Editor Research Issues Editor Brief Reports and ... - CiteSeerX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languagesand of Standard English as a Second Dialect

EditorSANDRA McKAY, San Francisco State UniversityResearch Issues EditorDONNA M. JOHNSON, University of ArizonaBrief Reports and Summaries EditorsGRAHAM CROOKES and KATHRYN A. DAVIS, University of Hawaiiat ManoaReview EditorH. DOUGLAS BROWN, San Francisco State UniversityAssistant EditorsMARILYN KUPETZ and ELLEN GARSHICK, TESOL Central OfficeEditorial AssistantCATHERINE HARTMAN, San Francisco State UniversityEditorial Advisory BoardLyle Bachman, B. Kumaravadivelu,

University of California, Los Angeles San Jose State UniversityKathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Patsy M. Lightbown,

Indiana University Concordia UniversityEllen Block, Alastair Pennycook,

Baruch College University of MelbourneKeith Chick, Patricia Porter,

University of Natal San Francisco State UniversityDeborah Curtis, Kamal Sridhar,

San Francisco State University State University of New YorkZoltàn Dörnyei, Terrence Wiley,

Etövös University California State University,Sandra Fotos, Long Beach

Senshu University Jerri Willett,Eli Hinkel, University of Massachusetts

Xavier University at AmherstNancy Hornberger, Vivian Zamel,

University of Pennsylvania University of Massachusetts

Additional ReadersElsa Auerbach, Kathryn A. Davis, Patricia A. Duff, Barbara Hoekje, Kara Moscoe, John Murphy, Robert DeKeyser,George YuleCreditsAdvertising arranged by Jennifer Delett, TESOL Central Office, Alexandria, VirginiaTypesetting by World Composition Services, Inc.Printing and binding by Pantagraph Printing, Bloomington, IllinoisCopies of articles that appear in the TESOL Quarterly are available through The Genuine Article®, 3501 Market StreetPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 U.S.A.

VOLUMES MENU

TESOL QUARTERLY

To print, select PDF pagen o s . i n p a r e n t h e s e s

ARTICLESBorrowing Others’Alastair Pennycook

CONTENTS

Words: Text, Ownership, Memory, and Plagiarism 201 ( 1 0 - 3 9 )

Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Teacher Education:A Constructivist Approach 231Dorit Kaufman and Jacqueline Grennon BrooksCooperative Learning: Context and Opportunitiesfor Acquiring Academic English 253Evelyn Jacob, Lori Rottenberg, Sondra K. Patrick, Edyth WheelerTeachers’ Maxims in Language Teaching 281Jack C. RichardsAcademic Listening/Speaking Tasks for ESL Students:Problems, Suggestions, and Implications 297Dana Ferris and Tracy Tagg

THE FORUMFrom Critical Research Practice to Critical Research Reporting 321A. Suresh CanagarajahComments on Bonny Norton Peirce’s “Social Identity, Investment,and Language Learning” 331

A Reader Reacts . . .Stephen PriceInterpreting Data: The Role of TheoryBonny Norton Peirce

RESEARCH ISSUESGender in Research on Language 341

Researching Gender-Related Patterns in Classroom DiscourseDeborah TannenResearch as Gendered PracticeJerri Willett

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIESExploring Automatization Processes 349Robert M. DeKeyser

REVIEWSBusiness English Skills for the Intermediate to Advanced Student 359In Print: Reading Business EnglishRod Revell and Simon Sweeney

( 4 0 - 6 0 )

( 6 2 - 8 9 )

( 9 0 - 1 0 5 )

(106-129)

Business Across Cultures: Effective Communication StrategiesLaura M. English and Sarah LynnBusiness Communications: International Case Studies in EnglishDrew RodgersReviewed by Barbara HyndmanBrave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy Through Global

Learning NetworksJim Cummins and Dennis SayersReviewed by Mark WarschauerThe Language InstinctStephen PinkerReviewed by Allison PetroIntercultural Communication: A Discourse ApproachRon Scollon and Suzanne Wong ScollonReviewed by Trinidad LewisUnderstanding English Grammar: A Linguistic ApproachRonald WardhaughReviewed by Helen Chau HuWriting From SourcesGeorge Braine and Claire MayReviewed by Anne JanuaryWriting in a Second Language: Insights From First and Second Language

Teaching and ResearchBruce Leeds (Ed.)Reviewed by William RozyckiSpringboard to Success: Communication Strategies for the Classroom and BeyondPatricia Skillman and Cheiron McMahillReviewed by Erin MorganArrivals: Cross-Cultural Experiences in LiteratureJann HuizengaReviewed by Maria Ott Spangenberg

