Antisocial Language Teaching: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness

It may sound like a clich to declare that everyone in a specific discipline should read a particular book in that field, but it really is the case that every English Language Teaching (ELT) practitioner should read Antisocial Language Teaching by JPB Gerald.It will inspire a range of reactions, some of them quite strong, but that is the point precisely.Given the challenges it raises, this book is essential reading.Gerald uses the seven criteria for diagnosing antisocial personality disorder (APD) as a framing device for the book.This has the advantage of providing an engaging and clear structure for the readeras well as forcefully conveying the author's primary criticism of the ELT field-though it also has the disadvantage of rendering some of Gerald's analyses (striving to adhere to this framing device) rather strained.Gerald's criticism of ELT is unequivocal and unrelenting: by centring itself on whiteness, ELT is an inherently antisocial field that perpetuates axes of oppression involving se\ler colonialism, capitalism, language ideologies, and the ongoing marginalization of blackness, disability, and users of non-standard English.In short, Gerald's book "exists to make the case for why it is a moral imperative that ELT sever its ties to whiteness once and for all" (p.x).The first two parts of the book are each divided into seven sections.In Part 1, "Disorder," Gerald situates ELT within a power dynamic (described as a "pyramid scheme") that establishes whiteness as the norm from which other racial groups diverge."The racialization of those with less power" (p.17) has perpetuated this dynamic, as does ELT as a field.Deviation from this norm is identified as a "disorder" that must be controlled and neutralized.In Part 2, "Symptoms," each of the seven sections examines ELT with respect to one of the diagnostic symptoms of APD in order to identify the most problematic issues endemic to the field.As indicated, some of Gerald's assertions in this section are somewhat tenuous; however, regardless of whether he makes a convincing case that ELT's flaws correspond exactly to these seven symptoms, he does effectively identify the most problematic elements of the field.Among these, Gerald accuses ELT of "deceitfulness, repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for pleasure or personal profit" (p.70).In this regard, Gerald cites the prevalence of precarious employment in ELT.Many teachers are credentialed for work in the field because of their identity (as white native speakers); as a result, racialized teachers are generally devalued.However, while racialized teachers in particular face more challenges, Gerald points out that there is li\le career stability for non-racialized teachers as well.Precarious employment is a feature of the ELT field.This criterion's element of "lying for profit" comes into play when administrators, managers, or institutions in the field suggest that this lack of employment security is not intentional.As Gerald states, "this precarity is absolutely by design, despite what the field would prefer us to believe" (p.70).In making this point, Gerald draws upon a study (Breshears, 2019), published in this very journal, examining precarity amongst ELT practitioners in Canada.The adherence, driven by the prioritizing of profit, to an exploitative employment model that ensnares teachers in a cycle of precarity-stringing together one short-term contract position to another-is one of the great shames of the ELT field and one of the most obvious indicators of its antisocial character.Another criterion, "impulsivity or failure to plan" (p.77), is linked to the ELT field's failure (or refusal) to acknowledge the harmful ideologies on which it is based and to plan for a genuine reshaping of