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."