Changing English Studies in Culture and Education ISSN: 1358-684X (Print) 1469-3585 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccen20 Multiple Classrooms of Life: English, Ideology and ‘Sparkle’ Moments Phan Le Ha & Bao Dat To cite this article: Phan Le Ha & Bao Dat (2019) Multiple Classrooms of Life: English, Ideology and ‘Sparkle’ Moments, Changing English, 26:3, 238-251, DOI: 10.1080/1358684X.2019.1590686 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684X.2019.1590686 Published online: 11 Jul 2019 Submit your article to this journal Article views: 29 View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccen20 CHANGING ENGLISH 2019, VOL 26, NO 3, 238–251 https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684X.2019.1590686 Multiple Classrooms of Life: English, Ideology and ‘Sparkle’ Moments Phan Le Haa,b and Bao Datc a Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei; bDepartment of Educational Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii, USA; cFaculty of Education, Monash University, Australia ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This essay comprises multiple sets of dialogues between us as colleagues and friends as we revisit the question of the status of English as a global language Through the metaphor ‘multiple classrooms of life’, we share reflections and narratives arising out of our experiences with English that are embedded in our professional work, scholarship, pedagogy and creative interests Our discussion encompasses a range of artefacts, including excerpts from our diaries, poems, vignettes, visuals, letters, songs and anecdotes This amalgam of materials represents our personal engagement with English, as distinct from treating the spread of English simply as a metanarrative played out at a remove from personal experience We reconstruct ‘sparkle moments’ arising from personal encounters and social interactions that have caused us to reflect on the role of English in our lives We thus focus on ideology as personally felt and lived from within and through inter-personal interactions English; ideology; power; Vološinov; narrative; creativity; cultural politics of language; language ideology; translanguaging; English as a global language; language empowerment Introduction In this essay we revisit the concept of ‘ideology’ and the status of English as a global language, as well as reconstructing what we call ‘sparkle moments’ that have prompted us to reflect critically on our experiences with English These experiences constitute what we call multiple classrooms of life that shape all that we do, our scholarship, pedagogy and creative pursuits While we take on a critical applied linguistic perspective, we have consciously adopted a literary style that might justice to the way our thoughts and feelings have been bound up with English, seeking inspiration from songs and poems that we have written The result is writing that diverges from the conventions usually associated with scholarly journals We draw on our own diaries, poetry, songs, short stories, cartoons and reflections crafted at different moments in our life – a data feast of melodies, sounds and colours Within this mix of materials, you may encounter odd and clumsy words, phrases and expressions You may also encounter ‘foreign’ names and characters, and hear sounds jammed by unnamed instruments CONTACT Phan Le Ha halephan@hawaii.edu © 2019 The editors of Changing English CHANGING ENGLISH 239 from far-away lands These discrepant materials comprise the ‘sparkle moments’ that have illuminated our work and lives as individuals, scholars and language educators Our basic contention is that despite the apparent consensus about the power of English as evidenced by its geographical spread, its historical durability and statistics about speaker populations (Barnawi 2018; Crystal 2003; Hall and Eggington 2000; Pennycook 1998, 2017; Rapatahana and Bunce 2012), there is always a need to explore how this language manifests itself in quite personal ways, using artistic and literary means to represent how it has been thought and experienced by people in their everyday lives This is to reflect on how English has affected individuals, how it has been felt by them at a deeply personal level, rather than treating it as some kind of grand historical development that unfolds at a remove from ordinary people With respect to this grand metanarrative, the ‘sparkle moments’ that we have experienced might be characterised as moments of weakness or vulnerability – they certainly have little to with the empowerment agenda often linked to the global status of English Our aim is nonetheless to show the importance of those moments vis-à-vis the metanarrative of global English and the economic and social development that supposedly accompanies it Our multiple classrooms of life have prompted us to interrogate this normative view of the power of English, to reconceptualise what we might mean when we talk about