ESL and WAC

One of the main thoughts that went through my mind while I was Reading these week’s articles was the fact that the authors commented on how learning to write (in academic settings) has been equated, in a way, to learning a foreign or second language.  I must say I was a bit shocked by the idea at first, but then I thought this was a way to problematize the issue of academic writing and to bring its complexities to the surface.

However, I must say this comparison seems to be more harmful than beneficial. Of course, I have not visited the scholarly works where this notion is put forward and elaborated on, but still, by no means do I feel that the two settings have more commonalities than differences. I must agree with Matsuda and Jablonski when they cite McCarhy on how the sharing of ethnic and cultural background between teachers and students, in the case of academic writing learning as opposed to LS learners, puts learners in privileged position second language learners practically never find themselves in. Nonetheless, it is my impression that the that the huge gap between the cognitive, social, psychological, political, cultural and economic forces pushing LS learners and those of L1 learners of academic writing requires little argumentation. The fact that L1 writing learners are acquainted with the demands of the educational system they make part of, the cultural and social values of their teachers and their expectations, and the simple fact that they are ‘insiders’ of the social groups they interact with everyday provides them with a great advantage. Difficult as the task can be, the possibilities are very different.

However, I must agree with Hall and Matsuda and Jablosnki when they call for a collaborative approach on the part of ESL and WAC/WID specialists. As NNES’s populations increase in the US, it is becoming clear that sooner and later the higher education system will have to acknowledge this reality and transform itself to provide minded institutional responses. Clearly, interaction between ESL and WAC scholars should be at the centre of these initiatives. 

Writing centers

This week readings deal with the role writing centers play (or should) in the development of writing skills on the part ELL’s, particularly, in the way one-to-one tutorials between instructors and learners should be conducted. In their article, Matsuda and Cox discuss three different approaches instructors could take when reading drafts: assimilationist, accommodationist, and

separatist. The authors describe how each of these three stances take place in tutorial sessions.  They warn readers about the causes and effects of adopting the assimilationist approach and advocate for the adoption of a different model, though they do mention the issues learners may encounter if they do not assimilate to the widespread practices of the target language culture, such as pressures from institutional parties with some kind of authorities upon learners. Ultimately, they propose a few strategies that can be adopted on the part of instructors in order to provide room for students’ agency, strategies that are based on the assumption that reading a text is more than reading the rules that ‘should’ govern it, but instead, reading the the writer and understanding the reasons why texts written by NNES’ differ from the ones of their native counterparts. Such approach, might lead to a better understanding on the part of the instructors and to more real opportunities for learning and the inclusion of divergent voices in academic discourse.

In Thonus article, she discusses five principles that maybe applied for generation 1.5 learners. She states that these learners constitute a unique type of population that should find responses that consider their peculiarities given the fact that they do differ from those who are commonly referred as ESL, but yet, are not considered fully NES’s since their writing skills are highly influenced by their heritage language. The author provides real evidence where these steps were successfully (sometimes not) implemented and elaborates on the pedagogical implications of adopting such strategies.

World Englishes

I would like to take advantage of this blog entry to continue elaborating on the issue of code-meshing and code-switching as a way to integrate non-dominant languages and dialect in academic discourse. It is stimulating to see examples as the ones presented by Cangarajah. One can only be in favor of scholars interested in fighting monolingual, linguistically imperialistic perspectives on knowledge creation and dissemination. However, I believe there is much more to it than adopting a rather naïve position on the matter. My main argument is that such valuable cases such as the ones presented in Canagarajah’s articles are exceptional, but should not constitute a central goal in second language literacy development. By no means do I wish to suggest that they are not a desirable goal in ELL’s literacy. Instead I claim that bringing this issue to the discussion of what the teachers’ role should be does little favor beyond unnecessary problematization of the literacy classroom.

I think that it is more important, and much more feasible and efficient (time and resources wise) to focus the discussion in the way teachers should/could/would adopt multicultural attitudes to the classroom, where native languages are understood as linguistic and multicultural assets. This should be the focus of our efforts and would be a key factor in moving towards more inclusive practices in literacy development. I guess I want to suggest that professional, institutional and academic efforts should focus on these matters, rather than starting an additional debate on how code-meshing should be integrated into academic discourse. Making sure that ELL’s have access to a better quality in L2 education while maintaining and promoting their individual voices and native linguistic and cultural heritage is (while still a huge challenge) more attainable. Code-mashing and the vindication of non-dominant voices would come up as the result of such minded educational approach. It is my belief that students who have access to the tools to enter dominant academic communities but that have had a chance to maintain, recognize and be proud of their legacies will eventually not have problems adapting their academic discourse to respond to and represent their cultural richness, just like Smitherman successfully did.

