Duty and Service: Life and Career of a Tamil Teacher of English in Sri Lanka

Duty and Service: Life and Career of a Tamil Teacher of English in Sri Lanka DAVID HAYES Brock University St Catharines, Ontario, Canada This article discusses the life and career of a Tamil teacher of English working in the government education system in northern Sri Lanka Based on data gathered in an extended life history interview, the article explores the teacher’s own experiences of schooling, his reasons for entering teaching as a profession, his professional training, and aspects of his working life in areas fought over by government and LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) forces The teacher’s narrative is contextualized within the history of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils and aims to shed some light on how an individual finds the motivation to continue to work in a situation of extreme personal danger and, further, how he positions himself within his community as a teacher of a foreign language which might be seen as an irrelevance to students in his context Though the limitations of case studies are recognized, as well as the particularly distressing conditions of life and work for this teacher, the article nevertheless contends that his story will contribute to extending the knowledge base of TESOL as a discipline by providing space for a voice from a peripheral community to be heard doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.214048 he primary purpose of this article is to give an account of aspects of the lived experience of a Tamil teacher of English in the state educational system in Sri Lanka, in which English is taught as a foreign (or, for some students, a second) language The article aims to contribute to an increased understanding of teachers’ lives within their specific social contexts in order that the knowledge base of TESOL in its multiple professional realisations might be expanded Much current TESOL practice worldwide has been criticised as being unduly, often inappropriately, Western-influenced (Canagarajah, 1999a, 1999c; Holliday, 1994, 2005; Phillipson, 1992), and there has been considerable debate surrounding the desirability of developing contextually appropriate pedagogies (Bax, 2003; Harmer, 2003; Holliday, 1994), which I contend could be better informed by research that focuses on the life histories of individual teachers Such research is especially T 58 TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 44, No 1, March 2010 pertinent in the light of recent work in critical applied linguistics that has emphasised the importance of ‘‘local social practices, communicative conventions, linguistic realities, and knowledge paradigms for actively informing language policies and practices for classrooms and communities in local contexts’’ (Canagarajah, 2005, p xi), because this type of research is able to uncover just such local knowledge, practices, conventions, and realities in all their variety I hope, then, that this study will contribute to an understanding of the realities of schooling in non-Western contexts, by illuminating features of this teacher’s own schooling, training, classroom practice, conditions of work, and broader experience of his educational system and attitudes toward the English language In this instance, there is a specific focus on life as a teacher in a context of armed conflict Many readers will have little experience of such contexts Though there are numerous societies around the world afflicted by conflict, investigations of the conditions of teaching and learning within them rarely feature in the TESOL literature and, therefore, I feel that this teacher’s story is particularly worthy of attention I acknowledge the paradox of my own position as a native English speaker1 and the story that I am recounting being that of a nonnativeEnglish-speaking teacher Ethical issues relating to this are explored ASPECTS OF CONTEXT IN SRI LANKA: TESOL, EDUCATION, AND BEYOND Political Context The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils has been a central feature of the postindependence history of the country It is an ethnic conflict intertwined with language and religion, with the Sinhalese being predominantly Buddhist and the Tamils being predominantly Hindu From July 1983 until May 2009 the country was in an almost continuous state of civil war,2 though there was a period of relative peace from 2002 to late 2005, when a cease-fire was signed between the Sri Lankan government and the rebel movement, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) However, from November 2005 onwards, there was a resumption of violence, increasing in scale and intensity, until in January 2008 the Sri Lankan government formally withdrew from the cease-fire, launching an all-out offensive I recognize the problematic nature of the terms native English speaker and nonnative English speaker but, because they are still used extensively in TESOL literature, I have retained them here for convenience The war, its causes, and its consequences are documented in such works as Bose (2007) and Gamage and Watson (1999) inter alia DUTY AND SERVICE 59 against the LTTE, which resulted in a military victory in May 2009 As many as 90,000 people have died in the war since 1983, and there are some 300,000 internally displaced ethnic Tamils in the country living in government-controlled camps (Amnesty International, 2009a) The civil war has had a direct impact on the lives of Sri Lankans of both ethnic communities, with attacks on civilians in the urban areas of the south being common, and civilians in the north and east also directly targeted as well as often being caught in the cross fire of fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE (Amnesty International, 2008) The LTTE was also criticised internationally by the United Nations throughout the duration of the conflict for its recruitment of child soldiers (Amnesty International, 2008) At the time of writing this article it is not clear how the Sri Lankan government will seek to win the peace in the country, now that it has won the war Actions such as raising the military budget even after the end of the conflict have given rise to concerns about longterm military fortification and surveillance in Tamil-majority areas; and international concern about the length of time being taken to screen internally displaced Tamils held in camps has been growing and is seen as an infringement of basic human rights (Amnesty International, 2009b), as well as being a threat to Sri Lanka’s relations with its major trading partners (‘‘Sri Lanka and the EU,’’ 2009) It is not the purpose of the article to trace the causes of the conflict, but it is important to note that any discussion of English teaching in the country must be set against the context of more than 20 years of war Further, if history is not to repeat itself and armed conflict is not to break out again in the future, education has a central role to play in long-term resolution of the differences between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities This resolution is dependent on the establishment of mutual respect and understanding between the communities As the Report of the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding (Sen, 2007) notes, ‘‘Educational content is linked with the promotion of respect and understanding—or the opposite Thus the educational curriculum is central in embodying and communicating values and messages