Week 8: Taylor-Mendes, Giaschi and Hinkel

As I analyze this week's readings about stereotypes in materials, such as textbooks, these make me realize that textbooks are not only a resource where students develop socially, but it is also where students can develop stereotypical views about others without even realizing it. Teachers need to be cautious and knowledgeable when discussing images presented in textbooks, we don't have the power to avoid stereotypical images in textbooks, such as whites seen as elites and blacks seen as poor, so we need to teach students to improve the circumstances of their lives by discussing sociopolitical issues and stereotypical views that surround them as ESL learners in a mainstream culture. Taylor-Mendes and Giaschi's articles were interesting to me because they point out stereotypes in books written in Brazil (Whites over Blacks) and Britain (Britains over Muslims). It is interesting to see how the United States is seen as a prestigious country in Brazil only by looking at texts. Taylor-Mendes points out how in textbooks discussing the US, there was no evidence of poverty and violence in textbooks or even how people reached their financial achievement or social power, US is just seen as peaceful and beautiful. Textbooks don't show the real circumstances and struggles people go through to achieve their success. As an immigrant, my family and I have encountered many struggles throughout the years, but EFL textbooks in Peru did not show many sociopolitical issues in the US to help us realize the difficulties we would encounter. US is seen as a positive role model for many other countries, but in reality is not as easy as it looks to achieve a successful life in the US. Race division by continents is also seen in textbooks, mentioned by taylor-mendes, such as Africans lacking food, Indians as poor, Asians living in Asia, etc. Racial division is not something we want our students to receive from our classrooms.

In Giaschi's study, done in Britain, results show how much gender and class stereotypes are shown in certain textbooks. For examples, men were shown as having more of an active role than women, men as having higher status than women, etc. I know he just focused on differentiating gender roles, but I would have also liked to see: how many people from other races were shown in the images?, and how many images showed poor people?. He only focused on gender interaction, I wonder if the textbooks he chose had images depicting minority groups at all. Hinkel also discusses materials in EFL classrooms. He mentions the importance of teaching culture, and being aware of other cultural groups and their behaviors and perspectives. Textbooks are sources where students should be able to learn about other cultures. Intercultural competence helps increase the student's own social identity as well as to encourage the awareness of other's identities (Hinkel 219). All of this week's readings were very insightful and interesting to read. We need to be aware of stereotypes in textbooks and discuss these issues with the students.