In conclusion, I think:

1.  It is desirable that non-dominant languages or dialects be included in academic discourse (including code-meshing), however,
2. this should be a natural consequence (not the cause) of adopting a more multilingual approach to education where the conditions for learning English are improved and guaranteed and the cultural and linguistic heritage of ELL’s is respected, promoted and valued. Therefore,
3. promoting the use of rhetoric resources such as code-meshing is unnecessary and undesirable approach on the part of scholars. Efforts should be concentrated on the more structural goal presented in number two.  

SLW in Higher Education

One of the most conflictive issues for NNSE’s pursuing graduate studies in an English medium is probably to find out that  their voice faces many more ‘filters’ than ever before in their academic and social lives. Not only these students have to deal with individual differences in relation to their counterparts, but also with differences that lie on ideological matters, the different worldviews brought by these students, that were never questioned (at least to such an extent).  In other words, one of the first things graduate students encounter is that their voice no longer fits the ideology of the dominant culture, but is part of an ideology that belongs to a minority. Particularly, this is true for those students whose voice was somewhat appreciated in their origin countries and who, as Leki puts it ‘ …suffered a considerable loss in status from social, professional, and familial positions…’ (40).

These ideas are related with Canagarajah’s article and his idea of how ideologies come into play in the classroom, and for our respect, in the construction of texts (written and spoken). Finding ways to negotiate the principles that rule the interaction between students, faculty and their native counterparts is probably the greatest challenge.  Perhaps, one of the keys to this challenge has to do with a concept that was mentioned in all three articles: social skills and membership to discourse communities. Students who are able, and are given the opportunity to mesh easily with this new environment (departments, faculty, other students, etc.) are probably more successful in coming into terms and adapting their writing needs and goals to those of the dominant ideology without losing their own voice.  

Nonetheless, at times NNSE’s also have to deal with what Leki describes as the ‘…disparity…between their disciplinary knowledge and sophistication and their ability to write in English’ (38). We notice then that the struggle of graduate students to have their voice heard in these academic scenarios is not only external, but also internal.  Many of the messages we wish to convey are closely related to the stylistic details of our discourse. Subtle differences in the surface, may convey huge imparities between what a L2 graduate student actually means (whether in spoken or written speech). Filling those argumentative gaps may sometimes be a challenge in itself for students, not to mention the regular demands of academia. This, to me, is probably one of the reasons why L2 students crave for correction on the surface level. It is not only a matter of blending in and avoiding being ‘tagged’ as a non-native speaker. It may be because the accuracy with which the message is conveyed partially relies on the linguistic forms used. More often than not, I find that when I provided feedback to my students (and in my personal case too) slight misinterpretations relied on their mistaken lexical or syntactical choices.

However, as suggested above, this disparity is not only present for the writing genres required of students. It also comes up in class discussions where some students may experience difficulty expressing their views and keeping up with the pace of their colleagues.  In these cases, failure to match thought and text may lead not only to not succeeding in presenting a paper, but also in establishing social and academic bonds with professors and colleagues due to possible misunderstandings and conflict risen from communication breakdowns.  All these situations may lead to frustration and impact on the students’ self-esteem hindering the possibility of quick adaptation.

SLW in First Year Composition

Some of the questions posed by the articles by Matsuda and Leki have already been posed in our class discussions. The dilemma of how to best respond to second language writers in higher education settings is, as we can learn from these readings, still void of a nearly articulate response. Many different aspects overlap and make matters quite complicated for composition teachers and institutions.

In her article, Leki presents one argument I personally and closely subscribe to. I know little about the figures of US higher education on how many professionals actually become active writers, but I do agree with her when she states that it may not be within all students’ interest to become academic writers. Probably because they are not interested in becoming journal or book writers, or simply because their profession does not necessarily imply that they should become writers to be successful. Of course, there is the issue that to be successful in college you do need to achieve a quite acceptable level of academic writing. However, as Leki well puts it the types of genres and skills required to achieve this success may be different from department to department, from one field of knowledge to the other. As an evidence for this, Leki recalls the story of Yang, an undergraduate student from China who had no problems dealing with the demands of her composition classes, but who was unable to communicate at the hospital, where she was required to do her practices, and where she would eventually apply all of her knowledge and expertise. In this case, there institutional response to help her develop her linguistic skills proved inefficient.

