Reflective Articles
Gist Education and Learning Research Journal. ISSN 1692-5777.
No.12. (January - June) 2016. pp. 152-173.
Monetary and Career based
Motives at the Core of EFL
Programs: Problems and
Solutions1
Programas de Inglés como Lengua Extranjera
Basados en Fundamentos Económicos y
Profesionales: Problemas y Soluciones
Cristhian Fallas Escobar, Johanna Ennser-Kananen
and Martha Bigelow2*
Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica, Boston University, University of Minnesota, USA
Abstract
152
In this paper, we discuss the dominant discourses that use monetary and careerbased reasons to justify the learning and teaching of English in Costa Rica by
drawing parallels to similar phenomena taking place in Japan, Korea, Canada,
and Colombia. We argue that the propagation of these discourses has resulted in
the commodification of EFL teaching and learning in Costa Rica, as programs are
designed to meet narrow material-based interests and purposes. The reflection
includes an analysis of publicity around EFL learning, a national initiative to
improve EFL teaching/learning, a specific EFL program in a public Costa Rican
university, and the opinions of students from this program. We demonstrate how
the construction of English as the means by which professionalism, economic
growth, and wealth can be accomplished has shaped EFL curricula in particular
ways, thereby neglecting diverse motivations for EFL learning. We finish
the paper by advocating for the creation of more democratic spaces in EFL
classrooms where both teachers and learners can critique in constructive ways
the impact that these dominant discourses have on themselves as individuals
and on EFL curricular at large.
1
Received: December 15, 2015 / Accepted: February 26, 2016
2
cristian.fallas.escobar@una.cr/prongsquib@hotmail.com/
jennser@bu.edu / mbigelow@umn.edu
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Keywords: Commodification of English, corporate-oriented English
teaching and learning, critical discussions, diversifying EFL curriculum
Resumen
En este artículo discutimos los discursos dominantes que utilizan razones
económicas para justificar la enseñanza y el aprendizaje del inglés en Costa
Rica, estableciendo paralelos entre fenómenos que ocurren actualmente en
Japón, Corea, Canadá y Colombia. La propagación de estos discursos ha dado
como resultado la mercantilización de la enseñanza y aprendizaje del inglés
en Costa Rica, impactando así el diseño curricular de los programas para
satisfacer propósitos e intereses económicos. La reflexión incluye un análisis
de la publicidad a nivel nacional en torno al aprendizaje del inglés, de algunas
iniciativas nacionales orientadas al mejoramiento de esta área, de un programa
de inglés como lengua extranjera ofertado en una universidad pública en Costa
Rica, y de las opiniones de estudiantes de este programa. Se hace hincapié en
cómo la construcción del inglés como medio para la movilidad social, riqueza y
profesionalismo ha impactado los programas de inglés como lengua extranjera,
causando que estos, en su mayoría, pasen por alto diversas motivaciones que los
aprendices puedan tener para el aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera,
debido a la prioridad que se le da a los intereses materiales y económicos del
sector productivo. Por último, este artículo aboga por la creación de espacios
democráticos en los cuales tanto profesores como estudiantes puedan criticar de
forma constructiva el impacto que los discursos dominantes antes mencionados
tienen sobre los individuos y el currículo en inglés como lengua extranjera en
general.
Palabras clave: Comodificación del inglés, enseñanza del inglés
orientada al sector productivo, discusiones críticas, la diversificación del
currículo en inglés como lengua extranjera.
Resumo
Neste artigo discutimos os discursos dominantes que utilizam razões
econômicas para justificar o ensino e a aprendizagem do inglês na Costa
Rica, estabelecendo paralelos entre fenômenos que ocorrem atualmente no
Japão, Coréia, Canadá e Colômbia. A propagação destes discursos deu como
resultado a ‘co-modificação’ do ensino e aprendizagem do inglês na Costa
Rica, impactando assim o desenho curricular dos programas para satisfazer os
propósitos e interesses económicos. A reflexão inclui uma análise da publicidade
ao nível nacional em torno à aprendizagem do inglês, de iniciativas nacionais
orientadas ao melhoramento desta área, de um programa de inglês como língua
estrangeira oferecida em uma universidade pública na Costa Rica, e as opiniões
de estudantes deste programa. Enfatiza-se em como a construção do inglês
promove a mobilidade social, riqueza e profissionalismo e como tem impactado
os programas de inglês como língua estrangeira, que na sua maioria passam por
cima diversas motivações que os aprendizes possam ter para a aprendizagem
do inglês como língua estrangeira, devido à prioridade que se dá aos interesses
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MONETARY AND CAREER BASED MOTIVES
materiais e econômicos do setor produtivo. Finalmente, este artigo opta pela
criação de espaços democráticos nos quais tanto professores como estudantes
possam criticar de forma construtiva o impacto que os discursos dominantes
antes mencionados têm sobre os indivíduos e o currículo em inglês como língua
estrangeira em geral.