about the relationships and understandings between and across existing identity groups’’ (p 62) This applies as much to English language education as it does to other subjects Education and Language Policy Language policy is commonly held to have played a major role in precipitating the ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities The 1956 Official Language Act—the ‘‘Sinhala Only’’ act—made Sinhala the sole official language and thus 60 TESOL QUARTERLY devalued Tamil as well as the former colonial language As Bailey (1998) comments, ‘‘The unhappy state of beautiful Sri Lanka is in part a result of language legislation enacted by majority pride The inevitable consequence has been minority misery’’ (p 219) In some recognition of the effects of the 1956 act, the 13th amendment to the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka, certified on 14 November 1987, revised the position of Tamil and English as follows in clauses (2) and (3) of Chapter IV on language, ‘‘Official Language 18 (1) The Official Language of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala (2) Tamil shall also be an official language (3) English shall be the link language.’’ The wording seems to be intentionally ambiguous and indicative of a clear language—and thus ethnic—hierarchy The constitution does not state that ‘‘The Official Languages of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala and Tamil,’’ which would have given the two languages unequivocal equal status, but retains the original 1978 article with Sinhala first and Tamil inserted in a subsequent clause without the capitalisation for ‘‘official language.’’ In practice, although Tamil has the status of an ‘‘official language,’’ its place in national life remains subservient to that of Sinhala With respect to English, given an official place as a ‘‘link language’’ between communities, it seems that economic imperatives as much as social circumstances were the driver for language policy, with proficiency in English being seen as important in private sector employment (National Education Commission, 2002) The structure of the system of education in Sri Lanka is heavily influenced by its former colonial power, the United Kingdom Children attend school from the age of six onwards, and compulsory basic education consists of five years of primary schooling followed by four years of junior secondary schooling In 2006, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 3,836,550 pupils in 9,714 government primary and secondary schools with 204,908 teachers (Ministry of Education, 2007) Breakdown of teachers by subject is not available, and so precise figures for the number of English teachers cannot be given Mirroring the ethnic divide, schools are separated according to medium of instruction, with most children being taught in their first language—Sinhala or Tamil—throughout their primary and secondary schooling In both types of schools the government of Sri Lanka has for some time made considerable efforts to promote the learning of English (National Education Commission, 2002) Formal teaching of English begins in Grade 3, and it is there that it is supposed to begin to play its part in contributing to the overall objectives of lessening social differentiation and contributing to the achievement of social harmony between communities These objectives are encapsulated in the first two of the nine ‘‘national goals’’ for education (National Education Commission, 1992), namely DUTY AND SERVICE 61 The achievement of a functioning sense of National Cohesion, National Integration and National Unity – Understanding and valuing the concept of the Sri Lankan nation, in the context of the global community – Inculcation of a deep feeling of patriotism and commitment to the service of the nation and its upliftment – Appreciation of the contribution made by the cultural traditions of every ethnic group and religion to the enrichment of the Sri Lankan nation – Sensitivity to the role of language use and cultural appreciation in sustaining national cohesion The establishment of a pervasive pattern of Social Justice and the active elimination of inequalities – Awareness of and sensitivity to the significance of social justice and active elimination of inequalities – Sense of personal responsibility and accountability – Ability of rights and duties of self and others; and a sense of fair-play The goals are intended to permeate the entire educational curriculum and be incorporated into educational materials They may be seen in part as a response to reviews of textbooks in use as the conflict turned into civil war In Sri Lankan history textbooks of the 1970s and 1980s, for example, it was found that ‘‘There was no attempt either in texts used by the Sinhalese or by the Tamils to use positive illustrations of the other group The texts were culturally inflammatory and laid the intellectual foundations for social conflict and civil war’’ (Heyneman & Todoric-Bebic, 2000, as cited in Harber, 2004, pp 93–94) The extent to which teachers and students actively perceive the instantiation of these national goals for education in newer textbooks has yet to be determined Certainly, the goals have not been realised in practice since they were first developed in 1992; and it remains to be seen whether they will in the future, now that the military conflict has ended TESOL, Education, and Conflict Studies of TESOL in local contexts worldwide have been increasing in their frequency in recent years, although those that focus on what are usually termed developing or less developed countries, such as Sri Lanka, are more scarce A notable exception is Braine’s (2005) edited collection that provides accounts of the history of English language teaching in 15 countries, amongst them Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, and Sri Lanka Moving closer to the concerns of this study, Braine’s contributors provide biographies within each chapter of their experiences of ‘‘Becoming an English teacher.’’ However, these biographies 62 TESOL QUARTERLY are restricted to just over two pages each and inevitably skim the surface of the authors’ lives Further, both of the authors of the chapter on Sri Lanka now live outside the country of their birth, in contrast to the research participant in this article, who has spent his entire working life in Sri Lanka; and, most pertinent to this article, there is no mention in the chapter of the ethnic conflict in the country, which has been such a dominant feature of its history postindependence and particularly since 1983 This omission is redressed in Canagarajah (1999c), which documents the teaching of English in a conflict zone in the north of Sri Lanka, with a primary focus on how teachers and students negotiate responses to the various challenges posed by centre–periphery imbalances related to materials and pedagogy, but the educational level it deals with is the university In contrast, this article is an examination of the personal experiences of learning English, the journey to becoming an English teacher, and the meanings ascribed to the teaching of English in a conflict zone, from the point of view of a school teacher It is notable that, apart from Canagarajah’s work, there seems to be a dearth of literature on TESOL and contexts that are afflicted by armed conflict In educational literature more broadly, the effect of violent conflict on schooling is widely discussed Davies (2004), for example, explores the effects of war on education systems in a