On “Genre and ESL/EFL composition instruction” by Ann M. Johns: Clearing up the messy term “Genre”

Genre is a term that has become pervasive in everyday language in different contexts and discipline. Johns tackles genre in composition studies and in ESL/EFL instruction. In developing in a second or foreign language, learners need to become aware that language is used differently in different contexts to achieve different purposes.

Genre-based approaches to writing instruction have become an alternative to process pedagogy in teaching writing. In the latter, genre is used with a goal in mind to achieve, the writing is staged, and the language used serves the targeted communicative purpose. Swales defines genre as ‘‘[the] structured communicative events engaged in by specific discourse communities whose members share broad communicative purposes’’. Following this definition and in the same line of thought as Johns (2003), I do believe that when teaching writing instructors need to make students understand what genre is because such an understanding helps students to have a conceptual framework to approach the writing task.

When students write, they target a specific discourse community or rather they are supposed to be members or seek membership in that particular discourse community. For this reason that need to master the appropriate discourse. Dell Hymes (1972) parameters of communicative competence came to my mind when I was reading Johns’ articles. Using a genre-based pedagogy for me means that students should develop the competence of using the discourse that is appropriate for the targeted discourse community. The student will develop a repertoire of genres and will have to write in the genre that best fits his/her audience and intended purpose.

A genre-based pedagogy can be used in writing instruction but also in reading and speaking. Argumentation for instance can be constructed differently in writing and speaking, but it still has some common features to both media.

On “”Writing Development and Biliteracy” by Danling Fu and Marylou Matoush

The chapter focuses on the writing development of Chinese immigrant children as they cross the borders of two languages, two cultures and two literacies. Crossing such borders is not an easy matter let alone when the individual is under the compulsion of school requirements whereby s/he is obliged to develop literacy skills especially writing that is the key to school and academic success.

I personally consider the chapter as a call for consciousness raising of not only writing teachers but also professionals in the field of second language learning and educational policies. The chapter has a lot of implications not only for the teaching of second language writing but also second language research.

The chapter deals with the development of writing in middle school-aged Chinese speakers in Chinatown, NY. The results reported in the chapter stem from an innovative project in teaching writing to these students. Although the chapter dealt with the development of the writing skills, the parallel between the development of writing and speaking was clear. As a multilingual speaker, I could connect with the developmental pattern they described. The four stages they described as “First Language Usage”, “Code Switching”, “Trans-Language Usage”, and “Approaching Standard English” or any other language being learned is the way I developed oral literacy in the different languages I learned and I’m pretty many people can agree with this pattern. We start by using the first language we master, then code switch, move through different stages of interlanguage development whereby we mostly strive to use the vocabulary items of the target language being learned with often times the structure and grammar of the source language (being the first or second language we speak). Later, the more we move and advance in the target language learning continuum the more we approach the standards of the target language. Hence, I think that the main proposition of Fu and Matoush’s research finding is that as long as this is the normal pattern of developing oral literacy when we learn an additional language, why do we expect the written development to be different or worse consider it deficient.

In their project, Fu and Matoush reported on teachers allowing their students to scaffold their acquisition of English written literacy with their native Chinese language writing skills. In other words, they allowed students to use their already existing “funds of knowledge” and did not consider it as a hindrance in their L2 writing development. The teachers were valuing students’ expressive abilities in Chinese. In the writing excerpts they used, students were using their bilingual understanding in order to choose the structure, or language that best transmits their intended meaning. So the code switching was not a marker of a language deficiency but rather a marker of judicious linguistic choices. As a multilingual speaker, I always say that the different languages we speak best fit specific domains because of the cognitive and conceptual developments that each language triggered or brought about. The example Fu and Matoush gave for vocabulary items and their underlying concept, such as “flea market” and “yard sale”, show that for this age group of learners they could pay attention to word choice. In other words, their code switching was a n intelligent guess at what works best in this particular writing context. “Such usage not only reflects rather sophisticated bilingual understandings pertaining to each language but can also lead to insight concerning the importance of word choice and the special voice a language/culture contains” (Fu &Matoush, 2006, p. 17).

At last, as language teachers, “[we] should accept and value this necessary transition and natural development stage, rather than looking at it as deficit or incorrect usage of English language” (Fu &Matoush, 2006, p. 18). We should recognize and value the advantages of biliteracy.

