Category: Newsletters

July 2026 Vol 8 Issue 7

 

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English to Economic Immigrants

Let Us Help You Tell Your Story!

Welcome Mid-July 2026!

After weeks of grey, rainy (and windy) weather, Saskatonians have finally enjoyed some summer heat, with temperatures recently soaring into the mid-30s.

With the Jazz Festival now behind us, and new seasons for the Fringe Festival and Shakespeare-on-the-Saskatchewan about to start, there’s much to do in and around Saskatoon. I hope you will enjoy the out-of-doors for the next eight weeks, Good Readers, whether locally or from afar! Autumn will feel so much better if we take the time to unplug from our technology and “soak” in the sunshine.

In “Article One” this month, I summarize an article that really deserves more prominent posting, but which has resonated powerfully with me: US ecologist Philip Starks argues why we must resist the popularity of “resilience talk.” What is  that? Read Article One for an eye-opener.

In “Shop News,” I thank at least a few of the folks who continue to “show up” in my line of sight, even (or especially) in these fleeting summer days.

And, as always, Good Readers, please share any tales of summer adventures you enjoy for a future issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.”

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih

Principal, Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

->ARTICLE 1: Countering “resilience talk”: on recovery and improvement with ecologist Philip Starks

-> SHOP NEWS

->ABOUT US

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Article One: Countering “resilience talk”: on recovery and improvement with Philip Starks

Nearly 10 years ago, I wrote and self-published an ebook (with a small print run) featuring interviews with local artists, entrepreneurs and other creatives. The central concept of “resilience” was much used in conversation at the time, and I suggested it was a “keyword” (to use Raymond Williams’ concept)—a word that describes the nature of society by reflecting its shifting values, and that acts as a barometer of social change.

Since that time, use of the word “resilience” has resurged as a buzzword, to the point of becoming cliché—as the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips says—a word that reduces its user to a “ventriloquist’s dummy.” When we use clichés, we imitate the thinking and language of someone else who pulls the proverbial strings.

That means, as Phillips said in a recent interview, that we lose our free-will and the power to think for ourselves. Since Trump took office in the US, especially, I’ve begun to distrust how easily “resilience” (as a word) has entered common parlance, how superficially it is used, that it seldom reflects social change or values as it did, in some cases, back in 2017.

So I was heartened this summer to read a pithy article in the online magazine, “Psyche,” written by Tufts’ University behavioural ecologist, (Dr.) Philip T. Starks. I welcome Starks’ article, entitled “True resilience is not about bouncing back,” and wish I’d had the opportunity to speak to him on the topic 10 years ago, when I was thinking and writing on it.

He writes forthrightly: “I hate talk of resilience: it places an expectation on people to return to how they were. That’s not how real recovery works.”

Starks continues: The term has “become one of our favourite compliments. People praise resilient children, resilient workers, resilient patients, resilient communities. The word shows up in school mission statements, corporate emails and therapy offices. It sounds humane and encouraging. But . . . it does something else: it lets the person doing the praising back away . . . When someone calls a person resilient, they reassure themselves that whatever happened to that person didn’t really change anything—not that person, and certainly not themselves.”

Starks cites engineering as a field where “resilience” has a somewhat “more precise meaning: how quickly a system returns to baseline after a disturbance. How fast a bridge stops shaking after an earthquake. How rapidly a power grid stabilizes after a surge.”

In his own field of ecology, Starks says that early on,  the “resilience of ecosystems [was] measured as return time in equilibrium,” until, in the 1970s, ecologist C.S. Holling argued that “real ecological resilience wasn’t about snapping back” (as engineers would have it). Instead, “resilience” was “about persistence: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance, reorganize and continue­—retaining its identity [but] often in a changed form.”

While Holling’s distinction was crucial, it wasn’t well received. Starks says that “outside the ecology literature, and increasingly even within it, the simpler, engineering definition of ‘resilience’ won out.” What moved easily across disciplines and into public life, where I read about it, mostly lacked “Holling’s complexity,” conveying instead “a safer, more convenient idea—resilience stripped of its teeth neutered down to endurance.”

The unease I felt as I copy edited my book in 2017 (and so refused to write a conclusion for it) was that the “public life” the term “resilience” was gaining seemed to connote a person’s health and even cheerfulness, when neither was necessarily at hand.

Starks says: “This is why resilience has such cultural appeal. Part of the appeal is that calling someone resilient in the endurance sense sounds kind. It feels like encouragement rather than judgment. But communicating kindness without taking any responsibility is just a way to make yourself feel more comfortable—that everything will be OK. The word ‘resilient’ reassures the speaker that they’ve done their part” when, as I (Elizabeth) worry, no substantive action or difference has necessarily developed.

To be clear, the interviewees in my book moved from endurance toward change, but the shift was hard-won, required much collaboration with supportive family and community, and ultimately, had no guarantee of permanence.

Holling had distinguished endurance, for getting through what the military terms “preventable conditions,” from recovery, which meant getting better. Yet, 30 years later, when I read recent instances of the use of “resilience,” I notice that we resist just as strongly Holling’s (1970s) distinction and confuse endurance with lasting recovery or growth.