Palavras clave: Co-modificação do inglês, ensino do inglês orientado
ao sector produtivo, discursões críticas, a diversificação do currículo em
inglês como língua estrangeira.
154
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T
Introduction
he learning and teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL)
has proliferated rapidly around the world, but even more so in
regions attempting to actively participate in the so-called global
economy, such is the case of Costa Rica. To respond to this everincreasing demand for English, the number of EFL programs has also
multiplied at all levels of education nationwide, creating a societal push
that has positioned English as the only logical foreign language to learn
and has granted it a mandatory status in K-16 (Álvarez, Valenzuela, &
Villalobos, 2008). The rapid rise of EFL teaching/learning, however,
requires an examination of the forces fueling the choice for EFL in
the country and the pressures these forces exercise on EFL curricula in
Costa Rica at the college level.
In this paper, we discuss the circulating discourses portraying
EFL learning as a desirable/inevitable pursuit connected to monetary
gain and career advancement, and argue that these may be not only
drawing the attention of individuals but also shaping EFL curricula
in Costa Rica in particular ways. To this end, we examine how the
discourses disseminated by EFL advertisements, combined with the
pressures exercised by a national government-supported foundation,
have caused the EFL program in a public Costa Rican university to
be reduced to business/career advancement ideals. Our claim is that
programs such as this one fail to consider the wide range of motivations
driving learners to engage in EFL learning. To demonstrate this, we
analyze the multiple reasons that 30 students in the program provide for
their EFL endeavor. Based on this analysis, we advocate for democratic/
constructivist spaces, where both teachers and learners can examine
diverse motivations for EFL learning and the extent to which learning
English truly serves the promises disseminated by the discourses
connecting English to monetary gain and career advancement.
Literature Review
This paper deals with the discourses that connect EFL teaching
and learning to monetary gain and career advancement in the business
sense, and the impact these have had on individuals’ choices for what
foreign languages to learn and on EFL curricula in Costa Rica at large.
According to Mayr (2008), “Discourse is a difficult and fuzzy concept as
it is used by social theorists (e.g. Foucault, 1972, 1977), critical linguists
(e.g. Fowler et al., 1979) and finally, critical discourse analysts (e.g.
van Dijk, 1990), all of whom define discourse slightly differently and
from their various theoretical and disciplinary standpoints” (p. 7). Our
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MONETARY AND CAREER BASED MOTIVES
use of the term ‘discourse’, however, does not refer to the structuralist
paradigm that looks at language as separate from the social use it is
given and the social context in which it originates. Instead, we endorse
a more functionalist view in that we take discourse to be any instance
of language-in-use that rationalizes social practices and thus constructs
a version of reality. That is, we understand discourse to, “...deal with
meaning in social, cultural, and political terms, a broader approach to
meaning than is common in much mainstream linguistics” (Gee, 2011:
ix).
Our argument is that a barrage of discourses has legitimized
particular social constructions of English. The ideologies (ideascapes)
contained in such discourses, which position English as an inevitable/
desirable endeavor and call for a link between EFL and the corporate
sector to be established, have become undeniable truths, fueled by
advertisements and nationwide polices (mediascapes) (Appadurai,
1996). As the ideascapes that English is the only logical foreign
language to learn and that EFL programs must respond to the corporate
sector gain more force, these ideologies become regimes that teachers,
administrators, and learners of EFL programs agree to believe in and
act upon.
In various countries, but especially in Costa Rica, dominant
discourses circulate, which construct EFL learning as an indispensable
tool that guarantees material and monetary gains and position EFL
learning as a non-negotiable, inevitable task that must meet the needs
and demands of the corporate sector. As Motha and Lin (2014) put
it, the present EFL landscape is filled with discourses connecting
the lack of English proficiency to a disconnection from an imagined
international community and an exclusion from access to economic
gain and professionalism, thus compelling individuals to regard English
as worthy of pursuit and EFL program administrators and curriculum
writers to reshape such programs in ways that serve the business sector.
156
One illustrative example of how English has become a soughtafter foreign language is Park’s (2010) study of success stories
published in the press in Korea at the same time that an ‘English frenzy’
was developing as a result of the government and the business sector
joining efforts to position English as an indispensable asset in the global
economy. These stories, normally written from the perspective of a
journalist, but at times composed as self-reports, consisted of accounts
portraying individuals who succeeded at learning English as “…
character[s] whose achievements in language learning attest to [their]
grand potential for endless self-development and self-improvement
celebrated in the new economy” (p. 23). The publication of these
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FALLAS, ENNSER & BIGELOW
success stories was coupled with the upgrading of the English curricula
to emphasize communicative competence, the creation of immersion
programs, and more aggressive competition among universities to
offer courses taught in English. All in all, these stories contributed to
the transformation of English in Korea from “…mere preparedness
for employment” to being “… about living up to the vision of what
constitutes the ideal human subject in the neoliberal world” (p. 27).