Another factor that complicate things further for institutions and teachers is related to the diverse character of the student population attending classes at universities.  Students from very different backgrounds, different countries, different types of education, and with different needs and expectations are attending these courses. International students, NNES’s who reside in the US and whose English may not meet the features of what is deemed as acceptable, NES’s of non prestigious varieties of English are all part of the scenario, an scenario that is mainly designed to speakers of the so-called ‘standard’ variety.

In order to respond to this situation, a number of decisions have been made. One of them, however, called my attention greatly. Grouping NNES’s in separate groups, though, apparently sensitive to students needs, seems not very thoughtful to my understanding. I do believe that special consideration must be given to those whose language skills do not allow achieving the standards expected by the educational system. However, I think that what is required is much more research on the issue on how to develop methodologies that respond to these diverse populations along with the ‘mainstream’ students rather than separating ESL students from their ‘mainstream’ counterparts. I have no empirical theoretical or empirical evidence to support this claim. I base my opinion in my own personal experience. If I was to be grouped other ESL/EFL students, I would feel underestimated, downgraded and I tend to think that I would definitely be uncomfortable in that scenario and probably become an underachiever. I think that what is required is practical documented attempts to understand how all students may benefit from each other’s presence in the classroom accompanied by teacher development that help faculty move towards more inclusive practices.

Additionally, and to return to my initial argument on the different needs student may have, which often times do not include becoming a highly proficient academic writer, I tend to believe that at times ‘academia’ tend to overtly impose their belief that becoming a writer is at the core of all professions, that only those who write can actually impact and help knowledge advance. I am strongly convinced that this belief should be reflected upon. Further research on how many professionals actually become active academic writers may shed some light on the pertinence of whatever the current design of composition courses is.

P.S. One tricky question: What about the cases when non-native speakers of English become composition teachers? Last class we advanced a bit on this discussion when the issue of having only native speakers in charge of ESL classes in K-12 settings was brought up. It was argued that these students needed a model to shape their English skills. Do you think this should be the case in writing too?

Book review

I will be reviewing:

Harrington, and Erica Kenney. 2005. Approaches to Writing Instruction for Adolescent English Language Learners: A Discussion of Recent Research and Practice Literature in Relation to Nationwide Standards on Writing. The Education Alliance at Brown University.

As for where I'm at, I must say the cover is kind of green.

K-12

"I think every religion the same but we call it different name."
Jay.

One of the things that called my attention while reading Leki et al. and Wallace, was that none of them referred specifically to writing teaching phenomena. Instead, they used a much broader approach towards the inclusion of students with linguistically and culturally diverse students. The reason for this is unknown to me, but probably this is because of the difficulty itself.  The problems that underlie this circumstance are beyond any pedagogical measures that can be taken by teachers and administrators. They have to do with political administrations and the ideologies behind this. It is to my surprise that in a county like the US, in which immigration constitutes the core of its history, does not have an adequate national policy to respond to this phenomenon.

This only makes things worse for teachers. In order to respond effectively to this, teachers need to be provided with training and resources, not only for providing students with better English instruction, but also for incorporating inclusive practices that help them see ESL learners as a possibility to put up bridging discourses (Wallace) and bring multiculturalism instead of as a deficit (as Amy has so nicely and repeatedly put it) to the classroom.

Wallace’s article sheds a very bright light on how to do this.  The strands she proposes (“I come from here” identity, “back home identity,” “language identity,” and “religious identity”) may be only an example and they may be changed in order to suit other contexts. However, this study shows us how much we can get only if we provide students room for displaying their own voice, for portraying what it is that constitutes their essence. I found this article absolutely beautiful since it was the kids who had the leading voice and, although Wallace’s clarifications are obviously central, you can draw your own conclusion just by ‘listening’ to the teens and kids voices.  Of course, this is only a study, and deals with only four participants. It would be naïve to think that this very same methodology can be implemented with crowded classrooms. Nonetheless, I personally believe there are many lessons to be learned and ideas to use from this study.

