Every Christmas in the village in South India where my missionary parents and I lived, there was a party for the workers at the small mission hospital my parents ran. A large meal was served. Everyone sat on the floor on the verandah, and steaming rice and curry were piled onto the stitched together banana leaves that served as plates. After the meal, gifts were handed out. One of the adults would call the name of each worker, and indicate the gift intended for that person, most often a piece of clothing, or a length of material to be used for clothing. My brothers and I were invited to hand the gifts out as each person stepped forward. We looked forward to this ritual, which allowed us to feel both generous and important. But how did the adult Indians feel, having to act subservient and grateful to a foreign white child handing them gifts?

Fast forward ten years to my first day of teaching ESL to international students at a university in the United States as part of my graduate school assistantship. I walked into my first classroom, feeling very young, nervous, and unprepared. But from that first moment, something unexpected and magical happened to me. I immediately felt immensely excited and profoundly "at home" in that ESL classroom. The following days, months, and years only confirmed that initial feeling of recognition, of "coming home."

I assumed that I felt so comfortable and happy in this teaching situation because it reminded me of my childhood years overseas, and because I fancied myself a "world citizen," despite six years away from India.

But now I wonder if that immediate link was with the colonial aspects of my "missionary kid" (MK) background? Perhaps the teaching situation "clicked" for me because (unconsciously) it was a kind of "ministering to the natives" all over again. As an MK in India, I grew up graciously dispensing gifts, hand-me-downs, prizes, trinkets, wisdom, religion, and Western culture to the "natives". My parents__and by extension my brothers and I__were caught up, unwittingly, in a historical phenomenon: the colonial spread of Western culture to the East, whether through government, trade, or religion. Now I was teaching ESL to students of the world, graciously dispensing gifts of a different nature, prizes, wisdom made available through the English language, "American culture," and academic skills for the American university. "They"__in this case the international students in my classes__lacked something that I had (the English language, knowledge of western academe and culture), something that I could magnanimously provide for them. I could be the generous colonial lady, or perhaps the missionary coming to "help" the natives.

I have only recently seen my childhood as the child of missionary parents in this new light, made possible by more than thirty years of distance. My comfort with ESL teaching might have stemmed from early exposure to people from cultures different to mine. This, in combination with my love of language and literature, made ESL teaching a logical and happy fit for me. But, in retrospect, there is also another truth, a perhaps less straightforward and comfortable truth. Let me say here that my parents are the kindest, most well-intentioned people one could meet, and that they dedicated a good part of their life, at considerable sacrifice, to give their talents and skills to help people. My father is a doctor who did surgery in village hospitals, set up clinics in the jungle, and worked with lepers. My mother helped in hospitals and schools. They made an enormous and tangible contribution, changing and even saving many people's lives. They did so because of their religious faith, but did not impose their religion on anyone. I realize that the latter is not true of all missionaries, but it was true of my parents. But there was a "missionary mentality" which I unconsciously absorbed. My brothers and I grew up in the India of the Œ50s and Œ60s, just after Indian Indepen-dence. We were very attached to India, as most children are attached to the places where they grow up. My life there is a huge and essential part of who I am. But in many senses we were never really part of India. Since we moved there so soon after the British had left, the colonial tradition was still very strong. And my parents and their colleagues had come from the West to share their "superior" Western religion, expertise, and resources.

Partly through re-examining my MK childhood and its effects, and partly through reading in the field of postcolonial studies, I have come to believe that this colonial legacy is a hidden aspect of ESL teaching. I do not propose to generalize widely from my own experience, but I believe that it reflects an experience and an unconscious attitude which is more widely prevalent, perhaps even inherent to some extent, in our field of teaching ESL. This colonial legacy can involve a feeling of superiority of West to East, of English to other (especially non-European) languages, so that teaching English becomes a kind of preaching "a better way" to the "natives."

This colonial attitude is not (generally) intentional. And of course what we ESL teachers do is good, isn't it? Isn't learning new languages intrinsically a good thing? And isn't English an important and even essential worldwide language? And, after all, don't students demand English classes?

All of these assumptions may be legitimate. But we ESL teachers must consider the possibility of a "colonial shadow" over our profession, along with the effects of such a shadow. Do we on some level believe English is superior? And, if so, that English speakers are superior? And that native speakers and__especially speakers of Western Englishes__are particularly superior? And do we believe that those who learn it gain some of our superiority? If we do believe these things, our self-image as ESL teachers is enhanced; look how "good" we are, sharing the valuable treasure of our language, and by extension, our power.

Sometimes students hit close to home with their comments, little realizing how their instructor may react. Recently my advanced ESL reading class read Chinua Achebe's short story, Dead Man's Path which describes an African headmaster who has received his education in missionary schools. He prides himself on his education and his modern attitude, and condescendingly scoffs at the beliefs of the villagers. During the class, I spoke about colonialism, including the missionaries' role in it, and expounded upon the difficulties caused when colonial cultures clashed with traditional cultures. One of my students interrupted, "So, missionary means arrogant?" "No, no" I replied.

"Well, some missionaries are arrogant, but not all." How can I explain the problems of colonialism, yet not criticize all colonizers, all missionaries? I feel myself becoming defensive. Should I tell my class that my parents were missionaries, and that I grew up as a missionary kid? No, it would be too complicated to explain. So, perhaps wisely, or perhaps out of cowardice, I don't reveal my personal connection to the question, and we move on to analyze other aspects of the story. We ESL teachers (both those who have grown up and/or lived abroad and those who have not) are familiar with images of colonial privilege. We have read novels (by Kipling, Conrad, Forster, Scott, and many others) that describe or refer to colonial settings. We have seen television shows such as The Jewel in the Crown (based on Paul Scott's novels), set in India during the violent waning days of the British occupation. As we read these books and watch these programs, we breathe in the attitude of superiority of the colonial powers and their representatives.

The reality is that the romantic images of colonial masters venturing into jungles and deserts, deep into the "unknown," bringing civilization and its benefits to the natives, obscures other, darker aspects including racism and economic exploitation of the indigenous peoples. Isn't it possible that this dark side affects our teaching as well? I have gone on to teach for many years, and have continued to enjoy it and feel it is a way to make a contribution. But these realizations have made me question much about that teaching. If ESL teachers are influenced by the colonial legacy, in what ways is that manifested in the classroom? Are we more likely, for example, to treat our adult students as children, just because they haven't mastered English? Shafiei quotes an adult ESL student describing his teacher's behavior as follows: "My teachers were kind, but I was ashamed to talk because I felt like a little baby, and my teacher acted like my mother".

And do ESL teachers, along with much of Western academe, use the West as the central reference point, so that everything else is marginalized, and dealt with only in terms of its relationship to the West, or in terms of how it measures up to Western standards? Is the English language, and particularly the "standard" English of the U.S. or Great Britain, central, with all other languages, especially non-European languages, marginal? Do we feel that we are giving our students a gift by sharing our language and culture with them and that they should be properly grateful for this gracious gift, and should show their gratitude appropriately?

It is not fair to be too judgmental, of ourselves or of others; we are all creatures of our time and place in history, and it is not necessarily fair to impose today's knowledge and standards on yesterday's attitudes. But it is important to be aware of ways in which colonial history influences us, and to grapple with these issues, both as individuals and as a profession.