English 345: Tuesday, December 6

"If implementation of a liberating education requires political power, and the oppressed have none, how then is it possible to carry out the pedagogy of the oppressed prior to the revolution?" asks Paolo Freire (pg. 52). He then begins to divulge into just how this is possible, how this will take place in two stages, and how the first begins with awareness for the oppressed. Yet, within much of the rhetoric of this text: He leaves out one important item: The teachers. Granted, I wouldn't call myself oppressed... because I know that I"m not. However, I also wouldn't put myself in the "oppressor" group, either. I am, like my other classmates in English 345, enlightened when it comes to working with the "oppressed" students that Freire focuses on.

Unfortunately, though, I think that we are of a select few. If a teacher hasn't in somewhay studied teaching english as a second language, Freire and other ideas like his have probably never come up--at least they didn't for me. These teachers may have a few lessons on culture, maybe one on different dialects brought into the classroom, but, within their own methods courses, that's probably the only thing that is said.

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to revamp Freire a little for our own purposes as teachers. Most of us in 345 are not oppressed (at least I don't think so). Yet, we are enlightened to this oppression. So, our job--as the in-betweeners of the oppressed and the oppressors--is to enlighten more of the oppressors, those teachers who may not have had the educational backgrounds that we have garnered. While Freire continually notes that this pedagogy begins with the oppressed, I think, more so, it begins with the teachers.

English 345: Tuesday, November 29

Although not outright stating it, Kumaravadivelu eloquently and importantly describes the recursiveness (or lack there of at times) of the process of teaching multiple times in Chapter 13, Monitoring Teaching Acts. Of the formal classroom, he states, “It is there the prime elements of learning and teaching—ideas and ideologies, policies and plans, methods and materials, learners and teachers—all mix together” (pg. 287). All the things affecting school systems like those policies, the set curriculums, the standards perhaps affecting the methods, etc. all ultimately trickle down into one space: That of the classroom and the relationship between the teacher and the individual students within those classrooms. When it comes down to it, looking past the red tape that some people see in regards to the educational system here in the U.S., the only part that truly matters is whether those students are learning; how teachers accomplish this, as discussed in this class, can be brought about in a myriad of ways.

That being said, I use the word “recursive” to mean to particular relationships as far classroom teaching goes:

1. The recursive of a teachers’ lessons, plans, etc. This can involve things like Kuma’s M & M approach, etc. in which teachers examine what’s working, what’s not, then—recursively—go back and fix it. As new units/lessons begin, this recursiveness is even more evident.

2. The (idealistically) recursiveness of teachers in relation to the schools-at-large, the polices, the standardized tests, and all of those other macro-level structures affecting teaching. However, does this relationship go two ways? Is it actually recursive? Can teachers—those “micro” level people, in turn, affect how the macro level structures work? While I think that the answer to this question is that this recursive wheel either turns much more slowly or often just drops straight down, not allowing teachers—the integral parts in that most important educational relationship—the opportunity for as much input in how classrooms across the country should be run, I also think that more teachers are beginning to question why this particular process isn’t more recursive. Hopefully, this wheel, then, moves more swiftly in the future, continuing with my terrible attempt at a metaphor.

English 345: Thursday, November 17

345 Blog: Thursday, November 17

            It is interesting that, often, the term “native speaker” is used as such a blanket term to refer to anyone who speaks a particular language as their first language. I have always found this to be interesting as the people under that umbrella term are so incredibly diverse. I cannot imagine attempting impose some sort of commonality on the English spoken by every single person in the United States. Yes, we are all native speakers, but the language spoken by large chunks of people is so different, encompassing particular social and cultural factors. That’s why I was glad to read about Shohamy’s problematization of that term in relation to the language testing or English Language Learners. Just who are these “native speakers” that these students are supposed to sound like? How “good” at speaking is a “native speaker”? What would this “native speaker” say in this particular situation? By considering that motif of “any native speaker in the United States” as an answer to any of these questions, one can see that eliciting one answer from all native speakers just isn’t possible. Shohamy echoes this point by mentioning a series of studies: “Specifically, they found that performance by native speakers was related to educational level and work experience, leading the researchers to conclude that the native speaker should be considered as the criterion for appropriacy” (209).

            On a somewhat unrelated note, Shohamy’s description of problems with reading comprehension tests called up my own experiences in testing reading comprehension through multiple choice questions. She writes that these tests don’t really test what they’re supposed to as all people bring their own experiences to passages being read (another example of both the reader and the text interacting with one another) and that there can never be one-text, one-meaning. I have always found this to be the problem with those standardized reading comprehension sections that all students must take. I remember studying for the ACT or another test of that sort. What I was doing during those reading comprehension passages was not reading and comprehending. Rather, it was knowing what the questions were beforehand and skimming, looking at key words, etc. in order to get out of that text what those testers wanted me to. A reason that I succeeded on those was that part of my prior knowledge was not just being able to read, but knowing how to take that particular type of test. However, most English Language Learners do not have that luxury. So likely, they are taking a reading comprehension test that doesn’t really measure what it should and do not have that prior knowledge of being able to subvert it as I could do. That’s a huge issue when the reading abilities of most students in this country—native or nonnative—are being tested in this way. It’s a very unfair playing field.

English 345: Tuesday, November 8

            As I read the texts for today’s class period, I found Chapter 11 of Kuma to be a direct answer, or plea for more awareness in the least, to the problems discussed in Harklau’s article, “’Good Kids’ to the ‘Worst’: Representations of English Language Learners across Educational Settings.” I found Harklau’s point that too little is known about ESL secondary students to be so true, in both research and otherwise. As I have research various topics related to this group of students, I found that the majority of research has been focused on ESL students in the elementary context. Many people have focused on the literacy practices of this group, perhaps because other native-speaking students at the elementary school age are also still struggling with literacy. Yet, a paucity of research exists on the reading and writing practices of ESL secondary students even though this group carries with it issues very distinct from their elementary school counterparts, including the identity issues exacerbated simply because they are adolescents.  

            This lack of knowledge of ESL secondary students was glaringly apparent in Harklau’s article. One teacher states, stigmatizing their ability to communicate in two languages: “It must be like somebody who’s very bright and has a stroke. And can’t express themselves” (50). The lack of knowledge about language acquisition and bilingualism behind this quotation, which was spoken by a college educated person, highlights the stereotypes that fill the heads of most monolingual English speakers in this country. Yet, one cannot necessarily blame the teacher for this way of thinking. He or she could, of course, educate him or herself about such topics as language acquisition. However, most research shows that teachers in the U.S. are extremely inadequately trained to handle this student population. Without proper training for all teachers, this problem will, unfortunately, persist.