language and power Our ‘sparkle moments’ show that a powerful language is one that enriches both the inner and social life of individuals as much as it serves as an instrument for economic development Those moments will expose a range of social, cultural, political and educational dimensions of our experience of the English language They will delve into the tensions and complementarity between the dynamics of English as a world-wide social and economic phenomenon, and our everyday experiences as we have used English for various purposes They will both challenge the complacent assumption that global English is inherently beneficial, exposing disjunctions and contradictions with respect to the impact that English has had on diverse communities around the world, as well as opening up the enriching character of English within our lives Ideology and power as lived and felt The rationale for privileging English as a means of global communication needs to be confronted To so requires sensitivity to the multiple contexts in which English is used and the various purposes that it serves rather than treating English as a universal whole We would like to toy with the idea of peeling off the layers of power of English We argue that there are two main kinds of power that are brought about by the English language The first kind derives from the widely accepted metanarrative about the spread of English as a global language, as something that can be sold and used around the world (Crystal 2003; Jenkins 2014; Pennycook 1998, 2017; Phan 2017) The English language is an instrument for obtaining jobs, building power and achieving wealth It is used authoritatively to request, command, persuade, control, influence and discriminate; it is a vehicle for socialising, networking, seeking consent, making decisions and gaining approval, for discussing intentions, acquiring data and exchanging news With these widely recognised functionalities, English boasts the status of a commodity in which people would be mad not to invest, for example, profitable textbooks that sell around 240 L.H PHAN AND D BAO the globe, granting customers the means of representing their power, hopes, skills and capabilities In this sense, the language can be controlling, aggressive and dominant These meanings associated with English represent and embody, perhaps, the most common understanding of its power – the kind of power which largely points to systemic top-down ideological dominance and control (Jenkins 2014; Motha 2014; Phillipson 1992; Tupas 2015) The second kind of power has more to with the individual and inter-individual ideology We are more interested in engaging with this aspect of power and ideology in this article, arguing that it offers a different lens to engage with the very concept of ideology – ideology as meaning making, which is individually lived and felt and interindividually shaped at the same time, while also arising from the immediate, contemporary global context in which individuals find themselves Vološinov ([1929]1973, [1929/2017; cf Feshchenko 2009; Parrington 1997; Tolman 1998) is perhaps the scholar whose theory of language and ideology is closest to what we are trying to here In his Marxist theorisation of the philosophy of language, he coined the terms ‘science of ideologies’ and ‘ideological creativity’ which resonates with us as we are writing this article Language is ideological and a social phenomenon that resides in signs, as Vološinov ([1929]1973) argued Vološinov saw language as ‘an ever-flowing stream of speech acts in which nothing remains fixed and identical to itself’ (Vološinov [1929]1973, 52; [1929] 1986) Meanings given to signs are socially constructed and mediated by various contexts No speech acts and utterances are free from judgement, either Language is always communicational, dialogical, interactive and inter-personal According to Vološinov ([1929]2017), meanings reside neither in words nor in speakers’ and listeners’ souls/inner selves Meanings, instead, are the effects of interactions between speakers and listeners based on a certain mixture of sound materials (cf Ngo and Ngo 2011; Vološinov 1929/2017) For Vološinov, ideology and power are lived and felt, integral to the processes of living and feeling, which are social, inter-personal and inter-individual He viewed the individual psyche as having a social origin, and as such one’s inner voice is never detached from the social individual The inner voice, the individual and the inter-individual interact and communicate through signs whose meanings are shaped by multiple and changing contexts Signs are fundamental to ideology, according to Vološinov ([1929]1973, [1929/2017), as without signs, ideology does not exist In other words, ideology resides in signs that individuals draw on and devise to make meanings as they communicate To understand ideology means understanding the meanings carried by signs Vološinov insisted that ‘signs can arise only in