BOOK NOTICES 377Information for Contributors 381

Editorial PolicyGeneral Information for Authors

Publications Received 389Publications Available from the TESOL Central Office 391TESOL Membership Application

TESOL QUARTERLY

Editor’s Note

With this issue, I welcome the following new members to the TESOLQuarterly’s Editorial Advisory Board: Eli Hinkel, B. Kumaravadivelu, Alas-tair Pennycook, Terrence Wiley, and Jerri Willett. I would also like tothank those members who are rotating off the Editorial Board for theiroutstanding service to the Quarterly. They are Anna Uhl Chamot, SharonHilles, Donna Johnson, Brian Lynch, Mary McGroarty, and Bonny NortonPeirce. I am grateful that the Section Editors—H. Douglas Brown, GrahamCrookes, Kathryn Davis, Donna Johnson, and Bonny Norton Peirce—have all agreed to continue acting as section editors. Finally, I would liketo thank the American Language Institute at San Francisco State for itscontinued financial support for an editorial assistant.

In This Issue

The lead article in this issue examines the complexities that surroundthe concept of plagiarism. The next two articles focus on the K–12 context,one presenting a model for teacher education and the other examining theinteractions of 6th-grade native and nonnative speakers in a cooperativelearning classroom. The fourth article in the issue describes various max-ims that can inform teachers’ decisions in the classroom. In the final article,the second part of a survey of ESL students’ academic listening andspeaking needs is presented.

● Alastair Pennycook begins his exploration of the concept of plagia-rism by examining the historical development of the notion of textsand ownership. He delineates three eras—the premodern, modern,and postmodern—and discusses the shifting views of text and owner-ship that occurred in each. He maintains that the ambiguities thatsurround the Western modernist view of plagiarism can result inhypocrisies regarding how textual borrowing is undertaken. Several

197

examples from second language texts are presented to illustrate thesehypocrisies. Next, drawing on his experience of teaching in HongKong, Pennycook demonstrates the problems that arise in imposinga Western notion of text and ownership on the Hong Kong context.He closes the article with a plea for teachers to recognize the complex-ity of the issues involved in language learning and textual borrowing.

• Dorit Kaufman and Jacqueline Grennon Brooks describe a collabora-tive teacher education endeavor between undergraduate and gradu-ate students in a TESOL education program and a science educationprogram at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Thiscollaborative effort drew on the principles of constructivist, teachingin which the preservice teachers in both disciplines posed problemsthought to be of relevance to their students and created a classroomsetting in which teachers and students could jointly search for answersto these problems by using raw data and primary sources. The collabo-rative teacher education program described is based on the premisethat if teachers are to collaborate in schools to create interdisciplinaryclassrooms that foster students’ linguistic and academic growth, theyneed to experience such classrooms in their teacher education pro-grams.

• Evelyn Jacob, Lori Rottenberg, Sondra Patrick, and Edyth Wheelerexamine how a cooperative learning environment influenced L2learners’ opportunities for acquiring academic English in a 6th-gradesocial studies class. They found that the cooperative learning contextprovided students with a range of opportunities to acquire academicEnglish, such as giving and receiving help with academic terms andconcepts, being exposed to new lexical items, and receiving help withconventions of written English. Many of these interactions involvedboth input and output opportunities. On the other hand, the coopera-tive experiences also included some missed opportunities for acquir-ing academic English as well as some negative input. The authorsclose by arguing that if teachers want to get the greatest benefitsfrom cooperative learning, they need to include second languageacquisition in their instructional goals and carefully monitor what ishappening in the classroom.

• Maintaining that teaching needs to be understood from an insider’srather than an outsider’s perspective, Jack C. Richards examines max-ims or working principles that teachers consciously or unconsciouslyrefer to as they teach. According to Richards, conversations withteachers suggest that teachers’ belief systems lead to the developmentof maxims, which help them interpret their responsibilities and imple-ment their plans. Richards exemplifies various teaching maxims suchas the maxims of student involvement, of planning, of maintainingorder, and of accuracy. He ends by arguing that attention to personalmaxims in teacher education programs can provide a useful perspec-tive for examining teachers’ thinking-in-action.

198 TESOL QUARTERLY

• Dana Ferris and Tracy Tagg complete the reporting of their surveyof the academic aural/oral needs of ESL students presented in theSpring 1996 issue of the Quarterly. Comments from the content in-structors included in their survey suggest that in terms of listeningand speaking needs, ESL students have the greatest difficulty withclass participation, asking and responding to questions, and generalas opposed to lecture listening comprehension. In order to meet thesestudent needs, the content instructors included in the survey proposethat ESL teachers strive for authenticity in their classes, giving stu-dents opportunities to listen to actual lectures given by various speak-ers, interact with native speakers, and deal with genre-specific vocabu-lary, reading materials, and writing tasks.

