English Language Learning in Globalized Third Spaces

This chapter argues for an approach to teaching English as a second or foreign language that acknowledges the globalized, hybrid identities of students, moving within and between communities and nations. Most state-mandated, standardized English Language Development (ELD) curricula and assessment regimes are one-size-fits-all competitive systems that homogenize English Language Learners, producing and maintaining inequities between “native” and “non-native” speakers. The predominant deficit-based ELD programs reflect a colonial history that commodifies language and contributes to a “monocultural restoration.” ELD practices and policies that focus on seemingly neutral, decontextualized skill-building are part of this colonial project. Decolonizing 21^st-century ELD pedagogies requires moving away from conceptions of learning as an abstract process of knowledge acquisition and reconceptualizing learning as identity-making practice. Decolonized ELD pedagogies would further incorporate and encourage the hybrid ways transnational students use multiple languages and literacies in “third spaces,” as they intersubjectively construct and expand their identities in practice.