            What should be done? What should these teachers/administrators/other people working with ESL students know? Well, first off, they should read Kuma Chapter 11 to gain some background on language, language policies, and the standardization of English. Most have no idea that “standard” English has nothing to do with it being better “linguistically” than other dialects: “A standard variety, thus, gets its prestige owing to social, political, and economic factors and not linguistic ones” (242). Most also have no idea about the significance of a student’s first language in acquiring second language literacy. The students features in Harklau’s article had already been in the U.S. for at least six years, but I especially wonder about students who arrive in the U.S. and are immediately placed in secondary schools. With the lack of research and the lack of teacher knowledge in that particular arena, I can imagine what it must be like for them to attempt to learn.

English 345: Thursday, November 3

When a student is learning a new language, he or she will, hopefully, be surrounded by ways to foster their personal language awareness, both generally and critically, as Chapter 7 in Kumaravadivelu. The author also goes on to note that “it is only recently that concerted efforts have been made to educational circles to relate language awareness directly to educational policies” (157). Both of the movements discussed here were attempting to combat “linguistic complacency,” uncovering the social and political implications that language holds. Yet I wonder how that movement can be taken one step forward, to help the general public fight its own linguistic complacency about what goes in US public schools and in the policies enacted in those institutions.

            I have been reading various articles on perceptual dialectology, or, basically, giving people a map of someplace (the US, for instance) and having them fill in where dialects, languages, etc. come in. All of these studies have one thing in common: The ignorance of the general public about language and the uncanny ability by most to easily label the common language stereotypes. Idealistically speaking, it would be much easier to help L2 students develop language awareness with the backing of the general public, but how does one (or many) even go about doing this monumental task?

            On a somewhat unrelated note, in Chapter 5, I found the discussion of the different types of interaction to be interesting. However, I feel as if the concept of “interaction as a textual activity” could be problematized a bit. The book talks about the use of texts as interaction tools as a sort of one way street, through input to the person. However, I do wonder if that idea is a bit too simply. Reading any text is a negotiated activity, between the reader and the text. The characteristics, views, and other identity constructs that a reader brings to a particular text will inevitably change how that text is viewed, allowing that text to be negotiated and allowing the reader the ability for potential “output” for that text. I’ll admit that I’m still working out this idea in my brain, but I think that this idea of reader/book as a give and take sort of interaction depends on how a person views the act of reading and writing itself. Some questions that I am thinking about related to this: How does a text change based on the L2 reader currently reading it? How is it read differently based on different readers in the class? Does this mean that each student, then, subsequently, has a different interaction with that particular text? Do words on a page simply stay singular words (even after the author wrote them) until a reader comes along to put meaning onto them?

English 345: Thursday, October 20

When I first started to read about learner autonomy from Chapter 6 in Kumaravadivelu, I asked myself, "Is there a minimum age on teaching this?" I then got to page 144 and read this, the simple answer to my question: "Learners at different proficiency levels will profit from an emphasis on academic as well as liberatory autonomy." Yet, I asked that initial question partly because of what I've seen this year in various classrooms. Many ISU freshmen simply do not want to think for themselves. They don't seem willing to and able to think independently. And many really don't want to take responsibility for their own learning. Instead, they want to teachers to tell them exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. They want teachers to point out the exact location of some particular point on the class syllabus. And, when something goes wrong, they want to immediately blame someone else rather than look back at their own learning and classroom decisions to see what caused that event to happen.

So, what I have seen a lot of this past year is a complete lack of learner autonomy of any kind. I see teachers trying, but many students just don't seem to care. Looking back, the problem could stem from a lot of factors, from the type of teaching that they often get in high schools today to overactive parent involvement to the complete lack of care about this particular class (which then creates the attitude of, just tell me what to do, I'll do it, then I'll pass the class). Regardless of the reason, the autonomy isn't there--and the students really don't seem to care.

With the previous scenario as a backdrop, I found chapter 6 to be thoroughly refreshing. Regardless of a learner's age, one can start teaching him or her autonomy, both the narrow as well as the broad view. The students above will likely be able to develop the skills of autonomy; they probably just haven't been given the chance, and haven't felt that there was a need, yet. Almost all are L1 learners from the middle class, so "questioning" why things are done the way they are, why they speak English the way that they do, why they write in the "standard" English, likely are not pressing issues for them. They are the audience that the standardized tests are written for. They are the audience most consider when writing textbooks. These ideas of autonomy are still very important, but just not pressing.

However, learning these skills of autonomy, from learning how to learn to learning to liberate are extremely important to L2 learners, especially those who immigrant to this country during their K-12 years. Unlike the previously afforementioned group, they probably aren't being considered in school decisions. Their first language is probably never being given use or rarely. Giving them the opportunity to question what decisions, regarding their language use or otherwise, is a skill that they necessarily need to learn. As Pennycook notes, have them examine just what sociopolitical factors are really shaping theri L2 classrooms. The libertory autonomy is synonymous with a critical pedagogy, which, in turn, is synonymous with Freire's idea of giving "power to the oppressed," of allowing those students who may not be considered in school policies the power to question just why this is so.

English 345: Thursday, October 6

"The world outside of their writing classes may be far less forgiving and understanding of L2 writers' written errors, linguistic gaps, and acquisition gaps," Ferris writes in "Myth 5..." (109). While harsh, the "may" in this statement could very well be replaced with "will." The outside world will be less forgiving of L2 writing for a few reasons. Almost all will not understand the concepts of second languaage acquisiton or the specific characteristics of L2 writing, and many of those people will automatically assume that the L2 writer should be able to understand how to write in English correctly--they just simply need to do it. Yet, while I could go on about what the public will likely question about L2 writing, some specific items in the articles struck me as interesting.

Perhaps because the majority of what I read now is in some way related to standards/policies/standardized tests, I was drawn to the discussion regarding the state test of California that Ferris mentioned in her article. I have been noticing that when states implement writing on tests or for benchmarks--as many of them do now--the way they teach writing changes, and this can be especially detrimental for L2 learners. One noticeable examples arises from a school district in California.  The high schools in the district included "benchmark" assignments in English that all students had to pass to move on to another grade. These "benchmarks" contained their very own set rubric about what would be passing and what would not be. The article noted that, when teaching writing, teachers focused simply on the criteria in the rubric. During one witnessed writing conference, the English teacher helping a second language learner focused not on the overall content of her paper but on how well she met the bullet-pointed points in the rubric to this state standard. Apparently L2 learners in many states learn that all Americans write is SAT-like writing statements.

I think that a refreshing aspect of writing teaching outside of these "Standardized ways" is through the genre approach talked about in chapter 31. However, I am curious about something regarding this. The text says that the teacher brings forms and patterns to conscious awareness, but can the students construct their own forms for the genres, as well? Does the teacher always explicitly need to give the set guidelines--which truly change within a particular genre, as well. I see this as one of the only major ways that L1 writing teachers adn L2 writing teachers use the genre approach to teach students: The L1 teacher allows the students to create their own genre "rubrics" while the L2 teacher lays down the specificis in the specific context. I'm wondering if the line can't be more blurred at times?