Genre Approach

The readings assigned from this week have been of great importance to me as a teacher of English. Due to the contextual features of the place I come from, the teaching of writing is subject of little study or research. Therefore, I was totally unaware of the rationale governing my teaching practices when it came to writing.  I now understand that my personal second language writing teaching experience is permeated by aspects of both the process and genre approaches (particularly applying an oversimplified version of ESP model).  Around four years ago, when I was teaching at Universidad Nacional, I worked as a facilitator, trying to help my students develop their own writing style, but yet pushing them to fit their texts to the textual structures of particular genres of English writing. Today I have learnt I had no idea what I was doing. (Some of those students are still my friends, I do not know if I will ever look them in their faces again).  

Due to my very little knowledge on these matters, (it’s the first time I ever hear of such terms), it is very hard (and I guess irresponsible) of me to take a critical standpoint. I believe I need to really understand what these approaches are about. However, from my experience as a learner and teacher, there are some impressions/questions I would like to share/ask:

I must warn the readers that this may be very basic questions, whose answers may probably be taken for granted from a graduate student. In such case, I beg your forgiveness, but, in this occasion I prefer to go by every good teacher’s advice: ‘the only silly is question is the one you don’t ask’.  

1.       Why is it that Hyland and Johns (and from what I have noticed, everyone in the class) take for granted that the process approach is mainly cognitive and egocentric, and that it excludes social aspects of meaning construction and negotiation?

2.       Is it too crazy to think of an approach that integrates aspects from both the genre approach and the process approach?

3.       How can you avoid falling into the use of the Sidney School of genre descriptions as simple rigid templates (as Johns puts it), particularly when some students may prefer this for the sake of simplicity and rapidness?  This, of course, is to be understood in the framework of educational systems that lack spatial and time resources.

4.       I am personally very biased in favor of favoring critical literacy skills in my classrooms. Yet, I struggle to decide how it is that you actually do this. I would love any insights on this, or probably accounts on my classmates’ experiences.

On Leki’s chapter: Curriculum and Instruction

The issue of actual instructional praxis and the effect of theories of second language (writing) has on it has been going over my mind for the last few years. Sometimes curriculum design and implementation seem to move in different directions.  This is in part due to teachers’ misunderstanding or little knowledge of the underlying theoretical assumptions of curricula. Other times, the reason of this is the adoption of theories that do not match the contexts where they are applied. That is, we favor pedagogies that promote the recognition of identities, shared or individual, and yet we resort to theories that ignore our realities.

As Leki mentions it (p.78) the adoption of standards, the underlying assumptions of these standards, issues of voice and identity, the type of literacy being promoted and the washback effects high-stake proficiency tests have on curricula design and classroom practices (among others) are all phenomena that need to be addressed by researchers and scholars in EFL settings.  I expect to start exploring some of these concerns in my exploratory study this semester. 

Plagiarism, the L2 classroom and the internet

La poesía no pertenece a quien la escribe sino a quien la necesita.  

I would like to use this blog entry to comment on the articles by Block and Pecorari and to muse a little bit on Autumn’s question.

Out of these two readings, my attention was mainly drawn to the idea that cases of plagiarism may be a window for educating our students rather than for incriminating them. I guess that is what I mean last class when I said ‘there’s much more to plagiarism than penalizing’. However, I have to affirm that when Pecorari says (p. 241) ‘…when plagiarism is unintentional, a productive response is to educate about, rather than punish…’, I do not agree entirely. I think plagiarism is an opportunity for reflection even when it is intentional. I really do not see the point in ruining a student’s reputation and career prospect for a mistake of this kind. Obviously, if it is a repeated action, there is no point in reflecting about it, but if it is the first time, I would rather sit down and discuss with the student the reasons why he/she did it.  I believe this would be a very good chance to help the student understand the implications of borrowing other’s flow of argumentation and the ideology behind it. I believe the student and I as a teacher can gain much more from that than from just starting some sort of disciplinary procedure.

In relation to Autumn’s question, I believe that these issues can actually be brought in the L2 classroom. Actually, bringing these issues up in the classroom would be a fantastic idea. Not only because it would help students grasp the concept of plagiarism as understood in ‘Western cultures’, but also because it would provide room to discuss the tenets of the capitalistic worldview. And, after all, learning a language is much more than figuring out how to put pieces of a system together. Understanding and getting to know the cultures behind the language is probably the most exciting part. Therefore, the significance of individuality, the right to accumulate capital (even if this is tangible or not), the desire to compete and outshine others (dear American classmates: please forgive me if this is too biased and oversimplified)  are all issues that can help students from other cultures understand not only the language but the dominant ideology of countries like the US. I believe that this approach is more sensitive than just telling our students ‘do this because that’s how they do it’.

