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Carol Wittig

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Carol Wittig

Category Archives: PAB

PAB #7/#8: Theories in Second-Language Writing: Genre, Process (or is it Post-Process now), and Translingualism  

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB, Papers (810)

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2L, genre, second-language writing, theory, translingual, writing

translingual

The world and language

My digression for the week and apology for the length – but as with all topics this term, both new and interesting are a lethal combination and I want my blog to continue to be useful to me in my studies…thus a bit more verbose than even previous posts.  Selecting articles for this week’s theories in second-language writing was the most difficult of the term as it was a bit like falling into a rabbit hole. Every article led to two more that “had” to be included, with names, terms and references that were all aha moments.  All looked important, but all could not be covered in these last two PAB posts.  I am going to miss these posts!  I have had the chance to explore second-language writing without having to commit to a narrow research focus – perusing the literature and amassing an entire folder (bordering on hoarding) of “must reads.” But alas, just like Alice, I did have to return to real life and settle on this week’s articles – albeit, four articles, but identified within two theories: genre and translingualism…well, actually genre by way of process and post-process.

℘

 Hyland, Ken. “Genre-based Pedagogies: A Social Response to Process.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.1 (2003): 17-29.

Hyland, Ken. “Genre Pedagogy: Language, Literacy and L2 Writing Instruction.” Journal of Second Language Writing 16 (2007): 148-164. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2007.07.005

Hyland and Genre Theory

“Genre refers to abstract, socially recognized ways of using language. It is based on the assumptions that the features of a similar group of texts depend on the social context of their creation and use, and that those features can be described in a way that relates a text to others like it and to the choices and constraints acting on text producers” (21).

“Genre theory seeks to (i) understand the ways individuals use language to orient to and interpret particular communicative situations, and (ii) employ this knowledge for literacy education” (22).

Ken Hyland’s articles on genre pedagogy in 2003 and 2007 reflect his even longer publication history, with over 10 published articles on just this topic.[1] In his 2003 article, “Genre-based Pedagogies: A Social Response to Process,” he outlines how genre theory can “complement process views” in second-language writing “by emphasizing the role of language in written communication” (17). He posits that genre theory offers “explicit and systematic explanations of the ways language functions in social context” that “represent the most theoretically developed and fruitful response to process orthodoxies.” While process methods in writing have had “a major impact,” Hyland maintains that they have not resulted in improved writing due to approaches “rich amalgam of methods [that] collect around a discovery-oriented, ego-centered core which lacks a well-formulated theory of how language works in human interaction” (17).

Throughout the article, genre theory and approaches are offered as not just complements to process, but as ways to save writing from it.  Process is offered as “decontextualized skill” with “little systematic understanding of the ways language is patterned in particular domains” that “disempower teachers and cast them in the role of well-meaning bystanders” (19-21). While Hyland stresses that he is not out to “condemn process approaches,” it is evident from this article, that he favors genre theory in the writing classroom for the ways it offers a “socially informed theory of language and an authoritative pedagogy grounded in research of texts and contexts” (18). With processes approaches, inherently lacking as a complete theoretically-sound writing pedagogy, genre is its “social response” (27).

Hyland points to three schools of genre theory: 1) New Rhetoric Approach, influenced by post-structuralism, rhetoric and first language composition; focusing on the “relationship between text type and rhetorical situation.” 2) ESP Approach, that looks at genre as “a class of structured communicative events” within discourse communities and a shared purpose. 3) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), known as the “Sydney School,” this approach “stresses the purposeful, interactive, and sequential character of different genres” through lexico-grammatical patterns and rhetorical features (21-22).

Assumptions and concepts Hyland points as essential to genre theory are that “writing is dialogic,” discourse community is a “powerful metaphor” central to “joining writers, texts and readers in a particular discursive space” and are not “overbearing structures which impose uniformity of users” (23).

While most of Hyland’s article focuses on the broader understandings of genre theory, he does connect it specifically to second-language writing as a way to “acknowledge that literacies are situated and multiple” whereby “writing cannot be distilled down to a set of cognitive processes.” For second-language writers this allows for them to “gain access to ways of communicating that have accrued cultural capital” and make “the genres of power visible and attainable” (24).  Addressing critics to genre theory in second-language writing, Hyland offers that failure “to provide learners with what we know about how language works as communication denies them both the means of communicating effectively in writing and of analyzing texts critically” (25).