Another example of the push for English is found in Kubota’s
study (2011) of the discourses propelling the EFL industry in Japan.
In her study, she explains that the current linguistic instrumentalism,
taking place in Japan, is rooted in the assumptions that EFL competence
is necessary to participate in a global economy and that English
proficiency enhances economic gain for both nations and individuals.
Kubota argues that the language education policies and the language
teaching and testing industries in Japan have perpetuated these
discourses of linguistic instrumentalism and although there is a general
consensus that the entire population is to acquire basic skills in English,
the business sector has made it practically mandatory for Japanese
professionals to develop EFL proficiency to meet corporate demands.
As the EFL testing industry further institutionalizes the ideology that
English is a requirement in the present labor market, more individuals
resolve to engage in EFL learning and EFL programs adopt a businessand work-skills orientation.
Yet another example is Heller’s study (2002) of the transformation
in the ideology and practice of English-French bilingualism in Canada
unfolding over the last four decades, which she claims is filled with
contradictions between language as a mark of belonging and language
as a marketable commodity. She discusses that in Canada “… young
people expect their bilingualism to translate into privileged access to
jobs in the service and information sectors,” (p. 59). Although Heller’s
study focuses on the push for French as a second language, she clearly
illustrates how monetary- and career-based discourses manage to spread
the need for foreign/second language learning as connected to the
corporate sector, under the promise of access to wealth and professional
advancement. This, in turn, points to the fact that not only English is
subject to commodification, but that other languages with symbolic
power may be undergoing similar processes of instrumentalism.
Even closer to the context under scrutiny, Guerrero’s study
(2010) around the force that English is gaining in the ‘expanding circle’
countries where English has no official status but where it is largely
used as a foreign language, also serves to illuminate the point we wish to
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make. In her study, she examines the Colombian National Bilingualism
Project and claims that the initiative serves to perpetuate the symbolic
power of English by constructing it as a necessary tool for academic
and economic success. She assesses how this project constructs English
“… as the magic formula that will solve [their] economic, social,
cultural, and political problems…” (p. 305). To this, however, she adds
that, “in such a complex, competitive, rich, plurilingual, pluricultural
world like the one we live in, it is very narcissist and egocentric to think
that speaking an important language like English is the key to solve all
our problems” (p. 306).
While the alignment between EFL programs and the demands
of the commercial sector is not necessarily in itself ethically or even
pedagogically wrong, the reduction of EFL programs to focus only on
monetary gain and corporate professionalism runs the risk of neglecting
other motivations for EFL learning. Although not necessarily present
in public discourses about English learning, individuals are likely to
have a wide range of reasons for choosing a foreign language. While
some learners may be driven by an interest in cultures and people, a
desire to broaden their view and avoid provincialism, a desire for new
stimuli and challenges, a need for achievement, or a desire to integrate
into a new community (Dörnyei, 1990), others may do so fueled by a
desire for travel, knowledge, and friendship (Clément & Kruidenier,
1983). And still others may simply have the goal of speaking a difficult
or exclusive language (Oxford & Shearin, 1994), or relating to the
international community (Yashima, 2009) by going abroad, associating
with members of other cultural/linguistic groups, and engaging in
foreign affairs.
158
In EFL programs driven by the profit-based and careeradvancement mentality, learners’ diverse motivations can easily be
overlooked, as the priority becomes “... to be the provider of human
capital and the engine for economic growth” (Block, Gray, & Holborow,
2012, p. 7), which inevitably leads to the exclusion of alternative
purposes for learning English. Higher education institutions are
particularly pressured to provide individuals with the skills required in a
highly capitalist economy (Holborow, 2012, pp. 14-32). As Mayr (2008)
puts it, “...there has been a tendency to run universities like commercial
businesses, with students being their customers. This development in
turn has been promoted by the government’s pro-managerial discourses
and policies, which espouse an entrepreneurial culture and educational
system” (p. 3). In other words, universities have undergone changes
in the direction of adopting a free-market and corporate business
viewpoint, which have implications for EFL programs.
