I have a good friend from Belfast who speaks with a heavy Irish accent. He has lived in the U.S. for a number of years and in the mid-1990s he taught at a language school in New York City, where most of his students were first generation Asians. I kid him that every time I visit NYC that I find myself listening for Asians speaking with Irish accents.

I’m reminded of this when I read Blau’s conclusions in chapter 9; we can disable our students by over-directing them to a particular interpretation or “otherwise render students overly dependent on their teachers in the production of interpretations, so that students to do not recognize or never have the opportunity to discover the efficacy of their own experiences and persistence as readers” (p. 200). How much of us spills out into the classroom, according to Blau, determines the difference between fostering our students or preempt their autonomy.

As a middle-aged, white, native born American male (from Topeka Kansas no less!), my experiences indelibly color my interpretations which, on occasion, have seeped out into the classroom. Try as we might to be neutral facilitators, as teachers attempting to take advantage of teachable moments, we all have often grabbed the closest thing available to us in the swirl of class discussion; usually the examples we use to illustrate a point reflect who we are. Like Asians speaking English with an Irish accent, foreign born ESL students basing their views of literature on my WASPish past is a troubling thought.

The problems that Brau outlines in his book seem to become more complicated when dealing with non-native born ESL students. Most of them have had some academic experience in their own cultures, where the instructor is usual held in high esteem and mimicry of what is spoken in the classroom by the teacher is considered knowledge. For many of them it is a matter of respect to parrot the instructor’s views.

This is compounded by the desire of ESL students to acculturate. If teachers represent American academic culture, then emulating their thought processes is seen as a move towards academic acceptance. It is also seen by many as the surest way to achieve good grades and the path to other academic achievements. They see other advantages; because they are absorbing what they think is an American point of view, it makes them more “American”, while “learning about literature.”

Native born students don’t have this issue; they are taught the value of independent thought in American classrooms, even though many choose the easier way out by also mimicking their teachers.

While Brau does not address the issue of foreign born ESL students specifically, the rules he outlines for how we operate in the literature classroom frequently lead to questions from foreign-born students who want to know what we, as teachers, think and what our thought process are as we struggle with interpretation. They feel that they are at a disadvantage because their point of view is “different” than native-born students and instructors.

One reason I like Blau’s story telling workshop is that it teaches students that their view point is just as valid as any other students and that they should value their cultural heritage and views. Unfortunately, for students struggling to fit in to their adopted culture, this frequently does not give them the sense of security they need to be autonomous.