Paavali
Dr. Mandy Suhr-Systsma
English 101-010 – Spring 2015
31 March 2015
Changing the Culture of Writing Instruction in the U.S. to Accommodate All Englishes
A central dilemma that has recently become common between ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students and native English language speakers is a gap in teaching of writing pedagogy, as presented in L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms-Abstract blog post by Brandon Amirian. Furthermore, Youngjoo Yi in his case study – ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers – adds to this by concluding that there exists a gap between academic demands for writing assessments and actual writing instruction and practice in classroom for ESOL students. Still, both of these sources do not propose solutions to how to fix this matter. Mackenzie Bristow – Director of English Language Support Program at Laney Graduate School at Emory University – proposes that ESOL students need help with writing and speaking skills, while developing the professional needs of these students. Furthermore, she argues that students should be exposed to instruction material that will assimilate them to the American culture. Terry Myers Zawacki and Anna Sophia Habib in their text – "“Will Our Stories Help Teachers Understand?”: Multilingual Students Talk about Identity, Voice, and Expectations across Academic Communities." Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing – add to this by proposing that international students need to be explained the underlying assumptions of how conventions around language, style, and structure function in the discipline. They also end up asking the question of how could ESOL students help native English speakers appreciate and value the diverse English languages taught to them abroad, not only speaking wise but writing wise. As a solution to the gap in writing instruction between ESOL students and native English language speakers, I propose that there needs to be a shift in class instruction culture toward appreciation of the backgrounds and languages where each student comes from, through less focus on organization and structure of writing and increased cultural awareness in instruction. Furthermore, the goal of ESOL writing is not to change the communicative competence of a student toward something that is preferred by teachers or academic departments, but rather accept these differences in competencies.
Writing Styles:
Youngjoo Yi in his case study suggests that what writing teachers are trying to push all students to do is to pass standardized tests that expect students to write in a very specific style. This style depends on the standardized exam and state, but writing teachers are motivated to push all students, including ESOL students, to produce one type of specific writing that will allow the students to pass the exam and the school to get more funding based on these exam results.
From my personal experience, entering the American educational system from Finland in freshman year of high school was very frantic. This was because I was required to match a greater level of writing in English – of greater length and more detailed analysis – than what I had learned to write in Finland in Finnish. Learning the English language was not as large of a dilemma as the requirement to produce superior writing. I was taught in Finland to write concise and short pieces of text that did not look like anything that I was asked to do in the United States. As a result, I fell back in-class and needed to do extensive amounts of independent work outside of class to accommodate to the writing style that my teacher wanted me to write in. This demonstrates a level of cultural insensitivity by writing teachers.
To accommodate students from all different cultures, teachers should not push one specific writing style but rather focus on giving parameters under which students can write. For example, students could be asked to write about how a novel relates to a specific theme shown in the text; this is a very common task in high school in writing. The grading criteria in this context would not focus on organization of the paper or the length of it, but rather on the effectiveness of conveying the task in the writing. This allows students the possibility to organize their essay how they want, but still completing the task and teacher being able to assess students based on understanding of the material. Through this independence ESOL students, and even native English language speakers, can show their unique ways of conveying information that they have learned in their own cultural context.
Even Bristow touched upon the subject of organization and how culture plays a huge role in how students write. Zawacki and Habib furthermore add that focus on structure is puzzling to international students, and in China there are no thesis statements and the focus of their essays is to leave the writer think about what they read; they do not give all the answers out in their writing.
Through this technique that I propose - of not focusing on structure and organization in writing assignments – I want culture and writing to interplay. Still, the expectation is to teach students to organize their essays, especially at the elementary and middle school levels as developing writers. Students should still be taught different methods of writing styles and organization, but there needs to exist individual freedom in this and no set style should be enforced.
Instruction:
Mackenzie Bristow states in her strategies that she exposes her ESOL students at the graduate level to different instructional materials relating to the American culture – sometimes even controversial to these students – that would allow them to understand and integrate better into the American culture. For example, she might expose them to material regarding American politics. I propose that while this is beneficial for ESOL students to work around the American culture, there needs to be exploration in the classroom – especially at the Pre-K-12 level – of the cultural insights that ESOL students can contribute to discussion and instruction.
I have sometimes been able to contribute my European perspective to classroom instruction, which is in some ways very different from the American perspective. This has sometimes changed how others in class have looked at topics and formed opinions about them. I think that this technique of bringing different ideas and opinions based on different cultural views should be widely promoted in classrooms, as it promotes ESOL students’ cultural backgrounds, and enriches the knowledge of others in class.
