Discussions Questions-Ferris (2003)

Ferris, D. (2003). Responding to writing. In Kroll, B. Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing. 119-140.

1. Giving and responding to feedback is a complex and dynamic process and students need individualized feedback. What factors do teachers need to take into account when they give feedback on student papers?

2. Ferris points out some limitations of previous research in her chapter. One of the limitations mentioned is that many studies examine the effects of feedback in revisions on the same paper. If a student gets a comment on a certain aspect of their writing and revises accordingly in a subsequent draft, does it mean that the student acquires that aspect? If you design a longitudinal study to observe the effects of feedback on students’ writing ability, what methodologies do you want to use to measure a long-term effect?

3. It may be difficult for teachers to distinguish between appropriation and necessary intervention in their teaching practices. How can you find a balance between these two concerns in an L2 writing classroom?

Oral and literate connections in second language / November 18, 2009

Williams, J. The speaking-writing connection in second language and academic literacy development

One of the most interesting arguments to me in this chapter is that “retrieving a form repeatedly in planned production, such as in writing, increase the likelihood that it will be produced later in a more spontaneous setting such as conversation” (p. 13). It is interesting because I intuitively believe that repeated production in writing facilitates my spontaneous oral production. But I didn’t know that this connection is actually researched in the field and have some ground to argue for the connection.

This argument can be more valuable in EFL settings where learners have truly limited opportunities to speak English in real life. Not only that, writing is less stressful to learners because it’s not spontaneous, which is why it would be easier to provide students with writing opportunities in the classroom. In contrast to some people making a case that repetition is useless and should be removed in language classrooms, I want to argue that repeated production of unfamiliar forms in writing should be encouraged in and out of the classroom. Simple repetition of discrete and decontextualized words may not be that helpful. If possible, teachers need to try to come up with ways to get students to use some constructions in a meaningful context.

Writing to read, Reading to write: November 11, 2009

Writing is not simply to transcribe our thoughts and ideas onto paper or computer screen.
I strongly agree that writing strengthens reading and facilitates learning. That’s why writing needs to be incorporated into English classes for other modalities such as reading and speaking. Although it would be better not to separate those modalities in the first place, reading and speaking teachers can encourage students to keep uncontrolled journals, or take notes etc. when organizing the structures of classes are beyond the control of teachers.

Yuko’s acquisition of academic literacy in Spack’s (1997) article is interesting because writing played an important role in her academic life. While Yuko’s efforts were worth being appreciated, I believe that teachers’ support must have been there. “The experience of writing and revising journal entries in her sociology class showed her a way to use writing to clarify reading and to put social scientists’ ideas into her own words” (p. 46). When she entered college, it seemed that she didn’t expect the beneficial effect of writing in her learning. One or some of her teachers must have encouraged her to keep journals and revise her journals. Or the teacher must have shown strategies of using writing for her learning and reading. This is what we teachers need to do.

A small change in teaching practices can make a big difference in our students’ learning path. I observed that even teachers’ passion about a topic and care about our students made a difference in student learning in classrooms. No matter how insignificant what teachers do in the classroom look, it can have a great or small but sustainable impact on students’ success. Teachers need to acknowledge the value of writing and try to incorporate writing in their teaching.

Reading and writing connections in second language: Reader Response Theory as a social process/ November 4, 2009/ Hirvela chapter 1

Viewpoints about reading-writing relations have changed a lot in at least in research and in L1 domain. Unfortunately practitioners, especially teachers in EFL settings, might not have an opportunity to be exposed to the viewpoints suggested by research studies in the field. Among them is the belief that writing developments mean “mastery of spelling conventions; with mastery of skills and subskills” (p. 29). I don’t mean here that these skills should not be taught in school. Rather, I want to warn against the tendency to delay teaching other aspects of writing until students master these skills and to be reluctant to provide students with plenty of opportunities to be engaged in meaningful literacy experiences.

Even advanced writers can make mistakes in various forms. That students got a bad grade in grammar test does not necessarily mean that they cannot be engaged in meaningful literacy practices. In EFL setting where students have limited access to input of target language, students’ exposure to a target language is usually through textbooks with grammar drills and short instructional stories which are very limited both in the types of genres and the amount of reading. It is vital to help students read a various genres extensively in and out of EFL classrooms.

