Biased textbook or not?

1. Construction of Racial Stereotypes in
English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
Textbooks: Cosette Taylor-Mendes
• Which cultural images from language
textbooks, particularly ESL/EFL, you have read
in earlier schooling stick out to you? Are these
memories positive or negative?

2. Who is Taylor-Mendes?
• White woman from Canada
• Received three job offers within first week of
arriving in Brazil
• Her “racial priveleges” were directly pointed
out by participants in her study. How might
this set the stage for her study or affect
participants’ responses?

3. • Many students, particularly ESL students, may rely on
images to find meaning in foreign English-language
textbook.
• What does this mean for teachers? How do power
relations and politization (as Kubota talked about)
factor in?
• “Students, consciously or unconsciously, use, absorb,
and interpret the social, economic, and racial realities
present in the photographs, cartoons, or pictures in
their textbooks” (65)
• How would your world view be different if your only
knowledge of other countries and cultures consisted of
pictures/images? Would this be a fair representation?

4. Taking a look at books & media…
• Dick and Jane- fosters nostalgia for clearly defined
standards of behavior and affluent standards of living
represented in Hollywood America since WWII.
• Kubota, cultural image: many movies and TV shows
depict social relations without visible minorities,
economic injustice, English as a Second Language, etc.
(Luke, 1988, p.3)
– Kubota states that cultural images reflect, contest, or
legitimate unequal relations of power. Based on what you
observe in media and textbooks in the United States, do
you agree? Why/why not? Think specifically about the
“American dream” and racial issues.

5. Barbara’s
Essentialism
Story
Orientalism
Cultural
Images Intercultural
Competence

6. Proposal
• Texts and media can be used as “instruments for
social development”, not social prejudice
• Teacher must engage students in ethical
discussion and critical thought
• If inequities in power are left unexamined in
teaching, we are apt to reproduce or legitimize
unequal power relationships both in and outside
our classrooms.
– Analyze balances of power and take action for social
transformation (this idea began in Brazil)

7. Discourse
• Discourse: social practice which can be determined by social
structures
• Language: Connects with the social through being the primary
domain of ideology, site of struggle for power
– Thus, a student who views images to find meaning where language
may not be present views the image as discourse.
• Even though participants were separated over time and space,
discourse takes place through the image as a social practice which
evokes language for the purpose of negotiating one’s space or place
in the sociopolitical landscape
– Fairclough (2001) noted hidden relations of power when he declared,
“Media discourse is designed for mass audiences and there is no way
that producers can even know who is in the audience, let alone adapt
to its diverse sections.” We may unconsciously end up addressing the
‘ideal’ subject or ‘receiver’.

8. Giaschi’s Study
• Images in EFL texts produced on or by one culture
in context-specific conditions are often used and
absorbed in sometimes radically different
contexts with different socio-political and cultural
realities.
• Giaschi found that “popular texts” in Japan,
Canada, and Italy had images of men & women
juxtaposed. Physical positioning, body language,
and clothing seemed to represent men as being
more powerful than women.

9. Giaschi Study con’t
• Fallback: his selection of texts was loosely
based on his own perception of “popular” or
“successful” texts.
• Asserts that teachers may not be concerned
with the integrity of the materials.
– Taylor-Mendes has encountered professionals that
are indeed capable of critical discourse and open
to discussing race and power issues in textbook
images

10. Precautions/Don’ts
• Don’t dismiss sociopolitical reality in which EFL is
taught.
– Instead, help improve circumstances of life if
appropriate.
• Don’t instill unrealistic expectations for change
within reality.
• Don’t teach without consideration of
methodology or consequence
• Don’t teach ESL for material gain or profit, don’t
take advantage of ESL learners

11. Taylor-Mendes Study
• 15 participants, 11 students from wealthiest
social classes in Brazil, 4 teachers
• Purpose:
– Who do students identify as “ideal subject” &
what characteristics does this “ideal subject”
possess?

12. • 3 Research questions: (read notecard details)
– What are we doing now?
• To what extent are images used and interpreted in Brazil?
– Whose interests are being served by the way things
are?
• How are the images being absorbed or resisted?
– Is this how we want it to be and what are we going to
do about it?
• What to do with findings; recommendations for daily
teaching and learning practice.

13. Questions Regarding Images
P. 71
• Which images attract you?
•Look for • Who is acting in the image? Who is not
gender/occupation acting?
and racial inequality, • What is the message/concept of culture
reinforced communicated through the image?
stereotypes, etc. • What are you seeing in the pictures
•If you have a book about life or lifestyle?
with cartoons, do • Who has power in the pictures? Who
these cartoons has status?
accurately represent • What do body language, clothing, eyes,
reality? If so, how? If etc. tell you?
not, how? • What is learned from these images?