Also in this issue:

• Research Issues: Deborah Tannen and Jerri Willett explore the roleof gender in research on language.

• The Forum: A. Suresh Canagarajah argues that those involved incritical research practices must match such research with critical re-search reporting. He urges researchers to negotiate the genre conven-tions of reporting so that their research findings can be adequatelyrepresented. Stephen Price’s commentary on Bonny Norton Peirce’sarticle, “Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning,” is fol-lowed by a response from the author on the role of theory in interpre-ting data.

• Brief Reports and Summaries: Robert M. DeKeyser reports on theresult of a pilot study that examines how automatization takes placein second language learning as a result of different kinds of intensivepractice.

• Book Reviews: Barbara Hyndman provides a comparative review ofbusiness English texts for intermediate to advanced L2 learners.

Sandra McKay

IN THIS ISSUE 199

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 30, No. 2, Summer 1996

Borrowing Others’ Words:Text, Ownership, Memory,and Plagiarism

ALASTAIR PENNYCOOKUniversity of Melbourne

In this article, I attempt to deal with some of the complexities of text,ownership, memorization, and plagiarism. Arguing that plagiarismcannot be cast as a simple black-and-white issue, the prevention ofwhich can be achieved via threats, warnings, and admonitions, Isuggest that it needs to be understood in terms of complex relation-ships between text, memory, and learning. This is part of an attemptto explore more generally different relationships between learning,literacy, and cultural difference. I look first at the background to thenotion of authorship and ownership of text, arguing that the wayownership and creativity are understood within European and U.S.contexts needs to be seen as a very particular cultural and historicaldevelopment. By looking at shifting premodern, modern, and post-modern understandings of text and authorship, I show how thedominant modernist paradigm has always been filled with tensionsand ambiguities. Then I discuss how these confusions around plagia-rism lead to difficulties and hypocrisies in how textual borrowing isunderstood. I follow this examination of the development of theWestern notion of textual ownership with a consideration of whatit means to impose this view in a context where understandings oftexts, ownership, and learning may be very different. By looking atlearning in a Chinese context and also at the particularities of study-ing in Hong Kong, I show why we need much more subtle apprecia-tions of the relationships between different approaches to texts. Fi-nally, I discuss some general implications for understanding text,ownership, and learning.

A number of years ago, when I was teaching at Xiangtan Universityin China, I asked my first-year undergraduate English majors to

write a brief biography of a well-known person (such exciting tasksdo we set our students). When I was grading these, I came across onetoward the bottom of the pile that had a strange quality to it. It was a

201

short piece on Abraham Lincoln (Why Abraham Lincoln? I wondered),written in rather simple but perfectly “correct” prose: “Abraham Lin-coln was born in a log cabin in 1809 . . .” (or words to that effect). Ithad the ring of a text from elsewhere, of language borrowed andrepeated. Because I was at the time supervising my fourth-year stu-dents’ teaching practice in Yiyang, a small town in the north of Hunan,I asked one of them what he thought about this text. He looked atthe first two lines and smiled. The text, he explained, was from oneof the high school textbooks. So did that mean, I asked, that it hadbeen copied? Well, not necessarily, the student replied, and then dem-onstrated that he too knew the text by heart: “Abraham Lincoln wasborn in a log cabin . . . .” When I got back to Xiangtan University, Isought out the first-year student and asked him about his text. Heexplained that although he felt that he had not really done the task Ihad set, because I had asked them to do some research prior to writing,he had felt rather fortunate that I had asked them to write somethingwhich he already knew. Sitting in his head was a brief biography ofAbraham Lincoln, and he was quite happy to produce it on demand:“Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin . . . .”

Whereas I might have responded to this with moral outrage ordelivered a lecture on plagiarism, or “academic norms,” I found insteadthat I was rather fascinated by the issues it raised: questions aboutownership of texts, practices of memory, and writing. Because alllanguage learning is, to some extent, a practice of memorization ofthe words of others, on what grounds do we see certain acts of textualborrowing as acceptable and others as unacceptable? How have theboundaries been drawn between the acceptable memorizing and useof word lists, phrases, sentences (remember English 900 with its 900sentences to be memorized?), paragraphs, poems, quotations, and soon and the unacceptable reuse of others’ words? How is it that notionsof ownership of text have developed? When does one come to own alanguage sufficiently that to say something “in one’s own words” makessense? And how can we come to deal with different relationships totext and memorization in different cultural contexts? I recall sometime after this incident talking to some of my Chinese colleagues aboutmemorization and language learning. I was arguing that althoughmemorization of texts might be a useful learning technique, it couldnever lead to productive, original language use (this, we have beentaught to believe, is one of those “facts” of second language acquisi-tion). I gave as an example one of our colleagues who was acknowl-edged as one of the most eloquent and fluent speakers in the depart-ment, suggesting that he could never have become so if he had beena mere memoriser. The others smiled, for this other colleague wasknown not only as an excellent user of English but also as someone

202 TESOL QUARTERLY

with a fine talent for memorizing texts. Again, pause for thought. Iknew that when we sat and drank beer and talked philosophy, hewasn’t speaking texts to me. How had he come to own the languageas he did, when that had apparently been done by borrowing others’language?