Genre Theory/ October 28, 2009

Although process approaches have contributed to the improvement in student writing in classrooms and still have worth pursuing in today’s writing classroom, there are some aspects that attract critical responses from researchers and practitioners. Among them are the fact that process models “disempower teachers and cast them in the role of well-meaning bystanders” (p. 19). Process approaches emphasize self-discovery of knowledge, individualism, learner-centered, and implicit learning, which renders teachers to become a facilitator or collaborator. But we cannot rule out a strong possibility that ESL students who are educated in totally different cultures might be disadvantaged in the process classroom.

Teachers in the process classroom expect students to “glean knowledge [about appropriate forms] from unanalyzed samples of expert writing” without explicit explanations, and from “growing experience of repetition” (Hyland, 2003, p. 19). But if an international student enters a masters program, they are expected to write different genres of writing in different major courses over a period of 3 or 4 semesters. Given that they had no access to literacy practices that are dominant in the US academic settings before starting the program, the overall coursework might not be long and repetitive enough for them to ‘glean’ the knowledge they need. Some students might have written a critical review of a research article only once over the course of the whole graduate years.

Teachers need to be flexible enough to be sensitive to and suit students’ needs. Teachers can give clear guidelines about their writing assignments and explicit instructions on genres that students are expected to write “when necessary,” rather than simply waiting them to discover the knowledge they need by themselves. But I don’t mean that teachers have to provide explicit instruction all the time and go back to the teacher-centered classroom. They don’t have to choose one. Rather, teachers can alternate their roles on a great timing; sometimes facilitators, other times explicit instruction giver. So, it is imperative for teachers to decide when and how to give explicit instruction.

Hyland, K. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 17-29.

Second Language Literacy in K-12 context/ October 21, 2009

ESL students include a wide range of students in terms of their ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. But clearly there is a tendency, especially practitioners in school settings, to view ESL students as a homogeneous group, one that is referred to non-mainstream students. A closer look at the students’ ethnicity, the number of years in the US, and personal experiences etc. would reveal how disparate they are. In addition, considering the importance of representations of them in identity (re)creation and attitudes toward learning, images that are not that representative, type of assignments and placement tests based on them obviously do harm students’ development.

When you are an immigrant who has lived in the US more than 10 years and feels more comfortable with English than with your heritage language, yet you are supposed to write about ‘your country,’ it’s not difficult to imagine that you are unwilling to deal with the topic. For this student, the ‘country’ topic may be very tricky. The student might feel that he/she belongs to neither of the two countries: where he/she lives now nor where he/she comes from but doesn’t know much about how it is now. If this instructor had been open to the possibility that there are other students than newly-arrived international students in the classroom, the teacher would not have given this topic for assignment or at least would have given more choices from which students can decide.

Although I guess it’s inevitable for teachers to have some kind of images about their target students, it’s imperative to realize that diversity is there and diverse needs wait to be met. Unless teachers try constantly and consciously to be sensitive to their students, it’s possible to exert a damaging influence on their students without realizing it.

Second Language Writing Support in College

Some people assume that acquisition of English is “easy and natural” for nonnative speakers (Kubota & Abels, 2006, p. 84) whatever its source might be: monolingualism, Anglo-conformity, or individualism. Or it might be simply because they have never learned any foreign language in their entire lives. In this case, it’s not surprising that they don’t know how hard it would be to write a complete sentence with voice or to speak in a second/ foreign language.

But if you are one of the decision makers about the policy on international students who need support, you should try to understand the challenges international students face. Among the efforts are rejecting prevalent attitude that views language support to nonnative speakers as “remedial rather than developmental”(p. 85). This can be traced back to the deficit model which regards foreign students as having some problems to be fixed. But as the authors point out, when Americans learn a foreign language, people rarely call it remedial.

Of course, how to provide developmental support is tricky. Various factors should be taken into account: how many international students or 1.5 students need support, how much existing resources the school has, or how much financial resources the school has etc.. Some schools might not have enough students to develop a program for support. So, decision makers and educators need to consider specific contexts in terms of the institution and their students. This would be easily said than done, though. As this is a difficult task, it is valuable to refer to a lot of real cases by reading an article or a book.

Academic Literacies-October 7, 2009

• Discussion questions
1. Brain (2002) argues that acquisition of academic literacy means more than the ability to read and write in academic settings. Do you agree with this idea? If so, what does acquiring academic literacy mean to you? From your personal experiences, how did you develop/ have you developed your academic literacies?

