Talking About Global Migration

Implications for Language Teaching

Theresa Catalano

• Verlag: Multilingual Matters
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783095568
• Thema: Social Sciences
• Thema: Emigration & Immigration

How do migrants describe themselves and their experiences? As the world faces a migration crisis, there is an enhanced need for educational responses to the linguistic and cultural diversity of student bodies, and for consideration of migrant students at all levels of the curriculum. This book explores the stories of over 70 migrants from 41 countries around the world and examines the language they use when talking about their move to a new country and their experiences there. The book interprets common themes from the stories using metaphor and metonymy analysis to lead to more nuanced understandings of migration that have implications for language teachers. The stories also dispel many stereotypes relating to migration, serving as a reminder to us all to consider our own language when talking about this complex subject.

Part 1
Beginnings

A mighty flame follows a tiny spark. (Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy)

1 Introduction

In 2015, over 500,000 newcomers arrived in Europe, most of whom were escaping war in Syria or elsewhere. Of those 500,000, half were children (Fifield, 2015). These children experienced violence, social breakdown, distressed parents, loss of family members, ambiguous loss (when a person isn’t sure what happened to someone) and incredible psychological trauma and stress, leading at times to anxiety and fear, nightmares and difficulties in sleeping. In addition, many of the children hadn’t been to school in a year or more. A year earlier in the United States, thousands of unaccompanied or separated minors from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador made their way to the US border (and they continue to come), most of whom were escaping situations that threatened their physical and psychological safety. They too experienced trauma and interrupted schooling. Other adults leave their home countries looking for a better life for their children, including better access to healthcare and education, or better job opportunities. Others still, spend most of their lives traveling from one country to the next, or they live half of their time in one country and half in the other, or they follow their loved ones around the world as they migrate or maybe they just want to explore the world.

Globalization and the increased movement of transnational migrants around the world underscores the need for educational responses to migration that attend to the linguistic and cultural diversity of demographically changing student bodies. Europe’s migrant crisis, the increasing number of unaccompanied or separated children moving across national boundaries and other recent events in migration reify the need for educators to consider migrant students at all levels of curriculum development and implementation. Thus, on a professional level as a teacher and teacher educator, I was propelled to write this book to help people understand migration experiences through the telling of individual migration stories (and metaphorical/metonymical analysis of them) that would hopefully develop empathy for globally mobile students. Furthermore, I wanted to encourage educators to plan for a ‘productive coexistence of different linguistic and cultural groups’ (Liddicoat et al., 2014: 269) and create spaces where pupils, teachers and community members engage in discourses about migration that are informed by migrant perspectives, and encourage personal interaction on an equal level, leading to greater harmony (Agnihotri, 2014).

On a personal level, there were many reasons I wanted to write this book. Like many Americans, I grew up hearing my grandparents’ stories of immigration and their journeys to and struggles in the US. Then, as a 20-year-old college student, I studied abroad, met a man and fell in love. We later married and he moved to the US to be with me. I have spent the last 25 years witnessing (and participating in) his immigration experiences in the United States, good and bad. In addition, because of my job as an English as a Second Language teacher (at elementary, adult education, community college and university levels), I have heard the immigration stories of children and adults from all around the world who have happened to be in my classes. I also had the opportunity to hear about the migration experiences of many people while living in Turkey and Italy and visiting countries such as South Africa and Pakistan. In addition, because I have lived in a country other than my birth country and have traveled extensively, I know what it is like to be a second language learner. All these experiences have led me to the realization that in this globalized world many other countries, including countries not normally thought of as countries of immigration (e.g. Jamaica, Indonesia) are receiving migrants too, and there are vast differences between migration experiences depending on the contexts and types of migrants.

Currently I work in a Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, in the area of second language education and applied linguistics where I teach teachers how to adapt their instruction to ensure the success of all children (including migrant children). However, I also do research that aims to apply my knowledge about language to solve real world problems. As a linguist and discourse analyst, I have published articles that examine media discussion of migrants and immigration in the US and the ways in which discourse shapes public opinion about immigration and migrants in the US, Canada, the UK and Italy. I have noticed that the way immigration and migrants are talked about is qualitatively different than the way migrants describe their own (vastly different and unique) experiences. This, and recent events on the global stage became the impetus to write this book.

Author and Readers

As the author of this book, I write to you from multiple perspectives that may at times seem as though I am different people. I do this, because the book is meant to be read by a variety of people, and thus I attempt to address the needs of all my readers speaking to different people at different times. Whether you are a second language teacher, foreign language teacher, any teacher of any level or subject that has migrant students in his/her classes, migrant students themselves (looking to learn about what other migrants experience), students and researchers in the field of language acquisition and education (as well as metaphor analysis) and teacher educators and educational researchers, there is something here for you. Because of this variety of readers, and because of my multiple identities as a second/foreign language teacher/learner and researcher, sometimes I put on my ‘researcher hat’ in order to provide evidence and support for readers to make meaning of the stories and tie them to global issues and contexts. In addition, I use my ‘researcher hat’ to explain the methodology involved in the study, and the intricate workings of metaphor/metonymy analysis, which is a central element of this book. Other times, I put on my ‘second language learner hat’ in order to share my own stories and provide more examples of particular issues from a learner perspective. And still other times, I am a teacher, giving examples of student situations and advice for teachers in similar situations. The thread holding together all these pieces is my aim of social justice, which is the central underlying purpose of this book, and which I will explain in detail below.

Goals

The main purpose of this book is to bring forward the individual stories and voices of migrants so that educators – in particular, language teachers – as well as migrant students can learn from these stories. In addition, it is hoped that the writing of this book can be one step forward on the journey (in...