In practice, genre can offer practices as well as views about writing, with a more supportive structure for teaching. Hyland notes that the theoretical basis for pedagogy using a genre approach is from Vygotsky, who emphasized “interactive collaboration between teacher and student” and a supportive environment that utilized scaffolding, with the teacher as an authority (26).

Hyland (2007) outlines key principles of genre-based theoretical teaching:

  • Writing is a social activity
  • Learning to write is needs-based
  • Learning to write requires explicit outcomes and expectations
  • Learning to write is a social activity
  • Learning to write involves learning to use language

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Map of World

Map of World

Horner, Matsuda and Translingual Writing

Horner, Bruce, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, and John Trimbur. “Opinion: Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach.” College English 73.3 (2011): 303-321.

Matsuda, Paul K. “The Lure of Translingual Writing.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 478-483.

Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster and John Trimbur are current scholars within the field of translingual writing. In their 2011 opinion article, they outline an alternative to the inadequacies they see in the “traditional ways of understanding and responding to language differences.” With a translingual approach, the focus shifts from “barrier to overcome” in language differences, to “resource for producing meaning” (303).

They point to other scholars and the CCCC declaration of “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” for the rights of students to use their own “varieties of English” (discussed earlier in Paper 2). In recognizing a translingual approach, they acknowledge that it is an ongoing discussion, one these authors started at a 2009 Symposium at the University of Louisville.  They note that this article,

“is neither all-inclusive on the issues it does address, nor the final word. We have developed this piece because we believe it is far past time for the issues it addresses to be engaged more aggressively in our field, and we hope to open a much-needed conversation that will be continued in many places, in many genres and forums, from many different points of view—with an eye toward change in the conceptual, analytical, and pedagogical frameworks that we use here” (315).

By arguing for the fluidity of languages, translingual approaches “questions language practices,” asking “what produces the appearance of conformity, as well as what that appearance might and might not do, for whom, and how” (304). With translingualism, there is no “standard” English, described as a “bankrupt concept” by the authors. Rather the varieties of English, as well as other languages, are looked at by way of what “writers are doing with language and why” (305).

“Traditional approaches to writing in the United States are at odds with these facts. They take as the norm a linguistically homogeneous situation: one where writers, speakers, and readers are expected to use Standard English or Edited American English—imagined ideally as uniform—to the exclusion of other languages and language variations” (303).

Power, and “dominant ideology” are mentioned throughout by Horner et al. as writers using a translingual approach would “negotiate standardized rules in light of the contexts of specific instances of writing” (305). The authors list three points that translingualism argues for:

1) honoring the power of all language users to shape language to specific ends

2) recognizing the linguistic heterogeneity of all users of language both within the United States and globally

3) directly confronting English monolingualist expectations by researching and teaching how writers can work with and against, not simply within, these expectations. (305)

Set against two historical approaches to teaching language differences, 1) the traditional approach – that seeks “to eradicate difference in the name of achieving correctness” and 2) tolerance—distanced from the first by “codifying” changes in language and “granting individuals a right to them.” Horner et al points to this as more tolerant on the surface, but segmenting language use to “assigned social sphere[s]” (306).

“A translingual approach requires that common notions of fluency, proficiency, and even competence with language be redefined” (307).

“A translingual approach rejects as both unrealistic and discriminatory those language policies that reject the human right to speak the language of one’s choice” (308).

“Taking a translingual approach goes against the grain of many of the assumptions of our field and, indeed, of dominant culture. At the same time, it is in close alignment with people’s everyday language practices” (313).

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 “It seems that translingual writing has established itself as an intellectual movement” (Matsuda 478).