Finally, in relation with Block’s article and his elaboration on the effect of the internet over the ownership of texts, I must say that, although I do not know much about how this is changing and where this is going, I think IT IS changing in a way. Here, Autumn’s question from her last blog entry,  about the possibility of adopting more ‘Eastern views’ (whatever that might mean) comes into play. We have been hearing for a while about the advocators of freeware, people who give up their property rights in order to share their work with thousands of users. Although one might debate the purpose behind this, it is clear that the concept of ownership is being revisited. Also, a project like Wikipedia, which was predicted to be a failure by many people when it was created, has become an unprecedented success. Many said nobody would give up their time to share their knowledge for free, and time has clearly proved them wrong. Additionally, even though many people question the validity of such a project, studies have been conducted to compare its reliability in comparison to prestigious sources such as the Encyclopedia Britannica showing the there are no significant differences in this respect. However, I do not intend to claim that this happening because of the influence of China, or any Eastern cultures. I prefer to say that the collaborative era is bringing about changes in what is understood by owning a text. And these changes seem not to have an origin in the core of capitalism (this is probably too naïve on my part).  It seems to me that what is becoming important is not the ‘ideas’ you own, but what you do with those ideas.  

Whose idea is it anyway?

Though, I very much enjoyed these weeks’ readings, it is impossible for me to post this entry without wondering how it is that Pennycook (p. 1) managed to steal my idea of plagiarism being a notion that belongs to a particular vision of the world that should not be generalized and taken for granted in all cultures worldwide. After making this statement, I would like to provide evidence to prove that this idea is mine. The first time I ‘conceived’ this idea in my mind was during a visit to an exotic part of Colombia where I stayed at an indigenous settlement. Through informal conversations I got to understand a little bit about their worldview and beliefs. Their language did not have a written form; therefore, their ancestral history was only transmitted from the elderly to the young in the form of spoken narratives. These narratives were not subject of any dispute or debate; they should be accepted as they were. When asked how these stories have come to existence, the mamo (the spiritual leader of the community) asserted they were not the property of any human being. They made up the essence of their people and, though these stories presented some variation depending on who was narrating them (there was a lot of variation depending on the oratory of the teller and other factors), nobody could claim ownership over those words. In modern words, those stories were not copyrighted. Unlike the world I came from, the concept of property over ideas did not exist.

Coming back to my initial point, I am now considering the need to write a book (or a journal article) every time I visit an indigenous community. Or, every time I have think of a profound, elaborated idea.

Apparently, Pennycook took advantage of this, and was not satisfied by taking only one idea away from me.  I also found out that he fragrantly decided to plagiarize my belief that there is not a single idea that has not been ever thought, or at least, that no idea is entirely original. Everyone resorts to other people’s ideas to formulate their own. Sometimes these regain validity; sometimes they are more pertinent, sometimes they are structured in different ways. But yet, they are the same idea. Somehow Pennycook managed to steal this thought from me, and used a fancy quotation by Goethe to justify his so-called academic crime (for which he himself cynically gives it a name)

One idea that he could not steal from me (or probably he did?) was that plagiarism is an individual decision, conscious or unconscious, but still individual. And that if we are to agree that plagiarism is a bad practice in academic writing we have to provide our students with the criterion they need to make much more informed decisions when writing. It is not only a matter of warning them, but of helping them understand the implications of not citing authorized scholars (as much as your ideas may be yours and no one else’s), of how to correctly include these references. These matters are much more important when teaching L2 writing, since sometimes L2 learning implies the understanding and apprehension of certain cultural values alien to our own.

However, and to my own misery, Pennycook closes his article by stealing another of my ideas. Due to the fact that learning a second language implies learning a set of cultural conventions and rules, and that in second language learning, learners many times borrow other’s identities and ideas (or other’s words according to Pennycook) plagiarism issues must be approached with an empathetic attitude in the first place. Applying straightforward (or dogmatic as he puts it – but I can swear I thought of this first) institutional rules or adopting strictly normative attitudes towards learners who go through struggle to understand what plagiarism is, may not bring  the best outcomes.

Like these, many of Pennycook’s ideas are actually mine! I thought of them first! Why would he steal them from me? I can swear I never read them anywhere! They just came to my mind naturally! What can I do to get my ideas back? I know what you may be thinking by now, you probably think I stole these ideas to write this text, but that is not true! I swear! I have never stolen anything from anyone!!!!