I’m reminded of Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, amongst others, who in the late 2010s aligned “resilience” with the easy positivity of another catch phrase–“post-traumatic growth.” They hurried to latch onto a concept of “growth” when the sufferer may not have felt the shock and worked through the trauma.

Across disciplines in academia, business and beyond, our confusion of endurance with genuine recovery has “serious consequences.” Starks writes: “Whereas endurance can be demanded of someone, recovery requires support. Glorifying endurance shifts attention away from systems and places expectations on to individuals.” That’s very convenient when oligarchs and despots usurp political and economic power around the globe.

Being “resilient,” Holling says, has been used “as praise for enduring conditions that were often unnecessary or preventable. The words would stop the conversation, putting an end to any further reflection or reform. If you were resilient, the system didn’t have to be. Even when it’s well-intended, talk of ‘resilience,’ as we use it in everyday conversation, often functions as a protective shield for the broken institutions around the person who is enduring harm.”

If we stay true to science, when we think and speak of “resilience,” Starks writes, “the whole point of a disturbance is that it changes the system. The hurricane that batters the coast doesn’t make the beach ‘resilient’ in the colloquial sense. It reshapes it, resizes it.” That was Holling’s point.

I extrapolate to the forest fire that decimated much of Jasper National Park only two years ago. The disaster did not “return the land to what it was.” Starks writes as an ecologist that “the land is reshaped, and what grows back is something new. We don’t talk enough about the cost of ‘bouncing back,’: the wear and tear, the scar tissue, the strain that never fully heals. We admire apparent recovery without counting what accumulated along the way.”

Here, the unease we can feel now surrounding the term “resilience” is due to the political and social quietism it engenders.

Starks further calls out a “quiet statistical trick,” a “survivorship bias” that has become embedded in our “resilience talk”: “Modern culture celebrates the people who make it through hardship and treats them as proof that the system works. Too often, we fail to count those who didn’t have the support, safety or luck to endure it at all. Praise replaces accountability. . . .We validate a filter that selects for the fortunate and calls it excellence.”

Across all fields of academia, business and vocational life, Starks says that “many people treat the path of success as meritocracy, conveniently forgetting the role of circumstance” and luck: “Modern society attributes the survivor’s status to grit, ignoring the invisible scythes—such as bad advice or simple misfortune—that harvest the rest.”

We focus on those who “reached the podium,” not the “ghosts of others” who were discarded by “shifts in funding” or “a lack of pedigree”; or the entrepreneurs who lost the “high-stakes gamble faced by the startup founder.”

Starks’ grievance is that this is why stories of resilience are so seductive: “they spotlight the survivor and erase the system that selected for survival in the first place.”

So what can be done to address the inward-turning, false and survivorship bias that have taken root in contemporary stories and “talk” of “resilience?” Starks suggests a different metaphor, that is “closer to biology and less self-flattering.”

Think, he says, of athletes who exercise by regularly lifting weights: in the process, “they do damage. [They] tear muscle fibres. Then if [they] rest, eat and recover, [their] body rebuilds them stronger. Stress plus recovery equals growth. Skip the rest or the nutrition, and you don’t get stronger—you get hurt. Rather than being a form of resilience, the process of muscle growth involves adaptation.”

In human culture, “the same logic holds . . . . You break down, repair and rebuild something new. The challenge itself doesn’t make you stronger, your response does. No recovery, no gain. In the gym, we understand this. In life, we pretend the damage didn’t happen and call it strength.”

Furthermore, our muscles “don’t love the tear,” but “rebuild because the body takes care of them.” Starks concludes that his opening “hatred” for “resilience talk” is that it is “cowardly.” Resilience talk “makes pain tidy. It replaces responsibility with admiration. Praising endurance is easier than changing conditions and far more comfortable than staying present with suffering . . .

When we call ourselves resilient, we hide the truth that growth hurts and leaves marks. . . . But our bodies [and minds] remember. Our relationships remember. Our communities remember.”  And, from that, they struggle. I’d add that in the domain of the literature and literary theory in which I was educated, we must recognize that there is seldom lasting (and certainly not easy) “re(-)membering” of the damage done.

“Without care,” Starks confirms, “damage just accumulates.”

So what alternative do we have to the bias and falseness of recent “resilience talk?” Starks observes that we “don’t need a new buzzword. We need an honest one.”

He suggests “recovery” or “rehabilitation” (neither very flashy) and argues that we need to support and use “environments that allow repair. For children, that means stable adults, predictable routines, chances to rest and reconnect. For adults, it’s permission to slow down, seek care, rebuild trust and start small again. None of that fits on a motivational poster, but it works.”

I certainly have stopped calling others “resilient” or (even worse) I never ask others to “be resilient”—which, Starks has shown is “asking them to stay the same.” He observes that we abandon the process of genuine recovery when the people involved “are old enough to be praised instead of protected.”

Starks’ article (and part of what drew me to it) is his insistence that “the language we use matters.” There is no use or self-respect in becoming a “ventroloquist’s dummy” for morally empty “resilience talk”; that’s apparent to me, as a long-time English major and, more recently, as a teacher of language. I’m sure it’s clear to my readers, as well.