variety of contexts, including Kosovo, Nepal, Palestine, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sri Lanka, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries She notes (Davies, 2004) how children are ‘‘damaged by war on at least three interrelated levels,’’ namely First is the direct experience of war or violence against themselves or the adults who care for them Second is the damage done to society round them, through which their ability to learn and develop is mediated because of the loss of security and sense of their place in the world Finally is the disruption to educational opportunities, in that conflict destroys schools and school systems as well as people (p 95) With specific reference to Sri Lanka, she cites a survey of children in the northeast town of Batticaloa which found that: Over 40 per cent of children had personally experienced conflict related violence (e.g home attacked or shelled, being shot at, beaten or arrested) Over 50 per cent had close family members killed violently, including disappearance of a family member following abduction or detention Severe levels of post-traumatic psychological distress were found (Chase, 2002, as cited in Davies, 2004, p 99) These harrowing statistics highlight the enormity of the task to restore a sense of normalcy to children’s lives once armed conflict ceases, a task DUTY AND SERVICE 63 even more difficult and complex for those children in Sri Lanka forced to become soldiers by the LTTE, in defiance of all international conventions (Amnesty International, 2008) Given their emotional and psychological vulnerability, it is hardly surprising that children form the focus of most of the research into education and conflict, but the harm done to teachers as well as children in schools must also be acknowledged In summing up the damage done by the war in the Northeast Province in Sri Lanka, Walker (2004) records that, inevitably, teachers were dislocated along with their pupils and that ‘‘an estimated 10–15% of the teachers are themselves traumatized’’ (p 11) Though there are examples of successful programmes to assist child victims of war in Sri Lanka (Schauer, 2008), they are generally dependent on teachers for their implementation However, teachers’ own psychological needs are not addressed by professional counsellors separate from the training given to prepare these same teachers for their counselling roles in schools; that is, they are required to provide counselling for children before they themselves have been counselled (Walker, 2004) Looking to the future, Colenso (2005) emphasises the role that education has to play in lessening the patterns of social inequality and discrimination that contribute to ethnic conflict Though education cannot bring about social cohesion in Sri Lanka by itself, it can help to lay its foundations (DFID and World Bank, 2000) Language education has a crucial role to play in this as ‘‘an exercise in interculturalism’’ since ‘‘a central aim in any language learning endeavour is human interaction’’ (Lo Bianco, 1999, p 60) Certainly, curriculum development efforts in Sri Lanka have been focused on realising this intercultural goal for a number of years Hayes (2002) shows how English language textbooks introduced into Sri Lankan primary schools from 1999 to 2001 were designed to instantiate the national goals for education, promoting mutual respect amongst ethnic communities by eliminating bias Indeed, a review of the first of the books in the series noted that there was ‘‘an implicit sense of harmony throughout the book’’ (Hayes, 2002, p 191) However, as already noted, whether the goals have been realised by teachers in their classroom interaction with students in the separate Sinhala- and Tamil-medium schools is another matter and one which has not, to my knowledge, been systematically researched Any resolution of the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka also goes beyond the provision of textbooks that are designed to enhance interethnic understanding to issues of resource allocation, because, as Colenso (2005) notes, ‘‘given that many of the significant areas of educational deprivation are in the predominantly Tamil conflict-affected areas, such inequities are often perceived to be perpetrated by the state on ethnic grounds’’ (p 418) This view is supported by Walker (2004), who reports 64 TESOL QUARTERLY that, because there is an acute shortage of teachers even for subjects viewed as essential in Tamil-medium schools, it will be extremely difficult in conflict-affected areas of the country to fulfil the desired intercultural goals of language education A shortage of teachers and resources has inevitably had an impact on general education indicators, with reports from the Tamil-dominated north and east of the island indicating ‘‘enrolment figures somewhere in the low 80 percent range’’ in contrast to the 97 per cent elsewhere and that ‘‘low attendance rates and poor education quality are problematic in these regions’’ (Ashford, 2009, p 363) In addition to redressing these inequities, I would also contend that understanding the experiences of teachers (and children) who have been affected by armed conflict is an essential factor in eventual reconciliation I hope, accordingly, that in some small way the English teacher’s story presented in this research study may contribute to understanding in and beyond Sri Lanka of the damage wrought by conflict as well as to demonstrating the immense value of education in times of adversity THE STUDY: METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Research Participant The research participant, part of whose life history is recounted in this article, is a male, ethnic Tamil teacher of English For the purposes of this study he has been anonymized as Krishnan He is married with two school-age children; his wife is also a teacher Krishnan has been personally known to the researcher since 1996, though direct communication has broken down, with e-mail messages as this article was being written and revised up to late 2009 receiving no reply However, information from third parties indicate that Krishnan remained safe and continued to focus on his school work and other community activities Krishnan agreed to be interviewed for this study and for his story to be presented as part of the author’s research project into the lives and careers of nonnative-English-speaking teachers in Sri Lanka and elsewhere Life History Interview The interview for the study was conducted in English, though the research participant occasionally used Tamil for the names of particular organizations Life history interviews, as the name suggests, are essentially in-depth, unstructured interviews that range over the entire course of an individual’s life (Atkinson, 1998; Goodson & Sikes, 2001; Roberts, 2002) DUTY AND SERVICE 65 The purpose of research of this nature is to uncover aspects of the social world, ‘‘to collect and interpret the lives of others as part of human understanding’’ (Roberts, 2002, p 15) The research is emic (examining phenomena from the perspectives of the researched themselves) rather than etic (privileging frameworks that classify behaviours on the basis of a set of features devised by researchers alone) Critics of interviewing as a research tool often contend that interviewees provide merely subjective responses to questions, and so the resulting data are not trustworthy in the way that data collected in a more objective manner are However, critics ignore the fact