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As a matter of fact, for universities in Costa Rica, the dominant
circulating discourses mentioned above have gradually allocated the
learning of English a mandatory status. But not only that, these discourses
have also led to the re-structuring of EFL programs so that they meet
the narrow needs and interests of the productive corporate sector, which
necessitates workers to possess only technical, business, job-related,
and managerial skills. The status of English as the mandatory foreign
language to learn and the practice of shaping EFL programs in ways that
respond to corporate demands in turn has resulted in limiting learners’
choices as to what foreign languages to learn and what purposes to
learn them for. In the next section, we explain the approaches we used
to demonstrate that the Costa Rican EFL landscape, specifically at the
university level, resembles the phenomena currently taking place in
Japan, Korea, Canada, and Colombia.
Pressures Shaping EFL Programs in Costa Rica
Devoid of any contextual knowledge, one cannot understand the
forces fueling the choice for EFL in Costa Rica and the pressures these
forces exercise on EFL curricula in Costa Rica at the college level. For
this reason, we present examples of language learning advertisements
found in flyers, billboards, magazines, and newspapers that are publicly
displayed and illustrative of dominant public discourses in Costa Rica.
In other words, we provide a glimpse into Costa Rican ideascapes/
mediascapes (Appadurai, 1996) around EFL. As we reflect upon these
advertisements, we also draw connections to the pressures applied by
a foundation in Costa Rican on EFL programs nationwide, as well as
the structure and institutional status of one particular EFL program in a
public university in the country, with an emphasis on an analysis of its
textbooks and testing practices.
Zooming in from the broader societal context of Costa Rican
ideascapes and mediascapes and the local environment of the target
EFL program, we also present and examine data collected by means of a
survey of 30 students in the EFL program under scrutiny, here and after
called Inglés para Todos (English for All), regarding their motivations
for engaging in EFL learning. The participants, taking the third level
of the program, were in majors such as economics, environmental
management, international affairs, administration, history, visual arts,
topography, gender studies, and biology. At the time of this study,
there were only three level-three courses, and so the participants were
randomly selected from out of these three groups (10 students from each
group). Looking at all these facets of the Cost Rican EFL landscape
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allowed us to see not only the push for EFL in the nation but also the
effects this push has had on the EFL program Inglés para Todos. The
table below summarizes the data sources examined in this paper.
Table 1. Sources of Data Utilized for Analysis
The Media, Nationwide Initiatives, and the Corporate Sector
In Costa Rica, the public is exposed to a barrage of advertisements
about English teaching and learning filled with discourses portraying the
language as a desirable and inevitable endeavor that brings monetary
gain and career advancement, connected to the needs and demands of
the productive corporate sector. These advertisements, which can be
seen on billboards, in newspapers, magazines, and in social networks,
encourage Costa Ricans to study English, by linking its learning to
being a competent professional in a ruthless job market, to higher
possibilities of getting a promotion or better-paid job, and to opening
doors to a lucrative business world in the entrepreneurship sense.
160
Although this is not an in-depth study of the construction
of EFL by the Costa Rican media, an overview of advertisements
that abound in Costa Rica serve as an illustration of the ideascapes/
mediascapes (Appadurai, 1996) currently circulating monetary- and
professionalism-oriented reasons for EFL learning. Specifically, four
major ideascapes were embodied in the advertisements we found in
various sources: (a) Thinking in English was equated with thinking big,
causing creativity, success, and the pursuit of dreams to be associated
with proficiency in English; (b) EFL learning was associated with
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increasing profits and allowing professionals to offer better services,
which clearly connects EFL proficiency to money-related outcomes;
(c) a lack of oral proficiency in English was compared to being mute,
thus constructing receptive bilingualism (understanding written and
spoken English but not being able to speak it as an unfortunate situation
that positions individuals in a place of deficit and disadvantage; (d)
an implicit promise was made that being proficient in English would
improve individuals’ professional profile by granting them better
chances of being hired; and (e) speaking English was described as an
unavoidable requirement to get a job in the current competitive job
market, portraying EFL learning as a competition in which those who
learn the language have a competitive edge.
This kind of advertisement and the discourses it contains tap
into people’s desires and fears by connecting English proficiency to
success, profit, professionalism, and a ruthless job market. These
circulating discourses have constructed the learning of English as a
desirable endeavor, thus pushing Costa Ricans to choose English as
their additional language, based on the belief that it unlocks doors
to wealth, social mobility, and professional development in a highly
business-oriented setting. Against the backdrop of these circulating
discourses, English has become a high-demand and profitable area of
education in Costa Rica by those aspiring to access economic mobility.
As the belief that speaking English automatically translates into access
to better paid jobs and material gain, learning English has become
more widespread and even gained the support of the government,
which has created the conditions to further endorse EFL learning as
the only logical choice and to reshape EFL programs. In Costa Rica,
more recently, the EFL programs that have flourished are commonly
those that have been reduced to the aforementioned ideologies and
purposes, thus contributing to the exclusion of alternative motivations
for investing in EFL, in favor of utilitarian purposes.
