Living With Multilingualism |
An ANALYSIS OF TEACHING ESL
"To Help or Not To Help"
ABSTRACT
In my essay, I argue that all professors should provide accommodations for ESL students because it can be beneficial to the entire classroom. It stems from the reading, , "“Will Our Stories Help Teachers Understand?”, by Terry Zawacki, and Anna Habib, where the example of writing being below par in ESL students is brought up. The “ESOL Teachers as Writing Teachers”, by Youngjoo Yi, which brings forth an idea of providing accommodations for ESL students by discussing how professors should not just use essay writing to prove students know material but use writing as a way of learning, which explains the issue with the ways the professors in the Zawacki/Habib article think. They should find other methods. Jane O’Connor provides accommodations for the ESL students that are simple changes all mainstream professors could incorporate into their classrooms. Using these accommodations, the ideas brought up in Cheryl Stanosheck Youngs and George A. Youngs, Jr’s article in TESOL Quarterly, called “Predictors of Mainstream Teachers' Attitudes toward ESL Students”, can be refused. The article describes the reasons behind why professors do not desire to teach ESL students, which is explained as being due to many different determinants, the main one being lack of exposure. By creating these accomodation’s O’Connor describes, these professors can be further exposed to ESL students.
BACKGROUND ON THE PROJECT BEHIND THIS
My group explored the topic of teaching ESL within different higher level educational settings Click here to find out more about our project at it's website. Within the project we conducted professional interviews and wrote analysis' of topics that interested the group, while keeping them all linked together. My groups website can be found here.
In our analyses, we all explored topics relating to the teaching of ESL and what issues and solutions exist in the field. We propose different solutions for a variety of issues that have arisen in the teaching of ESL from high school to graduate teaching level, and explore why ESL teaching has such great importance in our modern day society. We take these sources and apply them to very specific topics that we explore in our analyses. This allowed us to use material from different sources to explore very specific topics in the world of ESL teaching, and through this set up relevance for the importance of focus of research in ESL teaching. My specific essay looked into the argument that all professors should provide accommodations for ESL students because it can be beneficial to the entire classroom. For the entire essay, please click here.
In our analyses, we all explored topics relating to the teaching of ESL and what issues and solutions exist in the field. We propose different solutions for a variety of issues that have arisen in the teaching of ESL from high school to graduate teaching level, and explore why ESL teaching has such great importance in our modern day society. We take these sources and apply them to very specific topics that we explore in our analyses. This allowed us to use material from different sources to explore very specific topics in the world of ESL teaching, and through this set up relevance for the importance of focus of research in ESL teaching. My specific essay looked into the argument that all professors should provide accommodations for ESL students because it can be beneficial to the entire classroom. For the entire essay, please click here.
WORK CITED
Zawacki, Terry M., and Anna S. Habib. “Will Our Stories Help Teachers Understand?”: Multilingual Students Talk about Identity, Voice, and Expectations across Academic Communities." Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing. Ed. Michelle Cox, Jay Jordan, Christina Orthmeier-Hooper, and Gwen G. Schwartz. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2010. 54-71. Print.
Cheryl Stanosheck Youngs and George A. Youngs, Jr., “Predictors of Mainstream Teachers’ Attitudes toward ESL Students. TESOL Quarterly. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring, 2001) , pp. 97-120
Youngjoo Yi “ESOL Teachers as Writing Teachers”: Yi, Youngjoo. "ESOL Teachers as Writing Teachers: From the Voices of High School Pre-Service Teachers." L2 Writing in Secondary Classrooms. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 133-50. Emory University Library Data Base. Web. 4 Apr. 2015.
Jane O’Connor Interview: "1st Interview." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 4 Apr