How to teach TESOL ethically in an English-dominant world

TESOL and social justice

One of the thrusts of my research has been a critical examination of the social consequences of the global spread of English.

In my book Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice, for example, I argue that “Englishization” engenders an external orientation to development. Knowledge produced and disseminated through the medium of English comes to be regarded more highly than knowledge produced and disseminated through the medium of other languages. On the individual level, the hegemony of global English carries psychological costs and may contribute to linguistic marginalization and feelings of inferiority.

This argument is based on a number of empirical studies conducted by our team mostly in Asia and the Middle East. The focus has been on the consequences of the spread of English on societal structures, institutions, and individuals in those context.

One aspect of our critique has been to highlight the detrimental effects of an ideology that privileges native speakers of English as preferred knowers and teachers of the language. What I have not considered much is how native speaker TESOL teachers from Anglophone center countries position themselves vis-à-vis this kind of critique. But my work is often read in TESOL teacher training programs: how does the kind of critique outlined above affect aspiring TESOL teachers who identify as native speakers from Anglophone center countries?

Or, to put it bit pointedly: Can US native speakers of English teach English ethically?

Conversation with colleagues from the Pennsylvania TESOL organization

This question was put to me in a conversation I recently had with Professors Dr Carla Chamberlin, PennState Abington, and Dr Mak Khan, Community College of Philadelphia. Carla and Mak had asked to chat with me about questions related to linguistic diversity and social justice in preparation for the Pennsylvania TESOL convention on Nov 21, 2020. We’ve recorded our conversation and you can listen to it here:

Other issues we discuss in our hour-long conversation include the following: How can migrant parents foster their children’s biliteracy? What are the language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic? Do multilingualism researchers have a monolingual English-centric blind spot? How do the research paradigms of World Englishes and multilingualism connect?

The conversation was also a lovely opportunity to reconnect with Mak, who used to be a regular contributor to Language on the Move writing about English and multilingual literacies in Pakistan.

So, can native speakers teach English ethically?

There is obviously no easy answer to that question. It’s the same dilemma that confronts every teacher with a privileged identity: how can male teachers teach ethically within institutional frameworks that maintain sexism? How can white teachers teach ethically within institutional frameworks that maintain racism?

My preliminary response is this: There can be no doubt that students need role models who share their backgrounds: English language learners need teachers who themselves learned English “the hard way”; girls need female teachers to look up to; and students of color need successful teachers, principals and leaders who look like them. But to inspire students you do not have to have the same identity as your students – in our diverse world that is not only impossible but counterproductive.

To teach ethically from a privileged identity you need to see yourself in your students: you need to believe in the potential of your students to replace you.

Chats in Linguistic Diversity

Did you enjoy this conversation? It is the second in a series of Chats in Linguistic Diversity. In the past some of you may have enjoyed our Lectures in Linguistic Diversity at Macquarie University. Due to Covid-19, we’ve obviously had to put this lecture series on hold. We hope that our occasional podcast Chats in Linguistic Diversity will make up for these for the time being. Feel free to contact us with topic suggestions.

Previous chat in Linguistic Diversity:

• Ingrid Piller in conversation with Dr Piers Kelly about Australian Aboriginal message sticks.

Transcript (created by Brynn Quick; added on 15/03/2024)

Dr Chamberlin: Hello, I’m Carla Chamberlin, Professor of Applied Linguistics in Communication Arts and Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University Abington College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m joined by Mak Khan, Director of the Center for International Understanding and Assistant Professor of ESL at the community college of Philadelphia.

Mak and I are here today to talk to Ingrid Piller, Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney. Dr Piller is the author of the award-winning and best-selling books Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice and Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction. She is the editor-in-chief of the international journal Multilingua, editor off the blog Language on the Move, and author of numerous publications about multilingualism and social justice.

Mak and I each came to know Ingrid’s work in different ways. In my own work in intercultural communication and TESOL and social linguistics, I was drawn to Ingrid’s voice that forces us to question how language and culture have been defined historically to reinforce linguistic hierarchies and social structures that benefit the privileged few. We have watched such inequalities play out with destructive results in the US. In Philadelphia, where Black Lives Matter protests and voting procedures are being challenged, and where the current pandemic disproportionately affects minorities, the job of language educators goes beyond teaching about grammar. Ingrid’s work reminds us how language and culture and attitudes toward language and culture create and maintain inequalities that profoundly shape our lives.