Driven by the English frenzy (Park, 2010) also present in Costa
Rica, more and more parents make tremendous sacrifices to enroll
their children in the schools with the strongest EFL programs, hoping
to secure a prosperous future for their children. This pressing need
for English also resembles the EFL landscape of Korea, where due to
active promotion of English as a crucial resource “for competition in the
global economy, university students and white-collar workers struggle
to acquire and improve English language skills to render themselves
marketable in the increasingly flexible job market, and parents strain
themselves financially and emotionally trying to provide their children
with the best opportunity for acquiring English” (Park, 2010, p. 23).
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By and large, the dominant discourse in the country seems to be that
EFL learning and teaching is worth it, mainly to the extent that it serves
economic growth, as is discussed below.
In Costa Rica, the government has granted EFL learning a
mandatory status in elementary and high school education (Álvarez,
Valenzuela, & Villalobos, 2008). This situation has been further
institutionalized by the creation of a national foundation whose
objectives include a) generating knowledge for decision-making
on public policies related to the teaching of foreign languages, b)
orchestrating actions with international volunteer programs focused
on language teaching, designing educational processes that emphasize
the development of language skills for the workforce, and c) building
public-private partnerships to carry out language programs on a
national level. As evident in the objectives in italics, this governmentsupported foundation is to become involved in public policies related
to EFL, focusing on creating a stronger link between EFL and the
acquisition of skills for the productive corporate sector. Although this
foundation states that it works as a catalyst for the teaching of various
foreign languages, their efforts point to positioning English as the
foreign language in Costa Rica, and not as much work has been done
geared towards other languages.
162
Compelled by the objectives described above, this foundation has
provided massive amounts of EFL teacher training across the nation,
focused on improving the teachers’ EFL proficiency and their EFL
teaching methodologies. In addition, the foundation has also created
mandatory EFL programs in the five public universities in the country,
which to a greater or lesser degree, have taken the shape of ESP twoyear programs, characterized by a particular choice of textbooks. Of
specific interest is the four-level EFL program Inglés para Todos in one
of these public universities. Granted, the university where this program
operates offers other foreign languages such as Japanese, Mandarin,
and Portuguese, but the EFL program in question is the one that has
been given the most priority, as seen by the fact that for 27 out of 36
majors, taking this EFL program has institutionally been declared
mandatory and that while the university does offer few courses in other
foreign languages (three to four for each language at the most), up to 27
EFL groups are opened every semester. The projection of authorities in
this university, however, is for the program to become mandatory in all
majors in the near future.
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EFL Textbooks, Testing Practices, and the Corporate Sector
A quick overview of the contents of the textbooks utilized in
the program under scrutiny reveals an interesting trend. The content
of the textbooks for levels one and two center on a number of topics
including: personal details, my region, leisure, home and away, buying
and selling, services, work, gadgets and technology, food, journeys,
body and mind, and getting together. The topics seem fairly varied but
many of these units are developed in office and work related contexts.
Levels three and four topics include working life, projects, leisure time
from work, services and systems at work, customers, customer service,
guests and visitors at a company, security at the workplace, teamwork
at the workplace, logistics of business projects, decision-making at the
workplace, innovations at the workplace, and evaluation of processes
and performance at the workplace. In this second textbook, it becomes
more evident how the learners are introduced to the world of business
with units that connect English to economic growth, money-related
outcomes and professionalism, thus reducing English to just business.
None of the units of the second book include alternative uses for English.
One might think that a textbook is only a textbook and that the
teachers have the power of agency to include alternative materials
and activities, but the sole existence of a pre-selected textbook often
results in instructors keeping the textbook at the center of all teaching
and learning. This is true even more so when the textbook selected is
coupled with the administration of a standardized final exam at the end
of each course, which centers on the units contained in the textbook.
For example, the standardized final exam administered to students
finishing level three in the second semester of 2015 was comprised of
the following items. The listening sections included 1) listening to two
people talking about their strong and weak points in applying for a job,
2) listening to a woman talking about what she likes and dislikes about
business trips, and 3) listening to a man talking about how to create an
effective and appealing business website. The reading sections involved
1) matching people to potential jobs according to their qualifications
and provided job descriptions, and 2) solving a multiple-choice exercise
based on a text about investments. The writing section comprised
the following tasks: 1) writing about their dream job, 2) writing a
complaint letter to a business manager, 3) writing a new proposal for a
company, 4) writing an e-mail to the human resources manager about
the importance of work-life balance, and 5) describing a strategy to
launch a new product. The speaking section included 1) showing an
international business partner the premises of the company he/she
is visiting, 2) describing an entrepreneurial initiative to a potential
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business partner, 3) explaining to the staff of a company changes in the
structure of the business, and 4) engaging in speed networking to find
business partners. The clear match between the units in the textbook
and the final standardized exam is a factor that may force teachers to
allow the business-oriented textbook to guide their teaching.
