week 14 - Hamp-Lyons

When the author mentioned about the conventional way of scoring, I started to think about the TOEFL test. In the cram school, teachers always provide students with tips about how to receive high scores for the written test. The tips are based on how students' writing would be assessed. I don't really remember every tip they gave me, but i think that they mentioned about the amount of words, paragraphs and transition words (the more the better). How to generate ideas is not mentioned in the classes. I was just wondering if it is beneficial for teachers to list all the assessment criteria. I think the assessment criteria needs to be carefully designed because we do not want to kill students' engagement and creativity with the limitation of rules of writing or how we are going to assess them. What if students just write based on how they will be assessed? I think it is hard and important to think about how to avoid influencing student writing with criteria but at the same time encouraging them to write what the know and what they want to say.

week 12 - Williams

Williams proposed that output may be helpful in developing input and further pointed out that “it may also help them to notice ‘holes’ in their own competence; that is, in the act of production, learners may notice that they do not have the knowledge to say or write what they want to convey” (p. 14). I found her statement really interesting because I just read an article not too long ago about the similar suggestion. Huang (2009) pointed out that difficult words in textbooks might not be as practical for students because they do not know how to use them in the written assignment. However, through the process of writing stories, student writers can be flexible using their own words to express themselves, but at the same time expand their vocabulary. Through expressive writing, students can gradually understand what they need in order to make their expressions meaningful.

The author also mentioned about using conversations to enhance the quality of writing. I am curious about how this activity can be done. Does this activity work for any language levels? Do teachers need to give brief explanations about what students should do (we can’t assume that students know where to start or what to look for in their peer’s writing)? I was thinking if it is okay for students to use their first language(s) to discuss their writing (in EFL context). I thinking that talking to our classmates can add more perspectives toward our writing and their questions toward our writing can give us a chance to think deeper. It is just like that we always get more information when we interview people than give out questionnaires.

Huang, Y.-C. (2009). Writing wordless picture books to facilitate English
writing. Asian EFL Journal Professional Teaching Articles, 38, 20-34.

week 11 - ch. 3

When I was reading chapter 3, there were a few questions came up to my mind. On page 75, the author mentioned about if writers write down their questions, reflections or ideas, it creates a space for writers to discover and think about their interpretations and understandings toward a text they read. I was wondering if it matters that students write in their own languages or English. Since they are just finding their reflections toward the text, they should use the languages which they feel comfortable with. In Danling Fu and Marylou Matoush’s article, they mentioned about how writing teachers let ELL students write in the language they feel comfortable with and then they gradually learn how to write in English. I never thought about how I take notes until I read this article. When I was in college, I used both Chinese and English to take notes. Now I mainly use English. What language(s) does everybody use to take note?

The author also mentioned about different ways to write reading reflections, such as summary, synthesis, pre-reading writing, response statements, response essays and journals. I was just thinking that if teachers are going to check students’ reflections, what would be the top elements to look for? Should grammar be checked? Are there any other writing styles that we can use for students to write their reflections or understandings toward texts? Can story writing be used (the author mentioned about writing across curriculum and I was just thinking that students can use their understandings toward science and then write a science fiction?)?

My last question was about writing in group. The author mentioned about the benefits of writing in group that students are able to discuss. What if students hate writing in groups? How do teachers grade the paper produced by groups? Do students need to write together or they write separately and then put their papers together? If they write together, wouldn’t it take a lot of time to finish a paper? I am just curious about how collaborate writing may work.

week 10 - Bloome

When I was reading this article, it reminded me of post method in teaching ESL students. The author mentioned that “when students are allowed to read and write about things that are congruent with their home culture, they may read and write more and with more sophistication” (p. 132). I wonder if this kind of teaching approach applies to both ESL and EFL contexts. When I was learning English, the textbooks we used in cram schools were printed in the U.S. and most of the contents were about American cultures. Even in junior and senior high schools, the textbooks rarely incorporated Taiwanese cultures into the contents. Since the education system in Taiwan is exam-based, I am thinking about how this kind of teaching method that Bloome mentioned in his article may fit into the Taiwanese context. How do we use this teaching method to assist students to compose within a short amount of exam time?

Also, I was looking for some Taiwanese stories translated in English for a friend of mine who wants her daughter to understand different cultures. I had trouble finding them and most of the stories I saw in the bookstores were about stories from the U.S. and other English speaking countries. I am not sure if this similar situation happens in other countries as well. But in the Taiwanese context, it seems to me that foreign cultures create better business and education markets. Sometimes I think some of the teaching methods are very interesting and useful for teaching ESL students, but the environment may not allow certain kind of teaching methods. It is really frustrating when I can’t use whatever I learned from classes.

Week 9 reflection – Ann M. Johns

“There is no one ‘process’ for writing, but many, as writers juggle the various responsibilities they have to genre, to the situation, to their roles, to the language, or to themselves as thinking, negotiating participants in the production and revision of texts” (p. 198). I started this reflection with this quote is because I believe that there are many ways of teaching writing and the process of learning a new language should be fun. However, when we introduce different writing genres in the class, it is important to provide guidelines for students to follow and also the purposes of writing in certain genres. When I was learning English in junior and senior high school, there was no such thing as writing a business letter, fiction or poems. Also, in public schools, they did not provide any class specifically for English writing. The only opportunity we had to write were exercises where we had to put sentences together (the sentences we imitated from textbooks) into paragraphs with correct grammar. This kind of formalist writing style is very suitable for exam-based educational systems (like Taiwan) because if we can produce paragraphs with accurate grammar, we are able to enter good schools.

