About the Class (ESL 401 J)

Paulo Freire states in the Politics of Education (1985), “Language is not only an instrument of communication but also a structure of thinking.” This idea that language is not neutral but informed by culture is central to the teaching of ESL 401, a course designed to teach academic writing to international graduate students. Beyond syntactical and grammatical rules, students must learn the rhetorical style of English academic written discourse in order to become successful writers in their fields of study. Learner variables and socio-cultural variables such as the role of English and the varieties of English in the learner’s speech community, as well as institutional constraints, limit the focus of the class to academic writing standards. Finally, an analysis of the speech events in which learners are expected to participate assists in designing class activities.

Academic Writing for International Graduate Students, ESL 401, is a course designed to help international graduate students from a variety of fields learn academic writing standards. Students range in age from mid twenties to mid forties and have studied English for around ten years. They come from both humanities and science backgrounds and have completed their Bachelor’s Degree in their home country. Students in ESL 401, Section J are in Masters or PhD programs in fields ranging from agricultural engineering to art history and wildlife management. Students come from a wide range of countries.

ESL 401 is the second of two English courses required for international graduate students. Some students are exempt from taking the course by having a TOEFL score of 610 or above 610 or by achieving the highest ranking on the English Placement Test administered at the University of Illinois. ESL 400, the first course in the sequence, focuses on all language skills, including a special emphasis on listening and speaking. ESL 401 focuses specifically on academic writing.

The socio-cultural variable of institutional constraints and learner variables combine to make teaching ESL 401 a challenge. First, ESL 401 is a required class for students who place into it through the English Placement Test. Many students are resistant to taking the course that affects the affective atmosphere of the classroom. Some of this resistance comes because students want to focus on classes in their department and view ESL 401 as an added burden. Many students take up to 6 units in addition to ESL 401, along with a 50% appointment as a Teaching Assistant. Some students also argue that ESL 401 is too general and that its focus in the past on writing a humanities essay does not provide students with the field specific writing skills they need. In fact, having students from a wide variety of disciplines puts constraints on how specialized writing instruction can be. Additionally, even if students in one class were all from the same discipline most instructors are trained in humanities, and may not have the background to teach a specialized scientific writing class. These institutional constraints point o the necessity to move toward s a focus on instruction in filed specific academic English to best help students become successful writers in their field.

Beyond institutional constraints, the role English plays in the students’ lives both outside and inside the university classroom limits the focus on instruction to academic written English. Outside the classroom, English plays a larger role in the life of some students than others. While some students live with extended family from the same language background, others live in dormitories where they frequently use English in informal settings. All students use English outside of class to some extent in daily tasks such as going to the post office, shopping, and banking. In these activities, students are exposed to multiple varieties of English, such as African American vernacular English.

However, the role of English in students’ lives is limited to what Sridhar (1996) coins “selective functionality.” Students develop English skills they need only for specific contexts. For example, ESL 401 students need to develop their English skills for academic discourse and may never develop English skills for other language domains. Barber (1952) cited in Sridhar (1996) describes intimate, formal, informal, and inter-group domains for language use. With “selective functionality” students will never develop fluency in intimate and informal domains, but will instead develop fluency in formal and inter-group domains. Sridhar argues that teachers must realize students do not need to become fluent in all domains. Taking into account students' use of English mostly in formal and inter-group domains, ESL 401 is limited to developing students’ fluency in academic written English. As the course focuses on the role of English solely in academic discourse, students need to be exposed not to everyday American English but to academic English, more specifically academic written English in their field of study.

In the realm of academic English, graduate students participate in a variety of speech events. These speech events include writing an essay exam, literature review, journal article, bibliography, lab report, abstract, research paper, cover letter, and resume. Additional speech events include giving an oral presentation, listening to a classroom lecture, and taking notes. While ESL 400 teaches the four language skills, ESL 401 focuses on the speech events involved in academic writing.

Canale and Swain (1980) cited in Wolfson (1989) developed a theoretical model for communicative competence that can be applied to teaching academic writing. They explain that communicative competence is made up of three components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Traditionally, grammatical competence has been seen as the most important aspect of writing. While it is important to help students develop grammatical competence, Canale and Swain explain that grammatical competence is not enough. Language learners must also gain strategic competence, or strategies to help when communication breaks down, as well as sociolinguistic competence.

Sociolinguistic competence can be further broken down into socio-cultural rules of use and rules of discourse. These rules of discourse described by Canale and Swain are echoed in Celce-Murcia, Dornyei, and Thurrell’s (1990) argument that grammar is discourse-sensitive. A learner not only has to be able to properly manipulate a grammatical structure, but also has to earn where to use it. An example of this in academic writing is the use of passive voice. However, in scientific writing it is the opposite, a mastery of passive voice is essential. Especially, when teaching students from many disciplines in the same class this understand that even norms of grammar vary between field, is important. Teaching students a general rule to avoid passive voice in writing ignores the fact that passive voice is discourse-sensitive. In some environments passive voice is appropriate, while in others it is inappropriate.