English 345: Application Project

My application project will center on one student in my English 101.10 class. This student--whom I have already talked to about this and got the "okay"--is an American citizen and lived in the US for a few years after he was born. He learned German first but English quickly followed, he told me. However, he moved to Germany due to military obligations of his parents soon after. He has since been back in the U.S. for a little more than a month--since school started here.

I want to focus on his writing specifically and will enhance my research by examining both written work of his in English as well as through interviews with him about writing in English. He has told that being back in the U.S. after being gone since he was a little child has been a big adjustment, so I am very curious what I can find related to his writing processes, transfer, etc. in relation to this "adjustment."

English 345: Tuesday, September 27

"Some severe criticisms of the approach have been summarised by Kelly, and he puts out that the most fundamental criticism is that philosophically it reduces people to the level of automatons who can be trained to behave in particular ways..." the Anthology states in regard to the curriculum plan of Reconstructionism (72). Pretty harsh if you ask me, but I can see how that could happen if an instructor uses only this type of curriculum plan and takes all of the "unambiguous" descriptions of the behavior to be performed to the absolute literal in every lesson plan. However, I just cannot see that happening; there is bound to be gray area when a person is teaching.

That being said, I find that the process model of curriculum development to be especially useful for language learners--or learners in any classroom really:  "The goals of education are not defined in terms of particular ends or products, but in terms of the processes and procedures by which the individual develops understanding and awareness and creates possibilities for future learning" (73). In this approach, language learners are not graded just on that finished project, a research paper for instance. Rather, they can also be graded on just how much they learned by working on that paper regardless of what the final project may look like. This process approach takes into account the cultural differences that language learner always bring to school assignments, including the research paper. How one does a "research paper" may be different in every country, and the "way" we do it here in Illinois is very much culturally constructed. Considering that process, how much they learned, also alleviates some of the pressure from the students, as the final outcome is not all that counts; how much they learned and what they can apply to further language learning matters, as well.

I appreciated that the chapter on lesson planning opened up with an "Alice in Wonderland" quotation, one of my favorite books and words that ring extremely true when planning a lesson. However, this chapter left out an extremely important, often difficult, concept that all high school or middle school teachers will have to deal with: Lesson planning for different sections of the same class (for examples, having four different classes of regular freshman English). These classes themselves, although labeled the same and working on the same projects, may need less or more time on different activities (or just may get off track more). Thus, adapting lesson plans also means making sure that each class is on the right track and remains with those educational objectives. While this may sound easy, making sure to tell each class the same thing--especially if the lesson changed can also be extremely challenging.

English 345: Thursday, September 22

I find today's readings interesting, partly because I believe that both content-based instruction and sheltered instruction should be ESL techniques that the content area teachers themselves in middle school and in high school should not only be aware of, but should attempt to enact in their own content classrooms. "Most schools are not meeting the challenges of educating linguistically and culturally diverse students well," the article featuring an introduction to Sheltered Instruction notes. One challenge that arises from these diverse students is that teachers who teach these students--both ESL and content area teachers--need to talk to each other about what is going on in either classroom in order to provide the most effective education for those second language learners. However, in my experience in various high school settings, I have rarely ever seen the content area teachers and the ESL teachers communicate. It has been almost like those ESL teachers were on a language island all of their own. This also may have been because, in many districts, the ESL teachers must shuttle between different schools during the day due to budget contraints--but that is an entirely different issue.

What is positive about both CBI and SI is that they somehow "force" these groups of teachers to interact. If an ESL teacher wishes to create a sheltered classroom, he or she would have to communicate with the English or the science teacher, for example, through something like weekly meetings in order to create an authentic classroom atmosphere where the ESL students are learning both the content of the course through modified instruction of the language.

These programs could then, as the article suggests, become a bridge to mainstream classrooms. Ideally, the mainstream classroom teacher, through that communication with the ESL teacher, would have learned more about language acquisition and, for example, sheltered instruction so the appropriate amount of scaffolding could continue to go on in the content classroom, but the students would then become more socialized into the high school's fabric.

English 345: Tuesday, September 20

Just what is a task? That question continues to pop into my mind despite having read numerous articles about task-based instruction. If one is simply researching a “task,” these “activities” may be short (and easily observable). If one is using these tasks as a teaching method, they may be longer, perhaps a few days or an entire unit long.  

Or not.

And therein, situated neatly in that “or not,” lies my confusion. Just what really constitutes a task? Does it always take into account some sort of form as well as the meaning of language? But then what is this balance of form versus meaning within those tasks?  “Opportunities for production [of language] may force students to pay close attention to form and to the relationship between form and mean,” write Beglar and Hunt in the anthology (97). Ok, that seems to make sense… so task-based language teaching utilizes both to help students become successful language learners.

 And yet, this very same anthology disappoints me as I read a few pages on:  “Second, and more worrisome, is the fact that no task-based program has been implemented and subjected to rigorous evaluation” (102). In seeming agreement with this anthology, Skehan’s article notes multiple areas of task-based research, but this research is often vitally different from the actual task-based instruction seen in the classrooms, especially the example in the Japanese school given found in the anthology: The focused task (likely meaning shorter and to the point) is more of interest to experimental researchers and testers while those tasks that take of up an entire class period are more of interest to teachers and non-experimental researchers. Skehan also writes that many tasks, as the critiques mention, are missing the “inevitable social dimension of language use’” (11).

So, as I continue to consider just what a task is, just how to implement it, just how long to implement it(and so on and so on), I begin to realize that I may not have the answers because, truly, no one has the answers—even those famous researchers getting paid to come up with those said “answers” for all of us. Surely this blog post doesn’t do anything to move scholarship forward—and I’m okay with that.  I was hoping that, as I wrote this post, I would have some sort of epiphany, and the answer (there’s that word again!) to my task questions would come to me.

One didn’t.

But I’m okay with that, too. Because, in nearly every case, we teachers will never really know the “right” answers to anything, anyways. We may have others giving us suggestions, but those, too, are simply suggestions. Sometimes, we just have to go against what all those famous researchers say and just do what feels right. Besides, we know our students better than those other guys do, anyways.

And if all else fails, we can give the students a task to do… if we can ever figure out what that really is.

English 345: Thursday, September 15

“The Communicate Approach is the way to do it, no matter where a yoare, no matter what the context” (281). While Bax notes that no person explicitly comes out and says this regarding CLT, the author writes that this way of thinking about teaching language is still deeply imbedded in the minds of many people. Perhaps it is because I have been exposed to many different approaches and methods, but I just cannot believe that some educated people would take such a stance in regards to thinking. It seems like common sense to me to take the context of the teaching, to take where a person comes from and the ideologies that go with that, into account. But, as I said before, this is perhaps just because I have been exposed to many different ideas.

