evaluate or quantify).
5. When we distinguish the L2 learning environment into two – in the class and outside the class, who and what factors decide the “authenticity of learning environment”?
Cf. evaporation of English when students come out of the class.
6. Every student has his/her own, specific, particularized reason of learning a foreign language. How can the teachers find a way of teaching when they have a multicultural, multiethnic class?

TQ chapter 4
1. To understand student’s sympathy and synchronize ourselves as teacher to their motivation(or investment), class size matters. What do you think the best size of an L2 class?
Cf. One-to-one teaching/learning would be best, but there’s no best or perfect number of students to teach. It just depends on how you teach.
2. Don’t be obsessed by cultural misconception, prejudice, or preconception. See who they are, what they want as they are.
3. Teachers should have flexibility in teaching to cope with all the sudden happenings and changes in class during the entire semester.
4. As in the article and TQ chapter 4, we can enhance students’ subjectivity. How far can the subjectivity go? Particularly in a culture where the expected role of teacher is different from U.S.?
5. It is need to understand what is going on in students mind. E.g. Asian students usually rehearse the phrases or sentences when they have a talk with NS. This is one of the biggest obstacles of Asian L2 learners.
6. Pennycook’s claim that language education is political, reminds me of something which I experienced with a Singaporean guy, who said that he is a native English speaker. Who decides what is right English or desirable English?
7. To be a language teacher, we need to be a studying teacher. Because it takes a lot of time and effort to find out the nature of student resistance. It should be found through a close observation of cultural difference, personal backgrounds, attitudes, etc.
As a non-native English speaker, I still struggle with English every time I use it. What should be changed is language teachers, not me – Thank you, Bonny!