With regard to how to specifically incorporate these cultural views into instruction, instructors should widely ask in class whether students have different opinions about material being taught in-class. In addition, students should be allowed for more direction with class content. Instructors should teach topics and information required to fulfill the curriculum requirements, but opportunities need to be given for students to delve into the information independently and create their own opinions, and eventually present this to class. This enriches cultural appreciation through allowing for a platform for ESOL students to engage their own perspectives and cultural views.
Development of ESOL Student Identities:
Zawacki and Habib state that what teachers are doing with ESOL students is help them “develop “communicative competence” in their particular disciplinary community within the American academic context (59)” so that they can better demonstrate comprehension of material in class. While I do agree that ESOL students should be able to interact with native English language speakers and in the academic setting they are studying in, this development should not go into the effect of changing the unique language and social identities that ESOL students have through changing their communicative competence.
As I have discussed throughout this essay, to truly close the gap in writing pedagogy between ESOL and native English language speakers, it is essential to frame English language teaching so that ESOL students’ background and culture are appreciated. The course of changing the communicative competence of ESOL students, that the teachers are taking in Zawacki’s and Habib’s text, can go into the direction of changing ESOL students’ unique and cultural communicative competence into the one appreciated by native English language speakers. I have personally experienced this in Finland by my close family members saying how my social contexts have changed after I moved to the United States. My communicative competence has changed substantially as a result of me moving to the United States and I see it as negative. The culture that I feel part of and deeply connect with, is saying that I have changed. I see this as me becoming more part of the American culture and me losing my cultural identity, which I truly do not want to lose.
This push for teaching of communicative competence argued by teachers in Zawacki and Habib presents a major caveat in how instruction should be looked at, as it results in the degradation of cultural identity of ESOL students. The expectation of teachers is to provide the tools to learn new knowledge and then to assess this, not to change their social contexts and grammatical rules of language. While students should be able to be understood by others, it is unnecessary to teach them new grammatical rules that are unique if they can still be understood; it brings ESOL students individuality. I believe that everyone’s communicative competence should be preserved from his or her own unique culture, and as a result, schools should not focus on changing the communicative competence of students. As these competencies demonstrate differences in cultures and behavior, they demonstrate diversity, which should be preserved.
Conclusion:
For the existence of an extensive gap in writing instruction between ESOL students and native English language speakers, Mackenzie Bristow, and Terry Myers Zawacki and Anna Sophia Habib present solutions. Bristow states that the speaking and writing skills of ESOL students from abroad need to be developed, while at the same time they should be helped to assimilate to the American culture. Furthermore, Zawacki and Habib state that ESOL students should be explained the underlying assumptions of the subject to students: from genre to the conventions of the language usage. They ask how ESOL students could offer insight of their diverse English language to native English language speakers. I propose that as a solution to this gap, ESOL students’ unique background and culture needs to be appreciated in all writing and instruction in classrooms across the country. Writing has to focus less on organization and style, and instruction needs to concentrate on increased cultural consciousness through specific classrooms practices. With regard to the development of ESOL students’ communicative competence, – which directly relates to ones culture and identity – it should not be altered by instructors. The reason why we need to in the first place to close this gap in writing instruction between ESOL students and native English language speakers, is because it is our moral duty to try to address the needs of all individuals to try to improve people’s access to jobs through better ESOL instruction. Even Bristow herself states how it is the duty of Universities – when they recruit students from abroad – to help them assimilate to the American culture and learn the language; she personally feels responsibility for these students. While the proposals I suggest might seem very comprehensive, I believe that they will allow ESOL speakers better access to a greater quality of life.
Works Cited:
Amiririan, Brandon. "L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms-Abstract." Web blog post. Living with Multilingualism. Weebly, 23 Feb. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
Hannikainen, Paavali. "Interview with Mackenzie Bristow." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
Yi, Youngjoo. "ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers." L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms. New York: Routledge, 2013. 133-48. Ebook Library. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
Zawacki, Terry M., and Anna S. Habib. "“Will Our Stories Help Teachers Understand?”: Multilingual Students Talk about Identity, Voice, and Expectations across Academic Communities." Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing. Ed. Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, Christina Orthmeier-Hooper, and Gwen G. Schwartz. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2010. 54-71. Print.
