Spack, Ruth & Zamel, Vivian (Eds) (2008) Language Lessons: Stories for Teaching and Learning English. Reviewed by Mary Power, University of California, Davis

Spack, Ruth & Zamel, Vivian (Eds) (2008) Language Lessons: Stories for Teaching and Learning English. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press Pp. 222         ISBN 978-0-472-03115-3 Reviewed by Mary Power University of California, Davis December 18, 2008 Language Lessons: Stories for Teaching and Learning English is an edited collection of eighteen fiction short stories that chronicles the linguistic experiences of a culturally dislocated group of people. Many of theses narratives have been written by award-winning authors who have drawn on their own personal biographies as language students and teachers to render the experiences of their characters in an authentic and touching manner. In the preface to this book the editors point out that unlike traditional textbooks which explicate the process of language teaching and learning from an abstract and hypothetical point of view, Language Lessons is an original endeavor as it spotlights the “aesthetic” issues that come into play in the complicated process that is language acquisition. Like Zamel’s and Spack’s previous book, Crossing the Curriculum (2004), in which the perspectives of researchers, students, and teachers in the multilingual college classroom are explored, the fictional stories in Language Lessons continue this exploration of the language experience from a multiplicity of perspectives. Resonating with many of the narratives in Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary (1989), these finely crafted, multifaceted stories lay bare the private thoughts and feelings of their characters as they wrestle with the vagaries of a new language and culture. Privy to the private musings of both students and their teachers, these stories allow the reader into the personal worlds of the primary participants in the language acquisition process thereby promoting a better understanding between all involved. Language Lessons is made up of four sections, each of which serves to highlight a specific theme. A brief synopsis of the author’s biography heads each story with information that can help contextualize the narrative that follows. A Questions for Reflection and Analysis section follows every story providing the reader with an opportunity to reflect on language teaching and other issues raised in the story. The editors emphasize that though the stories have been thematically organized into specific sections, they encourage the reader to compare and contrast stories from different sections as this can generate additional interpretations. The preface to the book ends with a discussion of how Language Lessons can be used in a variety of scholastic settings. The editors specifically identify graduate and undergraduate courses in TESOL, Literacy Studies or Language Arts, as well as programs that prepare teachers or tutors who work with multilingual learners in smaller or private settings as potential milieux in which Language Lessons can be used. As teachers of graduate and undergraduate English courses, Spack and Zamel assign their students literary readings whose focus is on the author’s personal experience with language learning. In their judgment these literary readings, of which Language Lessons is a part, affectively engages the students putting a human face on the theoretical approach. The editors feel that the juxtaposition of literary and theoretical readings allows for practical connections to be made between theory and practice giving students a more realistic understanding of the issues involved in language teaching. Spack and Zamel end the introduction to this anthology with samples of their students’ written responses to a variety of language learning and teaching issues generated by their reading of Language Lessons. Finally, the preface concludes with a list of suggestions for writing responses to these stories. The first section of the anthology entitled Colonial Encounters comprises four stories. Narrated from the child’s point of view, these stories describe the painful experiences of indigenous children in English-language schools from the late 19thth century to the early 1950’s. Stripped of their linguistic and cultural identities, they encounter classroom and living environments that presuppose cultural superiority to the students’ native languages and customs. In Zitakala-Sa’s poignant story, “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” a Native American child is taken from her home on a Western Reservation and sent to an English-only boarding school run by missionaries. The narrator vividly relates the indignities she suffered, sometimes due to cultural misunderstandings, but more often because of the conflict generated by the denigration of her native Indian traditions and the enforced colonial assimilation policies of the school. Chinua Achebe’s “Chike’s School Days,” is set in Nigeria and considers how colonial power assigned significant positive status and prestige to those Africans who would eschew their traditional Igbo cultural values in favor of the Christian and scholastic values of a European paradigm. Patricia Grace’s “Kura” is a heartbreaking story about the linguistic experiences of Maori children in an English-only school in New Zealand. Finally, Marie Hara’s “Fourth Grade Ukus” speaks to the struggles of a child, a Hawaii