The second aspect of sociolinguistic competence, sociolinguistic rules of use, also have applications to academic writing in the concepts of academic register and contrastive rhetoric. Canale and Swain state, “A secondary concern of such rules is the extent to which appropriate attitude and register or type are conveyed by a particular grammatical form in a given socio-cultural context.” The socio-cultural context of academic writing requires a more formal register than informal every day American English. Beyond grammatical concerns, students must learn what words are in the appropriate register for academic writing.

Contrastive rhetoric also falls under sociolinguistic rules of use. Dunlap (1990) argues that while grammar and vocabulary are often the main concerns of international student writers, in fact it is more likely that not vocabulary or grammar but the rhetorical style will strike readers as “foreign” and difficult to understand. Dunlap gives the example that in Arabic and other Semitic languages, writers find it unnecessary to show the connections between the parallel pattern of points in their essays. In Hispanic and other Romance languages, the elaborate connection of a series of parallel points is valued. Indo-Chinese languages hint at a main idea in the middle of a paragraph and follow a spiral pattern, never explicitly mentioning the main idea. In all of these rhetorical styles, it is up to the reader to make connections between the ideas. In contrast, in English academic writing, a linear, hierarchical style is preferred where the main idea is stated at the beginning and transitions are made explicitly. Learning vocabulary and grammar is not enough, but students must also learn how to write in this linear, hierarchical rhetorical style of academic English to be effective writers in the US academic community.

Problems with academic register and rhetorical style may not only limit the strength of an international student’s writing but may also cause misunderstanding. Thomas (1983) Wolfson (1989) argues that while grammatical errors may hinder communication, they are seen as surface errors and rarely have negative repercussions on the speaker. However, pragmatic errors are more dangerous because people don’t realize that the speaker has made an error and view the originator of the error as rude or arrogant. This is not only a problem in speaking but can be a problem in academic writing. If students employ a rhetorical style where the reader is expected to infer meaning, this indirect style will be judged as weak by standards of an academic English essay. Not knowing appropriate academic register can also be misinterpreted. If a student does not understand academic register they may use words that convey a harsher message than the one they were trying to get across. They may come out sounding confrontational when they were only trying to show slight disagreement. Until the norms of both academic register and English rhetorical style are learned, writers will continue to make errors that may be falsely interpreted and judged negatively.

Many different methods must be employed in ESL 401 classes to help students learn the rules for language use within speech events in academic settings. To give field specific writing instruction, students write a research paper in their own field of study as part of a final writing project. This project includes a genre analysis of journal articles in student’s fields of study to find out morns within their specific academic speech communities. In addition, students interview their advisor and ask for examples of writing the professor considers both good writing, and bad writing within the field. Students also synthesize the information they have gathered from genre analysis, interviewing a professor, and research from writing manuals to write a paper about standards of one genre of writing within their discipline. Also, students do an oral presentation for the class on their research paper. The rules for oral presentations are explicitly taught modeling and lecture.

A socio-cultural analysis profile of ESL 401 shows that a field specific orientation towards writing is necessary for the class to meet student needs. The “structure of thinking” that Freire says is tied to language is different in not only every culture, but slightly different in every field of study. The lack of straightforwardness evident in many international students’ writing may be falsely viewed as lack of understanding. To help students understand the underlying rhetorical structure of writing in their filed, students will be taught genre analysis skills so that they will be equipped to find out these rules of rhetoric for any new wiring situation. While there are institutional constraints to making ESL 401 filed specific, such as lack of trained instructors in social and natural science, and students from a variety of disciplines being palaces in one class, these constraints can b overcome. Projects such as the final writing project and the assignment to write about discipline specific writing give students the more specialized training that they need to be successful writers in the US academic community.

Written by: Suzanne Bernsten

Works Cited

Celce-Murcia, M. (1990) Discourse analysis and grammar instruction. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 11: 135-151.

Celce-Murcia, M. Dornyei, Z. and Thurell, S. (1995) Communicative Competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications. Issues in Applied Linguistics 6 (2): 5-35.

Rickford, J.R. (1996). Regional and social variation. In S.L. McKay and N.H. Hornberger (Eds.). Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. NY: Cambridge, pp. 47-70.

Sridhar, K.K. (1996) Societal multilingualism. In S.L. McKay and N. H. Hornberger (Eds.). Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. NY: Cambridge, pp. 151-194.

Wolfson, N. (1989) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL (Introduction; Ch. 1: Sociolinguistic Relativity, pp. 1-33.)

Wolfson, N. (1989) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL (Ch. 2: Communicative Competence and Rules of Speaking, pp. 34-54.)