Abstract
This article discusses the results of a four-year investigation on the neoliberal challenges faced by socioeconomically underprivileged students in Brazil who were majoring in English teaching. It is a qualitative study that employs the concept of language as a sociocultural and dialogical practice as well as the concepts of responsibility and agency; it also examines the relationship between these students’ experiences and neoliberalism as seen in language education. The data generated by questionnaires, students’ essays, and semi-structured interviews reveal that the participants’ initiatives to engage themselves in outside classroom interactions acted as counter-centralizing forces. By exercising their responsible situated agency towards their English language appropriation process, these participants react against neoliberal challenges viewed here as hierarchical centripetal forces that constrain their access to different kinds of capital. The study participants are also guided by the agency of spaces promoted by discourses marked by decolonial thinking; however, though these students find different ways to negotiate neoliberal challenges, it is still crucial that the faculty in charge of the investigated context build on existing decolonial practices in the classroom. In doing so, more students can become part of “discursive actions” that foster their responsible situated agency towards a more egalitarian society.
Highlights
The first time I heard the expression ‘Sink or swim?’ was during a workshop on English Phonology, held by the one-day BrazTesol Seminar, in 1994
Throughout that first year, I struggled with that question in mind by always trying to find an answer for the following dilemma: should I surrender to the social and academic challenges imposed by this context and definitely ‘sink’ in my attempts to overcome my persistent linguistic and communicative constraints, or should I strive to learn how to swim against these currents? Even though my grades in the English language-related subjects were not far above the required average by the end of my first year in college, I decided to face the second year
Working as a professor of applied linguistics at the same Brazilian university from which I got my degrees in language education, this research arises from the necessity of looking into the very same academic context and problematizing how Brazilian undergraduates majoring in English tend to respond to second language learning/teaching challenges deeply guided by neoliberal forces
Summary
The first time I heard the expression ‘Sink or swim?’ was during a workshop on English Phonology, held by the one-day BrazTesol Seminar, in 1994. Working as a professor of applied linguistics at the same Brazilian university from which I got my degrees in language education, this research arises from the necessity of looking into the very same academic context and problematizing how Brazilian undergraduates majoring in English tend to respond to second language learning/teaching challenges deeply guided by neoliberal forces. Socioeconomically underprivileged undergraduates majoring in English are the focal point of my discussions since they should represent the ultimate goal when it comes to lessening social inequalities in the promotion of a more egalitarian society By problematizing their responses to this neoliberal-driven academic context, I expect to better understand their 'agency' in relation to their English appropriation process and first teaching experiences. It is expected that the study outcomes enlighten the current faculty's agency to different language education perspectives by which the whole student body, regardless of their socioeconomic positions, can be better prepared to exercise their foreign or second language teaching identities in this globalizing world
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