When I worked in Hong Kong more recently, parallel puzzles aboutownership of text emerged in “moderation meetings,” in which a num-ber of us teaching on the same course compare grades for the sameessays. Although such meetings often produce, in any case, quite ex-traordinarily divergent views on what is and what is not a good pieceof writing, there is nothing like the hint of something borrowed toradically split the meeting down the middle: Some teachers will heappraise on an essay while others are pouring scorn on it. The issue,almost invariably, is whether it is the student’s “own work.” And thetrigger for both the praise and the scorn can sometimes be as littleas a two- or three-word phrase. For some, it is a felicitous phrase,appropriately used, suggesting someone with a good feel for language;for others, it is a phrase that could not be part of this student’s “compe-tence” (such is the tyranny of our knowledge of students’ interlan-guages and competency levels), thus casting doubt not only over theorigins of this phrase but also the origins of the rest of the text.The lines are drawn and the arguments rage over whether the essaywarrants a D (or worse) or an A. Ironically, once the spectre of doubtfulownership is raised, teachers start to look for grammatical errors as asign of good writing and to become suspicious when such errors arecrucially absent. Our criteria are turned on their head: Suddenly weare looking either for language that is “too good” in order to incrimi-nate the student, or we are looking for evidence of errors in order toexonerate the student. Thus, we end up in the “paradoxical state ofaffairs that the worse an essay is linguistically, the better mark it isperceived to merit” (Hutton, 1990). From being teachers constantlyin search of sophisticated and standard language use, we become detec-tives in search of evidence that some chunk of language has beenillegitimately used.

Indeed, once we start to explore the whole question of textual bor-rowing, the notion of ownership of text and learning becomes verycomplex. It is important to understand the cultural and historicalspecificity of notions of ownership and authorship and to explorethe implications of these concepts’ being increasingly promoted asinternational norms. Plagiarism also needs to be particularized in otherways: In terms of the particular cultural and educational context inwhich it is being discussed—what are the relationships to text, knowl-edge, and learning in a particular cultural context? And in terms ofthe nature of the institution and the particular language in which it is

BORROWING OTHER'S WORDS 203

seen to be occurring: Is an educational institute promoting or thwartingcreative thought, and in what language is it asking students to functionacademically? And in terms of what is understood as shared languageor knowledge and particular language or knowledge: At what pointdoes a phrase or an idea become owned? And at what point doesit become public? Other interesting complexities arise: How do weunderstand the relationship between language and knowledge? Whatare we to make of the academic emphasis on repeating the ideas ofothers while doing so in our own words? Why is it that many teachersseem to react to supposed acts of plagiarism with such moral outrage?How important is the notion of intentionality: Is the issue that certainwords are not the students’ own, or is it more important to understandthe intention behind the apparent borrowing? And is it perhaps usefulto distinguish between notions of good and bad plagiarism?

THE ORIGINALITY MYTH:FROM DIVINE TO DISCURSIVE VENTRILOQUY

Constructing the Author

In order to understand how Western views on textual ownershiphave developed, we need to examine in greater detail what it meansto be original, an author, and how it is that author, authenticity, andauthority are so closely intertwined in Western thought. What, then,does it mean to be original, to say something new? In his genealogyof Western imagination, Kearney (1988) identifies three dominantparadigms, the mimetic (premodern), the productive (modern), and theparodic (postmodern). In the premodern, mimetic era (biblical, classical,and medieval), the image stood as a representation of reality, as ameans through which nature, and especially God, could be worshiped.For both Aristotle and Plato, imagination remained “largely a reproduc-tive rather than a productive activity, a servant rather than a master ofmeaning, imitation rather than origin” (p. 113, emphasis in original).The great monotheistic religions are still tied to a position that itis divine, not human, inspiration that produced their texts (a viewnotoriously transgressed by Salman Rushdie). It was not until the greatshift of thinking in Europe that became known as the Enlightenmentthat this view of imagination shifted and was replaced by the productiveparadigm of the modern. In this view, the imagination was no longerviewed as a mimetic capacity but as a productive force: “As a conse-quence of this momentous reversal of roles, meaning is no longerprimarily considered as a transcendent property of divine being; it isnow hailed as a transcendental product of the human mind” (p. 155).

