Curt's entry

After reading “Second language writing up close and personal: Some success stories” by Tony Silvia, Melinda Reichelt, Yoshiki Chikuma, Nathalie Duval-Couetil, Ruo-Ping J. Mo, Gloria Velez-Rendon, and Sandra Wood, I began to examine some of my own experiences of working with languages other than standard English. For the sake of brevity, I will focus upon my teaching experiences in Alaska while working with middle school and high school Eskimo children and my struggles in learning to work with the language of linguistics this past year after arriving here as prompted by Sandra Wood’s narrative. When I taught Yupik Eskimo Natives living on the Alaskan tundra I had found some of these same language issues to be at times problematic, since I was working with a younger age group of students who, in effect, seem to function between two languages. These two languages function as an articulation of their partial existence in part of two worlds, the English speaking school and the Yup’ik speaking village life of their elders. Code-switching had enabled these students to interact within both social environments, which have differing social values. My part of adapting to the language usage of this environment includes examples such as learning the difference between Yupik and Yup’ik. Yupik, which by the way is considered to correct on the word program, actually refers to the Yupik Natives still living in the Easternmost regions of Siberia, while the Yup’ik refers to the Yup’ik Natives who are living in the Westernmost delta regions of Alaska. The apostrophe’ exemplifies the pause of the spoken word as pronounced by the native speakers of the region. The agglutinative linguistic structure of the language had also presented a very formative challenge for a non-native speaker to actually be able to communicate effectively in such languages. I did advance beyond learning a few simple words and phrases. Unfortunately, I cannot count this situation as any sort of language success story. Other language learning situation is still occurring for me during my current endeavors to learn the language of linguistics. Like Sandra Wood, I too, see the language of linguistics as another form of communication that is to be worked out on separate terms from my daily discourses. Even the organization of ideas seems to be at times to be organized by aliens from another world, possibly the Cromulents from Cromula, representing a linguist’s humor. Linguists are represented as beings from another world dissecting the anatomy of human languages as though scientists studying the anatomy of insects with the use of a dissecting microscope. For example of the phrase “that is a perfectly crumulent word” when a character on the television program, The Simpsons, has a character inventing a new word that only the character knows its meaning. While, the humor may seem odd at first, the written discourse in linguistics seems to require a doctorate degree in linguistic to understand it to a level required to compose written thoughts in it. Sandra Wood states, “I had to learn to write for a linguistic audience, using correct terminology and following standard conventions of linguistic writing. It was almost like learning a new language for me” (Silvia et al, 106-107). I too have found that many conceptual ideas are to be reformulated while expressing them in linguistic terminological conventions.

Lyudmila's Literacy Autobiography

I was born and grew up in Anadyr, Russia. I have a BA in Philology from the Buryat State University, Ulan-Ude. I am currently a MA student in TESOL at ISU. Speaking about my writing experience, I should say that my real journey as L2 writer started here in the U.S. Back in Russia, at the end of late 90s conserving and reproducing existing knowledge type of approach was favored. This kind of approach was applied in literature, foreign languages’ study, and history. We did write compositions where individual creativity and critical thinking was expected, but it was not very often. When I came to the U.S., my first class in English was TOEFL preparation. As the main aim of the class was to teach L2 students how write an essay in accordance with the Western approach to ‘good writing’, we were basically taught how to apply the same principles to entire essays. Texts were, thus, seen as composed of structural entities such as Introduction-Body-Conclusion. I enjoyed that class as the teacher was really empathetic, patient, and very encouraging. This intermediate step in my writing journey was an important moment as I had no idea the expectations in a mainstream English classroom. My next step was Composition 1 which was focused on both the writing process and content. As a writer, we were certainly expected to be independent producers of text. In addition, planning, drafting, revising, and editing were important writing processes of the classroom activities. The writing activities were organized around different topics of interest such as description of a place, the most memorable day in one’s life, religion, and so on. Schema development exercises were provided in order to generate ideas for writing and organizing texts. So we would read for ideas in parallel texts, react to photographs, and discuss Martin Luther King’s letter for example. Thus, Composition 1 was another important step in my writing journey. It was the most difficult one as we were expected to produce 5 pages per paper. I spent a lot of time just thinking about what to write, how to synthesize the material, what should go first, how much of information to include and so on. My paragraphs used to be quite clumsy and long. I had a lot of run-on sentences, lacked cohesion at times, and hated to write conclusions. Looking back at the torturous moments I had to go through, I still admit that writing is not easy for me. I still find myself struggling with analyzing and synthesizing the material. I find it difficult to choose a topic and do a research on it in terms of finding ‘the right material’. The latter always makes me somewhat anxious as I feel like a hunter who needs act quickly in order not to miss his or her game. However, after a year of studying at ISU, I can say that I feel much more confident in my writing endeavor. If I read several sources on a particular topic, I start putting it down on my draft. I don’t do an outline. I don’t know if it something that could help me greatly as I find myself looking through the pages of different articles in order to find that right sentence that I liked and that would provide excellent cohesion for my essay. Having said that, I want to say that I am right in the middle of my writing journey and still need a lot of practice.