And yet, even great institutions such as the Chinese government apparently do not understand the idea of taking into the account of the context of their own people. Hu’s article highlights just how different the Chinese school system is from that of the one found in many places in America. Our “student-centered” way of thinking here is replaced with a “teacher-centered/almost absolute authority” approach over there. “Normal” activities in the U.S. such as discussions and debating amongst ourselves are replaced with the “normal” thinking that true knowledge resides in written texts, that true learning comes from reading books, not from discussions.

Neither way of thinking about learning is correct. What is highlighted above simply goes to show, once again, that one single method can never work for language teaching. There are far too many factors involved for that to ever work—with context being an extremely important one. I believe that what both of these articles indirectly do is place great importance on the use of critical pedagogy, on examining social, culture, and political factors that surround all forms of education, including language learning.

English 345: Tuesday, September 13

"Activities that are truly communicative," Larsen-Freeman's article notes, "have three features in common: information gap, choice, and feedback" (129). I find that Communicative Language Teaching, at its heart, appears to be a good idea. Language learners should know when and how to say what to whom, not just learn language in a vacuum in the academic classroom. However, the "information gap" noted above represents one of the issues that I take with this method, especially in relation to the examples given in the article.

The article features a high-intermediate level of adult immigrants in Canada, so, as adults, doing "real world" things such as looking at newspaper articles and deciphering what real world situations are represented on picture cards appear to be a good idea. However, I am rather unsure about the use of role playing, a technique that the article seems to consider an important part of CLT. I can see the good in role playing, of someone being the worker and someone being the boss, getting to practice dialogue that would be used in those situations. However, I just cannot see this being that effective in the classroom. A language learner knows that the person whom they are talking to is not really their "boss," so, no matter how hard they try to make it "real," real life situations such as the one mentioned above simply cannot be duplicated in the classroom.

A better way to create these "real life" language situations is brought up in Kumaravadivelu's Chapter Three. The authors gives examples of some learning opportunities outside of the classroom, ways in which language learners can connect to the outside community. These examples, such as following a local news story then interviewing local citizens to get their reactions or having the students choose one student service group and talk to people about that, appear to be much better real life language situations--because they truly are real life language situations, ones that take relevant issues in the community and allow the learners to get involved while still working on their language skills--a combinationt that "critical pedagogy" would be proud of.

English 345: Ibrahim, "Becoming Black: Rap and Hip-Hop, Race, Gender, Identity, and the Politics of ESL Learning"

"We identify ourselves more with the Blacks of America. But, this is normal, this is genetic. We can't, since we live in Canada, we can't identify ourselves with Whites or country music, you know. We are going to identify ourselves on the contrary with people of our color, who have our lifestyle, you know,"an African teen who has recently immigranted to Canada tells the researcher in the six-month critical ethnographic study asking how different raced, gendered, sexualized, abled, and classed social identities enter the process of learning an L2 (361).

What is interesting about this study is that here, these twelve students chose to have a marginalized linguistic norm as the target rather than the one spoken by the majority--and by nearly all of their new peers in Canada. They chose a norm that they saw in popular culture, that they seemed to find some sort of reflection in. "Becoming Black [my notes added here: they were not seen as such in Africa], I have argued, was an identity signifier produced by and producing the very process of BESL. [....] In becoming Black, the African youths were interpellated by Black popular cultureal forms, rap and hip-hop, as sites of identifiication" (365)

Within this interesting study of why and how these Blacks chose their "new" identities were some suggestions made by the author/researcher on how to include transformative pedagogy in the classroom in order for these students to see themselves reflected in the curriculum somewhere. He places rap and hip-hop as sites of hope and possibility, with that hope that all learners can see multiple ways of speaking, being and learning through these genres. "To put it more broadly," Ibrahim writes, "maybe the time has come to close the split between minority students' identities and the school curriculum and between those identities and classroom pedagogies, subjects and materials" (367).

English 345: Thursday, September 8

Because it represents only the introduction to a special issues on the issue of Critical Approaches to TESOL, I assumed that this article by Pennycook would be more of a quick overview of the articles to be found within that issue--more of a simple synopsis if you will. So, I was very surprised that the article in itself was extremely interesting; a few points that I will discuss here were especially intriguing.

I will first start with a point at the end of the article, a quotation that I made sure to highlight as I pondered various issues in the article's pages. "Gee suggests that "English teachers stand at the very heart of the most crucial educational, cultural, and political issues of our time","  the author notes on page 346. When I first decided that I wanted to be an English teacher, the overwhelming reasons were that I loved to read and write and found satisfaction in helping others learn; unlike many of the others in this class, I had little desire (or knowledge about) in teaching L2 learners.  Yet, in the few years since then, I have found those reasons evolving, with the ideas suggested in this quotation at the "very heart" of my new reasons in wanting to become an English teacher. Yes, I still love to read and write; however, I have also found now wanting to teach others about all of the implications that come with various Englishes in use, those cultural and political applications that any piece of English--spoken or written carries with it. Even a genre as simple as a text message can be situationed in some sort of cultural and political background, and I want students to consider these implications as they learn.

A second interesting point from the article comes on page 332, in the description of Ibrahim's article within this special issue. He writes about "becoming black," about how non-English-speaking African backgrounds garner this new description once they enter "the racialized world of North America" (332). This point is pretty obvious, but it is always relevant to point out that characterizations such as race are really socially constructed as well, changing as a person changes and moves into different cultures. Considering ESL classrooms in the United States in this light, very likely most of those students are dealing with "new" social classifications in this country as well as a new language, once again emphasizing the political and cultural forces that always go along with teaching English.

English 345: Tuesday, September 6

"It has been suggested that there is no substantial difference between common sense and theory, particularly in the field of education," a quotation that seems to get at the heart of chapters one and two (Kumaravadivelu 17). In the first few weeks of class, we have come to problematize various words often used in teaching, including method, task, and the aforementioned word, theory. Likely throughout our own education classes and our experience in the classrooms, these words have been brought up, as well... often as things that some educators appear to willingly accept simply because some "higher up" told them to.

When I was student teaching, I had to do daily phonics drills each day to help the "remedial" English class of high school freshmen read English better. These drills came out of a book called "Rewards," a pretty self-gratifying name for a book I suppose now, and were extremely monotous. The methods used mostly consisted of me saying something, the students repeating, and so on and so on. Most of the class were ESL students, and they seemed to get it (although I could never be sure that anyone was actually saying anything)

Then, I did not think much of it except for the fact that it was really boring. Now, I would wonder about a few things, namely:  How is it a good idea use a blanket method for all students? Sure, they all improved some, but could they improve much more with a diverse approach? Finally, how would using some of my "common sense" discussed in the chapters have changed my thoughts on this method?