204 TESOL QUARTERLY

Shifting from the earlier onto-theological view of meaning, the human-ist subject now became the centre of creativity. It is this view of meaningas held in place by the humanist subject which, once coupled with thenotion of property rights, produced an understanding of individualownership of ideas and language.

This understanding of imagination is clearly closely tied to the devel-opment of the notion of the author. The medieval concept of theauthor put great store on the authority and authenticity bestowed ona text by the auctor. In this view, texts were given truth and authorityby dint of having been written long ago by famous men: As Minnis(1984) suggests, the only good author was a dead author. But it wasthe development of print, Ong (1982) argues, that “created a newsense of the private ownership of words” (p. 131). Tracing back thehistory of the development of the notion of the author, Foucault(1984) suggests that there was, in the 17th or 18th centuries, a reversalof the need for authorial attribution. Prior to this, he suggests, literarywork was generally accepted without a notion of an author, an observa-tion that accords with Kearney’s (1988) that the premodern imaginativework was generally unauthored because it was the representation ofreality or the creation of a religious icon through which God couldbe worshiped that was of importance, not the image-making itself.Scientific work (texts on medicine, cosmology, and natural science),by contrast, were accepted as true by dint of their authorship. This,Foucault suggests, was reversed in the 17th and 18th centuries, whenthe authorship of individual works of literature as individual acts ofcreativity became crucial, whereas the scientific domain evolved intoa more general unauthored agreement on scientific truths. Kearney(1988) suggests that “the coming into being of the notion of ‘author’constitutes the privileged moment of individualization in the historyof ideas, knowledge, literature, philosophy, and the sciences” (p. 101).

What is of significance in the description of these shifts of creativityand authorship is the need to see a stress on “new” meaning, onoriginality, on individual creativity, as very much an aspect of Westernmodernity, and thus both a very particular cultural and a very particu-lar historical emphasis, albeit one with a great deal of salience in theworld today. It is with the rise of such individualization that the historyof literary plagiarism started to emerge (the notion of copyright andthus “intellectual property” was encoded in British law in 1710; seeWillinsky, 1990). Thus, as Willinsky (1990) puts it, “this contest ofcreative imitation, invention, and authority, which has been at theheart of the force of the book as an intellectual property, is securedby the concept of an originating author, an actual body that gave lifeto words” (p. 77). In this development, then, we can see the conjunctionbetween the development of the notion of the author and the develop-


ment of individual property rights, which, allied to other developmentssuch as printing, produced a very particular vision of ownership oflanguage and ideas.

Modernist Tensions

Despite the strength of this vision, backed up as it was not only byphilosophical underpinnings but also by legal sanctions, it also seemsto have been a view with many tensions and ambiguities. One thingthat is immediately striking when reading about textual borrowing ishow remarkably common it has been and still is, and thus how textualborrowing has always been with us to an extent that the purer human-ists and modernists would be unwilling to admit. As Mallon (1989)puts it, “the Romans rewrote the Greeks. Virgil is, in a broadly imitativeway, Homer, and for that matter, typologists can find most of the OldTestament in the New” (p. 4). White’s (1965) study of plagiarism inthe English Renaissance raises similar interesting concerns. As hepoints out, the classical heritage on which the Renaissance drew wasitself a period full of imitation: A great deal of the flourishing ofRoman arts was based on free imitation of Greek works. When thewriters of the European Renaissance turned back to their classicalheritage, they not only revived art that had based itself on free imita-tion, but they also based their own work on the free imitation of thisperiod. But this has always been the case for a great deal of artisticcreation: As T.S. Eliot (1975) put it, the “most individual parts” of anartist’s work may be precisely those “in which the dead poets, hisancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (p. 38).

What emerges from studies of literary plagiarism such as Mallon(1989) or Shaw (1982) is a very confused and complex picture.1 Firstof all, the list of accused plagiarists is long and prestigious, includingLaurence Sterne, Samuel Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, Edgar AllenPoe, Norman Mailer, Alex Hailey (Roots), Dee Brown (Bury My Heartat Wounded Knee), Martin Luther King, Gail Sheehy (Passages), Jacob