Dr Khan: It was December 2009 when I went to the American University of Sharjah and Zayed University. They were hosting a conference on fostering multiliteracies through education. I was a naïve doctoral student, presenting my work. After the conference was over, I saw an email. Somebody was seeking my permission to publish my work on Language on the Move. I saw that it was Professor Ingrid Piller. My doctoral supervisor had talked to me about Dr Piller’s work, so first I did not believe that it was from Professor Piller, asking me to publish my work. So, I asked my colleague. I said, “Hey, can you see that this is from Professor Ingrid Piller?”. He said yes. So, this is how we became friends.

Since then, I saw Dr Piller as a mentor throughout my PhD and after my Phd. Visiting Language on the Move regularly gave me a very different view of linguistics, which is not very traditional, I would say. My doctoral work on signage and linguistic ethnography heavily drew on her. Throughout my PhD and after my PhD, she has been the shaping person on my scholarship, on my personality. And I’m so thrilled and honoured that I’m here in her presence today and interviewing her. I’m super, super excited and would like to thank Carla for including me in this one. Thank you.

Dist Prof Piller: Thank you very much, Mak, for having me, and I just have to say I remember that conference in Sharjah very fondly. It was a really international conference in an Arabic-speaking context, and at the same time in an English-speaking context. So very diverse. We were actually handing out awards for the best paper of the day, and Khan had actually disappeared by the time we had gotten around to announcing that his was the best paper of the day.

Dr Chamberlin: Well, we have a lot of questions for you, but obviously we won’t be able to get to everything. I use both of your books in my classes, and as soon as I found them, I just thought, “Yes, yes, this is it. This is what I want my students to be reading.” Before that, I was just cobbling together all these different chapters and articles from Applied Linguistics and other sources that take a critical look at language and teaching and culture. But here, I feel like, “Yes, you’ve brought all of this together.” So I’m really, really grateful for that. And I also think that what you do – obviously your scholarly work is amazing – but I also feel that there is passion there. There’s a mission there. And I wonder what defining moments in your life led you to that. I mean, you’re multilingual. I read about your experiences, but was there anything in particular that really motivated you to pursue social justice?

Dist Prof Piller: I think we all make our lives and careers and paths and journeys. I was educated in a rural area of southern Bavaria, an area where grammar schools didn’t exist. High schools didn’t exist until about my generation. I’m the first from my village to graduate from high school. So, of course, my upbringing has shaped me. I received my higher education in Germany. I studied to become a teacher, specifically a language teacher. The languages that I focused on were English, German and Spanish. From there, I went on various exchanges to the UK. My first postdoc position was actually in the US at Becker College as a visiting professor in the English department there. From then, my career has taken me to various other places including the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and now Australia.

Dr Chamberlin: I have students who are getting a minor in TESOL with the hopes to go abroad, having the chance to teach. For many, this is a kind of once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to do this. But they are also, and I’m glad they’re questioning this, they’re questioning the moral aspects of it. Some of them feel conflicted about wanting to go abroad and teach English and get experience, and I mean that’s what I did many years ago. It changed my life. It changed my world, but at the same time I think back and think, “Oh my gosh, I was part of this whole system of Englishization of Korea”, where I was working. My students are now asking me how they do this, how they reconcile this. And I told them I would ask you (laughs).

Dist Prof Piller: Look, I mean, it’s a difficult question really. I’ve been thinking about this question. I think it’s the same answer, actually, that we give to anyone who works in an unjust system. We live in an imperfect world, and “imperfect” is probably a euphemism, and we live in very difficult structures. But that doesn’t mean that we should not act at all. I mean, it’s the same question we could ask any white person. Should we go and teach or should we just shut up? Of course we should, but at the same time I think you can’t give up being a teacher because you have a particular identity, and the same goes for if men should teach women. That’s all positions of privilege. I carry these moral questions, I think.

Coming back to the specific question of should Americans or native speakers of English, should they become teachers of English? Look, I still don’t see why not as long, and I think that’s the caveat, as long as they also pay attention to the kinds of structures we’ve been talking about, and as long as they teach under the assumption that they are teaching the next generation of teachers. Because I think one problem that can make the privileged teaching the disadvantaged so difficult is that it’s very often under the assumption that the privileged identity is forever the teacher identity. And non-native speakers or people of colour or women will never be as good, and that kind of assumption is pernicious.