Ideally, I would look for more bottom-up processes that start with the teacher, "generate location-specific, classroom-oriented innovative strategies" (33). This use of diversity in lessons makes "common sense" to me. However, the crux of my situation was that I really had no choice. I was just a student teacher given a bunch of lessons that the administration wanted me to try. The situation would also have been no different if my coordinating teacher had been in charge then. The administration continued to search for that one no-fail method that would work for all of the children.

English 345: Thursday, August 31

A number of points stood out for me from today's readings, but perhaps the one that got me to think to the most is a simple quotation from Kumaravadivelu:  "In spite of the increasing number of publications, a consensus definition of task continues to elude the profession" (64). I am realizing more everyday as I continue my education that "things" are rarely agreed upon in the field of second language education, or in education in general. People are now trending toward Task-Based Language Teaching, but people cannot even agree on the definition of the word. The quotation reminded me of a reading for another class, one on rhetorical genre studies. I found it amusing in that article, as well, that no one seemed to come to a consensus on just what the definition of a genre was. As I read, I continually marked on the page that I had passed another definition.

Points like that made above seem to highlight the fact that teachers, or soon-to-be teachers, need to consider their own beliefs about teaching, about how they want their classrooms to. Teaching, as we mentioned in class on Tuesday, is not a one-size fits all students type of field. Rather, teachers need to really understand where they come from as teachers in order to best serve the many differents "sizes" of students in their classrooms.

In her article, Celce-Muria seems to reiterate this point: "What is the solution for the ESL/EFL teacher, given the abundance of current and future approaches? The only way to make wise decisions is to learn more abou the specific methods available." And, I would add, then consider which methods work best for your students.

English 345: Tuesday, August 30

I think that the main ideas, or the most important ones in my opinion, arise at the end of today's readings:  "However, it is possible to view these three conceptions as forming a continuum" (25). The three conceptions, science-research, theory-philosophy, and art-craft, appear to be mutually exclusive when one first reads Chapter two. As I was reading, I was wondering just how this was possible; I feel as if, in my own teaching, I have reached for various approaches based on the needs of the students. Thus, I appreciate this ending, that all of these approaches can have their place in a teacher's repertoire--as they should.

I echo my sentiment from last Thursday's readings when I note that I found that a hugely important point arising from these fist two chapters was that a teacher necessarily needs to look at the needs of his or her students in order to find the best approach for each of them, in order to fully embrace that "dynamic teaching" mentioned (11). Each student will be learning the new language for different reasons and will have different needs when it comes to doing so. It is our job as teachers to effectively work with these differences while we teach.

The section on assessment, the third part in the diagnosis, treatment, and assessment section, is also one that caught my eye as I work to improve my own teachings. I agree with the increased emphasis with ongoing assessment, with those formative evaluations that allow us to track a student's learning throughout the process of an assignment, a project, or in language learning. Doing so also helps us as teachers, giving us the needed information on how students are doing during the project rather than waiting until the end all-be all evaluation at the end of a unit.

English 345: Thursday, August 25

I looked back at my notes after reading the two articles, and my comments went something like this: "Basically, you cannot easily identify anyone." "How can you label different English speakers?" "How do you even precisely define all of these key words?" In sum, Jenkins' article acknowledges placing people in terms of distinct groups of English speakers is simply impossible--as it should be I think. If I consider many of the graduate students here in the English department, many people would simply assume that we are all native speakers of English... and they would be partly right. However, we come from such various places in the U.S. that dialectal issues come into play, making our "native speaker" Englishes different from one another, as well. I always find it funny when I am told that I have a "Chicago" accent because I simply do not hear it, but apparently it is pretty evident to people who are not form northern or central Illinois.

Another interesting point from Jenkins that struck me was in regards to nonnative speakers:  "The first group has always been considered superior to the second regardless of the quality of the language its members speak," (16) a point that we all know simply cannot be true. Any university in the country contains faculty and students that constantly prove this to be incorrect. And yet, the falseness of this statement once again leads one to wonder just where to place the nonnative speakers who are much better speakes of English than most native speakers. Just what should the English speaker diagram look like?

I found the Diaz-Rico article to be good background reading/history for many important topics that this class deals with. The example of Miami as a vibrant place of nonmainstream people is especially interesting as I just witnessed this first-hand a few months ago. I knew that many people in Miami spoke Spanish, but I never realized that, very often, 90% of the conversations going on in public places would be spoken in that language. It was so interesting seeing the vibrant Latin culture there--housed in the state where my grandpa and many of his  80-year-old friends live : ).

English 495: Tuesday, April 26

Today's readings represent a wrap-up of sorts to our semester-long readings. So, I will first mention some thoughts on those readings and then do a wrap-up on some of my own thoughts that have emerged from the work done and lessons learned during this semester.

"All writing teachers are potentially, if not already, l2 writing instructors," writes Matsuda in his section of the article "On the Future of Second Language Writing." Matsuda makes an excellent point--and one that I fully get--when he notes that L2 writing does not just take place in the L2 composition classrooms on the collge campus. It can take place just as easily in any course or program that these students move on to. To say that only a certain number of individuals are "L2" instructors seems slightly off to me, unfortunately sort of like saying that a person does not teach a certain race or a person part of the country because he or she just does not understand that particular dialect of English used. Differences and diversity will always abound in the classrooms; all teachers must accept this at some point.

I am curious about the argument that not enough of the "best" teachers of L2 writing work in programs where PhD's are not offered. I do understand what is being said here to a point, but I also think that these influential people can affect the students in any educational context that they find themselves in. If their college has but a master's degree, perhaps they are influencing those bright students to then pursue a PhD that they had never thought about before--thus moving the L2 writing field ahead a little bit more in the process.

Yet, even the L2 students themselves could have a hand in moving the L2 writing field forward. In Casanave, Santos is quoted as writing, "Students first need to become proficient in conventional academic discourse in order to be able to challenge those conventions" (pg. 202). Whether one agrees with Santos' logic here is not the point. Rather, the important element is that those L2 students, the students often thought of as having the least amount of power in the political world that is language learning, can also have a hand in changing how people view second language writing.

As I wrote this blog, I began to consider my own views on second language writing, specifically on how they changed over this semester. At the beginning, I can only call my thoughts on that type of writing as completely "foreign," to say the least. The second language process was a complete mystery to me, as were the important components of grading, giving feedback, and so on. Although I do not want to give anything priority this semester, I think that one of the most important things this semester to come about was simply my greater awareness for the cultural and political aspects always involved in second language writing, that most people in the U.S. do privilege one dialect and consider it to be standard when that just is not so. Many more World Englishes exist that also deserve to be both recognized and implemented. I think that this awareness is something that all teachers regardless of the type of student that they teach should be aware of.