The textbooks selected for the Inglés para Todos and the
privileged standardized testing practices resemble the trend of English
for Specific Purposes (ESP), “which incorporate[s] concerns like
‘negotiations’, ‘meeting skills’, ‘preparation skills’....” (Cameron,
2002, p. 71). Although ESP is, of course, a valid and important option
to have, the predominance of ESP topics in textbooks, the abundance
of ESP courses/programs, and the reduction of EFL to the learning of
work-based and business-oriented skills stifle learners with diverse
motivations from the opportunities to learn the language for alternative
purposes, favoring the interests of those concerned about business and
profit making. Needless to say, our aim is not to criticize the existence
of ESP courses and programs but to problematize the marginalization of
alternative motivations for EFL learning and the assumption that ESP
equals guaranteed professional advancement.
The EFL Classroom: A Complex Landscape of Motivations
164
Given the particular textbook selection and testing practices
in Inglés para Todos, a survey was conducted with 30 EFL students
taking their third semester of English, to learn about their motivations
to study the language. The participants were majoring in economics,
environmental management, international affairs, administration,
history, visual arts, topography, gender studies, etc. In the survey, they
were given a list of possible reasons to study English, were asked to
choose three that coincided with their own motivations, and to rank
them in order of importance. This list included studying abroad, getting
to know the culture of English-speaking countries, finding a job, getting
a promotion, meeting general interest in foreign languages, meeting
general interest in learning more about English, facing a personal
challenge, expanding their knowledge of the world, traveling, making/
maintaining relationships with English speakers, fulfilling an academic
requirement, and setting up their own business.
As regards their first motivation, Figure 1 below shows that
although the biggest force driving the respondents to engage in foreign
language learning coincides with the discourses spread by the media
and government-supported initiatives, their EFL endeavor is also fueled
by other various motivation of a more personal type.
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Figure 1. Motivation #1 to study English
Regarding their second motivation for studying English, most
students report to have money-related motivations such as finding a
job or getting a promotion, as well as career-based reasons including
studying abroad and academic requirement. However, it is important
to note here that the money-related motivation fell from a 60% to a
26% whereas career-based motives remained stable. Additionally, the
informants also reported to have other motivations. Clearly, as they
explore other reasons why they engage in EFL learning, other alternative
motives not related to money or career building start to emerge and
become more prevalent.
165
Figure 2. Motivation #2 to study English
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Finally, as to their third motivation, the picture becomes a bit more
complex, in which the majority reported to be interested in meeting a
general interest in understanding English better and personal reasons,
as well as career-based motivations.
Figure 3. Motivation #3 to study English
166
These figures demonstrate that individuals normally have multiple
motivations for engaging in EFL learning, that even the majority of
students who are driven by money- and career-oriented purposes
have other motivations as well, and that the classroom is a complex
landscape of motivations. As demonstrated in the figures above, learners
walk into EFL classrooms driven by diverse motives and hoping to
accomplish multiple objectives that programs focusing on money- and
career-related outcomes fail to meet. The high percentage found in the
respondents’ first motivation to study English shows that the discourses
that connect the learning of English to thinking big, to granting skills to
offer a better professional service, to boosting one’s professional profile
and opportunities to get hired in a competitive job market, are pushing
individuals to believe that EFL learning is a desirable and unavoidable
task, thereby fueling an English frenzy (Park, 2010).
Our Task as Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
In light of the ‘English frenzy’ (Park, 2010) spreading in Japan,
Korea, Canada, Colombia, and Costa Rica, and the proliferation of EFL
programs that respond to narrow motivations for EFL learning, it is
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FALLAS, ENNSER & BIGELOW
essential that we as EFL professionals take measures to bring about
change geared towards a more diverse EFL curriculum. To this end,
the design and implementation of EFL curricula must consider that
not all learners are invested in EFL learning for the reasons advanced
by circulating discourses and that those who are, may also have other
alternative motivations. We insist that learners be critical of their
motivations because even when the discourses connect English to
promises of material gain and career advancement, both teachers and
learners must examine the extent to which these promises can become
a reality.
This critical examination of motivations is possible by opening
spaces in EFL classes in which the forces pushing people to learn
English and guiding language curricula are discussed to move the
current desire for English from an unconscious to a conscious plane
(Motha & Lin, 2014). The resulting new awareness can constitute an
important starting point for teachers and students to start to question
their own motivations and their connection to dominant circulating
discourses around EFL and to seriously examine what English can do
for them. This dialogue can potentially allow them to make liberating
decisions about their EFL learning endeavor and about what they will
do with the English they learn. Again, critical discussions should center
on an examination of how dominant monetary and career advancement
discourses impact individuals and EFL curricula. This dialogue can be
a process to come to terms with the many contradictions EFL teachers
feel between their altruistic reasons for joining the field and the oftenlimiting ways of being an EFL professional in programs that favor
money- and career-based motivations.