Following Horner et al’s article text is a list of teacher-scholars who “have seconded the project outlined,” and while Matsuda’s name appears on the list; in subsequent articles, he has questioned a translingual approach.  For Matsuda, translingual writing theory “refers to loosely related sets of ideas and practices that have been articulated by scholars”[2] and in his most recent article on the topic, he interrogates the movement’s tendency for “linguistic tourism,” stressing that for it to move from the current “rage among scholars,” that it needs to move beyond “intellectual curiosity” and that the field of writing studies as a whole needs to “recognize the problem and to engage with issues surrounding language differences more critically” (483). Matsuda recommends learning “more about language—its nature, structure, and function as well as users and uses” and to “develop a broader understanding of various conversations that are taking place—inside and outside the field” (483).

“I am happy to see the enthusiasm. At the same time, I am often puzzled by the zeal with which some scholars and teachers approach a concept that they do not fully understand. More problematically, some scholars seem to use translingual writing not for its intellectual value but for its valorized status” (Matsuda 479).

“Graduate programs in rhetoric and composition need to take more seriously, and be more ambitious in making use of, what is now all too often treated as a token second language requirement of its graduates” (Horner 308).

[1] Xiaoli Fu and Ken Hyland (2014) “Interaction in two journalistic genres: a study of interactional metadiscourse;” (2013) “Genre and Discourse Analysis in Language for Specific Purposes;”  (2011) “Genre in teaching and research: an approach to EAP writing instruction;” (2009)  “Genre analysis;” (2008) “Genre and academic writing in the disciplines;” (2002)  “6. Genre: language, context and literacy; (1992) “Genre Analysis: Just another fad?;” (1990) “A genre description of the argumentative essay.”

[2] The scholars Matsuda points to within his article as current voices in translingual scholarship are A. Suresh Canagarajah, Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, Jackie Jones Royster and John Trimbur, and Vershawn Ashanti Young. Matsuda acknowledges that while he has been “implicated in this movement,” he considers it to be a “work in progress” (478-479).

PAB Posts #5-6: Portfolio Assessment and Student Identity ~ Objects of Study (OoS) in Second-Language Writing

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2L, composition, e-portfolios, English studies, facebook, portfolios, second-language, second-language writing

world map

World Map

Selami Aydin, of Balikesir University, Turkey, Zina Romova, of Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand, and Martin Andrew, Victoria University, New Zealand teach English as a second-language at their respective universities and have written on portfolio use in second-language writing classes. Aydin’s focus in both of her articles selected for this week is on students’ attitudes and reactions to portfolios, balanced against their use as a means of assessment. Of interest is that these authors are writing on students outside of the U.S., providing an opportunity to compare pedagogical practices in a broader setting than just U.S. institutions.

Portfolio

Portfolio

Aydin points out that while portfolio use has been studied and determined that they “make considerable contributions to foreign language writing,” that rarely have students’ perceptions been studied or addressed, despite that “use of portfolios creates an interactive assessment process that involves both teachers and students and forges a partnership in the learning process” (195). Asking 39 EFL first-year teaching students in the English Language Teaching Department (ELT) at Balikesir University, Turkey, she discovered that while the portfolio ”contributes considerably to vocabulary and grammar knowledge, reading, research, and writing skills” and that students recognize this, they also “complain that portfolio keeping is boring, tiring, and takes too much time.” Students also felt that checklists, as a part of portfolio-keeping were confusing, and that it was “difficult to study with a peer,” but they did not “experience anxiety” as part of the process (198-200). Concluding that while beneficial, there is also room for improvement in informing teachers “about motivational issues and autonomous learning” as a method to solve some of the problems; she further expanded her examination in her second article, by studying Facebook portfolios, noting, “in general, existing research reveals primarily positive effects of Facebook on educational activities, and research on portfolio keeping in EFL writing shows both benefits and problem areas” (60).

Facebook Portfolio App

Facebook Portfolio App

How can the two areas of portfolios and social media be combined for better student engagement while maintaining the benefits of portfolios’ learning elements? By using e-portfolios within Facebook, she attempted to see if this could alleviate problems of understanding of directions, or of students being bored, since “Facebook is a social network that, for many, is commonly used in daily life” and offers a “fresh environment for portfolio keeping in the writing process” (60). Citing numerous studies[1], she offers that there is value in using Facebook as a learning tool “about different cultures and languages” as well as for improving reading and writing in foreign languages. What she sees as lacking in the research to date is anything related to Facebook as a “portfolio tool” (61).