1 Indeed, as Mallon (1989) and Shaw (1982) show, there seem to be some strange psychologicalaspects to plagiarism, including a tendency to “give the game away” (Shaw, 1982, p. 330).It was De Quincey, for example, who leveled the accusations of plagiarism against Coleridgesoon after the latter’s death in 1834, an accusation which, as Mallon suggests, was ironicbecause De Quincey had previously stated a great aversion to such accusations and becausehe himself was yet another in the great line of literary plagiarists. According to Mallon(1989), “Coleridge’s case suggests that he may have been addicted not just to opium but toplagiarism itself, flirting with the equivalent of an overdose in the risks of exposure heran” (pp. 34–35). Plagiarists, it seems, like Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, arsonists who returnto the scene of the crime and serial killers who write ever more revealing notes to the policeand newspapers, draw attention to themselves, whether as a result of guilt, a desire to befound out, or the thrill of flirting with the threat of exposure. “Giving the game away,”suggests Shaw, “proves to be the rule rather than the exception among plagiarists” (p. 330).

206 TESOL QUARTERLY

Epstein (Wild Oats), Helen Keller, and many more. Second, part ofthe difficulty here lies in the relationship between the demand fororiginality and the reverence of other writers, a tension that occurswhen “the demand for novelty meets the sensitive writer’s normalworship of the great literary past” (Mallon, 1989, p. 24). There is,therefore, a constant interplay between creativity and previous writing,a relationship which, as we shall see, is particularly significant in thecontext in which we teach. Third, the writers themselves or their sup-porters will often go to extreme lengths to exonerate the writer fromaccusations of unoriginality. Anything from poor note-taking to psy-chological disturbances, from unconscious errors to clever parodyingare suggested once it is shown that a great author’s originality is broughtinto question. The debates around Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy,for example, are intriguing because his work is seen both as highlyoriginal, a precursor to much later 20th-century literary experimenta-tion, and also as heavily reliant on a number of other sources. Thecommon explanation among Sterne scholars is that there was a kindof mockery going on here, a parodying of others’ work, and that thosewho accuse him of plagiarism misunderstand his work, his humour,and his originality.

The Individualist-Romanticist view of originality that emerged inthe modern era, then, also carried with it many of the seeds of its owndestruction, rife as it was contradictions, borrowings, and pretendedoriginalities. An understanding of the whole Orientalist-Romanticisttrait in European writing (the search for the “exotic” in distant placesto revive the flagging powers of European creativity) reveals how thegreat claims to European exploration and discovery were another pow-erful set of myths. The actual physical invasions and colonisations ofthis period were of course very real, but the discoveries of differencewere in many ways little more than repetitions of European tropes.As Tatlow’s (1993) discussion of Gauguin shows, for example, whatwas really discovered in these voyages of European discovery wasnothing but another part of the European imaginary: monsters, canni-bals, and primitive natives. Furthermore, as Tatlow suggests, Gauguinwas, like most artists, part of a larger tradition of massive borrowing:“Like Brecht, Gauguin borrowed from everywhere. His disdain fororiginality was his mark of it and, as Delacroix observed of Raphael:‘Nowhere did he reveal his originality so forcefully as in the ideas heborrowed’” (p. 5).

Once one starts to take a closer look at the context of textual bor-rowing, then, it is hard not to feel that language use is marked farmore by the circulation and recirculation of words and ideas than bya constant process of creativity. One thing that emerges from a recentbook on spurious quotations and misquotations (Keyes, 1992), for


example, is the vast amount of constant borrowing that goes on in thefield of quotations. In one chapter, Keyes reports research by RobertNewcomb that reveals that many aphorisms generally attributed toBenjamin Franklin were in fact lifted from other sources, virtuallyword for word. Although Franklin pointed to this practice when heasked, “Why should I give my Readers bad lines of my own whengood ones of other People’s are so plenty?” (quoted in Keyes, p, 31),he never acknowledged that his great collection of aphorisms wereindeed the good lines of others. As Keyes shows, in fact, many of thefamous lines attributed to various American presidents also have mucholder origins. These include Kennedy’s “Ask not what your countrycan do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” which isremarkably similar to various other sayings such as Oliver WendellHolmes Jr.’s 1884 request to an audience to “recall what our countryhas done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do forour country in return” (Keyes, 1992, p. 91). Other famous examplesinclude Franklin Roosevelt’s “The only thing we have to fear is fearitself,” which had already been said in more or less the same wordsby Montaigne in 1580, Francis Bacon in 1623, the Duke of Wellingtonin 1832, and Thoreau in 1851. By the time we get to Ronald Reagan,whose fallible memory and inability to distinguish between fact andfiction are legendary, examples abound. It is worth noting here thatbecause these examples are known to us today because they exist inthe writings or sayings of well-known writers, so they must surely bebut the tip of a vast iceberg of such repetitions.