Lyudmila's entry (week 2)

(I'm posting Lyudmila's response here until we figure out the problem she has with her individual blog) The structural approach to writing was an approach largely used by my teachers of English in Russia. Thus, writing was looked at as a product of the writer’s command of grammatical and lexical knowledge. Moreover, imitating and manipulating models provided by the teacher were expected to be followed. To be honest, I liked that approach as I was highly conscientious about grammar and did not feel like that I am a creative person in that field. The instruction employed “slot and filler” frameworks, and guided compositions were provided for constructing grammatically correct texts. As for focus on text functions approach, I have experienced it when I took TOEFL preparation course. As a matter of fact, I am glad I went through that step of writing experience as it gave me some kind of an idea of how particular language forms perform certain communicative functions. As “functions are the means for achieving the ends of writing”, effective paragraph development was a big concern of my teacher. Considering that I had to deal with the structural approach so far, I think that the functional approach was just right for me at that particular time. My next step was Composition 1 at ICC which was a class with a focus on both the writing process and genre. The goal of the first approach is the development of students’ strategies for generating, drafting, and refining ideas which provide the development of metacognitive awareness of the processes of writing. Genre approach concentrates on discourse and contextual aspects of language use. The instructor skillfully combined these two approaches and incorporated the advantages of both which helped to see how to construct the different kinds of texts we had to write. If process makes the process of writing transparent, genre makes textual conventions transparent (KH 24). Thus, having had personal experience of adjusting to the Western classroom, I agree with Paul Matsuda that it is surprising that “second-language issues have not become a central concern in composition studies” (p. 637). The myth of linguistic homogeneity still perpetuates the dominant image of composition and ignores multilingualism in composition scholarship. Moreover, a L2 student is tacitly assumed to have internalized a privileged variety of English. For example, while I already had grammar knowledge, I still needed help with the rhetorical practices. However, there was no such a moment in the classroom for L2 students in Composition 1 class. Also, I certainly had to take a placement test for composition placement! It is the policy of linguistic containment at work! The article is so up-to-date because I understand exactly what the author is talking about. I was also sent to the writing center in order to get into the groove with the mainstream composition course. So, it is so true that the policy of unidirectional monolingualism is present in the English composition course. However, as the author suggests, placement practices and second-language sections of composition are not that bad. I actually greatly enjoyed the TOEFL class before I was immersed into the mainstream English speaking classroom in which I felt somewhat lonely. Such classrooms are representative of the mainstream society of the U.S. with its “ideals, aims, history, and social and political background” (Matsuda 645). So, ESL classes indeed provide sort of an intermediate period while adjusting to expectations in a mainstream classroom in the U.S.

Symposium on Second Language Writing

Please find the info on SSLW 2012 here: http://sslw.asu.edu/2012/ SSLW IS is an annual conference on second language writing. The organizers, Paul Kei Matsuda and Tony Silva, are the leading scholars in cross-cultural composition and second language writing. We're fortunate that this year the conference will be held in Purdue University (only 3 hours of driving distance) The conference is scheduled for September 6-8, 2010. I would like to encourage you to attend this conference as it's a great venue for professional development, and it closely coincides with the goals of our course. I'll be going to present a paper, and would be happy to drive. Please let me know if you are interested in attending.

Welcome to 495!

Dear students, Welcome to English 495: Second Language Writing. This is an interactive writing space which will provide us a common ground to share our reflections and thoughts about various second language writing related issues we will be reading and discussing this semester. The goal of keeping a learning log is to trace the development of our ideas as well as reflecting on a wide range of important issues that we will face as writers of the 21st century's diverse classroom contexts. I look forward to learning from you and with you this semester. I wish you a productive new academic year! Dr.Seloni