Students responding to this study felt “comfortable and excited with the idea of using Facebook as a tool for writing in English” and thought it had “considerable effect on the way they write in English” (67). They again demonstrated improvements in language, writing and reading. But, as in her earlier study, they still felt the portfolios were “boring, time-consuming and tiring” and that feedback was difficult to give, as well as revising and drafting (68). Students with computers responded with more satisfaction than student without computers, while overall those who were more familiar with Facebook faced increased fear of “negative evaluation from their peers” (70).

Interesting in this study, was that Aydin found that her male students felt “more comfortable with F-Portfolios” while female students exhibited more “fear of negative evaluations” (70). That in itself would be worthy of further exploration, as students perhaps recognized the breadth of social media’s visibility and gendered reactions to feedback in a web space vs. a written portfolio seen by only their class. While F-Portfolios were useful in writing instruction for improving vocabulary, reading, and writing skills, Aydin recognizes that this is still not a “tool that presents solutions to all problems encountered during the portfolio keeping process” (71).

While Romova and Andrew’s article, addresses basically the same pedagogical impact of portfolios, they also identify how students’ identities are “negotiated in text formation,” citing additional scholarship[2] on language use within “situated context and community” and “notions of imagined community”– all of which leads to students “affective roles of investment and belongingness in generating writing characteristic[s] of discourse communities” [my emphases] (114). They discuss students’ reactions to writing, research and citing conventions in Western academic writing, seeing vast differences in how students’ first-language knowledge is often at odds with academic English, noting that “academic literacy factors can be enhanced by increasing learner awareness of cross-cultural contrasts” (117).

oracle bone inscription

Oracle Bone Inscription – Jiaguwen refers to animal’s shell and bone writing, they form one of the most ancient written languages in Chinese history.

As Romova and Andrew provide insight into students’ reflective practices, they observe that the portfolios provide “a retrospectively and holistically reflective function” as a way students came to know themselves (119). I selected this article because of Romova and Andrew’s attention to student identity in the process of portfolio creation and feedback as I am interested in exploring how the students’ themselves are an object of study within second-language writing. In my interview with Dr. Kevin DePew, he discussed the importance of seeing the student as a recognized object of study and I plan to further research how students’ identities are established and exhibited through their writing and in response to feedback. I will expand on students’ identity and feedback via portfolios and other means as objects of study within second-language writing studies in Paper #3.

 Works Cited:

Aydin, Selami. “EFL Writers’ Attitudes and Perceptions toward F-Portfolio Use.” TechTrends 28.2 (2014): 59-77.

—. “EFL Writers’ Perceptions of Portfolio Keeping.” Assessing Writing 15.3 (2010): 194-203.

Romova, Zina, and Martin Andrew. “Teaching and Assessing Academic Writing via the Portfolio: Benefits for Learners of English as an Additional Language.” Assessing Writing 16.2 (2011): 111-22.

Notes:

[1] Just to name a few, Aydin (2012); Boon & Sinclair (2009); Bowers-Campbell (2008); Mills (2011); West, Lewis & Currie (2009); DePew (2011) and Dippold (2009).

[2] Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger 1998; Swales, 1988; Flowerdew, 2000; and Johns, 1995, 1997

PAB #3 & #4: Major Questions–The Grammar Debate in L2 Writing

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2L, composition, error correction, grammar, linguistics, second-language writing, WCF, writing, written corrective feedback

Hand writing with a quill. Photograph: Stephen Johnson/Getty

Within second-language writing studies, one question that has been debated for over 20 years and still lacks consensus is whether grammar correction has benefit in second-language writing feedback. In articles by John Truscott (1996) and Dana Ferris (2004) for this week’s post, how much of the practices of written corrective feedback (WCF) depended on teacher lore was startling.

“Teachers and researchers hold a widespread, deeply entrenched belief that grammar correction should, even must, be part of writing courses.” (Truscott 327)

Truscott in, “The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes” took on this “entrenched belief,” by arguing that it was not just “ineffective,” but that it has no place in writing courses and should be abandoned. . . . and that “given the nature of the correction process and the nature of language learning” that “grammar correction has significant harmful effects…” (328).

