We are professionals! Tim Marr Reflects on Language, Linguistics and TESOL Teacher Identity
In March 2020 CTELL hosted Dr Tim Marr, from Universidad Icesi in Cali, Colombia, for a talk with the title “We don’t have any words”: language, linguistics and teacher identity.
The author of Why do Linguistics? (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Rethinking TESOL in Diverse Global Settings (Bloomsbury, 2019) emphasised the role of linguistics in language teaching, arguing that teachers should position themselves first and foremost as specialists in language, and hence as members of a legitimate academic discipline, rather than as mere skills providers. Many employers continue to choose unqualified or semi-qualified ‘native speakers’ at the expense of qualified teachers, for whom the target language may not be their first language. Outlining a framework of indispensable linguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge that every teacher should master, Marr suggested that it is only in owing the disciplinary status of ‘language expert’ that language teachers will be taken seriously and have their expertise recognised.
The talk ended with a lively discussion, touching on the ill-defined yet persisting idea of the ‘native speaker’ as well as the inherent problems of choosing anglophone speakers over experts from other backgrounds. An ill-defined idea of the communicative approach, with its emphasis on fluency and first-language competence, may also add to the devaluation of linguistic knowledge, i.e. knowledge about language, as a teacher qualification.
The discussion ended with an appeal to highlight the professional qualifications needed in the TESOL or foreign language classroom.