interindividual territory’, the very space where ‘consciousness is shaped’ (1929, 12, cited in Tolman 1998, 15) The individual consciousness is nurtured on signs; it derives its growth from them; it reflects their logic and laws The logic of consciousness is the logic of ideological communication, of the semiotic interaction of a social group If we deprive consciousness of its semiotic, ideological content, it would have absolutely nothing left (Vološinov 1929, 13, cited in Tolman 1998, 15) CHANGING ENGLISH 241 Vološinov does not deny the role and existence of the private inner self of consciousness, although he insisted on the primacy of an ‘interpersonal location’ instead of the individual consciousness: Although the reality of the word, as is true of any sign, resides between individuals, a word, at the same time, is produced by the individual organism’s own means without recourse to any equipment of any other kinds of extracorporeal materials This has determined the word as the semiotic material of inner life – of consciousness (inner speech) Indeed, the consciousness could have developed only by having at its disposal material that was pliable and expressible by bodily means And the word was exactly that kind of material The word is available as the sign for, so to speak, inner employment (Vološinov 1929, 14, cited in Tolman 1998, 15) It can also be inferred that language for the individual is bound up with experience and emotion, that an individual’s consciousness of language always combines thoughts and feeling Vološinov’s theorisation of language and ideology has prompted us to review our experience with English and the mixed resonances, responses and affects that we have experienced when using this language in many contexts It has highlighted for us the importance of paying more attention to ideology as lived, felt, articulated and enacted by the individual, rather than conceiving it as something that exists outside us This insight obviously applies to the metanarrative of the globalisation of English and the ideology that underpins its spread Another way to explain our shift in focus is to say that we are cultivating an artistic consciousness that is sensitive to the experiences that arise unexpectedly through our encounters with English, moments that both directly and indirectly involve English (or indeed moments when we have been conscious of being ‘outside’ English), moments that are mundane, regular, special – but all uniquely personal It is through becoming aware of such a socially individualised consciousness that you have the freedom to express yourself more personally, exploring imaginative and creative dimensions of the experience of using English You can invent a playful word, stumble across a novel mode of combining ideas, or an innovative style of naming things, or communicating emotions – you can use English to personalise your identity through your own peculiar lens When you use language in such a selfconscious way, not only English but any language, you experience a sense of renewal through the choices you make It is at this point that English, by choice, no longer looms over you as a dominant power that governs what you and everyone else but becomes more humanising and conducive to equity and a holistic and organic being Ideology is still bound up with the use of English, but it takes the form of a politics of the self, much of which can be expressed through artistic means, as we will show in the following sections Each of the anecdotes presented below could be read as a lesson in which we found ourselves shifting into a different mode of interpreting the world we were in We would like to signify such dynamics through a set of metaphors including shifting language, shifting emotion, shifting power and shifting focus In the process of moving, we learn from such sparkling moments how English changes in its significance and ideology Many of these sparkling moments are indeed weak or vulnerable moments, as we elaborate subsequently For us, such changes constitute a series of learning experiences or multiple classrooms of life 242 L.H PHAN AND D BAO Shifting languages: when language choice is an expression of freedom A Begging Poem Being student from a faraway land I’ve come to be your fan My guru, please pour knowledge to fill up this empty storage that has long delayed in the dark Quench my thirst, light my heart Why ignore, can you hear me? My parents paid tuition fee Isn’t that worth showing your care more than just pulling your hair over matters about your chair? (Bao and Phan 2017, 63) These impromptu verses were borne out of one afternoon’s gathering by the warmth of an electric heater in an office during a Melbourne winter, through laughter and a fair amount of empathy for one of our current international student cohorts whom we felt deserved more We were working at one of the most internationalised and internationalising universities in Australia and, perhaps, globally The number