So, I think we need to teach so that our students will replace ourselves. That they will be the next generation. And that, to me, is not only an ethical linguistic question, but that it’s a question that any teacher needs to ask themselves all the time really. How is my teaching beneficial to my students, and how does it contribute to questions of social justice? How does is reinforce existing structures, and how can I help to be part of the solution as opposed to being part of the problem?

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah, exactly.

Dr Khan: So, Ingrid, I have a question about the loss of multiliteracy in my family. We moved to the United States in 2013. My wife, I and four kids. When we moved, 3 of our 4 kids were bilingual and biliterate with English and Urdu. The youngest one was 3 years old, so he wasn’t bilingual. He was only monolingual. Ingrid, in these 7 years, I have seen in my family my monolingual ones, although they can speak Urdu and do speak Urdu, they have totally forgotten Urdu script. They cannot read, nor they can write. So, my wife and I, we make a conscious effort. My little boy, he says, “When you love your Urdu language so much, why have you brought us to United States?”. He asks this question to us because, for him, United States means English only. And this question is not of that child. I come across this question from so many people around. From political debates and all these. So, my question is – in such a case as I am in, what agency do I have as a father, as a family member, to help my kids retain their language heritage?

Dist Prof Piller: Yeah, that’s a difficult question, and I think one that many, many migrant parents struggle with. I think there are two aspects I’d like to speak to. One is the literacy question, and that’s sort of the very difficult pattern, of course, in migrant families, that you actually have the second generation as bilingual. They can speak the language, but they don’t have literacy skills and don’t know how to read and write the other language. It’s great that they can speak in the family, but at the same time it really cuts them off from the cultural heritage of the language and the literature and also the academic and cognitive development that actually comes through literacy in any language. So, of course, literacy is extremely important but at the same time the hardest to maintain.

And of course, it’s not surprising that it’s hard to maintain because in any context it’s the school’s job. The parents’ job is oracy and oral skills, and that happens in the family and we have outsourced literacy teaching to schools pretty much universally. So, in order to be able to maintain literacy in the language that is not the school language, I think you have to invest a phenomenal amount of time and resources and that’s just usually not a feasible proposition for most people. It really only works if you actually have community schools or if you had the support of the school, and that’s why I actually think to have language learning and bilingualism in the school system is so important.

One thing that we all need to be lobbying for in these monolingual countries or these countries with monolingual ideologies as the United States but also Australia, is actually languages in the school system. I think that’s something that actually speaks to the non-migrant population because often bilingualism is a migrant problem and a community problem, “don’t speak it in public and leave us alone”. In order for languages to be valued, everyone needs to see something in them, and coming from a context where in continental Europe you can’t actually become an educated person if you don’t learn another language. At the bare minimum, you have to learn English. That’s part of education. The European ideal, for instance, is that every citizen will learn two foreign languages – so, the national language, English, and the language of a neighbouring country. In many parts of the world, bilingual education has always been a reality and is not unusual at all. To me, it’s like learning math or learning language arts. Learning opens your mind in ways that you just can’t understand if you haven’t had that experience of language learning. It’s not only a social justice issue, but it’s really for everyone. We should lobby for everyone that language learning does something to you, that gives you an insight into another culture and into another world. You can read more things. No one debates, “Should we really learn math? Should children learn math? It takes so much time”. They just consider it natural. Languages are the same, really. They should be a normal, expected part of becoming an educated person.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah, interestingly I asked my students in an Introduction to Social Linguistics class, now on my campus we’re 57% minority, I don’t know the exact number of multilingual students because we can’t collect all of that information. But quite a few. Typically, in a class, I have 3 monolingual English students, and the rest are multilingual. So, I ask them, “Are we a monolingual or multilingual nation?”. And they, you know, these are young people, and they say, “We’re multilingual!”. I was taken aback the first time. But then I have them go out and look, make observations, and then kind of come back to me and say, “How are we monolingual?” or “How are we multilingual?”. And of course, you know, they realise then that we are multilingual in the private sphere. It’s ok to talk to your family, to use multiple languages with your friends, but then you get into the public sphere and it’s English. So, I did kind of look at that, but I was surprised the firs time when they all came back and said we’re multilingual. We are statistically, but it’s still a monolingual mindset.