Now it is tempting to chuckle at these famous sayings echoingthrough the years, and perhaps to cluck one’s tongue at the thoughtthat some of this must have been done wittingly. Yet I believe thatthese simple examples point to a far more significant series of ques-tions. First, is it perhaps the case that there really is nothing, or atleast very little, new to be said? As Goethe (1963/1829) once said “AllesGescheite ist schon gedacht worden, man muß nur versuchen, es nocheinmal zu denken” (Everything clever has already been thought; onemust only try to think it again; Maximen und Reflexionen, p. 52). Ratherthan the generativist-grammarian view of language as an infinite pro-duction of sentences—a view that suggests that such linguists haverarely been in a conversation, read a newspaper, or indeed encoun-tered any form of language use—is it not far more significant to focuson the social production and the circulation of meanings? A view oflanguage that relates its use to social, cultural, and ideological domainssuggests that we need to go beyond a view of language as an infiniteseries of decontextualized sentences or as the idiosyncratic productionof a completely free-willed subject. Second, if it is in fact so hard topin down the real originator of a quotation, are we perhaps engaged

208 TESOL QUARTERLY

here in a false teleology, an impossible search for the first speakingor writing of certain words? Indeed, is it not possible that in someways our endless books of apparently dubiously attributed quotations(or indeed all of our cherished canon of “authored” works) are aproduct of a search both to attribute authorship to certain words andto elevate writers to their canonical status by attributing pithy sayings tothem? Is it the case that the insistence on the authorship of quotations,poems, books, and so on has less to do with authorial (author-real?)creation of texts and far more to do with textual creation of authors?

Postmodern Uncertainty: The Death of the Author

The notion of the individual as creative guarantor of meaning andoriginality, this particular vision of self and authenticity, has, of course,taken a fair battering since Marx, Freud, and others have questionedthe notion of the unmediated and authentic expression of self. Domi-nant though this modernist paradigm of the author has been, it isnow being questioned by the parodic paradigm of the postmodern.In the wake of both the “death of God” and the “death of the subject,”imagination and creativity become nothing but a play of images them-selves, images that neither reference a reality nor are the products ofa human subject. According to Kearney (1988), “one of the greatestparadoxes of contemporary culture is that at a time when the imagereigns supreme the very notion of a creative human imagination seemsunder mounting threat” (p. 3). The postmodern and poststructuralistpositions on language, discourse, and subjectivity, therefore, raise seri-ous questions for any notion of individual creativity or authorship. If,instead of a Self or an Identity, we consider the notion of subjectivity,or indeed subjectivities (we are, in a sense, the fragmented productsof different discourses), then we arrive at more or less a reversal ofthe speaking subject creating meaning: We are not speaking subjectsbut spoken subjects, we do not create language but are created by it.As I suggested earlier, the question then becomes not so much one ofwho authored a text but how we are authored by texts.2 Thus, thedevelopment of a notion of creativity can be seen to move from anexternal position, in which the origin of meanings has some determi-nate source, especially in the word of God (the divine ventriloquist);3

2 Of course, there are dangers with this position. Although it helps to move away from thefoundational concept of a core self or rationality, it may leave us little more than discursiveventriloquists. We need, therefore, to theorize a notion of agency or voice in order thatwe do not reduce subjectivity to nothing but a product of the discursive. There is not spacehere, however, to elaborate on this.

3 I have borrowed this phrase from Coleridge, who, in defense of the accusations leveledagainst him declared “I regard truth as a divine ventriloquist” (quoted in Mallon, 1989,p. 31).

BORROWING OTHER’S WORDS 209

through an internal version of meaning, in which the individual wasseen as the originator and guarantor of meaning (the speaking subject);and back to an external model, where meanings play off each otherwithout any stable referent (discursive ventriloquy).

As Kearney (1988) suggests, “Postmodernism casts a suspectingglance on the modernist cult of creative originality” (p.21). This skepti-cism about creative originality is linked not only to the “death of thesubject,” but also more specifically to the announcement of the “deathof the author,” signaled most emphatically by Roland Barthes (1977).Arguing, like Foucault (1984), that the notion of the author was verymuch a construction of modernity, Barthes (1977) states that “a textis not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in whicha variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. Thetext is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres ofculture” (p. 146). “[T]o give writing its future,” Barthes argues, “it isnecessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be atthe cost of the death of the Author” (p. 148). Barthes suggests thatby doing away with the notion of the author, writing can no longerbe seen as an act of representation, and meaning can no longer beattached to some authorial intent. Linking this idea to speech act the-ory, he suggests that all writing is nothing but “a performative,” having“no other content . . . than the act by which it is uttered” (p. 146).4