of international students attending the university was recorded as being the highest in the nation At the same time, Australia had often been (and is still) referred to as leading the commercialisation of higher education through internationalisation, in which international students are often seen as a target source of income for the country and its universities Coupled with this practice are worries and concerns that international students are not well looked after and respected as intellectual beings (for instance, see Chowdhury and Phan 2014; Tran and Gomes 2017; Marginson and Sawir 2011) We often interacted with international students and were aware of many unpleasant experiences that they underwent ‘What is promised is way more than what is delivered’ was what many students said Although our regular conversations with each other used to take place in our mother tongue, Vietnamese, that day we happened to blurt out those lines in a second language For a split second, we stared blankly at the poem, wondering why we did it in English There was hardly any immediate answer, but when we showed this writing to a friend, she gave this as a possible explanation: ‘Every time I feel angry or disturbed, every time I feel the need to be assertive, English words would come out of my mouth, as a way of fending off an unfair situation!’ For some, English is best described not as a language, but as a gadget for articulating the rights and freedom which they are not entitled to when operating within their own language and cultural sphere During the same discussion on social behaviour, another friend elaborated: There is no way I can argue out loud with my parents or teachers You would get a slap in the face, as that is neither allowed nor expected, but once I resorted to English with my teachers, everything changes We can argue much more freely as any sense of hierarchy seemed to disappear CHANGING ENGLISH 243 We, like many other users of English, have used English as a way of expressing disturbed emotions, or as a way to break free At one level, in retrospect, the poem we wrote together that day might have carried our intention to speak up about the accumulated frustration and empathy for our international students Perhaps deep down inside, we felt a poem in English would also symbolise a statement of freedom of expression A poetic statement would still be powerful without it being too direct and confrontational At another level, this seemingly self-driven act of using English to express disturbed emotions has a strong social character, precisely because the disturbed emotions have been caused and conditioned by certain social interactions, discourses and real-life observations That is why we tend to feel that using English in that way would often lessen power distance or make the power distance less visible and less significant As such, a sense of fairness and equity can be ideologically achieved In many cases, when dissatisfaction and frustration are liberally vented, you might be in a position to demand changes And if well-articulated frustration can become the cause of changing a situation, much of this is owing to the creativity that one exercises via the means of English, as in the above anecdote The above observation allows us to revisit the concept of ideology as well as the role of English in the contemporary world Engaging with such sparkle moments means reflecting critically on our narrative accounts of complex, multiple experiences with the language (Albers, Harste, and Holbrook 2017; Broad, 2017; Doecke, Anwar, and Illesca 2017; Mirhosseini, 2017; Phan, 2008) This anecdote is only one of the multiple classrooms of life that have influenced us and remain embedded in our social, professional, psychological, philosophical and behavioural encounters Shifting emotions: when language use in the real world confronts the affective self Some of our travel diary entries reveal unusual incidents when English ceases to be useful and loses its prestige: When I was once travelling around Japan, it struck me that English meant so little to everyone My fluent English suddenly was rendering me useless, silent, awkward I failed to communicate despite how much I have been proud for knowing this powerful tool throughout my life time For a moment, in my awareness, English represents emptiness and a sort of inferior social complex Feeling helpless, I found a quiet place to sit down and began to create poems in my little notebook, using this weak language as a tool to at least compose some thoughts about how weak I felt: How speechless is the travelling me When English fails to set me free How lonely seems my social ivory When every English word acts like a burglary scaring folks away in fear and anxiety! (Bao Dat) 244 L.H PHAN AND D BAO It seems that to live fully with all the senses (sensually, artistically, ideologically, and joyfully), one might let go a bit beyond the pre-approved global conditioning of English When you dance Samba, eat sushi, sip Cuban coffee, and enjoy Pho, why you have to be chatting in English? Why can’t we not say ‘Chido!’ when dancing Samba, ‘itadakimasu’ when sharing sushi, ‘¿Qué volá?’ when catching up for Cuban coffee, and ‘Ngon qua!’ over a bowl of Vietnamese pho? The sounds and nuances of these utterances, which come honestly from under your skin, connect you well with the locals, before some English can join in when needs be (Bao Dat) Here I am writing about weak moments My clumsy two cents I feel like writing about me and Mexico, but I am desperately trapped between tongues, unable to express what I feel inside Not poetic enough in English Even crying won’t help Mexico Day My skin suddenly gets so cold though the sun is out so bright Spanish is all around Samba, rumba, salsa music and food and laughs surround me I am sitting on a bench, gazing at hundreds of tiny purple petals falling from endless rows of jacaranda trees around I’ve forgotten English and all the academic speeches locked inside the two giant hotels on the opposite side of Reforma (Phan Le Ha, diaries, 2008, written while in Mexico attending the CIES Conference on decolonisation and South–South relations, day 1) Warm water is running in my veins, and I am singing my own songs in Vietnamese, smiling at strangers, and rocking with many couples passing by My English has gotten totally frozen Frightened I’ve realised I may have been numbed in academic English and non-stop ideological wars leading to tensions after tensions expressed in pieces after pieces The freespirited writer in me is coming back, sparkled with ‘Besame Mucho’ played on someone’s old cassette I see a Cuban cafe as I am making a turn at a corner I am talking to myself in Vietnamese the whole time (Phan Le Ha, diaries, 2008, day 2) Lost, I am confessing to the romantic me going wild like an unleashed mare Talking about empowerment day in and day out Oh gosh, who is linguistically more miserable, weaker and more uninteresting than me? No one cares about English here Truth Full stop And how long have I been entertaining the idea of English as a global language? I want to curse I seldom curse linguistically, so I curse with tears inside This reminder is a sparkle I entered the Cuban cafe, ordered a beer though I am not a drinker by any definition I wanted to drink away my ignorance, weakness and my linguistic homesickness I am missing Vietnamese, numbed in English, and totally an alien to Spanish Lucky me ‘Besame Mucho’ is now on, and I can at least sing along with the melody I am singing the Vietnamese ‘Besame Mucho’ that musician Pham Duy created I hear mariachi instrumentation and texture; or I am just imagining it and naming anything musical ‘Mexican’ and ‘Spanish’ mariachi (Phan Le Ha, diaries, 2008, day 2) In the two separate cases of the Japanese and Spanish language contexts evoked above, the affective self in each of us got rocked even though nobody did anything to us Neither did anyone there refuse to communicate with us in English or make us feel less significant because we did not speak their languages We did not even try to communicate at all We instead communicated to the inner self that was shaking and confused inside Our inner selves were caught numbed, frustrated, weak, afraid, lonely, and linguistically, socially and culturally deprived We did not realise then that the affective CHANGING ENGLISH 245 self was confronted by and reacting to the languages used in the real world around us, the kind of interaction that was only felt from within The above weak moments clearly surprise us and also confront us with the truth of how English has been so deeply entrenched in our consciousness, subconsciousness and emotional lives Even when we feel freed from it, that feeling is somehow troublesome Ideology is lived and felt, and as it is lived and felt, the many broader discourses and meanings and images and experiences associated with English, the constant pressure and self-driven urge to use it, hear it, be surrounded by it, and sound ‘smart’ and ‘educated’ in it, are not rendered invisible in one’s seemingly very private and selffocused corners At the same time, intertwined with our seemingly subconscious choice to shift between languages is our boredom with English, avoidance of English, rejection of English, resistance to English and mental exhaustion with English These emotions are communicated and carry their social meanings, expressed through ‘odd’ and ‘random’ words, phrases and expressions in whatever language and sound that kicks in As Vološinov (1929/2017 put it, the very social nature of the self and individual consciousness and subconsciousness are what makes language and ideology multivoiced and inbuilt with voices of many other social beings We would also add that ideology is at play through multi, at times unexpected, voices of the inner self Shifting power: when the double standard power of English betrays itself The cartoon in Figure