that, even with supposedly more objective methods of data collection, such as survey questionnaires, there is subjectivity in selection of areas to investigate as well as in the formulation of questions (why ask this question in this way; why not a different question asked in a different way?) Here I acknowledge at the outset that the interview was co-constructed by two individuals, each a complex array of beliefs, attitudes, and feelings, who have interacted with and within the context—the interview as a method of investigation—and that my own background and beliefs may have influenced the research process (for example, because I decided to pursue one particular area of interest arising in the interview and chose not to pursue another) as much as Krishnan’s background and beliefs have influenced his responses to my questions and probing of issues The nature of humans as socially located beings and the nature of human communication, which is shaped and influenced by social structures, have important implications for research of this nature Issues such as the relative power and status of participants involved in the interview must be considered, along with whether rights of refusal to participate in the interview are genuinely respected, the possible impact of self-revelation and disclosure to strangers on an individual’s life beyond the interview, and, during the interview, the impact of close personal contact with associated risks of giving and taking offence or of causing loss of face These are, ultimately, ethical issues (Bar-On, 1996; Kaz´mierska, 2004) Ethical Issues The standard concerns for any research with human participants are those of informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality (Ryen, 2004) Though essential to provide basic protection to research participants, such requirements not necessarily ensure that the welfare of research participants is at the forefront of a researcher’s thinking Further, there seem to me to be particular ethical issues to be considered when a nativeEnglish-speaking researcher—particularly of a powerful language such as English—is working with nonnative-English-speaking research parti66 TESOL QUARTERLY cipants This problem is not necessarily acknowledged if ethics are viewed simply as dealing with the standard concerns For example, to what extent may work such as that presented in this article be considered as giving voice to the nonnative English speaker, or is the nonnative English speaker’s voice merely being appropriated by the native English speaker? I return to this issue later, and I also hope that, in the presentation of aspects of Krishnan’s life, I am able to demonstrate that, as Denzin and Lincoln (2005) declare, ‘‘Action-oriented and clinically oriented qualitative researchers can also create spaces where those who are studied (the Other) can speak The evaluator [researcher] becomes the conduit for making such voices heard’’ (p 26) The standard ethical issues of informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality have been dealt with in this research in what may be termed the standard way, albeit with an understanding that they are far from problematic Prior to the interview, I secured my participant’s consent to being interviewed, although I recognise that questions of power may have been subconsciously at play when agreement was given At the start of the interview I explained as fully as possible the purposes of the study, the benefit to myself of carrying it out, and that I would render anonymous all participant contributions, and then I sought my participant’s consent to whatever he said being written about in an academic format Nevertheless, as Goodson and Sikes (2001) point out, because of the personal, idiosyncratic nature of information in a life history, once re-presented in publications anonymity and thus confidentiality are always difficult to guarantee This danger is exacerbated, as Ryen (2004) warns, in an age of rapid mass communication, where researchers have little control over their research or the uses to which it may be put, once it reaches the public domain Nevertheless, attempting to ensure anonymity is one aspect of meeting ‘‘our basic human responsibilities’’ (Goodson & Sikes, 2001, p 27) to any research participant, within a general framework of morality or ‘‘ethics of care’’ (Piper & Simons, 2005) Given the context of the study and the harrowing nature of some of the revelations, I have had continually to confront the ethical dilemma of ‘‘to what extent can somebody’s biography be treated as mere research material?’’ (Kaz´mierska, 2004, p 189) I believe, however, that bringing Krishnan’s story to a wider audience is important as a contribution to the process of understanding in Sri Lanka and as a contribution to a much-needed expansion of the knowledge base of TESOL At every stage of this work I have striven to bear in mind Denzin’s (1989) injunction regarding the obligations of a life history researcher: We must remember that our primary obligation is always to the people we study, not to our project or to a larger discipline The lives and stories that we DUTY AND SERVICE 67 but to work on a joint Sri Lankan–British educational development project This was my second extended stay in the country, first arriving there as a volunteer teacher in 1982 and witnessing the events the following year, which saw Krishnan lose his livelihood in what is known as Black July My commitment to education in Sri Lanka has been long term, and I see this article, through its stated purposes, as an extension of that commitment I write from the subject position of one who has spent much of his professional life attempting, through development projects, to assist others in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of the world to access the opportunities that formal education is widely acknowledged to bring to its recipients (UNESCO, 2008) and that, indeed, it has brought to me personally I remain committed to a vision of education as an instrument for achieving social equity In the Sri Lankan case, this inevitably includes a focus on the development of respect amongst ethnic communities From this personal perspective I see my engagement in Sri Lankan education, and the retelling of Krishnan’s story, as interlinked I have chosen extracts to support my interpretations of what my informant has said, framing and analysing based on my experience of the context and my personal understanding of his life and career; but, in so doing, I hope I have remained faithful to the essential truth of the stories as told to me and created ‘‘texts to develop the conditions of agency—[my] own, the individuals with whom [I am] involved in the creation of the text, and with the reader’’ (Tierney, 1999, p 311) In that hope, I now turn to Krishnan’s story itself.3 KRISHNAN’S STORY Beginnings: Formal Schooling and Introduction to English Krishnan was born in 1959 in a small town on the east coast of Sri Lanka to a Tamil family in which his father was a public health inspector and his mother a primary school teacher He had his own education in Tamil-medium primary and secondary schools from 1963 to ’78 At his semirural primary school he was not taught English, because the school had no English teachers, and it was not until he entered Grade 6, the beginning of secondary school, that he encountered the language in the classroom Moving to a large, urban secondary school, he was at a disadvantage, because most of his class had been taught English from