Back in 2016 and 2017, when I read theories of resilience with curiosity and pondered them as the starting point for a collection of interviews, I optimistically thought “resilience” might be that “keyword” from Raymond Williams (a concept vastly different from today’s “buzzword”). I offered my reflections on “resilience” before the word and its use had yet become cemented as “resilience talk.”

I pored over a word that appeared to describe the nature of society, to reflect its shifting values, and potentially to be a barometer of social change.  How diminishing to find that “resilience talk” instead reflects society’s aversion to feelings, especially to pain, and to the often inconvenient processes of recovery.

Starks closes as powerfully as he began: “When we tell people to be resilient, we ask them to stay the same. When we talk about recovery, we invite change. One hides pain; the other honours it. One imagines a spring snapping back; the other imagines repair through time and care.”

Just as we believe in neo-natal intensive care for the most vulnerable premature infant, or in setting casts and prescribing rest for someone with broken bones, Starks says “We should offer the same grace for the invisible injuries—the social, emotional, or moral ones. Resilience says ‘return.’ Recovery says ‘grow.’ I don’t want resilience. I want improvement.”

What might recovery as growth for invisible injuries look like for you, for those you care for, and for our troubled planet?

Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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SHOP NEWS:

I continue to appreciate the nearly weekly webinars on professional issues for ESL teachers, offered by my training institute, TEFL.org, by host Carl Cameron Day and tech strategist, Alan Moir.

These two gifted and experienced ESL/EFL teachers share useful knowledge and hands-on marketing strategies in their webinars and in the on-demand Q&A sessions that follow.

I have no doubt that TEFL.org has earned its B-Corps certification status (and other awards) for responsible company culture and fair treatment of both learners and teachers alike.

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I’ve enjoyed teaching pronunciation issues this month to a third newcomer and to two groups of economic immigrants who are employed by a manufacturing company in north Saskatoon.

I especially appreciate the learners who jump feet first into the concepts and processes I share, especially because real change in speaking has been estimated (by speech-language pathologists) to require at least three to four months of intensive, directed practice. . . .

And it has been fortifying to see the growth of a Ukrainian refugee living in Saskatoon whom I tutor via the Toronto-based charity,  FindHaven.org.  After last year’s long and dreary winter, I’m glad to see this newcomer faring well and studying English with much dedication.

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Thanks to fellow writer Greg Gilroy and family for sharing some of their retirement time with me, as I close files on my late mother’s passing.

Our families were close as we “grew up,” enjoying fun as well as losses; I appreciate remembering some of those shared times.

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Thanks to “happily retired” communications friends Michael and Jackie Robin (the latter, a favourite editor of mine), and my many-year friend, Dani Van Driel, for sharing good conversation (and some lovely peonies that followed), over (another!) artisan ice cream at “Fable” in Holiday Park.

While summer is still with us (and underpins my repeating this promotion), I encourage you to try Fable’s homemade ice cream, on Avenue H, across from Saskatoon’s Victoria Park.

Fable favours fresh fruit densely combined with cream, instead of sugar and preservatives. A waffle cone with a single scoop feels like a full meal—and one served by local youth in the community. (Disclosure: I receive no affiliate fee for recommending Fable or any other businesses in our city.)

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Special thanks to the always energetic and generous Fafa Ahianonu at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian for leading the children’s worship programming throughout the program year.

This month and next,  I look forward to stepping in to assist these young minds and souls,  by leading the children’s programming, while Fafa takes an epic journey to her birthplace of Ghana.

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And thank you, good readers, for continuing to read and reflect on this newsletter, now into its 16th  year of production.

There are always new stories and new people to promote in “Shop News.” But this is a wrap for mid-July. 

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ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I  teach economic immigrants to secure better jobs or larger contracts by improving their English language skills.

In doing so I help them to integrate into our community and marketplace more easily than they would working (in isolation) alone.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my (still CASL-compliant) website (www.elizabethshih.com)

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!

Please visit my website for more information (www.storytellingcommunications.ca).

May 2026 Vol 8 Issue 5

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English to economic immigrants

and to internationally educated, second-language academics

Let us Help You Tell Your Story!

Welcome Mid-May 2026!

Spring is finally here, Good Readers! In Saskatchewan, we’re learning that spring may no longer be the coherent season that many of us remember from our childhoods. Instead, it’s become more of a too-long battle between winter’s snowy cold and the warmth and sunshine of spring and summer.

Today is a case in point, as the weather forecast for Victoria Day weekend calls for more (albeit light) snow (and after two earlier snowfalls, earlier this month)! But to discuss further would only reinforce the truism that we Canadians love to complain about our weather! So, moving on . . . .

Since I’m adding to my work docket a significant contract teaching ESL to newcomers who work in an industrial manufacturing setting, I’m making an effort to shorten this year’s spring and summer issues of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.” (Remember the ol’ adage that it takes more effort to write less volume?)

However, I’ll be sure to continue to share insights on topics that are useful to you, as a wide variety of users of English–be you a newcomer striving for literacy, a native-speaking professional writer or editor, or a communications specialist of another kind. So please stay tuned!