Examining the numerous research studies pre-1996 and breaking down individual arguments by citing researchers’ failure in examining the “nature of the correction process” or the many “practical problems involved in grammar correction,” Truscott began what Dana Ferris calls “The Grammar Correction Debate in L2 Writing” in her 2004 article (328). Countering Truscott’s claims, Ferris writes “Error treatment, including error feedback by teachers, is a necessary component of L2 writing instruction” (49). While acknowledging that “the research base on error correction in L2 writing is indeed insufficient…” (50), she points out three observations:

  1. Research to date has not “adequately addressed” whether error feedback helps L2 students. Studies are lacking that are both controlled and that provide longitudinal results.
  2. Studies are “fundamentally incomparable” as they are different in almost every variable.
  3. Research that does exist “predicts” that there may be positive effects with written error correction, encourages “developing linguistic competence” and wards off students “fossilizing” at certain language competency levels.
Puzzle parts of speech

Parts of Speech

Truscott however, in positing that students risk damage by corrective feedback focuses on incomplete language development, stressing that students will improve based on “extensive experience with the target language” through reading and writing (360) instead of through correction that may inhibit their attempting more complex writing structures. While students may think they want corrective feedback, in truth, giving students what is good for them, not what they may actually want is teacher lore…Truscott would not resort to supplying it, even as he writes “students obviously do think correction is helpful—and even necessary…” (355) and Ferris reiterates this, pointing out that “students are likely to attend to and appreciate feedback on their errors” (56).

Ferris does offer “best guesses” at how error treatment should be approached in a classroom with 6 suggestions

  1. While error treatment is necessary, it must be done competently, faithfully and consistently.
  2. Feedback should be indirect most of the time and engage students in “cognitive problem solving.”
  3. Not all errors can be treated the same as students may not understand lexical and/or global problems.
  4. Revision has to be part of the process.
  5. Supplemental grammar instruction is beneficial.
  6. Error charts created by students can make students more aware of weaknesses.

From Dr Zareva’s lecture on world Englishes and English as a world language movement, I do question Ferris’ offerings in her article of ways of “correcting weaknesses” without any mention of how Standard English and its monocentricity privileging the Inner Circle of English may affect how English, Standard English and with it Standard English grammar, is inherently taught. Looking at points from last week’s discussion on what is the “norm” even for native speakers of English, I do wonder about L1 grammar research and its efficacy on student writing.

While Truscott points to L1 research (Knoblauch and Brannon 1981; Hillocks 1986; Krashen 1984 and Leki 1990) that demonstrates the lack of effect that grammar correction has on students’ writing ability, this is an area that still necessitates further reading as I question what is current pedagogy and theory in L1 research, if it has changed and been debated as much as in L2 and how changing views on Standard English have changed the conversation? Janice Lauer addresses this to some extent in Chapter 2 “Rhetoric and Composition” in English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), noting, “One of the most controversial aspects of the work in rhetoric and composition in the eyes of the public is the field’s teaching of grammar, spelling, and punctuation” (128). She goes on to emphasize that George Hillock, in his 1984 article, “discredited the full-frontal teaching of grammar,” but it nevertheless remains as part of “formalist pedagogy” in classrooms.

inner circle

Kachru’s three-circle-model. Figure adapted from Crystal, D. (1999), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP, p.107.

One thing stood out from this week’s readings, there is no lack of questions in L2 writing research as in any other area of English Studies. Each of the articles points to many holes in the literature that offer opportunities for new studies and research in the field.  Good news for those of us interested in future research!

Definitions

  • Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) – Providing written correction on a student’s writing through a variety of means, including:
  •  Indirect WCF – Noting errors on a student’s writing without providing the corrections. This could be through underlining, circling, or otherwise singling out the error.
  •  Direct WCF – Providing the correct form on a student’s writing by crossing out, writing the correction, or adding missing terms.
  •  Focused WCF – Correcting errors selectively on a student’s writing by addressing only a specific or limited range of error types, such as articles, tense, or agreement.
  •  Unfocused WCF – Correcting all errors on a student’s writing.