On “The Legacy of First Year Composition” by Ilona Leki

Leki’s chapter focuses on ESL students attending first year composition classes. She starts by analyzing “the negative legacy that second language (L2) English writing students and practitioners have inherited and typically must live with” and which has become “as a (nearly) universally sanctioned institution in the U.S.” (Leki, p. 59). In her analysis of first year composition (FYC), she states that not only does L1 composition classes fail to meet the needs of students, FYC for L2 learners is even more “hegemonic” for them. “In some institutions L2 students are required to take first-year composition in classes with native English speaking (NES) students, sometimes under teachers with no real awareness of L2 writing issues” (Leki, p. 60). This is essentially motivated by “a kind of misplaced sense of democracy” (Leki, p. 65). In other words, “first-year composition has an impact on virtually all students, its hegemonic bid is [even] much more serious [for L2 learners] ” (Leki, p. 63). The case of Yang, which Leki reported on, showed how as a nursing student she had other needs apart from developing writing. Yang was a model of an autonomous L2 learner who tries to self-monitor her learning depending on her needs. Some of the support programs she tried did not work but at least she was aware of her needs or rather weaknesses. Thinking of our upcoming Academic Literacies Symposium, Yang’s case shows clearly that developing academic literacy is not just a matter of developing academic writing. Academic literacy is not just writing, it includes reading, and developing speaking ability before developing public speaking skills.

Leki demonstrates that the teaching pedagogies and practices of L1 composition tend often times to neglect the needs and specificities of L2 writers. One way to address this gap is to get teachers of L1 composition and second language writing work together collaboratively. L2 writers’ major concern in academic writing is to develop their accuracy. They are usually very much focused on error reduction. I would even add that L2 learners, because of teaching methods in ESL and EFL contexts, tend to focus more on developing accuracy at the expense of fluency. And taking composition classes during their freshman year reinforces such orientation even more while students may also need other skills such as speaking in some specific programs.

Most of today’s pedagogies claim to be learner-centered, so I think that the first precept of a learner-centered pedagogy is to be centered on the learners’ needs no matter whether they are first or second language learners.

Leki, I. (2006). The Legacy of First Year Composition. In P.K. Matsuda, C. Ortmeier-Hooper, & X. You, (Eds.). The politics of second language writing: In search of the promised land. Parlor Press. Pp. 59-74.

On Canagarajah's "Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students"

Academic writing is all but one component of the academic literacies that need to be developed in higher education. Canagarajah (2002), in analyzing what critical academic writing means in relation to multilingual students, gives a wider perspective if not a redefinition of the multilingual student. The latter is not only seen as being competent in navigating two or more languages and hence studies English as a second, foreign or fourth language; but between two varieties of English, such as Black vernacular or any other form of “nativized” English in British former colonies such as Pakistani English, and standard Anglo-American English. The same definition applies to any student who comes from a cultural capital (Bourdieu) that is not compatible with that promoted by school or education in general. So, I believe that Canagarajah’s reconceptualization of the multilingual student in this sense is more comprehensive and inclusive. As composition teachers or second language writing teachers, we need to take this redefinition into consideration; otherwise we may run the risk of promoting some sort of “linguicism” in our classroom.

Taking such a perspective in teaching critical writing enables us to reconsider our attitude towards linguistic difference. According to Canagarajah, in ESOL history there has been a shift from “difference-as-deficit” to “difference-as-estrangement” to, nowadays, “difference-as-resource”. However, unfortunately not all teachers or teacher/scholars have been receptive of the latter development. I’m really concerned about how such teachers will be dealing with ESL students in their classrooms. If one has been exposed to all this literature and is unable to transform his/her pedagogy, or at least to challenge it, and try to use alternative pedagogies so as to be fair to the “multilingual” students that are present in the classroom, then such a teacher is unable to practice critical teaching and will be unable to accompany students to compose critically.

It is legitimate for “multilingual” students to use their linguistic and cultural capital (Bourdieu) to develop their academic literacies, and it is the teacher’s duty “to take the students’ own explanations and orientations into account, situated in their own cultural and linguistic traditions” (Canagarajah, 2002, p. 13). I further believe that this applies not only to multilingual students but to all students because each student brings with her particular lived experiences and background that should not be traded against the requirements of academic lieteracies, but rather renegotiated in a new discourse that the student will ultimately appropriate. This way, the student will be empowered by having the opportunity to reconstruct her reality by resisting “the normalizing gaze” and the “normative discourse” (Foucault) imposed so far not only in ESOL but in any other discipline. This is the negotiation model that Canagarajah calls for. Pennycook (2007, p. 5) in his studies found that in many Expanding countries, English is seen “in terms of new forms of resistance, change, appropriation and identity”. Similarly, Canagarajah (1999) has shown how Sri Lankan teachers and students maintain their own identities in their own “private sites of learning”, and thus, facing what he called “linguistic and cultural imperialism”. His (2006) study demonstrated, in the same line of thought, many ways whereby the local values and identities are negotiated and represented in oral, written, and digital communication in English in Sri Lanka. Additionally, Ahmar (2009) explored the way English language is used in Pakistan, and showed that despite being the language of the former colonizer, “the English language in Pakistan represents Islamic values and embodies South Asian Islamic sensitivities….[and that] there has been some success in expressing resistance to colonial discourses through Pakistani English”(Ahmar, 2009, p. 188).

To end with, I think that as composition or second language writing teachers, if we are to teach critical academic writing to our students, we need to be critical, open to change, and ready to challenge our pre-existing beliefs and assumptions as to what critical academic writing is as a subcomponent of academic literacies.