2. In Brain’s (2002) article, several shortcomings of research methods such as surveys and the value of case studies in the research on academic literacy are presented. If you conduct a research study on academic literacy yourself, what methodologies would you use?

3. Canagarajah (2002) points out that “contextualizing the text” (p. 7) can mean different things to different people. What does it mean to you and why?

4. Canagarajah (2002) views writing as material rather than cognitive (p. 5). Discuss what ‘material’ means in this sense and (especially international students) do you have any examples in your country where any material restrictions affect writing?

5. Canagarajah (2002) suggests the negotiation model and the difference-as-resource orientation, making a case against the crossing, or deficit model. Have you ever had any teacher who holds, consciously or unconsciously, one of these three orientations toward multilingual writers in the classroom? Which model do you agree with? Why?

September 30, 2009/ Interaction

One of the interesting issues to me in Casanave chapter 5 is that reading and writing courses need to be incorporated because “we cannot teach L2 students about audience or textual borrowing without involving them deeply in reading activities” (p. 185). It reminds me of when I was taught English reading and writing courses separately, which made me assume that these two skills are discrete. The first time I encountered the concept of audience and plagiarism was when I took an academic writing course in the US. But the teacher simply emphasized how important those concepts are in writing and we, especially international students, should be very careful not to borrow others’ ideas improperly. Then we had to write a paper with that in mind. If I had done reading activities that specifically focused on audience and how to borrow others’ ideas in a proper way in the academic discourse community, it would’ve been easier for me to understand and apply those in my writing.

Surely, reading benefits writing not only in these two aspects but also other aspects of writing. In addition, some international students have almost no previous literary background in English. American students read a lot of books in and outside school before they enter the classroom. If all of the reading experience in the target language is reading textbooks and grammar books, it’s not surprising that foreign students have difficulties in grasping concepts easily that are taken for granted by native English speakers.

Although how we define plagiarism considering cultural and historical factors is important, we researchers try to go beyond mere defining the concept and understanding how challenging it would be to international students. If you have many international students in your class, you need to spend much more time on writing and reading activities focusing on audience and how to not plagiarize than in class with American students. Once teachers understand that what Americans take for granted doesn’t come naturally and easily to students from different backgrounds, they will provide more examples from great literary works or articles, writing activities for practice, or feedback related proper citation, instead of saying how important it is at the beginning of the class and blame students upon their paper at the end of the semester.

9-23-09-Voice

I found one of Atkinson’s (2001) question interesting because he showed how trying to teach individual voice, whatever its definition is, can disadvantage non-native English speaking or non-mainstream students: “Is voice really being taught in the L1-oriented composition classroom?” (p. 111)

Some students, I believe many of the mainstream students, are raised in households where individual voices are encouraged and children are naturally exposed to parents’ ways of communicating with others in various literacy practices. This early socialization can give them a headstart, compared to those who “suffered harsh educational consequences” (p.111) due to the lack of extensive exposure to “prior socialization” (p. 111).

Some children from relatively higher socio-economic background can access a lot of literate sources from birth. Their parents might use writing to express themselves for their jobs or at home regularly. Other children might not have any parents who read bedtime stories to them, or their parents might never read or write since they graduated from high school. These two groups of students obviously start on a different footing when they enter education system.

In this sense, literacy and socio-economic power is so intertwined that we cannot actually separate them. Mainstream American students, although not all, need to learn the things that they already learned at home. And the things that they already learned from home is not simply language, but a complex bundle of social and cultural assumptions and values, which minority or international students have no access to. If we cannot detach individual voice from the rest of the social-cultural sets of values, how we can teach it to students, even to L2 students? Or if ever possible to do so, how can teachers teach that in just a few semesters when mainstream students learn that for their entire lives?

intercultural rhetoric

Kaplan’s article (1966) is significant in that he viewed the struggles second of language learners as cultural differences instead of “cognitive deficit” (Casanave, 2003, p. 29). It cannot be denied that his argument had a huge impact on second language teachers when many teachers couldn’t understand why their foreign students were so poor at writing unlike their native peers.