Wait, I think the title of this entry sounds pretty much familiar to me...  Have I seen it anywhere? Let me think…

The diverse character of voice and the big question

How do you come to have a ‘voice’ in your writing? This is without doubt a very difficult question to answer, probably, impossible. However, if I was to decide where to start, I would probably resort to Bakhtin’s construct of heteroglossia for a start.

To me, defining voice is a very difficult thing to do, even after these readings. So, in order to make things easier, as I write these words, I try to think of the most ‘remarkable’ voice I could think of, the most unique, the one that I could not forget. This makes things much easier for me. Having briefly revisited Bakhtin’s proposal, I can only think of Dostoyevsky. But I don’t want to bore you off by pondering over nineteenth century Russian literature. I just want to exemplify how a master voice is built up of different voices. Dostoyevki’s voice is a whole that finds its parts in Raskolnikov’s monologues, Prince Myshkin’s speeches or the memoirs of the Underground Man. When reading these masterpieces, one is easily confused because it seems that the character’s voice is meshing with the narrator’s and the other way round. It is difficult to determine who is ‘populating’ whose voice. This way, Dostoyevski’s voice could not exist without any of these voices, it would simply not be. Ok, so much for Russian literature.

My point is that I don’t know what voice is, but I suspect that it is not as individualistic as Bowden (1995) presents it. It may be related to the ‘inner self’, but this inner self is, I believe, at the same time, influenced by outer others, outer voices. However, and coming back to my example on Dostoyevski, I believe that the construction of a voice, as of a novel, may be an individualistic decision, may be a deliberate act of mixing voices. It relies on the level of awareness you have about the voices that govern your thoughts, the ideologies behind you deepest beliefs. This awareness may help you control your voice, use it to your advantage and in certain domains. Otherwise, you may have a voice, but you may not govern it. This will generally result in alienation.

After these preliminary impressions, I am attracted by the idea of a ‘situational’ use of voice. In accordance with the testimonies provided by Hirvela and Becher I think developing a voice in a foreign language could/must be a deliberate act. A ‘dress you can wear when you need to’. How do you do that? That is the big question.

Writing Across Borders

A very important aspect for reflection that derives from watching this documentary is the wide variety of challenges that international students face when coming to the US. Depending on where they come from, they will find difficulty in understanding certain requirements, conventions, or procedures of what is expected from them in writing academic papers. This also poses a great challenge to teachers. For assessing purposes, Tony Silva proposes setting a standard of what would be accepted (good enough) so that all students are treated with justice. I believe however that by doing this you are putting aside those students who will not settle for good enough, but who want to make the most out of their potential. By this, I by no ways mean that all students’ work should be assessed equally.  Each student’s paper should be assessed on the light of its potential and an ongoing exchange of feedback and advisory. I prefer to go by the narrator final remark that a teacher should feel empathy for his/her students and try to predict the problems they may encounter. Nonetheless, I believe that this must not be done at the expense of other students. No matter how daunting a job may seem, a teacher’s work should be to address each student needs and to maximize their full potential. Probably this is a naïve, unrealistic statement, but if this goal is never in our perspective, we will most certainly never achieve it.

From a more personal perspective, I experience this very often. As Deborah Haley puts it, this not only happens when students are faced with a writing task. It also happens when thoughtful opinions are required in the middle of an ongoing, heated debate. Often times I find myself trying to organize my ideas in English, just to find out that when I am ready to express them, the debate has moved to another topic. Other times, when I try to rush to speak, so I don’t miss the opportunity to share my ideas, I end up saying things that do not entirely fit what I was thinking. It is without doubt a very big challenge to all International students, but I also believe that it is part of the challenge you accept when studying abroad. I am convinced that when you travel to another country you must have an open mind to learn and understand other’s opinions, ideas and values. I see this as no different task. However, the educational system and academia must be knowledgeable of the difficulty that this represents and the cultural richness and openness that can be gained from adopting inclusive practices in classrooms with ESL students. 

A couple of links

Guys,

In case anyone is interested, here's the links to the documents I have talked about in class:

Estándares Basicos de Competencia en Lengua Extranjera: Inglés

This one is basically the standards for teachers and students at the primary and secondary level. It's a guide to help teachers develop curricula, study plans, instructional materials and the like. Schools must not meet these standards as of yet. They should do so in ten years (the standards were published in 2006).

Libro de trabajo

This one is the book we used in the training sessions we conducted all over the country so teachers learned about the standards and started implementing them in their classrooms and schools.