Dr. Mandy Suhr-Systsma
English 101-010 – Spring 2015
31 March 2015
Changing the Culture of Writing Instruction in the U.S. to Accommodate All Englishes
A central dilemma that has recently become common between ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students and native English language speakers is a gap in teaching of writing pedagogy, as presented in L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms-Abstract blog post by Brandon Amirian. Furthermore, Youngjoo Yi in his case study – ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers – adds to this by concluding that there exists a gap between academic demands for writing assessments and actual writing instruction and practice in classroom for ESOL students. Still, both of these sources do not propose solutions to how to fix this matter. Mackenzie Bristow – Director of English Language Support Program at Laney Graduate School at Emory University – proposes that ESOL students need help with writing and speaking skills, while developing the professional needs of these students. Furthermore, she argues that students should be exposed to instruction material that will assimilate them to the American culture. Terry Myers Zawacki and Anna Sophia Habib in their text – "“Will Our Stories Help Teachers Understand?”: Multilingual Students Talk about Identity, Voice, and Expectations across Academic Communities." Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing – add to this by proposing that international students need to be explained the underlying assumptions of how conventions around language, style, and structure function in the discipline. They also end up asking the question of how could ESOL students help native English speakers appreciate and value the diverse English languages taught to them abroad, not only speaking wise but writing wise. As a solution to the gap in writing instruction between ESOL students and native English language speakers, I propose that there needs to be a shift in class instruction culture toward appreciation of the backgrounds and languages where each student comes from, through less focus on organization and structure of writing and increased cultural awareness in instruction. Furthermore, the goal of ESOL writing is not to change the communicative competence of a student toward something that is preferred by teachers or academic departments, but rather accept these differences in competencies.
Writing Styles:
Youngjoo Yi in his case study suggests that what writing teachers are trying to push all students to do is to pass standardized tests that expect students to write in a very specific style. This style depends on the standardized exam and state, but writing teachers are motivated to push all students, including ESOL students, to produce one type of specific writing that will allow the students to pass the exam and the school to get more funding based on these exam results.
From my personal experience, entering the American educational system from Finland in freshman year of high school was very frantic. This was because I was required to match a greater level of writing in English – of greater length and more detailed analysis – than what I had learned to write in Finland in Finnish. Learning the English language was not as large of a dilemma as the requirement to produce superior writing. I was taught in Finland to write concise and short pieces of text that did not look like anything that I was asked to do in the United States. As a result, I fell back in-class and needed to do extensive amounts of independent work outside of class to accommodate to the writing style that my teacher wanted me to write in. This demonstrates a level of cultural insensitivity by writing teachers.
To accommodate students from all different cultures, teachers should not push one specific writing style but rather focus on giving parameters under which students can write. For example, students could be asked to write about how a novel relates to a specific theme shown in the text; this is a very common task in high school in writing. The grading criteria in this context would not focus on organization of the paper or the length of it, but rather on the effectiveness of conveying the task in the writing. This allows students the possibility to organize their essay how they want, but still completing the task and teacher being able to assess students based on understanding of the material. Through this independence ESOL students, and even native English language speakers, can show their unique ways of conveying information that they have learned in their own cultural context.
Even Bristow touched upon the subject of organization and how culture plays a huge role in how students write. Zawacki and Habib furthermore add that focus on structure is puzzling to international students, and in China there are no thesis statements and the focus of their essays is to leave the writer think about what they read; they do not give all the answers out in their writing.
Through this technique that I propose - of not focusing on structure and organization in writing assignments – I want culture and writing to interplay. Still, the expectation is to teach students to organize their essays, especially at the elementary and middle school levels as developing writers. Students should still be taught different methods of writing styles and organization, but there needs to exist individual freedom in this and no set style should be enforced.
Instruction:
Mackenzie Bristow states in her strategies that she exposes her ESOL students at the graduate level to different instructional materials relating to the American culture – sometimes even controversial to these students – that would allow them to understand and integrate better into the American culture. For example, she might expose them to material regarding American politics. I propose that while this is beneficial for ESOL students to work around the American culture, there needs to be exploration in the classroom – especially at the Pre-K-12 level – of the cultural insights that ESOL students can contribute to discussion and instruction.
I have sometimes been able to contribute my European perspective to classroom instruction, which is in some ways very different from the American perspective. This has sometimes changed how others in class have looked at topics and formed opinions about them. I think that this technique of bringing different ideas and opinions based on different cultural views should be widely promoted in classrooms, as it promotes ESOL students’ cultural backgrounds, and enriches the knowledge of others in class.