Inevitably, in an article of this length, I am not able to report on Krishnan’s life and career in its entirety Selections have to be made, and I have concentrated on what seem to me to be important themes in his learning and teaching experience, particularly his teaching in areas directly contested by government and LTTE forces DUTY AND SERVICE 69 Grade However, for a while Krishnan managed to mask his lack of knowledge through use of his natural intelligence, as he explained: My first teacher was one Mr Subramaniam,4 a very ferocious looking, tough, rough man; and I was a very skinny, small fellow but I was quite intelligent to notice that he didn’t beat the children who sat in the first row very much and children who were sitting in the first row were all clever students so I went and sat with them Before the teacher came in—he was taking the reading class for me—I got them to write the English sentences in the textbook, wrote them up in Tamil, memorised them and then rubbed off the pencil marks; and when he asked, when my chance came in the line to read the sentences, I just parroted out what I had memorised and after one or two sentences he just goes to the other one So I had been escaping from his beatings It was only when one day he ‘‘was pushed to the fourth line by the other students’’ that the teacher realised he could not read English at all and the next moment I found myself among the branches of the flamboyant tree: he had been holding my waist with one hand and pushing me through the branches of the tree That was a very frightening thing but he nicely said ‘‘My young fellow, next time I find you’re doing this sort of cheating I will not let you down easily.’’ So that was the thing and after that I didn’t know how I learnt English, I was very fast in learning the language It seems to have been common practice at the time for teachers regularly to beat children who could not what they were asked to do, but Krishnan does not harbour any resentment because of it, commenting, ‘‘It was common in those days Nobody worried about it and it was the way to discipline children in those days.’’ Indeed, Krishnan remembers all of his English teachers with affection and respect, ‘‘I remember all throughout my schooling my English teachers were wonderful.’’ Other teachers seem to have been less ferocious than Mr Subramaniam (though physical punishments remained), and Krishnan learnt to enjoy reading stories in English, transferring skills from his mother tongue: ‘‘So because I was reading Tamil stories a lot I was able to understand what sort of language was going on and what was happening in the story.’’ Spelling bees, reading competitions, and drama were also typical school activities for which Krishnan developed a facility, supported not only by wide reading at home but also by the special attention given by one of his teachers in Grade 10, Mr Kumar, who ‘‘asked me to the exercises at home and he checked the books during interval time he explained to me this should be this way because of this reason and I got to learn very well So it was that I never failed in English.’’ 70 This, along with other names in Krishnan’s story, is a pseudonym TESOL QUARTERLY Krishnan thus excelled in English after his rather inauspicious start, but the motivation to so came from his teachers—‘‘I feel my teachers were very supportive to me, in motivating me to read, to study English’’—rather than from wider society, as he noted that, ‘‘At that time, people didn’t—in my eyes—didn’t think English was that much important because I didn’t hear anybody saying something high of English, nobody cared about it actually except the English teachers.’’ This notwithstanding, Krishnan ‘‘found the English teachers had a respect they had high esteem, they had good salaries in those times.’’ This was connected in his mind with the higher esteem given to teachers as a whole during his schooling At that time the teaching profession was considered to be a very high standard, or teachers were considered very respectfully as students we had a good respect for the teachers; and everybody thought of them as one of the higher-ups in the society However, he himself elected not to become a teacher after completing secondary school in 1978, but instead took an office job His path into teaching is the subject of the following section Career Change: Becoming a Teacher Krishnan’s path into teaching was not a conventional one He had had a series of jobs in lawyer’s offices and private businesses before working in the commercial capital, Colombo, where he set up his own business However, in 1983 everything changed for him during Black July, when Sri Lanka was once again riven by islandwide ethnic riots that finally precipitated the beginning of all-out war between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE As Krishnan explained: Actually I was doing a private business before I joined the teaching profession My business was burned down in the July riots so I had to go back home So I was doing paddy [rice] cultivation and I found one day in a post office some people were writing applications, going through the [government] gazette notice So I looked at the notice and it was an examination, competitive examination, for recruitment of English teachers [ ] So I applied and I got selected, one of the six people who passed on the merit basis So I joined and I was sent to [college] for the pre-service training and I found that was the job for me As he indicates, once accepted as a teacher, Krishnan seems to have realised that he had found his vocation, a concept defined by Hansen (1995) as ‘‘describ[ing] work that has social value and that provides DUTY AND SERVICE 71 enduring personal meaning,’’ rather than ‘‘simply a choice among the array of jobs available in society’’ (p 9) Following a pattern common at that time, after his one-month introductory course to teaching, Krishnan taught in schools for four years before attending English Teacher’s College for a year (1987–1988) His college experience had both its positive and negative sides Negative in that the training lacked a practical focus, as he commented: The English language side, I didn’t learn very much from the training college, but I got books from outside about teaching methodology and teaching behaviour in the class [ .] I think our training college lecturers were not good models, because we got knowledge from the books and we got theories explained in the classroom but we didn’t see the models; so we couldn’t translate the knowledge into application skills [ .] They were teaching us in a kind of lecture mode But the experience was also positive in that Krishnan came across an inspiring role model at college, one of his lecturers who looked beyond the subject matter of English to the underlying purpose of education itself: ‘‘There I got a mentor He was a guru actually He was teaching about morality, our duty to give education to children and the meaning of education.’’ In addition, even the negative experience of the theoretical nature of the teacher training was offset to some degree by the opportunity that students created for collaborative learning: ‘‘So we taught ourselves, the peer group teaching was there very much.’’ Nevertheless, the negative aspects of teacher training constituted in this fashion could little to prepare him for the classroom realities of his future teaching career, even though the personal inspiration of his mentor may have helped him to endure the hardships he had to face as the war raged around him Being a Teacher: Education in a Conflict Zone For Krishnan, the act of teaching in the classroom cannot be separated from an acknowledgement of the wider social responsibilities of being an educator in one’s society He derived a profound sense of satisfaction not just from his interaction with his students in the classroom as they engaged with the subject he was teaching—‘‘Every moment when there is learning taking place you can see it in the eyes of the children, and they never would like to let you go out of the classroom’’—but also from a belief in the value of his teaching in terms of what education could for his students in the wider society It is not teaching that I enjoyed most, it was actually leading the children to be more dynamic and more devoted to public responsibilities; like having 72 TESOL QUARTERLY self-discipline, acting as leaders, conducting programmes, doing homework and having responsibility in your hands That part I enjoyed very much because that was producing more results [ .] So I think I was doing a correct thing by giving them the spirit or confidence to take the matters in their own hands, to decide what to Both of these sources of satisfaction in his professional life seem to have sustained him while working in conditions of constant physical danger Teaching as he did for some years in an area actively fought over by the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE (known euphemistically by the government as an ‘‘uncleared area’’),5 he had to endure the effects of violence on a daily basis In such conditions, human capacity for endurance of what, under normal circumstances, would be regarded as intolerable seems to come to the fore I took the challenge as it came Most of the teachers every day we talked of what would happen, what is happening, how we can evade attacks or things like that And that was part of the life and we took that as it was I6: So you just went to school as normal? Yeah, as normal However, these experiences have inevitably had a continuing impact on his life, as he explained: But if I had been caught up in a helicopter shooting and things like that at school or outside school—when we had to safeguard ourselves behind the trees or behind the buildings and taking cover, things like that—immediately after the raid is over, my body shakes and shakes when the release comes Still I think the fear of getting killed is within me this shaking is still there when I try to relax Nonetheless, at least at a conscious level, he seems to have been able to put aside fears for his physical safety whilst in the classroom, and the conditions outside the class seem to have provided an additional stimulus for students to study: ‘‘But in the classrooms that didn’t affect the teaching very much because the pressure from the outside society motivated our children to be more vigorous or aggressive and to acquire knowledge.’’ As far as his classroom teaching is concerned, in his early professional life Krishnan relied more on what he had imbibed from his own teachers— Lortie’s (1975) apprenticeship of observation—than anything he learnt from training courses Over time, his own innate reflective capacity seems to The government of Sri Lanka continued to support education in all areas of Sri Lanka throughout the conflict, including those areas under the control of the LTTE In the extracts from the interview transcripts, ‘‘I’’ refers to the interviewer DUTY AND SERVICE 73 have been the main driver in the development of his teaching methods But this does not mean that Krishnan totally rejected the methods experienced in his own childhood; rather, it means that now he places them within a principled methodological framework, as he made clear: I think still we need to study about learning styles of children and how they can be motivated to gain knowledge, because these days we have gone from one extreme to the other extreme Earlier it was knowledge-centred now it is much more skill-centred, but the knowledge part is missing There should be a balance [ ] We also want knowledge, children need knowledge, so the older traditions, some of them—memorising words, memorising spellings and abstract affairs—also can be brought in, not hurting the children but promoting the children, that’s what I think He also sees teachers as role models for the children in their classrooms Children need leadership and children want or expect their teacher to be pro-active, dynamic, entertaining and pouring with knowledge So they just wanted that sort of different character amongst them, and I believe I gave them sort of what they expected Beyond the classroom itself, Krishnan sees his work as a teacher within the context of service to his community The relevance of English to students in that context, particularly in an area subject to the constant threat of military action, might be questioned What purpose does teaching English serve here when even one’s physical survival could not be ensured? However, such questions were readily answered in Krishnan’s mind He seemed to have no doubts about the value of English to the children in his school, a value which the ethnic conflict only served to intensify: ‘‘I found I was doing a social duty to empower our people with the knowledge and the weapons to acquire knowledge, that’s English.’’ The choice of metaphor is noteworthy And, like most teachers, Krishnan takes great pride in the accomplishments of his students and in seeing them forge successful careers once they leave school, but inevitably for some of his students this has also been directly influenced by the ethnic conflict in the country I am proud to say my children, some of them, are now English teachers [ ] and some are computer experts, they are doing very well with computers Some are military leaders [with the LTTE] because their knowledge gave them, their English gave them, an additional power On a daily practical level, the value of his own possession of the English language was recognised in dealings with government security forces 74 TESOL QUARTERLY There is a powerful illustration of this instrumental value of English in alleviating some of the effects of the appalling circumstances that both he and the schoolchildren had to face in Krishnan’s account of the most extreme of the violent incidents he had to face in his area For four days I was in the school under attack but I hid myself; and then, fortunately I had friends in the police forces so they came on the fifth day looking for me because my family had been complaining that I was missing in the raid or something, no news [ ] What has saved me is, whenever in my area the schoolchildren were nabbed by the security personnel I’d go with the principal and get the children released, saying they are innocent and things like that, convincing them because I had English in my mouth So I was able to release them So the police officer had a high respect for me, and when he heard I had got caught in the melee or the battle they took me out For Krishnan, then, it seems evident that his teaching life is an extension of his commitment to his community It is not just a job that he does but part of his contribution to the wider Tamil society in Sri Lanka He acknowledged that people become teachers for different reasons and that the simple security of a government post is a sufficient driver for many—‘‘People go for government jobs just for the security for their later life because their pension will look after them, that is the only reason they want government jobs.’’ However, his own beliefs go beyond that: ‘‘My belief is something different I believe in morality If you are doing a job, you must it with a lot of sincerity [ ] For me the human inner satisfaction is more important than the external rewards.’’ Krishnan embodies the ideal propounded by his guru at training college of a teacher as a moral agent for good in society through education As part of this he has been engaged on a continuing quest for professional self-development He recalled that, after leaving his school in the uncleared area, he had the opportunity in another school in the provincial capital to further his development as a teacher: ‘‘I started developing my own philosophy because I was reading a lot of books on methodology and then the [training centre] had already come to [provincial town] so I attended seminars and workshops.’’ The Future: English Teaching and Beyond What does the future hold for Krishnan? Wherever he finds himself, there is no let up in his attempts to play his part in building better lives for members of his community in varied ways He has not only sought to develop as a teacher but has also been active in additional voluntary work, in education, and in other forms of social welfare He began to help in a local school for children with physical impairments, raising funds and DUTY AND SERVICE 75 contributing to creating opportunities for the children—‘‘Last year seven children sat for their ‘O’ level exam and they got through’’—which they could not get in the state sector He refers to this as his ‘‘second role as a social worker.’’ Not content with that, he also has a ‘‘third role.’’ The third role is, I am a religious person, not in the ritualistic way but in the spiritualist social welfare way I find our society could help more in uplifting the society, so I contribute as a coordinator for the [province] I: Coordinator of? Of the Hindu affairs, preventing fighting and cooperating with other religious institutions and doing service for the war-victimised Hindu part of the community Krishnan believes that education is a part of the moral enterprise of social transformation through helping others ‘‘try[ing] to satisfy their needs by giving them food, or giving them pleasure, giving them knowledge or whatever and lead them to elevation.’’ He does not consciously focus on the future in customary terms of career advancement but rather in terms of the impact he might have on others When asked to think about the future he commented: I don’t believe in the future, I believe in the present I: So you have no vision of where you personally might be in five years time? Not in the timeline, but I visualize myself I have more energy, I have more knowledge of working things out so I think I would be kind of like a magnet I would be transferring some of the energy to people who are going to be associated with me in the years to come That’s what I believe in doing I know I’m gathering things, I know I must leave it to others DISCUSSION Education and Conflict There are aspects of Krishnan’s education and teaching experience that are reflected in those of teachers in other contexts, and others that appear to be unique This is, of course, likely to be true for any individual, but the circumstances of Krishnan’s life and work in a conflict zone make his story particularly worthy of attention It is true, in any case, that conditions such as those that have shaped Krishnan’s life are more common than many of us may like to admit Teachers are often seen as representatives of governments and can be specific targets for 76 TESOL QUARTERLY violence from militant political opponents This is happening, for example, in southern Thailand where more than 90 teachers have been murdered and numerous schools burnt down by secessionists opposed to the central government (see, e.g., ‘‘94 Teachers,’’ 2009) Elsewhere, in Colombia, teachers who are trade union activists are specific targets of violence: In 2006, of the 75 murders of trade unionists, 40 were from the education sector (Novelli, 2009) And being a teacher of a language such as English—often seen as an imperial language (Edge, 2006)—can bring particular dangers, as can be seen in the news report of a 16-year old Afghani boy murdered for teaching English to his schoolmates (‘‘Boy Teacher ‘Killed by Taleban,’’’ 2007) Why is it that teachers and children in conflict zones continue to go to school every day, when the mere fact of going can be regarded as an act of bravery and a triumph of will, when it would seem so often to be much easier just to give up? Krishnan’s experience has been shared by countless others on a daily basis in Sri Lanka over many years To illustrate, whilst still living in the country I received a letter from another English teacher with whom I had been working which read, in part: I hope you will understand the difficulties that we are facing in [town] During the early part of this year I got displaced with my family to far distant place Again I got displaced owing to the internal war closer to my house I also lost my household goods and other items Most of the Government departments and schools did not function during this period Therefore we could not organise our [programme of] workshops and other [centre] activities during the second term Perhaps schooling is one of the few connections that these teachers and children have with a normal everyday existence and, as such, maintenance of this routine is all the more precious Worldwide, children affected by war express similar hopes; in the words of a 10-year old, ‘‘I want peace, the war to stop and to go to school’’ (Albertyn, Bickler, van As, Millar, & Rode, 2003, p 230) Schooling offers hope that the future does not have to be the same as the present In Krishnan’s case it would also seem that continuing to go to school when his safety could not be guaranteed was an extension of his personal, moral commitment to teaching as a vocation Teaching may not have been Krishnan’s first choice of career, but once he had begun, he had clearly found his calling His experience also suggests that the concept of vocation should not be thought of simplistically, as a calling that one has when one takes up a profession in the same ways as monks or priests are called to a religious life Rather, the concept of a vocation can be seen as something that can develop over time, as well as being a stimulus to take up a career There is little doubt that Krishnan sees in education the DUTY AND SERVICE 77 means for social transformation and that for him the teaching of English has a role in this process in Sri Lanka In spite of—or even because of— the difficulties engendered by the war, the acquisition of English, in Krishnan’s view, will help his students to access the social capital (Fuller & Hannum, 2002) that is available to users of the language in Sri Lanka or beyond its borders English: Tool of Oppression or Liberation? Krishnan does not see English as an imperial language, one that oppresses its learners, though there is evidence elsewhere of resistance to the hegemony of English in Sri Lanka Canagarajah (1999c) provides an analysis of how his students at the University of Jaffna in the early 1990s resisted both the alien discourses of the American textbooks and his process approach to pedagogy There was similar resistance to the perceived evils of English, associated especially with the legacy of British colonialism, from the students in Lo Bianco’s (1999) survey In contrast, for Krishnan, English