Since many of us communicators keep journals or diaries of our work and creative lives, in the main article of this issue, I’ll share some insights from American copywriter and AI specialist, Ed Gandia. Ed’s blog and podcast are rich in resources and I draw this month on his insights on how to make journalling on Fridays even more useful.

I wish you for you, valued reader, a month of metaphoric sunshine (whatever the weather holds), so you feel an increase in creative energy! Whether it’s drafting a manuscript or returning to some purposeful recreation, we can tap into our universe’s creative potential (and at a time when the world groans in suffering and turmoil) . . . .

So, give some thought and effort to your Friday journalling practice!  And please update me on your reading and writing interests. With your permission, I’d be delighted to include them in a future issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter.”

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Shih

Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

->ARTICLE 1:  What is a ‘Friday Gratitude Journal’ (with Ed Gandia)?

-> SHOP NEWS

->ABOUT US

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Article One: What is a ‘Friday Gratitude Journal,’ with Ed Gandia?

American copywriter and coach, Ed Gandia (“High-Income Business Writing Podcast”) regularly describes how we can make freelancing (and other kinds of self-employment) healthier. Healthier not just now but, even more so, several months from now.

Many freelance writers (including former academic writers and former B2B copywriters, like me) have long written in daily journals to clear mental clutter and to achieve emotional equilibrium in the midst of busy lives. In this activity, we’ve drawn on the pioneering example of Julia Margaret Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and its adaptation by writers and writing coaches, including Daphne Gray-Grant, and Ed Gandia.

More than a year ago, Ed blogged on how to tweak the practice of daily journal writing, especially on Fridays (like today) to make the process more helpful in improving our moods and, as a result, our productivity.

Ed says that every Friday he asks himself three basic questions that he focuses on answering in his journal for that day:

(1) What went well this week?

(2) What didn’t go so well and what did I/ can I learn from those experiences?

(3) What am I most grateful for?

Now, these might seem like simply intuitive questions. But when freelance schedules heat up and journal writing may fall off one’s proverbial desk (including the handwriting part, which is essential to mental expression), these three questions can carry transformative power.

Instead of scrabbling to tap into a fatigued mind, we can use a Friday journal to develop a mindset, so that these three questions evoke more feelings and insights than we thought possible.

Ed comments that he “can’t believe” how many ideas bubble up, as he writes and that he quickly fills “at least one full page. And I often come back to it later and add more things I forgot about. I didn’t realize how many things went well until I forced myself to think and write.”

In this practice, we overcome the tendency all creatives face of a negative confirmation bias–whereby only unhappy or negative thoughts germinate from only one negative event or experience. Negativity can take over our minds. Discouragement and depression certainly follow–as death knells to creativity and optimism.

Ed adds that Friday journalling can include setbacks, because “framing setbacks as important lessons has been transformational. I know this intellectually. But forcing myself to identify the good in every ‘bad’ has been very powerful.”

Despite the messiness of our daily lives, creators (in fact, everyone) still need to find the good. Choosing to focus on positivity, especially with these three Friday questions, can help us to “identify all the little things [we] tend to overlook as [we] go through the day.”

Maybe it is a “thank you email” from a prospect who reads your work. Or a text from a colleague who shares a resource in return for one you gave them. Even finishing a government census that gave you the opportunity to discuss needed change in social policy to make freelance life better . . . . and on and on the insights can go.

Ed admits that he avoided writing what I call a “Friday Gratitude Journal” for ages, because he doubted its efficacy. But he writes: “I’ve been proven wrong. It’s amazing what happens when you spill these thoughts onto the page. . . . The physical feedback loop is powerful! Give it a try and see what comes from it!”

I would add: “Happy people focus on what all we have and what we have accomplished. Unhappy people focus only on what’s missing.”

And now it’s your turn. Do you keep a daily (or regular) journal? Will you refine it to include a “Friday Gratitude Journal? ” Why not start today?

Please share your feedback; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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SHOP NEWS:

Saskatoon’s “Small Business Group” (formerly Saskatoon’s Freelance Roundtable group) continues to meet, under the undaunted leadership of freelance writer and content creator, Ashleigh Mattern.

Ashleigh, Julie Barnes and I started the group in the spring of 2015 (earlier, in a fledgling form) to channel creative writers’ need for discussion, advocacy and co-referrals.

We planned our group over drinks (and a notepad) 12+ years ago, in a bar in downtown Saskatoon that long ago closed!

While we outlived that venue, we’ve since met in cafes and coffee shops across the city, including the Broadway Roastery on 8th, City Perks, Sparrow, and lately, Grace Whittington’s wonderful cafe, HomeQuarter.

A shout-out and thanks to  Ashleigh Mattern this month, as she continues to take the reins of the group in the face of my scheduling challenges, as an ESL teacher.

Ashleigh is the “chief storyteller” (writer, marketer and social media expert) behind Vireo Creative, a web design and content team.

She’s also a long-time creative, writing freelance journalism, producing content for the CBC, marketing copy for local businesses and exploring multiple literary genres and influences, including in her novel, Magicked Born (2021).