was drafted by one of us, Bao Dat, when we were trying to document a real-life incident During an international conference in a city in East Java that Bao Dat attended, two speakers were sharing the same presentation on a difficult topic of a controversial nature The discussion gradually became so provocative that it failed to satisfy some of the audience, leading to several disagreeable comments and challenging questions Although both presenters were making a tremendous effort to respond, further confrontation occurred involving some of the academic audience At one point, each presenter would let the other address tough questions, yet neither of them could so in a way that satisfied the questioners In the end, time was running out, and the debate continued to be stressful, when one of the speakers who happened to share the same mother tongue with most of the audience decided to switch from English to Javanese, which miraculously eased the tension As we found out later, it was not the content of the discussion that mattered but the presenter’s culturally appropriate way of handling the discussion that resolved all issues It seemed clear that if English had continued to be employed, participants would have continued to be aggressive and they would have probably gone away very angry The incident demonstrates a meaningful reality: while English works as the vehicle for communicating content, it is the mother tongue that acts as a cultural site for the resourceful negotiation of interpersonal relations Eventually, it is the mother tongue, rather than English, that demonstrates empowerment that brings out goodwill Many of us spend our days eating different food, using different languages, wearing different clothes, thinking different thoughts, behaving differently, adapting to different values Such activities suggest how mobile we all can be on multiple levels English, by the same token, is as changeable as we are No longer trapped within its static 246 L.H PHAN AND D BAO Figure Cartoon by Bao Dat dominancy, the role of English, in our view, is free to rise and fall as naturally should be so For this reason, it might not be a necessity to prescribe English unfailingly as the common language Yes, it sometimes acts as such but at other times it takes on a lessprevalent role In other words, it might be absurd to manipulate the presence of English across all contexts and cultures as consistently global Shifting focus From a large picture to small incidents, we are shifting the focus of discussion about the English language from the enormous debates about global English to an exploration of moments when we have each personally experienced the interface between English and other languages, other settings that resist its globalising reach This idea of shifting is the main thread of the article It opens up a great sense of freedom, allowing the inner self to wander and roam It also represents a shift in modes of expression, as shown in our anecdotes and poems and cartoon, as well as in our style of writing throughout the article This shift was acknowledged and sensed by Brenton Doecke after we had shown him some of the anecdotes/vignettes that we wanted to bring into the article Brenton wrote back: The two scenes here – the one in Japan, the other in Mexico – are already rich in meaning I can sense how the richly particular details of each vignette challenge the large generalisations in which proponents of global English traffic – not just the particularities of each scene, but the complexities of thought and emotion prompted by these encounters, as you reflect on how English words resonate (or fail to resonate) within these settings Rather than resonating externally, they resonate within – an intensely subjective resonance rather than an external or objective one (Doecke, email exchange, 2018) The exchange between us and Brenton about changing English and what ideological lens might be used in our essay is a lively example of how the feelings and emotions of each individual when using English can be read, felt, responded to, explained and engaged with In this specific interaction among the three of us, our multiple complex emotions towards English condensed in the vignettes seemed to be felt and sensed by the other At the same time, we have all acknowledged language is ideological and part of the complex interface among diverse languages and cultural meanings nurtured by social interactions We have all agreed on the need to recognise and push for the shift from treating English as an overall power-related language to one that nurtures and CHANGING ENGLISH 247 troubles the inner self in ways that individuals may not always express or want to reveal This is both an ideological and personal call Such experiences somehow make us (the authors) rethink global views on the sweeping role of English From an extensive, peripheral location, the English language and its global use has earned the reputation of outperforming