English 344: Tuesday, April 19

The two readings for today were great--a good look back and summary of some of the topics learned and dicussed in this semester. I found Canagarajah's article "TESOL at Forty: What are the Issues?" especially neccessary for the field. As others say, the only way to truly know where you are going is to look back on where you have been. Here, I touch on a view issues that he raised in that article.

The concept of identity in learning a language is one of the most interesting topics brought up for me this semester. Canagarajah writes of this topic: "In the process of learning a new language, one is engaging in the construction of a new (of different) sense of self" (pg. 14). Before this semester, I had considered the fluidity of language to a point. I was aware of Old English, Middle English, and so on. I knew that Shakespeare wrote in early Modern English, despite the fact that the words were so different than how we speak today. Yet, I had never really about how learning a new language could have such implications on a learner's identity. If someone comes to the United States, English really is the gatekeeper for most of the success in this country, bringing with it various cultural practices. That person may be forced to not only learn the language but to try to become acclimated into all of the social implications that the language may bring. I can see where that could cause problems, even identity issues, for some.

The idea of World Englishes will be a concept written about and evolving even more over the next few years and subsequent decades, bringing with it questions about just what makes "standard" English. Within the expanding circle of countries that use English, the fact that these countries may be creating new English norms rather than looking at the norms and standards set by the inner circle countries will help in bringing about further change to the English landscape. Yet, it also brings up many more questions, especially for teachers of English: What does it mean to be competent in the English language? Which World English do you go by in setting this "standard," if there even is a standard? Just what do we mean by "correctness"? If some written aspect of English is culturally-based yet differs from your own "version" of English, simply calling it "wrong" is naive... and slightly ignorant.

Canagarajah closes out the discussion by writing that " the story of TESOl at 40 is inconclusive" (pg 27). Yet, one cannot expect the field to be conclusive in any way. Perhaps if it were conclusive,  people would stop researching it and stop writing articles on it, leaving the field at a standstill. However, the world itself is a constantly evolving place, and calling TESOL inconclusive simply leaves the door open for the field to change as the world changes, for people to continue to figure out the place of English in globalization.

English 495: Tuesday, April 19

I found this readings particularly interesting this week, perhaps because the articles appear to parallel some of the issues that I am working on in relation to my paper for this class. I am considering how to better educate preservice teachers to work with ESL writers. However, many of the same things that I have considered within this also appear to arise when discussing faculty members involved in WAC. "Train all faculty, including WAC faculty in the disciplines, in appropriate pedagogical techniques for reaching MLLs," writes Hall. He notes that the job of teaching writing to these second language learners is neither fully the job of either the WAC instructor or the ESL instructor. Rather, it is the job of both to help work with these students. In my paper, I echo this collaboration with mainstream and ESL teachers at the secondary level. Really, collaboration amongst faculty members is essential at any level regardless of what types of students they are educating. It almost seems like common sense to me, although a sense that rarely gets acted upon it seems

The metaphor of writing in the disciplines as a second language is something new to me, and I am not sure exactly how much I agree with it. Yes, I'm sure I would find it hard at first to write up some scientific report, being unfamiliar with form, etc. Yet, I just can see how this can be equated to a foreign language at all. Sure, some structure or terminology may be different, but the words are not foreign. Now if one would have me write that scientific report in, say, German, then that would be a completely different, and extremely troublesome, story.

I like that fact that Hall mentioned that MLLs may actually have some advantages over monolingual speakers in WAC programs. They have already had to adapt to new genres, to new languages, so that linguistic adaptability is inevitable. Perhaps that's why I had so much trouble with academic writing once I returned to school after wrtiting only journalistic scripts for so long. I better get back to those Spanish lessons...

English 495: Tuesday, April 12

In case you were curious, here's the discussion questions that we'll be starting with for Tuesday's discussion.

Working with ESL Writing in the Writing Center

1.     Min-Zhan Lu’s framework of describing three stances that readers can take when responding to ESL writing:

a.     Assimilationist:  The goal is to help the ESL writer write linear, thesis-statement and topic-sentence driven, error-free, and idiomatic English as soon as possible; encouraging writer to assimilate into the dominant culture; differences=deficiencies

b.     Accommodationist: May try to teach the NES norm; goal is to help the writer learn new discourse patterns without completely losing the old so that the writer can maintain both L1 and L2 linguistic and cultural identities; differences=differences, but explain that some may see those differences as deficiencies

c.     Separatist: The goal is to support the writer in maintaining separate linguistic and cultural identities; advocate for NES to read ESL texts generously; overlooks and preserves difference

                                        i.    Which stance do we choose when working with ESL writing (very likely, not the first)? Is it a combination of them? Does the assignment make a difference when taking one of the stances?

                                       ii.    Without any training, many tutors will likely inadvertently become an assimilationist. How can we avoid someone using this stance in a Writing Center?

                                     iii.    What if you know that one professor clearly takes an assimilationist stance to grading writing assignments? Do you go against your viewpoint to ensure that the student gets a better grade? How do you deal with this?

2.     When working with ESL students, what should the goal be? To help them become better writers? To help them do better on one particular assignment? Something else entirely? A combination of the two…?

3.     Tony Silva:  “When does different become incorrect or inappropriate? And what is good enough?” (Matsuda 43)

                                        i.    How do you know when something is not “cultural,” but just plain wrong?

                                       ii.    If something different is culturally-based for the student, when, if ever, does it become wrong?

                                     iii.    How do you know when an ESL writer’s work is really “good enough”? Do you base it on their current skill level? On the grade they want to get in the class? Or what else?

4.     Thonus’s Five General Principles for Working with Generation 1. 5 students:

a.     Teach the Metalanguage (specialized language to talk about writing) and Sociopragmatic Conventions (understanding the roles and responsibilities the tutor and tutee must assume) of Writing

b.     Affirm the Student’s Cultural and Linguistic Heritage

c.     Balance Grammar Correction with Rhetorical Concerns

d.     Offer Explicit Direction

e.     Avoid Appealing to (NS) Intuition

                                        i.    Which of Lu’s three stances mentioned in the first question does b. Affirm the Student’s Cultural and Linguistic Heritage relate to? Does that mean to take a separatist or accommodationist stance? Or both?

                                       ii.    Could these five principles also be used for ESL users in general—or even for “native speakers”? What changes could be made for those?

5.     You get to implement a workshop and create specific guidelines for the tutors at the Writing Center in order to better work with ESL students.

                                        i.    What would this workshop or the guidelines look like?

                                       ii.    What concepts would you be sure to include so that tutors are aware of them?

                                     iii.    How would these be different when working with either a generation 1.5 student or an international student? Would they?