14. 3 Common Themes Resulting from
Study
• 1. US portrayal as land of white elite
• 2. Blacks consistently represented as poor or
powerless
• 3. Race is divided by continent

15. 1. US portrayed as land of White Elite
• Only two participants noted that none of the images of powerful or
successful people were linked to stories explaining how they achieved their
material, financial, or social power/influence.
• Expectation tied to English as ticket to better future of “American Dreams”
– The US is a peaceful land of social and political elite and free from
problems. (is this really true?)
• “I think it’s better than Brazil, for example, because the pictures show the
streets clean…beautiful things, beautiful buildings. Show another things
too, for example, I never read something like violence in America or
England. When the books want to show violence, they show Afghanistan,
show the war for example…to me it’s ridiculous, this.” (Fatima)
– Might this be a form of otherization?
– How might this viewpoint have affected early narratives vs. later
narratives (time of immigration to the United States and their stories).

16. 2. Blacks Represented as Powerless
and Whites Represented as Powerful
• The white students and teachers pointed out the lack of people of
color/minority status in images, as well as noticed images often
restricted status to White middle-aged men (in suits to imply
power/status)
• “The White British school kids are posing in phoney well-behaved
poses, arms at their sides in a row, while the Black school kids
have their arms behind their backs and their heads bowed forward
like they are waiting to be hit by a stick” (Robert Carlos)
• What messages might be implied if your students cannot find
images of their own race in EFL/ESL textbooks? What if the images
found are degrading?

17. 3. Race Divided By Continent
• Images did not explore historical consequences of migration,
immigration, and colonization or intermixing of ‘race’ and
identity…what about the Black Frenchman, for example?
• “It doesn’t bring me another view of the country for example: some
wealthy people in Africa. When I look at this with collection in my
mind, I think there is only poor people in Africa. In India, there is
only guys meditating…reinforcing the feeling that we already
toward these countries” (Rivaldo)
• What is the danger in representing a world of monocultural
appearance divided neatly by continent…a world that never
existed…? How can we change this and restore the representation
of rich diversity?

18. Conclusion
• What does an American look like?
– White, wealthy, powerful, isolated, free of problems?
• “If the images and their layout chosen by the authors of textbooks
do not challenge English-language students’ perceptions of
Americans, themselves, or “other” races, these images are apt to
make participants of the discourse increasingly comfortable with or
solidify their already entrenched racial stereotypes of the more
economically powerful nation (White America), in contrast with the
poorer nations with serious social problems (not America and not
White)” (Taylor-Mendes)
• We often reinforce a made-in Hollywood version of culture that
does not exist and perhaps never even did exist! EFL images do not
so much represent culture as construct cultural and racial identities.
• Is it better to represent other peoples and cultures in an aggressive
way or not represent them at all? (debate)

19. Implications
• Draw attention to content of image and initiate critical,
thoughtful discussions about implicit issues of image.
• Don’t expect that all teachers know enough on how to
begin examining race and power issues in EFL images with
sensitivity .
• Place teachers in situations where they are the
racial/linguistic minority (perspective); develop greater
sensitivity to race and power
• Be aware of the books you request (Crystal, 1997)
• Be aware of the need for further research

20. • What steps will you take to initiate critical and
meaningful discussion with your students on
the images found in textbooks?

21. Cultural Mirrors: Materials/Methods In
EFL Classroom (Cortazzi & Jin)
• Culture is a series of dynamic processes including
those involved in learning
• Learning a foreign language is more appropriately
focused on learning a means of communication
• Culture is a framework of assumptions, ideas, and
beliefs that are used to interpret other people’s
actions, words, and patterns of thinking.
(Moerman)
• Culture includes behavior/attitudes & social
knowledge that people use to interpret
experience
• Cultural learning is content-based dialogue and
medium based dialogue

22. Cultural Mirrors: Materials/Methods
In EFL Classroom (Cortazzi & Jin)
• Culture is a series of dynamic processes including
those involved in learning
• Learning a foreign language is more appropriately
focused on learning a means of communication
• Culture is a framework of assumptions, ideas, and
beliefs that are used to interpret other people’s
actions, words, and patterns of thinking.
(Moerman)
• Culture includes behavior/attitudes & social
knowledge that people use to interpret
experience
• Cultural learning is content-based dialogue and
medium based dialogue

23. Communicative competence (Canale
& Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983)
• Grammatical
• Sociolinguistic
• Discourse
• Strategic
• Intercultural competence – social effectiveness &
appropriateness – “the ability of a person to
behave adequately in a flexible manner when
confronted with actions, attitudes and
expectations of representatives of foreign
cultures” (Meyer, 1991)

24. Functions of EFL textbooks
• Teacher (Instruction) • An authority (Expert)
• Map (Overview) • A de-skiller
• Resource • An ideology
• Trainer (Guidance)
In what ways can an EFL textbook
demonstrate any of these functions?