I also like that Johns mentioned about peer editing and revising in The Sydney School system. If we open a space for ESL students to explore their own voices through different genre writing, they can have some fun playing with the language. Also, through peer editing, students can receive critiques from others and generate more ideas and contents. Writing should not only focus on the sentence level, but the richness of the content.

I wonder how genre writing can help students who need to pass English exams to go to high school and college. There is only a certain amount of time for students to finish their writing with a given topic. Also, since the English class is driven by the exam-based system, how do teachers incorporate genre writing into the class and show the transition between genre writing and exam writing?

Ch. 1 & Ch. 2 from The Politics of Second Language Writing

1. Writing Development and Biliteracy – Danling Fu and Marylou Matoush

Human naturally acquire language in compelling social contexts (p. 9).
Sequential biliteracy – abstract and decontextualized nature of academic language
Spontaneous biliteracy – prior contextualized social knowledge as a legitimate goal (p. 9)
(Becoming bilingual and bilterate) not only involves a transformation process that appears to require a greater degree of cognitive, social and linguistic flexibility than monolingualism, but also potentially affords a greater degree of cognitive, social and linguistic freedom of choice (p. 10).
ELLs’ writing development research – four transitional stages: 1. First Language Usage to 2. Code-Switching to 3. Trans-Language Usage to 4. Approaching Standard English (p. 12).
If we don’t value what and how ELLs write in the transitional stages, but only aim at teaching them to write correctly or learn Standard English, these students
won’t develop into writers with depth of thinking and logical thought (p. 24).

2. Reforming High School Writing: Opportunities and Constraints for Generation 1.5 Writers – Kerry Enright Villalva

Ecological framework is based on an understanding that literacy is social practice (p. 31).
Ecological framework – Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystems, and Macrosystem (p. 32)
Generation 1.5 writing research – How does systemic factors influence the writing
development of Generation 1.5 writers?

Questions
1. Fu and Matoush mentioned that if language learners are encouraged to choose between languages when they write, they can construct and develop ideas better. From your experience as a language learner, did your first language(s) help you with English learning? How?

2. What does “language errors” (p. 25) mean to you? How can you demonstrate the positive value of “language errors” as “the precursors of flexible dual language word choice and phraseology” (p. 25) to your bilingual/multilingual students? What kind of methods would you use to show them the transition from errors to Standard English?

3. What values did you find from Fu and Matoush’s chapter? Are the four transition stages applicable? If you see it as applicable, how do you use the stages in your ESL class? What kind of assignments can you see being used in your class?

4. From Villalva’s chapter, “peer-modeling” and “cross-age tutoring” (p. 46) seem to create space for Generation 1.5 to develop their languages and generate ideas and topics for their projects. Why can’t this kind of group work be done in a regular class with mainstream students? If we separate the Generation 1.5 students to a different cohort-based organization, aren’t we creating otherness in the class?

5. What benefits and flaws do you see in making a personal project as a new graduation requirement? Should there be double standards for English-speaking students and bilingual/Generation 1.5 students?

Week 7 - Matsuda's Chapter 3

I have been thinking about the purpose of college writing. Is it the class for students to develop their sense of identity, voice, audience and writer/reader responsibility in order to be a better writer? Or is it to prepare students to accomplish their academic writing? I was observing a college writing class last semester and was amazed by the way the professor taught the class. Students were asked to write paranormal stories and peer response was also incorporated into the writing process. I am not sure how much the students can transfer what they learned from the class to real academic writing; however, I believe that this kind of writing encourages students to develop their imagination and the peer response can stimulate their critical thinking. Also, there’s another college writing class for ESL students in which students are asked to write poems. Without the pressure of forming perfect grammar and sentence structure, students may gain their confidence in writing in a different language. I really like the idea of implementing creative writing in the class in order to raise students’ awareness of every element in writing. However, how much can those elements be transferred to students’ academic writing? I think that teachers’ and students’ expectations are different. It is important to clarify the purpose of the way we teach writing and be open-minded toward communications with students.

If the writing class is designed to incorporate creative writing skills, I wonder if plagiarism is taken into consideration. We cannot assume that students have fully learned what plagiarism is and are able to apply it to their writing before coming to college. On page 65, Leki mentioned that a professor does not care if students reproduce her lecture words. I was really surprised to see this. If there’s no standard for plagiarism from professors for students to follow, what should students do? How do we cite from a lecture?

Writing is not an easy task. It takes time for a person to write well. I wish that there was an academic writing class for me to attend when I first came here because I was panicking about writing for the class. I would love to learn how to do creative writing as well because I have never learned writing in that kind of style.

I was thinking that a lot of articles we’ve been reading are always putting the blame on teachers and schools systems for not being prepared for ESL students and place ESL students as victims of the educational system. I wonder if any articles acknowledge ESL students’ responsibilities and attitudes towards studying in a different country. Some of them might not be efficient with their writing, but if they are to attend American universities, they can’t just see university as a way to learn English, but also professional knowledge. Of course schools should provide them with real assistance in writing and speaking (it’d be better if it is throughout the 4 academic years, but is it possible?); however, I think ESL students should hold some responsibility as well.