 Works Cited

Ferris, Dana R. “The ‘Grammar Correction’ Debate in L2 Writing: Where Are We and Where Do We Go from Here? (and What Do We Do in the Meantime..?” Journal of Second Language Writing 13 (2004): 49-62.

Lauer, Janice M. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. 106-52

Truscott, John. “The Case against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes.” Language Learning 46.2 (1996): 327-69.

PAB-ENG 810: #2: The Division of Labor within the ESL / Composition Classsrooms

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

composition, history, labor, research, second-language writing, teaching

For both entries this week, I have focused on articles by Paul K. Matsuda. In this second post, I selected another article that is frequently mentioned in second-language scholarship, “Composition Studies and ESL Writing: A Disciplinary Division of Labor.” In his 1999 article, written while he was still a doctoral student at Purdue, Matsuda notes that “few composition theorists include second-language perspectives in their discussions” (699) and points to the growing presence of international students and ESL students within composition classes without adequate consideration in research and specializations.

There is a likelihood if you teach composition in higher education, that you will encounter second-language students and Matsuda writes that there are “linguistic and cultural differences they bring to the classroom” that can “pose a unique set of challenges to writing teachers” (700). Citing Tony Silva, from his chapter in Writing in Multicultural Settings and Joy Reid’s Teaching ESL Writing, Matsuda notes that there is a “need for writing instructors to become more sensitive to the unique needs of ESL writers” (700).

Matsuda discusses some of the same composition and second-language events during the mid-20th century as mentioned in his later article (PAB #1) and notes that “one of the central topics of discussion at this workshop was the question of how to deal with international ESL students in the regular composition course at institutions where neither ESL specialists nor separate ESL courses were available-a question that continues to be relevant today” (708). Mentioning early practices that included placing ESL students in “speech clinics where speech therapists treated them as suffering from speech defects,” or in basic writing classes with native speakers “without making any adjustments or proving sufficient linguistic support” (709), Matsuda points to the focus on the oral practice and tradition of teaching English as a result of Fries’ earlier work.

The division of labor for teaching ESL was argued “on the basis of the need for a specially trained ESL instructor” (710), with early programs established to insure that those who taught had linguistic training, but as Matsuda writes, “were also motivated by the need to release composition specialists from the extra ‘burden’ of teaching ESL students in their classes” (710).

In this article, Matsuda does not argue for a merging of composition and second-language studies, but outlines ways that “second-language writing should be seen as an integral part of both composition studies and second-language studies” with both groups integrating the pedagogy and practices that would help both groups (715). Offering suggestions that composition specialists learn more about ESL writing and adopt second-language perspectives in their work and theories, Matsuda sees second-language readings and research as requisite for graduate programs in composition[1].  He lists prominent names and areas of focus to explore further.  Looking finally at writing program administration, he examines ways in which ESL students can be offered as many options as resources as possible (717).

Perhaps because this was Matsuda’s earlier article, I saw this more reflective of Ostergaard and Nugent’s “Preservation and Transformation” discussion from our reading in Transforming English Studies (“Introduction,” 13-15) of a transformative response– than did his later article I reviewed. How much did moving into the academic community as a professor affect his outlook – and his ability to work within the institution’s bureaucracy to influence second-language learning within the curriculum?  While he certainly would be an example of Gallagher, Gray and Stenberg’s discussion of the need for a student to be a “troublemaker” once they graduate by working to effect change in their academic institutions, it seems that Matsuda also recognizes the need for collaboration and “relational work” as a necessary compromise within a system that has been working “for more than 30 years…to improve the institutional practices for ELS writers in second-language classrooms” (Ostergaard 26-40, Matsuda 718).

  * * *

[1] In a list of readings focusing on second-language writing, Matsuda mentioned these topic areas with authors that I note for my own further study: Writing in the disciplines (Belcher and Braine; Johns, Zamel and Spack; Literacy (McKay, Rodby); Assessment (Hamp-Lyons); Reading and Writing (Carson and Leki); Writing Program Administration (Braine, Kroll, Roy, Silva and Williams); and Written Discourse Analysis (Connor, Connor, Connor and Kaplan, Purves)

   * * *

Works Cited

Matsuda, Paul K. “Composition Studies and ESL Writing: A Disciplinary Division of Labor.” College Composition and Communication 50.4 (1999): 699-721. JSTOR.

