I wanted to continue to look at the Journal of Second Language Writing this week to see how it develops over time and perhaps shifts its focus towards issues related specifically to teacher preparation for composition instructors working with ESL writers. I choose to look 20 years after the issues from last week because I though that would be a sufficient amount of time for the journal to develop into its niche. I therefore looked at the early 2010s for this week, but found that much of what I was looking for never materialized. While the journal does a good job of looking at the development of L2 writers, I am still not seeing a significant overlap with composition as a discipline. Much of what is here relates to writing across the disciplines and on topics such as error correction – useful for sure, but maybe not for my study. However, I found a few articles that I think are useful in looking at those issues, so I have chosen two articles that seem to align most closely with that goal of discovery. However, I feel I will have to move on from this journal next week to see what other types of specialized journals I can find that might talk more about how we are preparing teachers in the composition field specifically to work with L2 writers, since this journal fits loosely, but has clearly changed somewhat in its goal since the early 1990s.

In the first article, “Writing Teachers’ Perceptions of the Presence and Needs of Second Language Writers: An Institutional Case Study,” Matsuda et al undertake a study of the attitudes of writing teachers at a Southwestern university with a large multilingual population. What this study sought to discover is the ways in which credit-bearing composition teachers were dealing with L2 students and in what ways they thought students could or should be helped. This particular university offered both mainstream and multilingual sections of first year composition, with students being given multiple avenues (including placement tests, SAT scores, personal choice) for placement. The teachers at this university were also diverse, with training from bachelors degrees (T.A.s) through PhDs in fields such as rhetoric, linguistics, creative writing, and TESOL (71).

What Matsuda et al. discovered is that a majority of teachers (77 percent) had some preparation in working with multilingual writers and most (67 percent) felt comfortable working with them, a net positive (though they suggest this could be related to those who decided to respond to their survey) (71-72). Despite these feelings of general preparation, most teachers also believed it was crucial for students to be correctly placed for them to be successful in college, and that they also had “certain expectations about students’ language proficiency before they can be enrolled in first-year composition courses” (76). Likewise, teachers found these students often more difficult to work with, more time consuming, and found their biggest problems were related to grammar and mechanical issues (77). They also suggested that the objectives of this university, drawn heavily from the WPA Outcomes Statement of 2000, which focused “largely on rhetorical issues rather than language issues” put L2 students at a disadvantage because they were less able to focus on the types of needs of this population (78). Finally, many teachers believed that placement procedures at the university should be improved to help make sure that students ended up in the “correct” classes, implying that some may not want to work with students who do not speak English as a first language (80-81).

What Matsuda et al. note about these findings is that there are a “wide range of perspectives, attitudes, and experiences” of working with L2 learners, though most are positive.” However, they believe that more training is necessary not only at the graduate level, but also in-service training must be offered to “cut across the L1/L2 divide,” with more being done by not only this university but likely many others to bridge these knowledge gaps to be sure students are set up for success (82).

What was so interesting about this is the ways in which Matsuda keeps bringing up these issues, but change is slow and incremental. This survey shows that while many teachers recognize these language differences, many others are still ready to contain or separate students with someone they feel is better equipped to handle these student issues. It seems in some ways like the wheels are spinning but the bike isn’t moving forward – the problems of 20 years ago (or even 40 or 50 years ago) are becoming more urgent, yet only small changes seem to be made. In particular, this article is also really interesting in the context of last week’s “ESL Composition Program Administration in the United States.” The similarities between the problems these two articles present demonstrate this lag in moving forward distinctly. Some of the issues Williams brought up in that article include the wide array of teacher training and degrees within the single field, and sheltered course that eventually lead to L2 students in mainstream courses with a sink-or-swim approach in which they receive no further help with L2 issues and have teachers who are unprepared or unwilling to help them further. Despite being written 20 years apart, the similarities are resonant.

One very interesting development, however, is the emphasis at the Southwestern university Mastuda et al. study, which uses the WPA Outcomes regarding rhetorical teaching rather than grammar teaching. By the 2000s, particularly with the social turn in composition, the focus on rhetoric rather than an applied linguistics model of teaching writing is, I think, at many institutions almost universal. This again shows why more bridges need to be built between ESL and composition courses, because these difficult adjustments in thinking and scholarship cannot be made in one semester (or even two) without revision from both divisions. Neither could or should give up what they do and emphasize in their courses, but some adjustments may need to be made to smooth this transition and help students prepare for the types of work they will expect in both writing and outside coursework.

The second article I read was quite different in thinking about writing with a greater emphasis on writing across the disciplines. In What Our Students Tell Us: Perceptions of Three Multilingual Students on their Academic Writing in First Year” by Morton et al, they highlight an Australian university that encompasses first year writing as an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course in which students write as part of their undergraduate degrees, meaning that students in business will learn to write much differently from those in science or liberal arts (as the three students the study highlights shows) (2).

What the study finds is that while all three struggle with writing tasks that are varied according to their programs of study, ultimately all are able to find mechanisms in which to be successful. Fei, the business student, finds that writing is social, in which she finds that writing is a process upon which receiving lots of feedback from many people is useful. Fei also finds it helpful in some cases to write in a mix of Mandarin and English as she works towards improving all of her work in English (4-5). Kevin, the scientist finds that he has little improvement in his writing because his science EAP course does not ask him to write extensively at all, though he did find benefits in reading the work of other students (6). Laura, the liberal arts student, works to find her own authentic academic identity and voice, which she succeeds at doing as she reads and learns more about her discipline, feeling more a member of the academy and that group and her place within it. Laura also found great help in receiving feedback from professors and other experts (7).

What Morton et al. conclude is that “disciplinary values and beliefs, embodied in different types of assessment practices can have [a strong influence] on shaping students’ perspectives on academic writing.” They also note that for many nonnative speakers, “spaces and practices outside the academy” are important for writing development, such as Fei speaking and writing in Mandarin online or in her assignments, and Laura speaking about her homework with her husband (9).

While this article was useful in the sense that it articulated ways in which nonnative speakers come around to using English academically, such as the use of multilingual modes for thinking about and writing about their work, much of what was highlighted here is actually, I would assume, similar to the types of strategies even native speakers would use for learning English. For example, Fei notes that her high school work in Australia (she spent a year finishing high school there) did not prepare her for the challenges of her work in university. One would assume that even native speaking English students might experience a “culture shock” in some aspects of new, complex writing tasks. These students would also likely find coping mechanisms for improving their ways of thinking and expressing themselves in English. Therefore, it would be interesting to replicate this study using native speakers to see if the results were any different.

I do think this article is useful, however, in the sense that it tells us that all nonnative students can ultimately be successful in college writing given the tools, the space, and the feedback to do so. While we did not hear from the teachers in this article as we did in Matsuda’s piece, hearing from students is just as valuable in thinking about how we can bridge the divides between ESL and English: by providing spaces for multilingual writing to be appropriate; for providing meaningful and substantive feedback from both teachers and students; and to temper expectations to what we know students have learned before entering our classroom. Though this certainly does not exactly replicate a good model for composition with multilingual students, it does suggest that putting time and effort in with these students, while allowing them the time to develop, can help them succeed in ways that are meaningful to them and to their future career development.

Works Cited

Matsuda et al. “Writing Teachers’ Perceptions of the Presence and Needs of Second Language Writers: An Institutional Case Study.” Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 22, 2013, pp. 68-86.

Morton et al. “What Our Students Tell Us: Perceptions of Three Multilingual Students on their Academic Writing in First Year.” Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 30, no 1, 2015, pp. 1-13.