Currently, Ashleigh’s also the Communications Director for a one-year term at St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation. Could anyone be busier?

I hope to return to assisting with group leadership, as we figure out how to make complex schedules/transportation comply!

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With our diverse interests as co-founders and members, Saskatoon’s “Small Business Group” has much potential to grow into the future.

“If the shoe fits,” we’d be happy to include you in our next meeting. Please reach out.

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Another grateful thanks this month to Northern Ireland-based, ESL teacher, Carl Cameron-Day, and (Glasgow-based) ESL administrator, Alan Moir, both of TEFL.Org.

Carl is an experienced ESL teacher, tutor, teacher-trainer and exam administrator who has worked all over the globe. I know him as a sage advisor who energetically hosts webinars for junior and mid-career English language teachers.

When part of a work week takes me off the trail of language training, I’m always the better for tuning in to a TEFL.Org webinar, hosted by Carl, and deftly facilitated by Alan Moir (himself an ESL/EFL teacher by training).

Their wry sense of humour adds to their charm. (Alan once adopted the name of a “Cupboard of Cheese” for a webinar’s Q&A).

ESL/EFL teachers can watch recordings of these webinars (some going back years) on YouTube and on Facebook, filled with helpful tips and best practices.

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Finally, this month, my sympathies go to the family and friends of the late Brian Paranica, who recently passed away,  after a many-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis.

Brian was a former civil servant in Ottawa, but hailed from North Battleford and lived his last years in Saskatoon/Warman, without losing his passion for sports and friendly conversation.

Many thanks go to parish nurse, Laura Van Loon, for regularly visiting and updating us on Brian’s welfare.

Brian was also a significant contributor to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church’s pastoral care committee, where he advocated for the inclusion of those with physical and mental health conditions.

At St. Andrew’s we miss you already, Brian, and may you Rest in Peace.

My condolences to Brian’s family and closest friends.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday May 23rd at 1:00 pm at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,  Saskatoon.

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Since rebranding in 2021 as the principal of “Storytelling Communications,” I have pivoted to teach the intricacies of English-as-a-Second Language (ESL/EAL/EFL) to adults and young adults.

There are always new stories and new people to promote in “Shop News.” But this is a wrap for mid-May. 

ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I  teach economic immigrants to secure better jobs or larger contracts by improving their English language skills.

I also help internationally educated, second-language academics to progress through the tenure (or related) promotion process by improving their English language skills.

I help both sets of clients to become integrated into our community and economy more easily than they would working (in isolation), alone.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my (still CASL-compliant) website (www.elizabethshih.com)

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!

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April 2026 Vol 8 Issue 4

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN): 

Teaching English as a Second Language

Let us help you tell your story!

Welcome Mid-April 2026!

After enduring a long, very grey winter in Saskatoon, locals are more keen than ever to jumpstart spring! Seed packets and germination kits, as well as tulips and hydrangea appeared several weeks ago in local grocery stores. But the recent freezing drizzle and the forecast of another 10 cm of snow to fall tonight are taking us in the opposite direction!

That said, recent days have brought us more sunshine and warmer temperatures, so we are ushering “Ol’ Man Winter” out the “EXIT” door!

Since my last issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter,”  I have been busy teaching ESL to students including a Ukrainian newcomer, with a second returning to classes next week. I’ve also received inquiries from Chinese students, as I reach out to friends-of-friends in that community.

In the Western calendar, we recently observed Easter for another year. Some of us listened anew to the Biblical story of Christ’s Resurrection. Whether you observed the religious holiday, spent the days working, or enjoyed a secular break with family and friends, I hope that Easter has brought lightness and hope to your lives.

In “Article One” of this issue, I approach the thorny problem caused when ESL learners (or non-native speakers generally) mispronounce English and/or have heavy accents. Decades of British TV comedy (not to mention comedy elsewhere) have turned the problem into a source of laughter and derision (i.e. racism). And native speakers aware of newcomers’ pronunciation challenges sometimes try to suppress the issue altogether. What is this “elephant in the ESL classroom” about?

And in “Shop News,” I express gratitude for some of the amazing people with whom I occupy time and space, as fellow teachers, writers, editors, estate managers and other friends.

May the (albeit delayed) dawn of spring still bring peace and fulfillment to you, good readers, even in these troubled times.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth

Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

 ARTICLE ONE: The elephant in the ESL classroom: discussing racist pronunciation comedy . . . in three 20th-Century British TV shows

SHOP NEWS

ABOUT US

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Article One: The elephant in the ESL classroom: racist pronunciation comedy . . .  in three 20th-Century British TV shows

Recent discussions in the business world about non-native English speakers’  need for accent reduction (or better-termed, accent modification), tend to skirt the problem of speakers who are not understandable. On Linkedin last week, several colleagues or supervisors of non-native speakers of English wrote comments that reflect a politically-correct view: “accents aren’t that important; it’s the ideas that count.”