Dist Prof Piller: Yeah, it’s really institutions that reinforce this idea. I mean, we have to operate institutionally in a monolingual world, and that’s what makes it so difficult, and really also creates this disconnect between the lived experience of many people. But I also agree, I mean it’s sort of beautiful to see actually that there is a younger generation who is much more attuned to different languages and now also parents who maintain languages. One thing that I see a lot is actually when there is this resistance in young children in particular. So, primary school is the time when they say things like, “So why did you bring us to this country? We’re in the US now, so let’s speak English.” It’s really also the mental stage where they want to fit in and they really buy in to wanting to fit in. As parents, I think, you have to work a bit to kind of get them through these couple of years, because by the time they are teenagers, having another language is actually a source of distinction. That’s when they enjoy their languages again. I think if you can support your child, they will thank you for it.

Dr Khan: Absolutely correct, Ingrid. My boys, who are in universities, one is in Swarthmore, the other is in Denison, both of them are now so much in love with Urdu. They are at that stage. You are 100% correct, but the little one, you know, he is still reacting, “If you love Urdu so much, why didn’t you stay back?”. You’re so right.

Dr Chamberlin: I’ve experienced that with my daughter. I didn’t think she was going to be speaking French, but I spoke French to her from the day she was born, just trying to, you know, see what would happen. And she just resisted it. She got to the point, we would read a lot of children’s books, and she could read them, but then at a certain point she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Like you said, elementary school. And now she’s studying French.

Dr Khan: How nice.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah, so it did come back. I’ll move on to another topic, and that is language and the pandemic. In your recent special issue in Multilingua, you had said that you received, I think, hundreds of proposals, and you decided to focus on China. And you also recently had, I think it was a symposium, this past weekend, and I just wondered – since even just the publication, things are changing so quickly with this pandemic. What have you seen change in terms of language issues and public health? If you could do another special issue part two, where do you think you would go with it?

Dist Prof Piller: Right, look, when we sent out the call for papers in March, we received, as you said, over 200 abstracts from around the globe. So, really a lot of interest. We decided on China then to make our selection path easier because we felt like Chine was 2-3 months ahead in the pandemic. They were, at that point, winning the fight against the pandemic. It sort of seemed like, to us, there maybe was a course through it, and other nations would go through a phase of outburst but then get it under control in the same way China had done. Of course, that has now been proven completely wrong.

At the same time, you know, I think it’s a really important study to just see what a very different country has done. It’s a very different setup. One that we all think of as a very highly linguistically diverse nation because China, in fact, is incredibly linguistically diverse. There was the standard language and the various varieties of Chinese that are often called dialects, but that in reality are not necessarily mutually intelligible. So, they really constitute different language when it comes to everyday interaction and communication. And then there are 55 counted minorities, so different languages in the country. We’ve heard a lot about Mongolian recently, which is one of the larger minority languages, but China is very linguistically diverse with many different languages. China is increasingly becoming a migrant destination for international students in particular, particularly from places like southeast Asia and Africa, the developing world in particular. So, an aspect of migration that, I think, in the West, is not being recognised at all. We have a very linguistically diverse situation and some interesting challenges when it comes to how they communicate timely, high-quality information as is necessary in a pandemic or in any crisis. How do you do that?

And how would I do it differently, or what would the sequel be? Two aspects that I would want to do, I mean I think there are a zillion others, but one thing is actually to look at situations in the global south where, again, we have highly linguistically diverse situations with indigenous minorities, in particular, being particularly disadvantaged and at exceedingly high risk of the pandemic. To help my students in the Master’s course I’m teaching into Literacies – they did research projects this semester. I just want to share some of their research findings.

For instance, one of my students, Kinza Abbasi, she actually did one that may be particularly of interest to you – a study of how information about Covid-19 was communicated in Khyber Pashtun province in Pakistan. It is a highly linguistically diverse province. I think there are 18 different languages spoken there. Most of the population actually is not literate in those languages, so they if they had an education, they will be literate in Urdu and maybe English. All the public information, all the campaigns that she looked at were published predominantly in English and a bit in Urdu but nothing in any of the other languages, and some of the information was really completely nonsensical. She showed us posters where there was a sheep and the sheep was crossed out, and it said something like “Don’t go near animals”. But actually, sheep herding is like, one of the key livelihoods, so it’s absurd information. And, of course, communicated through the wrong channels because posters are not actually something that works particularly well.