6.     And just some things I was curious about…

                                        i.    How are tutors normally told to handle helping students with their writing?

                                       ii.    How long are the sessions with students normally?

                                     iii.    What kind of training is usually involved to become a tutor? Is anything ESL-specific?

English 344: Tuesday, April 12

I found the discussion on the six proposals for classroom teaching quite interesting. As far as the foreign language setting goes, a few of them (Get it right from the beginning, teach what is teachable to a certain extent) seemed to bring back memories of my own foreign language experience in high school. Unfortunately, I cannot say that was too successful. I do see positives and negatives for each teaching practice, as one will when examining any such practice. Once again, I will advocate that, with learning a foreign language, there is no better tool that the social interaction of being emersed in its home language context through studying abroad, etc. So instead of continuing on discussing the teaching of foreign language, I want to instead examine a few of these proposals through the lens of the ESL student in the United States, a student who is already immersed in the context (unless hidden in ESL classroom throughout the entirety of education, which is a completely different issue).

Many school districts simply do not have the means or the funding to give the ESL students the language enrichment that the need, so proposal number four, two for one, often becomes the de facto teaching method without any discussion of the matter. When ESL students are mainstreamed into content-area classrooms, that teacher must wear two hats-that of the language and of the content teacher--regardless of training in the matter. The book notes that students often need several years of language instruction before being able to learn from this method. That is all well and good, but oftentimes students don't have a choice in the matter. Thus, when it comes to ESL students in mainstream contexts, this is the model that all teachers should learn about and work with in order to effectively teach their ESL students both content and language.

I also find the "Teach what is teachable" proposal an interesting one in relation to ESL students. The labeling of the stages of a language itself appear to be problematic in that 1. this maintains that there are strict divisions in the levels of ability rather than a fluid continuum, 2. students can, thus, easily fit into said divisions, and 3. this assumes the easy labeling of divisions to be being with (meaning, when does a students move up in a stage? when they use the structure occasionally? when they are experts at using the structure? when they can simply understand it?). Teaching a classroom of mainstream students, including ESL students, using this method would be interesting. I wonder just how one would attempt to hit that next level of learning for every students, although that key word "differentiation" would clearly up come into play here. Finally, I am curious how the L1 would come into play with this proposal. Would its affects on the L2 simply disappear when one reached a certain stage? Would this be a problem even in the upper stages of language learning?

English 344: Tuesday, April 5

I read Firth and Wagner's article "On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research, partly because I am interested in the social aspects of language and partly because I have recently read David Block;s "The Rise of Identity in SLA Research, Post Firth and Wagner (1997)," an article that looks at the changes in SLA research in the ten years between the first article's publication the second's publication.

Although only 14 years ago, I was surprised at some of the assumptions that some lines of SLA research had regarding native and nonspeakers along with aspects of L2 communication. From the underlying claims that native speakers are omniscient figures to the mindset that encounters between NS and NNS are always problematic, the article surprised me at what some researchers were basing their research--and thoughts--on. I also found it interesting that communication in one strand of research--communicative success--was viewed as transferring thoughts from one person's mind to another, with seemingly no mention of the social aspects involved with this. As the authors note at another point, "For SLA, the learner identity is the researcher's take-for-granted resource," and many merely focus on the foreign learner's linguistic definiciencies (a pessimistic way to go about doing research if one asks me).

Luckily, much about SLA research appeared to change since the publication of Firth and Wagner's article, according to Block. The author wrote that there had been an increase in publications since that first publication based on assumptions that L2 learning and identity were interrelated. He mentioned numerous areas of research that has since expanded:  How information technology mediates lives, the relationship between social practices and communities of practice, how different power relations affect individuals, etc., etc. This makes me wonder at the power of research:  Was Firth and Wagner's article the catalyst of this push for more social research? Did they simply write the the right article at the right time, as that scale was about to become more even in relation to social class and cognitive ability?

Finally, I am also interested in one area that Block says needs more research, that of identity and social class. Unfortunately, social class and L2 learners are often interconnected in this country, so I feel this issue is extremely important. Has there been an influx in research on this in the past four years since Block's publication? What is, once again, the power of one research article??

English 495: Tuesday, April 5

"It is a reflection of an understandable bias in certain circles that the black vernacular is permitted, glorified in certain composition circles, but WE is not tolerated in academic writing," writes Canagarajah (603). This is but one extremely interesting, thought-provoking quotation from this week's readings. There are numerous times when reading a piece of literature written in the African American dialect in the classroom is perfectly acceptable. Yet, until this semester, I thad rarely even heard of about World Englishes and the different dialects that come along with them--and I can't remember one literary work written in such a dialect. I find that extremely sad and wonder now what glorious works written in those other dialects of English  I have been missing and have not been allowed a center place in any classroom that I have been in.

Still, I don't think that we can dismiss the AAVE has having an easy time of it, either. I believe that students need to be exposed to numerous different kinds of works and authors that speak to them, that they can see themselves in. However, I do wonder about allowing those different dialects to transfer onto the written page--specifically in the high school formal writing context. I can see creating writing assingments which allow the students to utilize their own vernaculars--low risk assignments I believe they are called. Yet, allowing those students to bring in those same differences into a formal writing paper in an English class would simply be doing them an injustice unless the implementation of those dialects somehow was neccessary for their topic. That is not to so that I am all for keeping the standard dialect of English in the classrooms--far from it. However, the students in the secondary context are going to be continously judged on their ability to write standard English when they leave my classroom. My short-term goal would be to make sure that they can do that--and not be judged by some as having a lack of ability for bringing in a piece of their identity. I think that this implementation in a high school classroom can take place as long as the students can also successfully write in that standard english dialect-because I know that the students will be judged if they cannot, and I would never want that of a student.

I am also extremely intrigued by the concept of code meshing, of the teacher Tom in the "Multilingual academic literacies" article who encouraged the students to speak in Spanish in order to negotiate the meaning in English. The fact that he is privileging the content knowledge over English while still allowing the students ample opportunity to learn the language is fantastic. Unfortunately, a classroom like that is somewhat unrealistic for most second language learners in the United States--especially those at the secondary level in content-area classes. We want to avoid the "English-Only" movement in the classrooms, yet that movement may sometimes be inevitable if the teacher cannot understand the first language of the child. I would be up for allowing my students to use their first language in some assignments, but I would always worry what they were writing if I couldn't actually understand any of that. And truly, knowing high school boys, they may just write something extremely inappropriate knowing that I couldn't read it. So-- I ultimately see a problem here. We want students to be multilingual in the classrooms and utilize both L1 and L2, yet we also have most teachers who then could not understand or create scaffolding for them when working in this multilingual arena. What to do?

