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"I'm Tired. You Clean and Cook." Shifting Gender Identities and Second Language Socialization. |
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Daryl Gordon |
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0050 |
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ART; RES-CS [Journal article; Research--Case study] |
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TESOL Quarterly, Vol 38, No 3, Autumn 2004, pp. 437-457. Available for a fee: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tesol/tq/2004/00000038/00000003
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2004 |
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Lao immigrants in the USA |
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Researchers, Teachers, Teacher Educators, Social Workers |
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This multisite ethnographic study looks at the socialization and language learning experiences of working-class Lao women and men in the United States, and explores the process of their second language socialization, including redefinition of gender identities. The researcher found that as Lao women experienced increased opportunities for working outside the home and for taking on leadership roles, doing so broadened their ways of expressing their traditional female roles and identities. The Lao men, on the other hand, experienced a loss of traditional sources of power and thus a narrowing of their traditional male identities. In terms of language learning, the women’s actual English language needs come less from the workplace—where they tend to speak primarily in their native language—and more from having to negotiate with such American social institutions as schools or court systems. She points out the frequent mismatch between such learners’ actual language needs and the needs presumed in the textbooks used to teach them. She recommends that ESL practitioners address the complexity of the real, everyday language events that engage adult ESL learners. |
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