Another student, Alexandra Hermosa from Peru, also had similar findings. She looked at posters that were actually translated into the indigenous languages of the Andes, various languages. And she noted the Quechuan posters in particular. One thing that she found was that, again, it’s not the ideal communication channel to actually provide posters. Also, the communication strategy relied heavily on the internet in a context where there actually isn’t widespread mobile coverage, and again she found information like, “Wash your hands all the time” and “Don’t forget to turn the tap off after you’ve washed your hands”. That’s one of the things it said in Quechuan, except these villages don’t have running water. So, in the information that is – there is so much wrong. And it’s again, I think, a Western mass communication model that’s being applied there. You work through posters, you work through national languages. You have one set of communication, one set of information, whether that is culturally relevant or not.

Another of my students, Yudha Hidayat from Indonesia, he actually suggested one of the key information channels that people in Lombok Province trust is mosques, and there is an established communication channel, like how you share information across villages – through loudspeakers on the mosques. And that one wasn’t used. So, indigenous communication channels on the ground are neglected in favour of, you know, those kind of information channels that don’t actually get the information to the people.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah.

Dr Khan: Very fascinating findings. It’s like getting a model from somewhere else and applying somewhere else without regard to anything. Wow.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah, modalities are so important. They shape the communication, but as you were talking about it, I was just going to say – what is the best way to reach different populations? Certainly, the internet is not even going to reach me, I’m not even on social media, you know? It’s just fascinating that people try to apply the exact same model, what works here, I see a lot of signage here. Obviously, there’s you know, every newspaper has free Covid information, every newspaper online, so you don’t have to subscribe to the newspaper, but you still have to have the setup to go to that newspaper. To have the online resources and, I know New York Times translates into Spanish, but that’s it. I didn’t see other languages.

Dist Prof Piller: Well, that brings us to the question of trust. And I think one thing that we’ve seen in the pandemic, and particularly in countries like the US I think, but really many other parts of the world too, is of course a complete breakdown of trust. And that’s why the fake news and disinformation proliferate because there is a lot of communication going on, but people don’t actually know where it comes from, and part of the problem, to my mind, is actually the communication channels don’t match. The languages don’t match. The sources are anonymous. You don’t actually make news of the kind of communication channels that people trust and that people know. Ultimately, a crisis response, of course, needs to be led by the state, but it also needs to be local. The state needs to enable local action. Those kinds of countries that really have been able to respond at all kinds of levels – at the national level, at institutional levels, but really also at community level – and mobilise people who will actually door knock, people who translate, loudspeakers have been very successfully used in China, rural parts of Vietnam, for instance. So, the kind of communication channels that are known to work. One thing that was pointed out by the student that I mentioned was also just that for communication to be successful it needs to be filtered through, like, tribal leaders, and it needs to actually go through families in order to reach both men and women. If that doesn’t happen, you could just as well save the paper you are printing your flyers on.

Dr Chamberlin: Right, and the state here can’t even identify those pathways of trust. And it’s different for everyone. I also know that there’s such an abundance of information, and sometimes people just end up shutting it all off because they don’t even know where to turn to anymore. Like you said, they don’t really trust any sources, and that’s definitely been a big problem. I hope it gets a little bit better. We’ll see. We have some hope (laughs).

Dr Khan: Ingrid, can I ask a question on multilingual research, changing the topic a little bit? When I see research on multilingualism, rarely do I come across references of scholarship outside English. So, the proponents of multilingualism are often restricted to monolingual literature itself. When I was reading your book, surprisingly positively I came across the reference of Isfahan in the 17^th century. I was like, taken aback. I said, “Wow, this is new for me”. That started this thinking in me that, you know, our multilingual research, scholarship is mostly monolingual, and it’s a paradox. So, I was thinking that I would see your comment, and before you do that, I also wanted to show you the diploma, the degree, that my university, Karachi University, gave me. It’s a very bilingual, you see half Urdu and half English, so it’s like the space is divided between Urdu and English, right? Whereas my degree in Lancaster was absolutely monolingual. It’s almost impossible to imagine an American University giving a degree with English and Spanish side by side. So, the point I’m making is this one, that sometimes when we go out of the box to nations, we find lots of things which are so interesting and illuminating, like in the case of Isfahan that you talked about, or like in the case of Karachi University giving degrees in Urdu and English. Any comment?