With regard to how to specifically incorporate these cultural views into instruction, instructors should widely ask in class whether students have different opinions about material being taught in-class. In addition, students should be allowed for more direction with class content. Instructors should teach topics and information required to fulfill the curriculum requirements, but opportunities need to be given for students to delve into the information independently and create their own opinions, and eventually present this to class. This enriches cultural appreciation through allowing for a platform for ESOL students to engage their own perspectives and cultural views.
Development of ESOL Student Identities:
Zawacki and Habib state that what teachers are doing with ESOL students is help them “develop “communicative competence” in their particular disciplinary community within the American academic context (59)” so that they can better demonstrate comprehension of material in class. While I do agree that ESOL students should be able to interact with native English language speakers and in the academic setting they are studying in, this development should not go into the effect of changing the unique language and social identities that ESOL students have through changing their communicative competence.
As I have discussed throughout this essay, to truly close the gap in writing pedagogy between ESOL and native English language speakers, it is essential to frame English language teaching so that ESOL students’ background and culture are appreciated. The course of changing the communicative competence of ESOL students, that the teachers are taking in Zawacki’s and Habib’s text, can go into the direction of changing ESOL students’ unique and cultural communicative competence into the one appreciated by native English language speakers. I have personally experienced this in Finland by my close family members saying how my social contexts have changed after I moved to the United States. My communicative competence has changed substantially as a result of me moving to the United States and I see it as negative. The culture that I feel part of and deeply connect with, is saying that I have changed. I see this as me becoming more part of the American culture and me losing my cultural identity, which I truly do not want to lose.
This push for teaching of communicative competence argued by teachers in Zawacki and Habib presents a major caveat in how instruction should be looked at, as it results in the degradation of cultural identity of ESOL students. The expectation of teachers is to provide the tools to learn new knowledge and then to assess this, not to change their social contexts and grammatical rules of language. While students should be able to be understood by others, it is unnecessary to teach them new grammatical rules that are unique if they can still be understood; it brings ESOL students individuality. I believe that everyone’s communicative competence should be preserved from his or her own unique culture, and as a result, schools should not focus on changing the communicative competence of students. As these competencies demonstrate differences in cultures and behavior, they demonstrate diversity, which should be preserved.
Conclusion:
For the existence of an extensive gap in writing instruction between ESOL students and native English language speakers, Mackenzie Bristow, and Terry Myers Zawacki and Anna Sophia Habib present solutions. Bristow states that the speaking and writing skills of ESOL students from abroad need to be developed, while at the same time they should be helped to assimilate to the American culture. Furthermore, Zawacki and Habib state that ESOL students should be explained the underlying assumptions of the subject to students: from genre to the conventions of the language usage. They ask how ESOL students could offer insight of their diverse English language to native English language speakers. I propose that as a solution to this gap, ESOL students’ unique background and culture needs to be appreciated in all writing and instruction in classrooms across the country. Writing has to focus less on organization and style, and instruction needs to concentrate on increased cultural consciousness through specific classrooms practices. With regard to the development of ESOL students’ communicative competence, – which directly relates to ones culture and identity – it should not be altered by instructors. The reason why we need to in the first place to close this gap in writing instruction between ESOL students and native English language speakers, is because it is our moral duty to try to address the needs of all individuals to try to improve people’s access to jobs through better ESOL instruction. Even Bristow herself states how it is the duty of Universities – when they recruit students from abroad – to help them assimilate to the American culture and learn the language; she personally feels responsibility for these students. While the proposals I suggest might seem very comprehensive, I believe that they will allow ESOL speakers better access to a greater quality of life.
Works Cited:
Amiririan, Brandon. "L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms-Abstract." Web blog post. Living with Multilingualism. Weebly, 23 Feb. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
Hannikainen, Paavali. "Interview with Mackenzie Bristow." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
Yi, Youngjoo. "ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers." L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms. New York: Routledge, 2013. 133-48. Ebook Library. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
Zawacki, Terry M., and Anna S. Habib. "“Will Our Stories Help Teachers Understand?”: Multilingual Students Talk about Identity, Voice, and Expectations across Academic Communities." Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing. Ed. Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, Christina Orthmeier-Hooper, and Gwen G. Schwartz. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2010. 54-71. Print.