In the direction of catering to multiple motivations for EFL
learning within the curriculum, we generated some examples of
activities and topics teachers may incorporate into their lessons to
cultivate a multi-faceted rationale for studying English: (1) using
English for volunteering or working for international altruistic aims, (2)
exploring aesthetic uses of language such as composing music e writing
poetry and short stories, (3) learning not only about English speaking
countries but also about the world through different perspectives,
given how much media is produced in English, (4) participating in and
promoting youth culture by consuming, analyzing and creating content
from a youth culture perspective, (5) taking a stand to support minority
or indigenous language rights and revitalization, (6) turning aesthetic
reading into an everyday classroom practice, and (7) discussing the
need for social and not only economic entrepreneurship.
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MONETARY AND CAREER BASED MOTIVES
These seven ideas are rarely tackled in the books that are currently
used in EFL programs in Costa Rica, and are never to be found in the
current advertising for EFL learning nor in the goals and projects of the
national government-supported foundation. By integrating such topics
and activities into an EFL curriculum, students may find themselves
more engaged, more successful, and may develop more and better
communicative proficiency, which in turn may serve them very well in
the marketplace. But more importantly, these may allow EFL learners
to see the multiple purposes for which English can be used, other than
the money- and career-based ones comprising the dominant circulating
discourses.
One good example of the ideas exposed above is the Caracola
Creative Languages project by Alice Emery, Luz Cadavid and Wendy
García, located in New Haven, Connecticut, whose vision is to provide
socially engaged language teaching and learning founded in the
principles of experiential learning, artistic creation as a transformative
exercise, and communication. In their philosophy, they state that while
they are aware that speaking multiple languages brings about numerous
opportunities for growth, they seek to open spaces for exciting cultural
experiences in collaboration with members of the community. This,
they claim, may serve to bridge the social divides that may exist at the
community level. To this, we would add, that a curriculum that departs
from the expressed needs of the learners is more likely to help those
learners become successful at communicating in the second or foreign
language that they are learning; skills that may as well serve them for
job and money related purposes or any other motivations they may
have. The Caracola Creative Languages founders understand this and
have managed to translate it into a curriculum that responds to their
learners.
168
Our idea is not to stop individuals from choosing EFL or to shut
down ESP-oriented programs but to call for the diversification of
EFL curricula so that it includes various motivations and to educate
individuals to become conscious of their own motivations and critical
towards circulating discourses connecting English to profit, career
advancement and success. One good starting point to initiate dialogue in
the EFL classroom is the question, “How might English be a language
that allows us to be more, rather than just to have more?” (Pennycook,
2000, p. 220). EFL needs more critical language teachers and learners
capable of taking actions towards diversifying EFL curricula.
Fueled by the discourses in advertisements and the pressures
from the government-supported foundations, English itself and EFL
programs in Costa Rica are being commodified, where individuals’ fears
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FALLAS, ENNSER & BIGELOW
of a competitive job market take priority over their aspirations to travel,
to get to know the world, to keep and maintain friendships with native
and nonnative speakers of English, to expand their perspectives of the
world, to set up their own business, to take on a personal challenge or
simply to learn more about a foreign language. A program that excludes
non-money related motivations runs the risk of leaving little to no room
for discussions around diversity, equity and justice; for the development
of critical thinking skills; for activism around important current issues
such as immigration and human rights. Programs that mostly focus on
work skills, as seen in the textbook and testing practices favored in
Inglés para Todos, exclude topics such as social entrepreneurship, as
it responds to the needs of the industry and not to studies that focus on
prospective students and their various motivations to engage in EFL
learning. Interestingly, at the national level, needs analyses seem to
be done on the industry and corporate sector and not on the learners
themselves. Governments and universities seem to operate upon
the premise that serving corporations equals serving people’s needs,
dreams and aspirations.
Conclusions
This discussion is grounded in the Costa Rican context,
specifically that in higher education. The consequences of monetary
and career-based motives for studying English are likely to apply to
primary and secondary school settings as well, but this is outside the
scope of this paper. We speculate that the issues raised here are repeated
all over Latin America, but again, this discussion focuses the analysis
on the situation in Costa Rica. We also acknowledge that is paper is not
an in-depth study of ideology in any given institution’s EFL program.