English 495: Tuesday, March 29

As each week goes by, I find more and more connections with the current articles and things that have been discussed or have been read in other classes/at other times. This Tuesday's readings were no exception. The articles based around China's decree of teaching presented one such instance. "Thus the shift towards computer/network-based courses with a clear emphasis on content-rich subject matter maps out a concrete curicular infrastructure for achieving the new literacy," writes You (193). The use of this content-rich subject matter harkens back to the book that I am reading for our book review, The Content-Based Classroom. In this book, the authors discuss injecting meaninful content in the classroom instruction, content that connects with students and allows them to use the background information that they come to school with...regardless of how much or how little cultural awareness they may have of classroom methods, techniques, and culture in the United States.

Unfortunately, You paints a relatively bleak pictures of how those English reforms were doing a few years later. The topics used touched little on Chinese life, something that has apparently strayed from the content-infused approach discussed in the previous paragraph. The decree also spoke of creating a student-centered classroom, one that we have continually read about and one that gives the students the opportunity to discuss and learn by doing. Yet, these English classroom, especially for writing, appear to be merely a pipeline from teacher to student. Simply feeding students the answers and having them regurgitate them does little good.

As I read Lei's article discussing the writing strategies of two Chinese college students studying English, I found myself, whether ironically or not, in the work. These two students were working to successfully write in a different language, implementing a multitude of different strategies to do so. Yet, if teachers are to strive to find some commonality amongst their diverse students, I can see how writing strategies may be a place to begin. When I write, I utilize the internet, other social connections, my own notes, my own experiences, my own motivation to achieve in English writing--much as these two students do. Regardless of the L1 language, some similiarities in how people write--at least in English--do exist, and teachers should embrace these. Clearly, I do not utitlize my first language when writing English because, obviously, English is my first language; so, one difference does exist there, and, as so many authors that I have read this semester assert, teachers must be aware of how L1 literacy plays a role in the l2 writing of students...so yet another connection to other readings is made.

English 344: Tuesday, March 29

I felt rather naive reading Wong Chapter 5 last night, a familiar feeling that I've had throughout this semester. Throughout much of my life, I can honestly say that I've taken for granted what I have been given and the status that I have been granted in society simply because of my background. Before this semester, I had never really given much thought to the push for English-only education in the United States. When I was taking English education classes and going through student teaching, I assumed that this monolingual policy was simply the way to go. Now, however, I realize that "erasing" someone's first language also means erasing their culture, erasing a huge part of their identity.

DuBois' concept of double consciousness was especially interesting to me. "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity," wrote DuBois in 1961 (172). I have never been a hyphenated American, by DuBois' and much of the United States' standards. I have not been Caucasion-American; rather, I have just been American. Yet, minorities in this country always seem to get that hyphen attached to their name, qualifying them as something else and simply citizens of this country as I am. These actions in itself appear to be an accepting of that racism discussed in today's readings.

Much of the teachings in these readings can easily be transferable to the classroom context, if only for teachers to be more open-minded and aware of the diverse backgrounds of students in a classroom. Perhaps one of our jobs as teachers is to help students (re)discover those collective memories of indigenous discourses, of discourses from their past, so that we can reevaluate that dominant discourse that many unhyphenated Americans are not even aware exists so strongly. I do agree with Wong that there will always be a tension for teachers between that diversity and creating a common ground for her students. Students, regardless of their backgrounds, need to feel a part of the classroom group as well as a part of their own culture. This balance may be hard to achieve, but, as teachers, we must always try to do this.

English 344: Tuesday, March 22

I always enjoy learning a little about history, so I found much of this chapter of Wong pretty fascinating as it spoke about some of the historical philosophical roots of Critical Pedagogy. Some of the things that the philosophers discussed seemed a bit out there to me, a bit over my head (for example, the talk of "the sign" in regards to Bakhtin; I'm not really sure what exactly it is). However, other points in the readings made perfect sense and could easily translate into classroom lessons of today.

Mao's belief in knowledge from practice is one such idea. A student can never fully learn if a teacher simply lectures to them all of the time, and they take notes (or pretend to). Rather, each one needs to be engaged in an activity in order for that learning to be more fully activating. In regards to the subject of math, this transition can easily be made. In English classes, it may seem a little more difficult, but discussions, group works, and other activities in regards to literary activities an serve this purpose. The "banking pedagogy" is something that all teachers should strive for-- that teacher-student relationship that emphasises mutual discovery and exploration. The simple fact that we can be labeled teachers in no way means that we know everything; rather, we can learn from the insights and backgrounds of our students just as much as they can learn from us.

I also found the discussions on reading extremely interesting, particularly because I am intrigued by the task in regards to second language learning. The text discussed how reading can be in social forms--from read alouds to shared reading--so that social interaction helps stimulate the activity. I have also read that one could consider the relationship between the person and the text itself to be a sort of social interaction, so independent reading could potentially fall under the social category, as well. To many people, reading is viewed as a solitary activity, but this activity can easily be placed within socially significant and culturally aware contexts in order to connect to the identities of the students and foster a better learning environment in the classroom.

English 495: Tuesday, March 22

"An enormous disparity might exist between their disciplinary knowledge and sophistication and their ability to write in English," the authors write of international graduate students (Leki 38). Braine's article connects to this point, as well. Of a friends who was an international graduate student with him, he writes: "One who had taught English for years in his country was traumatized with embarrassment when he was told that his English proficiency was low..." (60). This friend, this person holding status in his own country, was then forced to enroll in ESL classes.

I cannot even imagine how hard it must be for graduate students from other coutntries here. I have been surrounded by English all of my life, have used the language as part of a full-time job even, but I often struggle through writing still, hitting those blocks at times and coming to a complete stop. Doing the same work that I am doing, but doing it in one's second language, is just amazing to me. Still, this process of succeeding in graduate school is not just about the writing, and Braine emphasizes this point in his article. As the study by Schneider and Fujishima suggests, one needs a grasp of social graces, social realties, and integrative motivation to succeed, as well--another reason why social interactions seem so important for any aspect of language learning/succeeding. Without that social support system here, that vacuum of simply writing and doing all of that other graduate student work would be become horribly overwhelming I suppose.

This concept of "vacuum" also brings me to Canagarajah's article. In this, the author emphasizes that writing itself essentially cannot be written in a vaccuum; within the decontextualized approach, the influenc of social condition and cultural diversity are lost. I believe that writing is an incredibly social event. Take, for example, today's typical high school students in the United States. Asking them to write a summary of a story or something of that sort with no context or no purpose for them will illicit numerous groans; they simply do not want to write. However, they will spend hours each night writing to their friends on facebook or text messaging them because this writing is entirely social and meaningful to them; they are willing to write, but it has to be on their own terms. The task of teachers is to make those writing assignments in regards to content-area learning meaningful to students, as well, to give that writing context and a purpose