Dist Prof Piller: Yes, look, I couldn’t agree more. You’re 100% correct. Our scholarship is exceedingly monolingual, exceedingly English-centric. It’s not just monolingual, it’s English, actually, and that is a problem precisely because of the examples we discussed earlier. Because, of course, if we do research in a multilingual context in only one linguistic side of things, we’re bound to miss so many other sides. So that’s obvious. It’s a fundamental problem, I think, of research across the board, actually.

I wrote a paper in 2016 in the Journal of Multicultural Discourses about monolingual ways of seeing multilingualism, and that was a response to research by Anthony Liddicoat who had looked at a sample of research in multilingualism and just looked at in what kind of context does that multilingualism occur, the research contexts. He found that about a third had no context at all, if was just like, you know, context-free theorising about multilingualism, and I think that is a consequence of the English-centrism of the field. Because if you’re actually only seeing English, then multilingualism is something that’s out there but is not really bound to a particular context. And then another 40%, I would say, I forget the exact number, you can look them up, a very large chunk was then about bilingualism in the English-speaking world – the UK, US, Australia. Migrant or indigenous populations, multi-migrant populations. Then a smaller chunk of research in other contexts, multilingualism in other contexts, but really most of it through the lens of English.

I guess a big problem, of course, here are publishing structure and how different research is valued and evaluated and assessed. Of course, there is this assumption built into all kinds of metrics that English publications are better, and so that puts many academics across the world really under pressure to publish through the medium of English, but in order to be able to publish through the medium of English, the ability to publish in international journals, you need to work with frameworks that appeal to the metropolis in the centre. Being part of the discussion, the conversation, the international global conversation if you actually speak to the concerns that are there in the journal. So, it’s not only about language choice.

They key problem, really, is that this English-centrism changes the content of our research because we consistently ignore local considerations, as I’ve just said, with regard to the way Covid is communicated in rural areas in the global south. This kind of ignorance is, in part, related to English western-centric ways of doing things. So, it’s really to the great detriment of everyone that these kinds of relationships pertain. Now, the question is always, “How can we change that?”. We are little people, and that one thing I think that, as university teachers, one thing we should be lobbying for in terms of policy, for instance, is that actually anyone who becomes a language teacher should actually also have learned a language. It seems to me, like, really strange that we continue to (give) graduate linguistics degrees or TESOL degrees and there is no study requirement to have studied another language. That, to me, is something we can do for instance.

One thing that I try to do, through Language on the Move for instance – because we also have a great opportunity with digital communication – so it’s no longer either or. The traditional paper journal, of course, it was more like, you know, you have one shot at it. So that no longer pertains in the digital world either. We can actually create more, kind of, academic and community spaces, and that’s the responsibility ultimately. Everyone has to come to the table and try and also disseminate their research. So, those of us who work in the west and who work through the medium of English, I think the bare minimum that we should be doing for our research is to also create translations and create other channels.

So that’s, for instance, what we’ve been getting with this special issue that we’ve just published on linguistic diversity in a time of crisis. The symposium that you mentioned that we just had this weekend – we actually ran two parallel sessions – one was an English language channel session and the other was a Chinese session, and it brought together key researchers in the Chinese spaces, really targeted at a Chinese audience. We tried to disseminate the research beyond those who speak English because, ultimately, if we look at it from a global perspective, it’s of course only a very slim number of privileged few who actually speak English too or have proficiency in English to the kind of level that allows them to absorb academic information. So, yeah, these are a couple of things that we do.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah, changes in publishing. I’ve been on editorial boards, and I’m an editor now, and I know that the publishers only want to publish in English. It’s a journal about interculturalism, but yeah, they resist it. So, we find ourselves having to insist on English in the field of intercultural communication and intercultural education, and that’s cutting out so many people, but I don’t know how to fix it right away.