is a language that offers the prospect of empowerment for the children in his classes and for his community as a whole In this sense, with respect to English, Krishnan may be said to demonstrate a commitment to ‘‘shar[ing] its resources widely in [his] community to democratize its possibilities’’ (Canagarajah, 2001, p 24) Though we cannot know if his students shared his vision of empowerment through the English language, the fact that Krishnan also observed that some of his students had become military leaders with the LTTE ‘‘because their knowledge gave them, their English gave them an additional power’’ is significant It also supports opinions espoused by other Tamils during my visit to LTTE-held areas of the northeast of Sri Lanka, before the breakdown of the cease-fire, that their leadership was concerned to foster education in areas under their control, stressing the importance of English in education in particular This may have been attributable, at least in part, to the fact that it was predominantly through English that the LTTE’s case was made to the wider world There are interesting parallels here with the struggle against colonial rule in Sri Lanka, where independence activists sought to appropriate English, previously denied to the large majority of Sri Lankans, as a means to further their own freedom movement (Brutt-Griffler, 2002) Acquisition of English may also be seen as a way of challenging national language policies favouring the dominance of the Sinhalese majority, which act as a means of ‘‘legitimization of power relations among ethnolinguistic groups’’ (Bekerman, 2005, p 2) Without the views of Krishnan’s students, of course, we can only note the possibility of English being used as a tool for liberation rather than 78 TESOL QUARTERLY oppression in these circumstances Nevertheless, his experience would seem to be a useful addition to the literature on nonnative-Englishspeaking teachers, which has little to say about teaching English in situations of conflict, although important work has been done on discrimination experienced by teachers working in Western environments (see, e.g., Braine, 1999, 2004; Pacek, 2005) and on variations in classroom practice between native speakers and nonnative-English-speaking ´ rva & Medgyes, 2000; Benke & Medgyes, 2005) teachers (see, e.g., A Krishnan’s experience is particularly relevant to work that has explored concepts of linguistic imperialism (see, e.g., Edge, 2006; Phillipson, 1992) Some of this work has been criticised for ignoring the agency of learners and teachers of English As Canagarajah (1999b) puts it, the notion of linguistic imperialism (LI) ‘‘is insensitive to the many outcomes other than domination—such as ways of modifying, mixing, appropriating, and even resisting discourses LI also fails to acknowledge the critical consciousness subjects enjoy to negotiate domination’’ (p 207) Education and Context I hope also that Krishnan’s story amply demonstrates that accounts of the lives of teachers of English are an important contribution to an ecological approach to English language teaching (Tudor, 2001) Indeed, the value of life history research was emphasised by Hayes (1996), who, in a study focused on secondary school teachers of English in Thailand, argued that ‘‘in order to understand teaching-learning it is not sufficient for us to focus only on the classroom and what happens inside it’’ but that ‘‘we need also to know much more about how teachers themselves perceive the social and educational structures and events of which they are part’’ (p 174, original emphasis) Clearly, Krishnan’s development as a teacher was influenced by the ecology of his context There were a number of instances in his life of what Denzin (1989) calls epiphanies, experiences that had life-changing impact As a student, being caught trying to deceive Mr Subramaniam had a profound effect on his motivation to learn English, and having his business destroyed in the July 1983 ethnic riots provided the impetus for him to become a teacher, resulting in the discovery of his vocation This sense of vocation was reinforced by finding a role model at teacher-training college, whose example struck a chord in Krishnan’s life, to the extent that he too talks of his work as a social duty His working life epitomises this sense of duty willingly undertaken It is evident in all the teaching he has done, but particularly in schools where the physical safety of teachers and students was constantly threatened, so too in his voluntary work helping to develop a school for physically impaired children neglected by DUTY AND SERVICE 79 the state sector, and in his community work to assuage the effects of war on its victims As a teacher of English he has continually sought to reflect on his classroom practice and, building on his own apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975), to develop to meet the needs of his students, balancing what he feels are the strengths of more established ways of teaching-learning with newer methods that have proven their value within his own educational philosophy and practice CONCLUSION Krishnan’s sense of self as a teacher is inextricably intertwined with the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka In such contexts, individuals may often feel themselves powerless to influence events that seem beyond their control, larger than their own lives However, Krishnan’s experience shows that individuals can seek out opportunities within their particular personal and professional contexts to make a difference, to effect change at a local level As Woost and Winslow (2004) comment, ‘‘people are never completely powerless They create spaces to live in despite the many constraints they may experience In those spaces, they also live their identities, their sense of their place in the world’’ (p 201) The life of a teacher, of English as of any other subject, goes beyond subject boundaries to encompass all aspects of life in a particular context If we not make an attempt to understand a life in its totality, we will fail to understand the professional life of which it is part I hope, in particular, that by making Krishnan’s story available to a wider audience I will have helped in bringing to its readers a sense not just of the hardships that all too many teachers around the world endure on a daily basis but also of the immense commitment that teachers have to the students in their care and for whom education, including the teaching of English, offers a means to achieve a better life ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to the editors and the two anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful responses have helped to strengthen this article Above all, I am deeply grateful to Krishnan for sharing his story with me and allowing me to represent it in this format THE AUTHOR David Hayes teaches in the Department of Applied Linguistics, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada Prior to moving to Canada he worked on educational development projects in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia He has also taught at the Universities of Leeds and York in the United Kingdom His main research interests are the lives and careers of teachers of English in government education systems and the role of language education in peace-building in countries affected by armed conflict 80 TESOL QUARTERLY REFERENCES Albertyn, R., Bickler, S W., van As, A B., Millar, 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