Nonetheless, it can’t also be denied that his analysis could have improved in some way. As Kubota (1998, as cited in Casanave, 2003) points out, more evidence is needed to argue that there are “culturally unique patterns” (Casanave, 2003, p. 36). I felt uneasy when I read Kaplan’s example and analysis of Korean student’s essay which was written in English, a language that he/she didn’t have a good command of.

In addition to the fact that L1 patterns was analyzed based on writing in L2, there was a strong possibility that other factors came into play or several factors interacted with each other in the piece, let alone the low L2 proficiency. The student might not have had enough enthusiasm to invest all his/her energy. He/she might not have had enough knowledge about that topic. Or the writing task might not have been that important so he/she didn’t try his best.

To Americans, the word Korean may bring a single image. To me, one of the Koreans, the word in my head is too complicated and multifaceted because every Korean looks different to me. Each of them has their own set of small cultures. In this sense, I strongly agree with Connor (2004)’s claim that small cultures as well as national and ethnic cultures need be taken into account, and social and political contexts need to be investigated by appropriate research methods such as interviews with writers and readers or focus groups.

Of course, in order to do that, we need more complex and multiple methods, which are obviously harder and more complicated to collect and analyze than simply with written texts. However, as Atkinson (2008) argues, how can researchers explain “a highly complex phenomenon” with simple tools?

reflection-9-9-09/ process and post-process approaches

Process approach to writing has played a significant role in helping students grow as writers although there are some objections to the approach. I agree with Atkinson (2003) and Matsuda (2003)’s idea that post-process does not mean total rejection of process focused practices, rather it is “a paradigm expansion” (Atkinson, 2003) and “the recognition of the multiplicity of L2 writing theories and pedagogies” (Matsuda, 2003). A closer look at situated and contextualized aspects of writing will lead to clearer understanding of the multiplicity of L2 writing.

One of the interesting points from Atkinson article is the way in which “non-mainstream writers might be disadvantaged by an L1-oriented process writing pedagogy” (Atkinson, 2003, p. 8). Practitioners and researchers need to acknowledge that “student-centered and the non-transparent” process pedagogies (Atkinson, 2003, p.9) might benefit mainstream students who have been exposed to a range of mainstream literacy practices and literate sources from birth. Obviously, those from low socio-economic background or different cultures have divergent set of life experiences from mainstream students in the West, which would shape their literacy behaviors in different ways.

But, process and post-process pedagogies in writing classrooms are not mutually exclusive. That teachers recognize process writing practices may not address social and cultural aspects of literacy doesn’t necessarily mean that they should not encourage their students to write multiple drafts and to discover their voices in writing.

What is important is for teachers to be sensitive to specific educational settings and students’ characteristics so that they can make “principled and informed decisions” (Casanave, 2004, p. 16) in the classroom. As in an example of implementing Elbow’s version of process writing in a Taiwanese university (Atkinson, 2003), it may result in a damaging effect to put an approach into practice without taking into account educational contexts and students’ expectations and needs.

autobiography

One of the biggest challenges in my acquiring English academic writing was when I took a major course titled Research Practice in Academic Writing and English Language Learners. That was my second semester in the US. Writing a critical review of a research article for that course was practically my first time to write an academic paper at a graduate school in the US. I guess my challenges were two-fold: on the one hand, I was not familiar with what an academic paper is supposed to be like, and on the other hand, I felt that my command of English was not strong enough to reveal my voice. Not surprisingly, I got a bad grade on that critical review with brutal comments that actually hurt my feelings.

But at the end of the semester, I became confident about writing and enjoyed the delights of accomplishments because those brutal comments were the start of my learning, although I realized that after I finished the class. What turned hurting-emotions feedback into a constructive learning advice was the professor’s continued dedication throughout the semester. In the beginning I revised my drafts multiple times because I appreciated the teacher’s time and energy that she put into my work. I knew that it was pretty hard for her to give the sheer amount of feedback to each of the multiple drafts for one paper. Whenever I revised my draft, she allowed me to send it to her via email and sent each draft with her written feedback. Thanks to her, I was able to get a sense of how logical can be considered ‘logical,’ how developed can be counted as ‘fully developed,’ when I need citation, and how I can support my ideas and so on.

Working a piece of paper in a multiple-draft setting like that was a process of learning of what an academic paper is like in a given discourse community. Through a series of getting feedback and responding to them, I interacted with the teacher, who represented the academic discourse community. The more familiar I became, the more confident I felt when I voiced while writing.