25. Evaluation Checklists for textbooks
• Reflect author’s interest and awareness in
culture
• Questions about culture are mainly placed at
end of an evaluation checklist

26. Criteria for textbook evaluation

27. Textbooks based on Source Cultures
• Contain information about learner’s own culture
and not of target language’s culture
• So learners can talk about their own culture to
visitors
• Designed to help students be aware of their
cultural identity
• Unable to engage in intercultural negotiation with
a text portraying another culture (unable to
compare theirs with another)
Example: a textbook for Venezuela, El libro de
inglés, Page 205

28. Textbooks based on Target Cultures
• Include materials designed to promote
awareness of race, gender, environmental
issues
Example: Learning English, Topline, Page 209

29. Textbooks aimed at International
Target Cultures
• Places where English is used as an
international language, not as the first or
second language
Example: One World, Secondary English (Presack &
Tomscha), Page 209

30. created for the Mexican market for students in grades 1 through 4
MacMillian UK
http://stephensondesign.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/fantastic-efl-program-interior-design/

33. C1 = Source Culture
C2 = Target Culture
C3, C4, C5, etc. = International Target Culture

34. Intercultural Communication
Competence
• “effective identity negotiation process in novel
communication episodes”, “demonstrated
ability to negotiate mutual meanings, rules,
positive outcomes…the most important of
which is confirmation of the preferred
identity” (Collier & Thomas, 1988)
• Culture learning through textbooks might also
be seen as a process of dialogue in which
students negotiate meaning and identity
vicariously with the author of the textbook
and its cultural content.

35. Student Views
• Mixed feelings on the cultural focus of their
English lessons
• Can be confusing

36. Gender Positioning in Education:
A Critical Image Analysis of ESL Texts:
Peter Giaschi
• 44,070% increase in images from 1970-1996
• Textbooks now are heavily visually presented

37. Gender Positioning in Education: A
Critical Image Analysis of ESL Texts
• In 1985, English was the mother tongue of
around 320 to 377 millions of people
• In 1996, English as a second language is
estimated about 250 million to 1.3 billion
people

38. Rationale
• English through instrument motivation
• Teacher-student relationship
• Fast-certified teachers teach abroad

39. Analytical Technique
• Textbook biased but can be described, interpreted, and explained.
• Described:
– Vocabulary
1. What experiential value do words have?
2. What relational value do words have?
3. What expressive values do words have?
4. What metaphors are used?
– Grammar
1. What experiential values do grammatical?
2. What relational values do grammatical features have?
3. What expressive values do grammatical features have?
4. How are simple sentences linked together?
– Textual Structure
1. What interactional conventions are used?
2. What larger-scale structures are there?

40. Data
• Books from various levels and publishers
• Both gendered images

41. Result
Male Female
• 65 males (34 total images) • 59 females (34 total images)
• Male protagonist: leaders, • Female protagonist: fashion
managers, etc • 24% female are active role
• 76% males are active role model
model • Females are usually passive
• Cover more of image • Crossed arms over legs:
• Focus of photo “genital barrier”
• Concentrates with work • Objects to be desired and
• Someone to be envy possessed
• Professional looking • Mannequins
41% work environment, 20% fashion, 13% entertainment

42. Classroom Book Analysis
1. Ignore the language as you look at the images. What impression do you get of the
people/culture from the images alone? Do you believe this is a fair impression? How do
you think your cultural, social, and personal experiences tie in with this?
2. Teach us what you have learned about your country/people/traditions.
3. How is an imbalance of power apparent in how you interpret and ‘read into’ the
images portrayed in your book? Does your status, ethnicity, or culture affect your
interpretation?
4. Did your views of the culture/people/country change from before and after you
examined the images? Did you find your thoughts to be orientalistic?
5. How might your viewpoints on the images change if you were from a different
country/culture? If you were a member of the culture represented, would you be
pleased with the inaccuracy of this representation?

43. Critical and Pedagogical Questions
• How can we uncover/prevent the hidden
relations of power embedded in many EFL
textbook images?
• How can we equilibrate the stereotypes often
reinforced in textbook images?
• Is it better to represent other peoples and
cultures in a way that is likely to be
misinterpreted or not represent them at all?