The latest issue of Cross-Cultural Studies (published by the Center for Cross Cultural Studies, Kyung Hee University, Korea) includes an article about the dark side of TESOL authored by Ingrid Piller, Kimie Takahashi, and Yukinori Watanabe.
Based on case studies from Japan and South Korea, this review paper explores the hidden costs of English language learning (ELL). In a context where English has become a commodity and ELL a form of consumption, we focus on the personal and social costs of (a) studying abroad as a much-touted path to “native-like” proficiency and (b) sexualization of language teaching materials in order to reach new niche markets. The hidden costs of ELL are embedded in language ideologies which set English up as a magical means of self-transformation and, at the same time, an unattainable goal for most Japanese and Koreans. We end with the call to expose debilitating language ideologies in order to shed light on the hidden costs of ELL.
We are particularly excited that this journal article is our first piece of peer-reviewed research writing that started life on this blog, with a post about the mental health effects of the English fever in South Korea and a post about pornographic language teaching materials in Japan.
The full text of the article is also available from our Resources section under Language & Consumerism.
Ingrid Piller, Kimie Takahashi, & Yukinori Watanabe (2010). The Dark Side of TESOL: The Hidden Costs of the Consumption of English Cross-Cultural Studies, 20, 183-201
another description is fraud….
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