Creole speaker, as she negotiates her way through a Standard English classroom. Each of the four stories in Childhood Transformations, Part II, focuses on children with limited or non-existent English literacy skills who are placed in mainstream classes in North American schools. The stories show how relationships with teachers, parents, peers, and the general learning environment can influence the language acquisition skills of these children transforming all involved. In Rudy Wiebe’s “Speaking Saskatchewan” the teacher gently engages the Low-German-speaking Mennonite child explaining that learning to read in English would open up a new world that would “speak” to him. Francisco Jimenez’s “Inside Out” chronicles the story of a young Mexican boy who neither spoke nor understood English and how his teacher’s and school peers’ responses impact his scholastic experience. Andrew Lam’s “Show and Tell” tells the story of a recently-arrived Vietnamese refugee in the United States and how he negotiates his way in his new eight grade American junior high school with the help of another student in his class. Finally, Lan Samanth Chang’s “The Unforgetting” tells the story of a Chinese-American family who forfeit their Chinese identity, language and culture, in order to assume an American one. However, their son Charles challenges his parents to “unforget” as he desires to know more about his Chinese heritage. The third section of the anthology, Adult Education, comprises five stories. Theses narratives chronicle the stories of political refugees, expatriates, and immigrants, and examine the multiple reasons that bring these people to the United States and ultimately to Adult Education classes to learn English. Leo Rosten’s “The Rather Baffling case of H*Y*M*A*N*K*A*P*L*A*N” is a humorous account of the irrepressible Mr. Kaplan, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who tries the patience of his English language instructor, Mr. Parkhill, with his penchant for using linguistic anomalies and malapropisms. Nicholasa Mohr’s “The English Lesson” focuses on the hopes and aspirations of a diverse group of students who have come to the United States seeking a better life and who understand that to be successful in their new country, they must learn to speak English. Lucy Honig’s “English as a Second Language” tells the moving story of a refugee from Guatemala who is nominated for an award by her English-language teacher and her humiliating experience as she accepts this award at the hands of the city’s insensitive and obtuse mayor. “Nothing in Our Hands but Age” is a poignant story about an elderly Cuban couple who despite great obstacles are determined to rebuild their lives in America. Finally, Lily Brett’s “What Do You Know about Friends?” details the disappointing experience of Mrs. Bensky, a Polish refugee, when she takes a physics class in an Australian university. The final section in this anthology, Private Lessons, examines the pros and cons of the private language-learning environment and how it can both foster and impede learning. Bernard Malamud’s “The German Refugee” tells the story of the relationship between an English tutor and his student, Oskar Gassner, an accomplished journalist who has fled to America in order to escape Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Desperate in his struggle to improve his American English so that he can survive in his newly-adopted country, he eventually commits suicide as the torments of his past and the news of his wife’s death become too much to bear. Lindsley Cameron’s “Private Lesson” tells the story of the inexperienced and frustrated Mrs. Longo who flounders in her attempts to tutor a Japanese student. “English Lessons” and “Albert and Esene” written respectively by Shauna Singh Baldwin and Frances Khirallah Noble both focus on women who realize the personal value of literacy and how such empowerment can intimidate their families. Finally, Linh Dinh’s “Prisoner with a Dictionary” tells the story of a man who learns a new language without understanding its meaning. In this lonely and isolated process, however, though he believes he is forging a new self that will help him forget his past, he loses an important part of who he really is. I would use this book as both a conversation and writing resource in an advanced ESL classroom. As Rajini Srikanth’s essay in Crossing the Curriculum (2004) points out “…literature - with its indeterminacies and ambiguities - provides a wonderful environment in which to encourage ESOL learners to release their voices from inhibitions and hesitations” (p.182). These finely crafted stories in Language Lessons will do just that. References Rose, Mike. (1989). Lives on the Boundary. New York: Penguin Group. Zamel, Vivian & Spack, Ruth (Eds.). (2004). Crossing the Curriculum: Multilingual Learners in College Classrooms. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. About the Reviewer Mary Power is a second-year M.A. TESOL student at UC Davis. As a veteran teacher, she began her career in a rural high school in the south of Ireland where she taught music and French for ten years. Having spent a year teaching ESL at the primary and junior high school levels in Brittany, France, she came to the United States in 1999. Before entering the UC Davis M.A. TESOL program in 2007, Mary Power taught language arts at a junior high school level as well as fourth grade from 2003 – 2007 in a local Catholic elementary school.