other languages in frequency of use and high proportions of learners Efforts towards more contextualised reflection, however, might generate a more differentiated sense of English and show how the language sometimes struggles to exert dominance across various contexts Despite the apparent consensus about the power of English (Barnawi 2018; Crystal 2003; Pennycook 2017; Phan 2017; Rubdy and Alsagoff 2014), this does not obviate the need to explore the energy of this language in more qualitative ways To deeply understand the quality of living in a country, it may be helpful to experience how the poor eat, how they entertain and how happy they feel on an everyday basis, rather than accepting the optimistic scenarios entertained by the middle class in that country Likewise, to comprehend the true role and value of English, it may be useful to analyse the English experience of ordinary people in multiple real-life settings, rather than simply taking into account how the language has been taken up by communities that are already highly advantaged We (the authors) have gradually started this shift in our own scholarship For instance, Phan (2017, 2008) examines how students from low socio-economic communities in the Philippines and Afghanistan transformed and enriched their life experiences as they participated in English-medium programmes in various transnational education contexts in Vietnam and Dubai We see a powerful language as one that enriches the inner and social life of individuals as much as it helps the economic, educational and political achievement of dominant classes within society Through such narrative reflection and by taking on Vološinov’s ideological lens, the discussion thus far has exposed a range of social, cultural, political and educational dimensions of the English language experience This reflects our shift to an understanding of ideology as lived and felt, all part of the dynamics of English and the everyday social world Through scrutinising such experiences we begin to understand how language gets constantly reproduced in diverse ways, revealing many hidden values, and presenting untold stories and often very private emotions – rather than complacency assuming that English is the dominant tool in all contexts Indeed, instead of dwelling on how the power of English at a global scale has already been talked about excessively, and often at the cost of other languages being sidelined, undermined and brought to the brink of extinction, what this essay shows is the ecological beauty and richness of languages when English blends in with its users’ other languages and varied semiotic means to communicate meanings and express feelings about internal and external worlds English, regardless of how powerful and dominant it is as a utilitarian and symbolic tool, is also a language that has touched and enabled personalised, artistic and literary senses on the part of its users, no matter where they are in the world and what other languages they speak We argue for the importance of seeing how English has affected and could affect the lives of individuals rather than remaining preoccupied with how it might reflect the destiny of the world as a whole Indeed, as we have shown, many sparkle moments associated with English appear to be moments of weakness, moments when we have felt vulnerable rather than empowered by its use 248 L.H PHAN AND D BAO Part of the beauty in exchanging many moments of life is the exuberant multiplicity of languages, cultures and the feelings that know no predictable boundary But why restrict multiple classrooms of life as only having significance at this level? We affirm again the usefulness of English, even the uses that have commonly been ascribed to it as a vehicle of globalisation Yet we nonetheless feel that there has been an over-emphasis on large-scale scenarios like economic development, and that our respect for the language is enhanced when we acknowledge how it can be used for other purposes Over all, the sparkle moments that we have reconstructed in this essay show how diverse thoughts and emotions and values are bound up in words, opening up insights into the relationship between language and experience Language is very much a felt emotion, which is always social in the richest possible sense As this article is about changing English and revisiting the concept of ideology, one significant change that has been borne out of the writing process has been our precious experience to read, access and validate sources in as many languages as possible Indeed, one of us (the authors) kept diaries about many intellectual engagement moments that sparkled, as we have found ourselves in contexts where exposures to sole Englishmedium scholarship appears rather limited and counter-productive The comfort and convenience of being in the English scholarship world is to change I feel another sparkle moment but not one of weakness, of lacking, but one of enrichment, appreciation and