And yet many of us have (or have lived) evidence to the contrary. Plenty of challenges have arisen over the centuries when non-native speakers of English who have heavy accents immigrate to Anglophone countries. The history of accent modification is evident when one researches the significant number of English as a Second or Additional Language textbooks that focus on “accent reduction” or modification:

After working for more than 15 years with Chinese professionals in the US, Lauren Supraner, an American intercultural communications specialist, authored Accent Reduction for Chinese Speakers: A Pronunciation Course for Chinese Speakers of English (2019). She has written openly that “accent reduction” is sometimes needed, and possible to attain, by Chinese speakers of English to succeed in North America.

Two other, seminal guides for English pronunciation have been recommended by teacher-trainers and long published by Cambridge UP, namely Pronunciation Pairs: An Introduction to the Sounds of English (2008), and Ship or Sheep: An Intermediate Pronunciation Course (2006). 

There are also numerous volumes from authors like US-based speech-language pathologist, Rebecca Bower, that offer strategies to learn a “general American accent.”

As these resources show, there are learnable (and teachable) skills of mouth, jaw, tongue and lip movement that can alter the sounds of spoken English for non-native speakers. These are skills that help them to be better understood and so to achieve greater outcomes in their careers and lives.

Post-colonial insights matter here. None of these books suggest the racist assumptions that the English language should always come first; or that the additional/second language speaker is speaking in an inferior way; or that they will end up working at “dead-end” jobs in English-speaking countries, which they should be thankful for (!). Instead, the task is a practical one: non-native speakers need to have understandable accents when they speak English in an Anglophone country.

As the history of ESL/EFL/EAL education shows, when non-native speakers are educated in, conduct business in, or live in a dominant or monolingual English culture, they need to be understood by native speakers, even though the latter should (and often do) strive to listen their way “through” a non-native speaker’s accent.

Mocking second or additional language speakers’ mistakes and the challenges they face toward comprehensibility is offensive to committed English language teachers (me included) and, far worse, to the non-native speakers, themselves. (As I’ve often said, to my students, my early inability to acquire quickly the tone-based pronunciation of Mandarin, my late father’s first language, would have made me the laughing stock of Chinese speakers, worldwide, and not furnish me with a career in China!  But we’re specifically addressing English here.)

And yet racism sometimes still arises from social media discussions and in representations of ESL/EFL/EAL speakers’ pronunciation. Even the phrase “non-native speakers” can offend populations of Indigenous people worldwide, who have historically used the term “native” to describe themselves.

Popular late 20th-Century British drama (not so long ago) portrayed multiple “foreign” characters who speak English badly: their heavy accents result in misunderstandings that are exploited for comic effect. One that comes to mind is the much-abused, Spanish servant, “Manuel,” in “Fawlty Towers.” As you likely know, many such comedies are now archived on YouTube.

For instance, the popular British TV drama (1982-1992), “Allo, Allo” (originally broadcast on the BBC), features a French café owner, Rene Artois, in the town of Nouvion, France, during the German occupation of France in World War II. As researchers of “Wikipedia” write (I confirmed by cringe-watching the show), Rene struggles “with problems from a dishonest German officer, the local French Resistance, the handling of a stolen painting and a pair of trapped British airmen, all while concealing from his [tone-deaf but singing] wife the affairs he is having with his waitresses.”

Much of the humour, online sources say, inheres in “classic farce set-ups, comedy of errors, physical comedy, visual gags, alongside a large amount of sexual [and sexist] innuendo and a fast-paced running string of broad cultural cliches.”

“Allo, Allo” features British actors pretending to be French, speaking English “with theatrical foreign accents to distinguish each character’s nationality.”

Particularly central to “Allo, Allo” is “Officer Crabtree,” a “hopeless British undercover officer, constantly disguised as a local French policeman during World War II. Much of the character’s humour derives from his supposed inability to pronounce French words correctly in conversation. The show features his ludicrous exaggeration and mispronunciation of common English words. For example, he mispronounces “Good morning” as “Good moaning,” and “I was passing by the door and I thought I would drop in” becomes “I was just pissing by the door and I thought I would drip in.”

The actor playing Crabtree was English (and a native-speaker of English). But “while portraying a Frenchman mispronouncing English, the actor extensively deploys malapropisms” to represent his character’s lack of English fluency.  It’s hard deny it’s a clever device.

Online promoters of “Allo, Allo” mention that this device works by “altering certain words in the character’s sentences, substituting different vowels or consonants, changing them into different or nonsensical words, usually laden with innuendo.” Although no character in “Allo, Allo” is depicted favourably, the humour arises consistently by the portrayal of foreigners who speak English with bad accents and ineptitude.

Here is a sample (you may have to copy and paste into your browser):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilhJvFngWcY&list=PLiZCl6XIGf-iIZzvWDqcD_UOWAqTDjs7M&index=1

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And, as you might expect, other BBC comedy is replete with more of the same racist, sexist and stereotypical portrayals of foreigners with absurdly bad accents.

Consider “The Two Ronnies” (Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, in the 1970s and 80s), who, Wikipedia writers tell us, “frequently use . . . the misunderstanding and parody of foreign languages, as a cornerstone of their wordplay-driven comedy. Their sketches often highlight the absurdity of language barriers, mispronunciation and the pomposity of lessons. Their work [is] full of puns, mispronunciation and stereotypical linguistic misunderstandings.”

