BLOGGING ABOUT MULTILINGUALISM
Youngjoo Yi follows in his research paper "ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers" two students who become certified teachers and receive Master's degrees for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) for Pre-K-12. His goal was to identify the current state of second language writing teacher education in the United States. Through group interviews, collection of exit portfolios, assignments, and teaching materials of the two students, Yi collected data to come to a conclusion of the state of ESOL writing teacher education. He found out that writing in ESOL classes is focusing on assessments and comprehension of material, rather than writing to learn about writing. Furthermore, both of the students hadn't developed writing teacher identities, as they didn't learn how to teach writing. Overall, there exists a huge gap between academic demands for writing assessments and actual writing instruction and practice in the classroom. This presents a huge disparity between adequate teaching of writing pedagogy for ESOL students and English as first language students. Yi states that there has been a huge amount of focus on writing pedagogy for English as first language students lately, and this does not fare to the education that ESOL students receive currently. This serves as a gatekeeper for immigrants, as many states - such as Georgia - require students to pass a standardized writing test to graduate. Clearly, ESOL students are at a disadvantage educationally compared to native English language speakers.
Yi, Youngjoo. "ESOL Teachers As Writing Teachers." L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms. New York: Routledge, 2013. 133-48. Ebook Library. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
4 Comments
Anu Kafi
2/24/2015 09:25:52 am
As this is the topic for our video project, I think it would be interesting to explore the teachers' point of view on this article. Maybe explore their reactions to some of the claims made by Yi. Additionally, it may be interesting to find out how ESL students feel regarding their education in schools currently. The article claims the ESL students are at a disadvantage, also. It would be interesting to find out how schools accommodate the students to counteract the influences of these perceived disadvantages.
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2/24/2015 05:01:02 pm
While I agree that there is a discrepancy between ESOL curriculums and writing standards in comparison to those of classes for native English speakers, I have to wonder what an effective solution would be to solve the problem. I understand the logic behind the issue in that western English pedagogy wants to make sure that none of the ESL students fall behind, however I pose that they should approach the problem in the complete opposite way. I argue that in order to build the confidence of students, they must be adequately challenged. I find a very interesting parallel between the western ESL approach of slowing down their curriculums to Amy Chua's observations of western parenting. Amy Chua is a first generation Chinese-American Yale law professor who wrote the now "infamous" memoir known as Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. In it, she discusses the contrasting parenting methods of Eastern and Western parents. One of the quotes that i relate to the western ESL approach of teaching English relates to her discussion about the issue of the self-confidence children and the "western" approach to handling it: "Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't" (Chua). The context of this quotation is Chua's anecdote about her daughter coming home one day after scoring poorly on a math quiz. Her daughter told Amy that she hated math and never wanted to take a math class again. Amy reasoned, as she stated in her quote, that the "western" approach to this would've been something along the lines of "It's ok not to be good at math" or "Let's find something that you are good at." However, as Amy points out, this is the worst thing a western parent can do as it solidifies the idea in the child's mind that she should discount math completely and focus on her strengths. In contrast, Chua argues, that the eastern [and more effective] approach would be to force her to practice math problems endlessly, even going further in the textbook to get ahead of the class. Only then, after diligence and challenging herself, can her daughter succeed and feel the confidence and motivation to advance further and become more skilled as a math student. Bringing this back to the topic of ESL, I argue that the ESL's approach of simplifying and lowering the writing expectations of ESL students actually hurts them. Similar to what Chua suggests as "bad parenting," I pose that such teaching method would fall under the category of "bad teaching" because it fails to challenge the students, instead expecting less of them and therefore discouraging them from studying English any further. I propose that a better method for aiding ESL students and motivating them to becoming more skilled English writers is to push the bar, and continually challenge them with more difficult readings and writing prompts. Only through constant challenging and increasing expectations will ESL students progress faster and essentially "catch up" to the other native English students with their writing skills.
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Jenna Maizes
2/25/2015 11:08:41 am
I agree with Anu. Personally, I taught an ESOL class to Spanish speakers. It was interesting to see how they wrote out the sounds of English words with their Spanish dialect. I think that through our project we can interview ESOL teachers of each age level;elementary, middle, and high school. This way we can observe how they teach differently regarding the age. Also, we could interview a non English speaking student in the ESOL class.
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