Dist Prof Piller: The problem with academic papers is also that it’s extremely rigid because it’s not always an either or question, like English or Chinese or something. Of course, in everyday communication, as we all know, bilingual people communicate through translanguaging and code switching in all kinds of ways. But academic journal articles, of course, are the most rigid and extreme end of the monolingual spectrum. So it’s not only that we publish in English but we publish in standard English that shouldn’t have any traces of (other languages). So that creates an additional barrier.

Dr Khan: Most regulated spaces, yeah.

Dist Prof Piller: Khan, as you’ve said, there’s really an interesting tension. Many of us kind of rage against the monolingual mindset, but at the same time, when it comes to our own practices, it’s quite highly regulated.

Dr Khan: Yeah, yeah.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah, and in higher education, you know, I’m hopefully coming up with the proposals for something that we can do, not just to validate our students’ multilingualism but to use it. Let them use it. So, you know, we can recognise it, we can value it, but what are we asking them to do in languages other than English? Why can’t they, if they write a paper for some kind of capstone project before they graduate, why can’t they take that paper, that information, and disseminate it in another language through a blog or, you know, through a community organisation? So, I’m hoping to kind of put something together like that, but it’s going to be a lot of work, a lot of convincing people that it’s a worthwhile endeavour. I think it is, but I know it’s not going to be easy, but we have to start with something structurally, I think. Just talking about it, and talking about being inclusive, and I just feel like we’re talking and talking and talking and talking and not really doing. At your university or at other schools – how do you really let students use multiple languages?

Dist Prof Piller: Not really at our university. I mean, it’s very much Anglo and an English-speaking country, or a country that sees itself as English-speaking. But I guess one thing that I would like to add to your thoughts, kind of, is that all around the world we see an increasing valorisation of diversity, and that’s great. I mean, I think that really needs to happen.

But, at the same time, I think we also need to critically examine how discourses of diversity can actually coexist with very exclusionary practices. One issue that I see for people from minority backgrounds as they enter the academy in particular and as they grapple with these questions of standard English, monolingualism, multilingualism, translanguaging, using all of their languages is of course that this not entirely up to them. I mean, they enter ways of seeing, and minoritized populations are also seen as linguistically deficient. So, for anyone from a non-native – or people of colour migrants, disadvantaged backgrounds, or underprivileged backgrounds, to actually succeed they’ll always have to battle. On the one hand, they may want to use all their linguistic repertoire. On the other hand, if they do, they are still going to be seen as linguistically deficient. One person’s creativity is another person’s error, right?

And so, these kinds of tensions are something that – I think one thing we can do is actually help our students come to terms with these tensions and learn how to live with it or learn how to recognise them at least. I mean, that’s maybe the most emancipatory thing we can do as teachers – to talk to them about it and let them talk about their experiences and kind of acknowledge that it’s not only something we can do. I mean, we are actors but at the same time, everyone’s reach is limited, so it’s also about building new communities, so yeah.

Dr Chamberlin: Yeah.

Dist Prof Piller: Khan, you wanted to say something? I’ve been going on a bit.

Dr Khan: I really want to discuss with you the discourse of World Englishes if you have 5 minutes. (laughs)

Dr Chamberlin: Five minutes to discuss World Englishes? (laughs)

Dr Khan: Ingrid, when I was introduced (to) this whole field of World Englishes, I really admired it a lot because it gave me how the field of English was attached to a few countries and how this was liberating. The whole scholarship was liberating, and coming from Pakistan and South Asia, I became very confident. I was talking to Professor Carla before the interview. I found myself as a legitimate teacher of English because of this whole scholarship of World Englishes, so I was a great admirer initially when this was introduced to me.

But when I was introduced (to) the field of multilingualism, my professor taught me, then I started looking at the relationship between these two fields, and I was finding them so puzzling because when I used to read Kachru and other pioneers, I used to see the whole world through the lens of Englishes only. As if there was nothing in the world but English. And then, from the other seminar, I had this bombardment of multilingualism, that the world is entirely multilingual. In India, you drive 40 miles, you come across a new language. The relationship between these two, I’ve never been able to, you know, understand this. Could you say something (about) how these two scholarships relate to one another?

Dist Prof Piller: Look, I think that’s a rather high expectation of me. (laughs) I certainly wouldn’t presume to be able to resolve those. Just one thought or two. The World Englishes paradigm, of course, comes out of the original sin of the modern world. It’s a colonial paradigm. Ultimately it comes out of colonialism and slavery. Even if our academic discourses that we value all varieties of English, and so on and so forth, it only actually makes sense within a colonial world. So that’s that about World Englishes.