gratitude I engage academically in Vietnamese with echoes from French and Russian, with freshness and a quest for more (Phan Le Ha, diaries, January 2019) Yes, English is changing, so is scholarship published in English English and scholarship in English ought to be acknowledged as becoming more and more mutivoiced, multilingual, multi-tongued that embed multi-social and multi-personal contexts at every possible level Phan Le Ha and Bao Dat: the spirit of street artists As we have reached this page, we feel there is little need to discuss theories any further We also need some quiet moments after having tried hard to engage with big terms and conceptualisations And so we would like to invite you to enter our world of song writing Let us leave you with a song we have written in Vietnamese about street artists, street musicians (Figures and 3) We hope you appreciate the spirit of street artists as you feel the lyrics and verses below Doesn’t every word, phrase, sentence and thought put down in this essay carry this spirit? Người Nghệ Sĩ Đường Phố Phan Lê Hà & Bảo Đạt Mưa lâm thâm rơi, rơi tóc buồn gầy Bụi đường bay, bay áo người màu phai Phố đông người qua, đông người qua Anh ngồi lặng lẽ, ôm tiếng đàn Người nghệ sĩ đường phố Một chút Raggae, Người nghệ sĩ đường phố, Một chút Blues CHANGING ENGLISH Figure Page of Người Nghệ Sĩ Đường Phố (The Street Artist) Figure Page of Người Nghệ Sĩ Đường Phố (The Street Artist) Tiếng đàn Latinh gợi chút sầu tình Tiếng đàn phiêu diêu hay trái tim Hát cho mình, hát cho người, hát cho đời, bụi bặm bay Hát cho mình, hát cho người, hát cho đời, lạc lồi liêu The Street Artist Lyrics: Phan Lê Hà; music: Bảo Đạt The rain falling on his hair The dust sprinkled on his shirt The bustling street The (street) artist, quietly embracing his music The (street) artist A dab of Reggae The (street) artist A dab of Blues Latin music A drop of sadness 249 250 L.H PHAN AND D BAO Is it the music drifting or my heart melting? A song for me A song for you A song for life, bidding the mundane goodbye A song for me A song for you A song for life Desolation thrives Acknowledgements We would like to thank Phung Ha Thanh and her friend for helping translate the lyrics of our song Người Nghệ Sĩ Đường Phố from Vietnamese into English Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors Notes on contributors Phan Le Ha is currently Senior Professor at Sultan Bolkiah Institute of Education, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, and concurrent Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa She was with Monash University in Melbourne prior to her current posts Her expertise, teaching and research include language and literacy studies, the internationalisation and globalisation of education in global contexts, identity studies, academic mobilities, and sociology of education and knowledge She writes songs, poetry, short stories and novels in both Vietnamese and English Bao Dat has worked with Cornell University in the United States, Leeds Beckett University in the UK, the National University of Singapore, Assumption University of Thailand, and currently Monash University in Australia His expertise includes language, culture, curriculum, communication and creativity His various books on silence, creativity and education are popular worldwide for their novel theoretical contributions in pedagogy References Albers, P., J C Harste, and T Holbrook 2017 “Poetic Distillation: Artistic Transcription Analysis in Autoethnographic Literacy Research.” In Reflections on Qualitative Research in Language and Literacy Education, edited by S A Mirhosseini, 171–188 Cham, Switzerland: Springer Bao, D., and Phan L H 2017 “A Begging Poem.” In Poetry for Education: Classroom Ideas that Inspire Creative Thinking, edited by D Bao, 63 Bloomington, In Xlibris Barnawi, O Z 2018 Neoliberalism and English Language Policies in the Arabian Gulf 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Matejka, L and Titunik, I.R first published 1929 London & New York: Seminar Press Vološinov, V 1929/1986 Marxism and the Philosophy of Language Translated by Ladislav Matejka and I R Titunik Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986 Print Vološinov, V N 1929/2017 Chu Nghia Marx va Triet Hoc Ngon Ngu Translated by Ngo, T.L Hanoi, Vietnam: Vietnam National University Press .. .CHANGING ENGLISH 2019, VOL 26, NO 3, 238–251 https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684X.2019.1590686 Multiple Classrooms of Life: English, Ideology and ‘Sparkle’ Moments Phan Le Haa,b and Bao Datc... metanarrative of global English and the economic and social development that supposedly accompanies it Our multiple classrooms of life have prompted us to interrogate this normative view of the power of English, . .. languages is our boredom with English, avoidance of English, rejection of English, resistance to English and mental exhaustion with English These emotions are communicated and carry their social meanings,