Ostergaard, Lori, Jeff Ludwig, and Jim Nugent. Transforming English Studies: New Voices in an Emerging Genre. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor, 2009.

PAB – ENG 810: #1: Selections from Second-Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook

08 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Carol in ENG 810 Major Debates (Fall 2014), PAB

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

composition, history, interdisciplinary, linguistics, lore, meta-disciplinary discourse, methodology, phonetics, praxis, research, second-language writing, teacher-lore, theory

[Take my Survey]

Paul Kei Matsuda, a Professor of English at Arizona State University, in his widely anthologized article, “Second-Language Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Situated Historical Perspective,”[1] examines how second-language studies[2] developed as part of an interdisciplinary relationship within composition studies. Noting that “composition scholarship overall has been rather slow to reflect the influx of second-language writers in composition classroom” (2), he points out that while histories of second-language writing appeared in the 1960s, it was not until the 1990s that second-language writing recognition “emerged as an interdisciplinary field situated at the crossroads between second-language acquisition and composition studies” (7).

Part of what Matsuda cites as a “disciplinary division of labor” (1999), he sees “disciplinary gaps” between composition and second-language learning in their historical perspectives, as well as in how students have been labeled and divided within composition classrooms (8). Matsuda outlines how early second-language instruction focused on speech, using the applied linguistic theories of phoneticians Henry Sweet and Paul Passy, based on the belief that “phonetics should be the basis of both theoretical and practical studies of language” and “take precedence over the written form.”

Matsuda writes that it was in the late 1950s that second-language studies began to become professionalized as second-language writing started to move away from composition (16). Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) was formed in 1966 and Matsuda points to this time as when the disciplines divided the labor of teaching L1 and L2 students. It was later, through need that second-language writing courses became a “sub-discipline” of TESL (Matsuda 21).

Drawing on Stephen North’s use of “teacher lore,” as did Louise Wetherbee Phelps in our reading from last week (“Practical Wisdom and the Geography of Knowledge in Composition,” 1991), Matsuda echoes Phelps’ concerns with how theory does (or often does not) provide adequate or timely connections with practice. Recognizing that both fields are multidisciplinary in nature –echoing in this instance, our reading for this week as the many theories and disciplines come together within English Studies (“Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline,” Lauer, 1984). By 2000, research areas and programs grew as second-language writing was “recognized as a legitimate field” (Matsuda 23). Matsuda closes his article stressing that interdisciplinarity is a must and that “second-language writing should be seen as a symbiotic field” (26).

From this article, I have a number of questions and areas to explore further. What are the current pedagogical methods used in composition for second-language writers? At my own university, as in many without a composition sequence in the first year, students all take first-year seminars and second-language students often face writing challenges during their first year, but only a small percentage of second-language students are enrolled in an additional course to support their second-language needs.

Much of the second-language writing research I have read so far is over 10 years old, but as I have no background in this area, it is informative to research and learn the history of the field, its relationship to composition studies and how best I can align myself within these two areas for my future research and study.

*

šWorks Cited:

Matsuda, Paul K., Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, and Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, eds. Second-Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston, 2006. 14-30.

Selected Readings from text for PAB #1:

“CCCC Statement on Second-Language Writing and Writers.” Second-Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Paul K. Matsuda, Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, and Christina Ortmeier-Hooper. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston, 2006. 10-13.

“Introduction.” Second-Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Paul K. Matsuda, Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, and Christina Ortmeier-Hooper. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston, 2006. 1-4.

Matsuda, Paul K. “Second-Language Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Situated Historical Perspective.” Second-Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Paul K. Matsuda, Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, and Christina Ortmeier-Hooper. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston, 2006. 14-30.

————————

[1] This article appears not only in the text I have cited, but in numerous other second-language texts, as a single article, and reflects his dissertation focus, ESL Writing in Twentieth-Century US higher Education: The Formation of an Interdisciplinary Field (2000).

[2] Matsuda lists a number of terms used to describe second-language writers and learners, but uses these two terms as they are used within the “CCCC Statement on Second-Language Writing and Writers.”

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