Now, of course, it has made immense contributions and we continue to live in this post-colonial world, in the world that was shaped by colonialism. So, of course, the way English works in that world is tied to our global order. So that’s a fact. That English predominates is a fact, and we try to find our way around it as we do as humans, and as we try to navigate the world in which we live and make it a better place to the degree that we can.

Now, how does this all relate to multilingualism? One interesting relationship to many is actually – I’m very interested in the history of the Mughal Empire and the Persian language. And so, the Mughal Empire, for those who don’t know, was kind of the trans-Asian empire that existed in what is today pretty much the subcontinent and other parts of Central Asia. It existed prior to British colonisation. Their imperial order was a highly multilingual imperial order, so Persian was the language. Every educated person would learn to write in Persian, and there was a whole class of scribes who got their livelihoods out of being able to read and write documents in Persian. But at the same time, Urdu and Hindi and a wide variety of also literate and non-literate languages played important roles in art, in poetry, in the familial structure. And then there was the holy language of Islam, Arabic, that was in the mix kind of. And in the transition from the Mughal Empire to the British Empire, Persian was actually used by the British in their administration of colonial English because the people they needed to run the country, of course, were all those scribes and bureaucrats and writers who spoke Persian. But gradually, Persian was being replaced by English, and not only was Persian being replaced, but the whole multilingual ecology was being changed over to a more English-centric ecology.

And so, I guess the way to maybe resolve the tension between the scholarship around multilingualism and the scholarship in World Englishes is actually to think about how these two linguistic orders are part of social orders.

Dr Khan: Yeah, thank you so much.

Dr Chamberlin: I know, I’m just thinking and thinking now. Ingrid, I don’t know how much time you have, actually, we didn’t talk about that. I don’t want to overstep.

Dist Prof Piller: Yeah, look, I’m really enjoying this conversation. At the same time, maybe we’ll – I mean, you want to show this at your conference, right? So there will be a limit to how much time there is.

Dr Khan: Yeah.

Dr Chamberlin: I do have one more question I want to sneak in. I wrote this to you last night. It’s pretty much just the question of – Will we ever get over Hofstede?

Dist Prof Piller: (laughs)

Dr Chamberlin: No, it’s just, everybody goes back to that! And I’m just thinking, I have some lines, like ways to respond, but it’s like I’m talking to a brick wall or something. Of course, I know why it’s popular. It’s easy knowledge. It’s like, “Oooh, yes, we can just classify people’s behaviours according to these world views.” And then I read the literature in our field and I’m like, “Oh yeah, we’re over that.” But then I go to a workshop or a webinar and it just comes back to me. I don’t know if – I wondered if you were experiencing some of that still. I’m waiting for that pithy kind of comeback I can have (laughs). But it still just hangs on, doesn’t it? This idea that we can just, first of all, define cultures in terms of national boundaries, and then just define those cultures, those national cultures by things like individualism, collectivism, masculinity, femininity. And I’m just –

Dist Prof Piller: Yeah, it does hang on, but you know what? So many things, so many discourses are hanging on. I’m kind of – you know there is this – I think it was Saint Francis who said, “God, grant me the wisdom to change the things I can change and accept the things I can’t change and always know the difference between the two.” And I think some of those, you know, forever essentialist discourses, I mean it’s not something that, at the moment, I want to really want to waste my time on.

Dr Chamberlin: Yes, I’ll just make sure people read your books (laughs). How’s that? (laughs)

Dist Prof Piller: Well, this was a lovely conversation. I really enjoyed talking to you guys.

Dr Khan: Yeah, it was wonderful. Oh my gosh. It was great. Yeah.

Dist Prof Piller: I said at the beginning, there are always ways to look at the bright side too. This is certainly one of the positive things that has come out of this pandemic. We wouldn’t have had this conversation if it hadn’t been for the pandemic. So, I think, you know, one opportunity that I see is actually for greater engagement across national borders and these kinds of barriers. As our lives have been sucked into Zoom, we really can also use those to have these conversations amongst different people from different backgrounds and across borders. And so, there is also this opportunity that we can also reach out more.

Dr Khan: True.