If anyone would like to get more information about it, please let me know, I will be more than happy to share additional documents.

Ideas for my final project

Ideas for my final project

I have to admit I still do not think I am ready to make a decision about the topic of my final project. Anyway, here’s a few ideas that interest me as of now:

1.       A review of the literature in Second Language Literacy for EFL settings.

a.       Pros:

                                                               i.      It would help me expand my knowledge of the field.

                                                             ii.      I believe there is a lot of potential for it my country. Particularly for pre-service teachers.

                                                            iii.      I would enjoy it. J

b.      Cons:

                                                               i.      I would not know where to start. L

2.       A case study on error correction (I would have to narrow it a bit, I know)

a.       Pros:

                                                               i.      I could work with my girlfriend.

                                                             ii.      I could do some research (which I would love to)

                                                            iii.      My girlfriend could benefit from it.

b.      Cons:

                                                               i.      The personal attachment would hinder validity.

                                                             ii.      I would require a lot of mentoring.

                                                            iii.      My girlfriend would hate me  and lose all respect for me if the hypothesis proved wrong. J

3.       A case study on my own writing learning process as a writer.

a.       No pros no cons. I just don’t know how to do it and if that could work.

4.       A review of the literature of language testing.

a.       Pros:

                                                               i.      It would be an important source of reflection for my career.

                                                             ii.      It would help me understand the role of testing in the ELT sector.

b.      Cons:

                                                               i.      I could probably end up hating myself for past decisions.

                                                             ii.      My former boss would probably hate me too.

                                                            iii.      I could not get my previous job when I get back to Colombia. (Probably I would not want to)

Anyway, please forgive the lack of formality in this entry. I guess that just reflects the clarity I have about the project.

                                           

Questions on the implementation of a Contrastive Rhetoric approach.

In favor as I am of any kind of inclusive approach, after reading the texts by Casanave and Connor, I could not help thinking of the difficulty of implementing a revised version of the CR approach for Second Language Writing. Here are some of the questions, for which I hope we can find some answers.

How can you avoid considering students’ background and native language in Second Language Learning settings? How could a need analysis ignore these aspects?

Yet, how can one account for contrastive approach in learning new rethoric styles when one is very likely ignorant of students’ native language and cultural background?

How can one aspire to have a profound knowledge of students ‘cultural patterns’ in order to be able to implement a contrastive approach? Particularly in settings where students from different origins are grouped together?

How can you avoid simplistic overgeneralizations like Hinds’ (see Casanave 33) when attempting to implement CR?

In relation to Casanave’s proposal of an Investigative Pedagogical Approach:

Provided the difficulty for the teacher to become acquainted with foreign cultural patterns and languages, is it realistic to rely completely on the part of SLL’s? Will they be conscious of the cultural patterns governing their writing practices?

How could you ‘break down students stereotypes of their L1 and L2 and help them come to a more complex understanding of how their L1 rhetoric creates meaning’ as Casanave puts it, in instructional settings constrained in terms of time and space as ours?

Analyzing students L1 writing samples seems possible in EFL settings where the instructor is highly competent in the native language of the students, but, how do you go about this in ESL setting with diverse populations?

Could mini-research projects, discourse analysis of comparable texts, surveys, and interviews give the instructor a clear picture of intercultural differences? If so, how do you envision the implementation of these?

For the bigger picture, what would the implementation of an Investigative Pedagogical Approach, as proposed by Casanave, imply for curriculum design at universities, colleges, schools?

Getting to know SL learners in the US?

Coming from a country where English is learned as a foreign language, it never went through my mind the complexity of language learning in countries like the US, where English is learned as a second language by millions of people. I found the categorizations provided by Ferris and Reid fascinating in the sense that they illustrated to me the demands placed upon the US education system and the challenge this represents to the TESOL community. Not only does the government have to find ways to provide quality education for all these communities, but also, professionals in the field need to be aware of the complexity of their work and the implications in the US society.

It is in this framework that the different categories presented by Reid and Ferris (though Reid’s definition of eye and ear learners seems very debatable) shed some light on the diverse type of learners of English as a second language throughout the educational system. This categorization is clearly helpful in identifying the needs and peculiarities of the student population. However, once presented with this taxonomy, I could not help but wondering how effective these categories might be when interacting with ESL students. This doubt emerges from the fact that, for example, although international students share certain characteristics, they may come from many and very different educational, cultural, cognitive and social backgrounds. In other words, standardizing students in a composition class regardless of their native language may be as bad as standardizing students by categorizing them as international, but at the same time ignoring their individuality.