For instance, “Ali Baba” is the stereotypical (racist) name given to a wealthy Arab Sheikh who visits an English deli in “Pronunciation Problems,”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzeEq5MvNFg

As the English shopkeeper insists on correcting the Arab’s mispronunciations, the latter man takes back his significant supply of British currency from the counter between them, with the result that “money talks” louder than his heavily accented mispronunciation.

Another of The Two Ronnies’ sketches, “Swedish Made Simple,” centres on a language lesson in a restaurant setting. The older Barker plays a putative Swedish teacher, pretending to be a waiter, teaching basic restaurant Swedish, using single-letter words (in subtitles) to the younger Corbett.

The dialogue is not Swedish at all, Wikipedia authors tell us, but a ridiculous parody of Norwegian (perhaps later mimicked by the “Swedish Chef” on “The Muppet Show?”). Corbett’s efforts to learn “Swedish” are full of mispronounced vowels, laden with sexist innuendo. (Note also the addition to the story of the stereotypical blonde “bimbo” waitress.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc3M1nppd3c&t=1s

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Finally, perhaps the worst offender in the genre of English mispronunciation comedy premiered on ITV in 1977, “Mind Your Language.” Like the two programs cited above, the racism of this show also relies on misogyny to meet its comedic goals. Running until 1979, and briefly revived in the late 1980s, “Mind Your Language” features both male and female adult students of differing social backgrounds, religions and languages “set in an adult education college in London.” The show ” focuses on an ESL class taught by Jeremy Brown, to a group of enrolled foreigners.”

Teacher Brown (Wikipedia tells us; I have cringe-watched episodes to confirm) is an ESL teacher who provides the point-of-view. He is a congenial, “single man in his 30s who lives alone . . . and holds a BA from Oxford University.” In the series’ pilot, when he’s hired, the school administrator tells him that the prior teacher was driven insane by the students. Brown manages the mayhem but is often “exasperated by these students’ versions of the English language.”

Prominent in the series is the stereotypical Italian Catholic chef, Giovanni Cupello, who seems unable to understand English metaphors and long words, although he often answers mistakenly to amuse his peers. Similarly, Maximillian (“Max”) Papandrious is a Greek Orthodox shipping worker from Athens, who often spars with Giovanni.

Giovanni and Max become good friends, flatmates and ironically “have the best command of English of all the characters in the class.” Yet their progress  in English is shown to be minimal, at best.

Other characters animate historical stereotypes of tensions between Chinese and Japanese; Indian and Pakistani cultures, rivalry between French and Swedish au pairs, and the competition of physically attractive or assertive women characters (with sexist stereotypes of hourglass figures and heavy makeup). They also vie for teacher Brown’s affection.

Stereotypical language issues are portrayed—the Chinese character confuses “r” and “l”; the German mixes “w” and “v” sounds; religious and class differences abound. And yet, some episodes after conflicts arise, the hostile characters inexplicably return as friends (apt for a sitcom). Conflicts are tidily resolved off-stage. Laughter becomes a safety-valve that relieves the pressure of such conflict without addressing its significance.

“Allo, Allo” “The Two Ronnies” and “Mind Your Language” are only three examples of what could be called late 20th-Century British racist pronunciation comedy. Further research into TV and radio programming from the period would undoubtedly find many more.

But these three sample programs readily suggest not only that pronunciation problems are an inherent challenge for non-native speakers learning English, but also that such problems are socially acceptable to laugh at (and therefore, the racism).

The characters’ speech is driven by stereotype, sexism/misogyny and racism, at the expense of ethnic minorities and women (often both at the same time). These groups are regularly “thrown under the bus” for cheap laughs and are portrayed by actors whose physical features (e.g. large noses, hairy skin and large bustlines) are easily exploited for comic effect.

While comedy that mocks minority races, classes, women and sexual identities is a staple of late 20th-Century British TV and radio programming, the world of ESL/EFL/EAL teaching tends to tread gingerly through such domains. Decades after these shows revelled in racist representations of non-native English speakers, Anglophones today (e.g. on social media, like Linkedin) sometimes bracket off the genuinely complex challenges that arise from non-native speakers’ mispronunciations and accents.

Comedy (especially satirical) is a notoriously slippery genre, so few language teachers  I’ve encountered ever refer to such TV programs for their disempowering effect on racial minorities and women.

Given more contemporary awareness of homosexual, transgender and other non-binary identity issues, one can only imagine new layers of satire which 21st-Century English pronunciation comedy could exploit (and already does, in European programming not as well known on this side of the Atlantic).

When authoritarian politics have overwhelmed our world, increasing the disempowerment of racial minorities and women, it’s worth wondering whose interests are served when minorities’ speaking challenges are dismissed by political correctness—i.e. when native speakers write on social media, “it’s the ideas, not the accent that matter.” Language proficiency and fluency, including pronunciation, are never simple. Comprehension challenges don’t disappear on their own.