It is merely a scholarly reflection on and critique of the current state of
affairs in EFL teaching in higher education in Costa Rica. In this article,
we explored international literature on the proliferation of English for
monetary and career-based motivations and then linked this literature
to the unique context of Costa Rica, with a small set of data serving to
illustrate some of the issues raised.
By engaging in the actions described in the section above, the
satisfaction many teachers may feel is to know that while they are
part of the teaching force of one of the most powerful languages in
the world, they did not succumb to a prescribed curriculum without
critical examination of alternative perspectives to those offered by the
dominant discourses. Opposition to the current commodification of EFL
teaching and learning and its reduction to profit and career purposes is
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MONETARY AND CAREER BASED MOTIVES
a big challenge that is already long overdue. The ideology –real and
imagined– that English serves the “broadest possible communication”
and that “it is an instrumental ‘necessity’ for getting a good job” (Gal,
2012, p. 39) is so much a part of our everyday lives that it becomes
unthinkable for society to start operating otherwise. But in hindsight,
every effort counts in changing a landscape of foreign language
teaching that still puts the market at the center of human activity and
leaves humans and their diverse reasons for engaging in EFL learning
at the periphery.
Our discussion aims to articulate a problem in the field of EFL
teaching and learning; namely, that we should not allow the study of
English to be defined entirely by the demands of the market. There are
many reasons to study a language and by tapping into or even cultivating
these multiple reasons for English learning, we have the opportunity to
engage learners in dynamic, current, authentic language teaching and
learning.
170
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FALLAS, ENNSER & BIGELOW
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Authors
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*Christian Fallas Escobar holds an MA in Second Languages
and Cultures from Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, and a
Certificate in Teacher Training from the School of International
Training. He has been an EFL instructor for over thirteen years
and currently works in the Escuela de Literatura y Ciencias
del Lenguaje at the Universidad Nacional. Among his areas of
interest are critical thinking, reflective teaching, multiculturalism
No. 12 (January - June 2016)
FALLAS, ENNSER & BIGELOW
& multilingualism, translanguaging, and the intersection between
economics, politics and EFL. He has co-authored a textbook for
EFL and published several papers dealing with translanguaging
in EFL contexts, bilingualism in Latin America, and neoliberal
discourses and their connection to the rise of EFL.
*Johanna Ennser-Kananen is Clinical Assistant Professor of
Language Education at Boston University. Her work focuses
on language ideologies, multilingual language practices, and
linguistic legitimacy in school and classroom settings. In
addition, she has analyzed the spread of neoliberal processes in
various educational contexts. Ennser-Kananen has published her
work in The International Journal of Language Studies and The
Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics and presented it at national
and international conferences such as the annual conventions of
AERA, AAAL, and ACTFL. She is co-editor of The Routledge
Handbook of Educational Linguistics.
*Martha Bigelow is Professor of Second Language Education
in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the
University of Minnesota. She is a former Peace Corps Volunteer
in the Dominican Republic and English Teaching Fellow in
Panama. She currently teaches in a graduate program which
prepares language teachers and researchers to work in a wide
range of educational settings on issues related to foreign and
second language learning. She has published in a range of books
and journals including: TESOL Quarterly, Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, Writing Systems Research, Theory into
Practice, The New Educator, Diaspora, Indigenous and Migrant
Education, and Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. She has
published two books related to her work with adolescent Somali
refugees in the United States: (1) Literacy and Second Language
Oracy (2009, Oxford University Press) with Elaine Tarone and
Kit Hansen and (2) Mogadishu on the Mississippi: Language,
racialized identity and education in a new land (2010, Wiley
Blackwell). She is the co-editor with Johanna Ennser-Kananen
for the Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics (2015).
Her advocacy and public engagement includes serving on
boards of immigrant non-profits, long-term teacher education
initiatives, and statewide leadership in education and policy
issues related to teaching immigrant adolescents and adults.
No. 12 (January - June 2016)
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Reviewers
No. 12, 2016 (January – June)
Gist would like to thank the following reviewers for their valuable
comments and thoughtful revision:
Carlos Augusto Arias, Institución Universitaria Colombo Americana,
ÚNICA, Colombia
Mauricio Aldana, Institución Universitaria Colombo Americana,
ÚNICA, Colombia
Ricardo Amórtegüi, Centro Colombo Americano Bogotá, Colombia
J. Petra Cole, Holy Trinity Primary School, Australia
Carlo Granados Beltrán, Institución Universitaria Colombo
Americana, ÚNICA, Colombia
Sandra Mercuri, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA
Sandra Liliana Rojas, Institución Universitaria Colombo Americana,
ÚNICA, Colombia
JoEllen Simpson, BNC Colombo Americano Cali, Colombia
Astrid Wilches, Centro Colombo Americano Bogotá, Colombia
Hans-Georg Wolf, University of Potsdam, Germany