Being as ignorant as I am of the US educational system, it is my belief that categorizations of this sort are very helpful mainly for policy design rather than for actual classroom interaction. That is, educational authorities must be able to acknowledge this diversity and make sure the conditions are provided so that schools and colleges can effectively cope with this challenge. Another important aspect is that TESOL and Composition Studies scholars understand the complexity of the task in hand and do not attempt to homogenize students within these categories. Individuals within each of these groups may differ greatly, just like one student from the other in any educational setting.    

In a more personal perspective, the presentation of the different writers’ characteristics by Leki et al. in relation with their writing skill is quite a thought-provoking piece of research. Though a bit confusing and contradictory at times, this account provides a thorough set of variables to take into account when addressing diverse educational settings. As a NNEST myself, these variables seem to come in handy.  Once familiar with the different learning styles of students, one could resort to some of these variables to facilitate improvement in SL writing. More simply put, depending on the students needs and skills one could go deep into some of these characteristics and design/adapt instructional materials in order to provide practice on each of them.

Finally, I need to say that these readings are a great source for self-awareness about the type of SL learner I am and how I am recognized by the educational system in the US. It is also a great opportunity for reflection on the (controllable) variables I need to go deep into in order to become a proficient English writer.

P.S. I would appreciate if those of you reading my entries would correct any major mistakes. I really want to improve my written English, besides, we can shed some light on the error correction debate . J

Some of the reasons why I am not a highly competent L2 witer.

In this assignment, it is expected from me that I explain the history of how I have achieved a reasonably high level of writing competence in English, my second language. Instead, I will use these words to explain why I believe I am not a proficient L2 writer.

I do not consider myself a good L2 writer, and probably a very good explanation for this is that the main reason I decided to learn English has nothing to do with writing. Actually, it was rather an unconscious decision. I did not really want to learn to speak English, I just wanted to understand it.  Back in the early nineties, I was only interested in understanding what the lyrics of my favorite songs were about. At that time, I was into rock bands such as Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Guns n’ Roses and some others. I was tired of not being able to sing along my head-banging so I got all the lyrics and started to imitate the singers. Besides, as young as I was, I had already become indisputably aware of my undeniable incapability to play any kind of musical instrument. Therefore, signing seemed like the only option I had to become the rock star I dreamed of being. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), it did not happen, but in the process of trying I discover two things: It was rather easy for me to imitate the singers’ language and, for some unknown reason, this language made sense to me.

Having achieved a more than basic level of proficiency in English, I decided I wanted to go beyond and I started studying in a more formal environment. I went to an English Language Institute where I had the opportunity to meet wonderful instructors and people who inspired me to become an English teacher. There, I witnessed probably the finest language teaching I believe I will ever see. Diana, my advanced class teacher is probably the person I admire the most in the field. She is nor a linguist, neither a researcher. All she does is teach English and she does as smoothly and easily as, I believe, no one else does. She provided me with all the inspiration I needed to become a teacher. Unfortunately for me, I did not take composition class with her. For this reason, during these months studying at the English Language Institute my spoken English improved tremendously as well as my vocabulary and listening skill. Unfortunately, that was not the case for my writing. Though I learned some things about the organizational procedure involved in non-informal writing, I think I could have learned much more than I did.

Some years later, during my university studies, though I did a BA in English Philology, for some reason I wrote my thesis in Spanish, which obviously prevented me from a very important writing experience. Besides, apart from my thesis, professors at my university were too generous when it came to grading written papers. This is clearly another reason why I have not been able to move forward in my writing skills over the last ten years.

Also, since I have always been an ‘ear’ learner, I have problems developing (and keeping) certain learning routines and habits (when it comes to language I tend to believe I learn just by picking things up). It is my belief that ‘ear’ learners’ learning processes are rather spontaneous than systematic. Since, from my opinion Second Language Writing requires a lot of discipline and the acquisition of very strict learning habits; being an spontaneous learner myself, writing is clearly the greatest challenge in my English learning process.

Probably the biggest problem I face when writing English is the use of run-on sentences. English is a much more straight-to-the-point language that Spanish. Spanish is a very elaborate language in therms of the amount of words used to express an idea..

For all these reasons, my writing ability is not as good as I wish it was. Actually, the challenge that I have just taken up by coming to the US to start this Master Degree is huge in terms of the amount of effort I will have to put in improving my English writing skills.