On Linkedin, where some native speakers try to reassure non-native English speakers that their “ideas are more important than their accents,” we need to acknowledge that these two aspects of language are always already intertwined. Ideas can only be understood if a speaker’s accent is decipherable. While racist pronunciation comedy from past decades is not socially acceptable, today’s trite statements of political correctness seem to deny (“whitewash”) decades of Anglophones’ racism toward non-native speakers. What happens to the frustrations and injustices experienced by non-native English speakers, and, at the same time, where do Anglophones’ contempt and racism go?

Are we not simply burying (in what might seem a new way), what happens to the suffering of our cultural, linguistic, sexual and gender minority groups? For a speaker’s ideas to matter, they must be understandable by others. Accents are an inextricable part of the delivery of ideas.

One of the unresolvable difficulties of accent modification when one learns new languages is that power inheres in one’s ability to sound similar, and with pressure to sound “the same.” But refusing to recognize the limiting effects on comprehension that come with non-idiomatic “accents” can become its own kind of homogenizing (“whitewashing”) activity, masquerading as tolerance and acceptance. Denial does not efface the loss and difficulty that result from mispronunciation.

The human condition, including its reliance on linguistic communication, inherently includes loss, which ultimately demands empathy and tolerance for non-native speakers at a time in history (now) when both are in short supply.

And now it’s your turn: What do you think about racist pronunciation comedy? And might contemporary social media sometimes cause us to bury the complexity of comprehension, including our potential intolerance (as native speakers)?

 Please share your thoughts; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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SHOP NEWS:

It seems hard to imagine that Easter passed just one week ago, when many of us listened anew to the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

Special thanks to Rev. Devon Pattemore of Regina, SK, who has preached so movingly to the church I attend, while substituting for our regular minister, Rev. Roberto De Sandoli (currently on parental leave).

Rev. Devon’s insights and empathy through the Easter season have been challenging and inspiring to reflect on and absorb.

And those words have provided spiritual armour in the week since Easter, when American dictator Donald Trump has gleefully continued to support Russia’s war in Ukraine; murdered civilians and destroyed much of Iranian civilization; and most recently, usurped the role of Christ-the-Healer in a heinous, AI-generated and blasphemous Easter portrait he posted online.

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During times of autocratic leadership in our world, I’ve been especially concerned to read about the devolution (and imminent disappearance) of a tremendously vital educational resource English language curriculum, “One Stop English” (OSE).

Recommended to me several years ago by TEFL.org’s webinar host, advisor and teacher-trainer, Carl Cameron-Day, I have used “OSE” to create timely and thought provoking, one-on-one ESL classes for adults and youth. The platform also has resources for teaching children.

Drawing on sources such as “The Guardian,” “The Times (of London),” the BBC and the British Council, “OSE” has been invaluable to many English language teachers, worldwide for decades.

The development of AI has overtaken much in the publishing world. The developers of “OSE” have found the costs of maintaining and building of the platform exceed available resourcees.

Sadly, “OSE” will close its online “doors” in June. But in the meantime, ESL teachers and learners who have memberships are well-advised to download resources, which has been generously encouraged by the platform’s directors and developers.

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Thank you to small business and estate lawyer, Ben Nussbaum, and his very able assistant, Ingrid Atkinson, for their fine work, insights and patience shared on even the busiest of days.

The kind of legal support they provide is essential when a family has “grieving brains.”

Thank you, Ben, Ingrid and their team!

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It’s been a privilege to review and edit one of several articles by my long-distance friend, midwife Christel (originally from South Africa, now living in BC).

Christel is developing several articles on midwifery out of her recently defended PhD dissertation on midwifery in her native South Africa.

It’s been a privilege and pleasure to read Christel’s work and to learn more about midwifery standards and practices in South Africa, Europe and America.

Christel plans to build a midwifery-led birthing centre in the future in BC, Ontario or Alberta. (Unfortunately,  she could not “sell” this prospect to the Province, so she and her family have relocated  to BC.)

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I’ve been delighted to work for a month with a lovely Ukrainian through a non-profit organization. While it is painful to hear from her about the political and cultural losses that Ukraine has suffered in its war with Russia, we have also found space for genuine learning and enjoyment, as we practice English conversation each week.

Shortly, this student will start online language classes with one of our local settlement agencies. I will be delighted to see how that opportunity will allow her to develop her life in Canada.

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Thank you to my Chinese cousins Jian-Yu (Jenny) and Deming (David), who have retired in British Columbia, for their recent interest in my English-language classes (ESL), which they have promoted to more distant contacts both in China and Canada.

Although we’ve always respected and enjoyed each others’ friendship, for many years the demands of education and careers took us in different directions.

So it has been such a mid-life blessing to return to closer communication! I cherish their interest and support.

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Special thanks go out this month to Beth Brimner and Joann Brimner for including me in their Easter Sunday feast in Erindale. The delicious ham, scalloped potatoes, all many side-dishes and desserts were delectable!

Beth and Joann’s company, along with a good visit with their local Chinese friends, made for a wonderful Easter celebration, and a reunion from last Christmas Eve!

Thank you, dear friends, and Easter Blessings upon you.

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At Easter and in Saskatchewan’s fledgling spring, good reader, I hope you have found emotional and spiritual refuge, whichever faith you follow (or do not), and among family and friends, as we continue to care for our beautiful, but  broken, planet.