If this line of thinking raises many questions about authorship,Swan’s (1994) discussion of Helen Keller’s supposed plagiarism startsto raise different postmodernist issues concerning the body and itsboundaries. For Helen Keller, deaf and blind since the age of 2,perception was almost entirely tactile, and thus texts for her tookon a different context in relationship to memory. As Helen Kellerexplained, her “friends often read ‘interesting fragments’ to her ‘in apromiscuous manner,’ and . . . if she then uses them in her writing,it is difficult to trace the ‘fugitive sentences and paragraphs’ whichhave been spelled into her hand” (Swan, 1994, pp. 57–58). But Swanis pointing to far deeper concerns here than the fact that Helen Kellermust have developed very particular memory practices. Workingthrough the psychoanalytic theories of Lacan, he points to fundamen-tally different understandings of language and boundaries: Because“touch & perception,” it was an immense battle to construct for Keller

4 Jacques Derrida, also taking issue with the idea that meaning in speech act theory is guaran-teed by the author’s intentions, speculates about the possibility of understanding “perfoma-tives” as scripted performances rather than individual acts. Perhaps, he suggests, languageis not so much made up of infinite individual acts but rather is subject to what he calls ageneralized citationality (see Norris, 1983). See also Derrida (1988) for an interesting debatewith Searle.

210 TESOL QUARTERLY

an understanding that “the boundaries between self and other thather blind groping continually transgresses” have parallels in the“boundaries between her words and the words of others” (p. 97). Thisdiscussion starts to open up a range of issues to do with modes ofperception, memory, texts, and the understanding of personal andsocial boundaries. If we look at Helen Keller’s case not as one limitedto the particular perceptual constraints with which she had to workbut rather as opening up concerns about bodies, texts, and ownership,we can also admit the possibility that different cultures and differentpsyches may operate with fundamentally different understandings ofself and other and therefore of boundaries and ownership.

Finally, drawing this discussion back to issues more closely relatedto language learning, it is worth noting the ideas of Bakhtin (1986/1936), who insists on the dialogic nature of language: “the real unitof language that is implemented in speech . . . is not the individual,isolated monologic utterance, but the interaction of at least two utter-ances—in a word, dialogue” (Voloinov, 1973, p. 117). By this he meansnot so much that language is used in communication but rather thatall language use carries histories of its former uses with it. “Our speech,that is, all our utterances,” are therefore “filled with others’ words”(Bakhtin, 1986, p. 89). Commenting on the importance of this ideaof “appropriating others’ words” for language learning, Lensmire andBeals (1994) suggest that “We are born and develop, learn to speak,read and write, awash in the words of others . . . . Our words arealways someone else’s words first; and these words sound with theintonations and evaluations of others who have used them before,and from whom we have learned them” (p. 411). Put together, thesechallenges to the notion of the author and individual creativity, andthis argument that meanings are in a sense in circulation, that languageis constantly cycled and recycled, raise profound questions about howwe consider the notion of textual borrowing or plagiarism.

TEACHERS AND CHANGING TEXTUAL PRACTICES

What I have been trying to show here is that looking more carefullyat traditions of ascribing meaning and creativity to God, the individual,or discourse raises a number of concerns about how meaning, texts,and textual borrowing are understood and thus challenges any easyascription of a notion of plagiarism. An understanding of the notionof authorship and originality as a very particular cultural and historicalorientation to meaning raises profound questions about plagiarism.We need to take seriously the “postmodern conviction that the veryconcept of a creative imagination is a passing illusion of Western


humanist culture” (Kearney, 1988, p. 28). I have been trying to ques-tion the premises on which a simple version of plagiarism is based,by showing that this particular version of meaning, originality, andauthorship is located within a Western cultural and historical traditionthat stresses creative and possessive individualism. Furthermore, West-ern claims to originality have always been made alongside a traditionof wholesale borrowing of language and ideas. Questions and researchfollowing from Foucault’s (1977/1984) key question, What is an author?therefore suggest that “the author in this modern sense is a relativelyrecent invention, but . . . it does not closely reflect contemporary writ-ing practices” (Woodmansee, 1994, p. 15).

Hunting Down Those Borrowed Words

As teachers, therefore, we are presented by something of a dilemma.For those of us brought up in this Western tradition, we often findourselves vehement defenders of “correct” textual practices, desper-ately trying to promote our version of language and ownership. Thisposition, however, is filled with tensions. As I shall discuss in the nextsection, it faces very real challenges if we start to take seriously differenttextual and learning practices in other cultures. But, as I want to showhere, it also faces challenges from its own inconsistencies. These areof two main kinds: On the one hand, as I suggested in the last section,the Western cult of originality has existed alongside wholesale bor-rowing, and thus whether we see Coleridge and others as deviousplagiarists or as careless scholars, this history of plagiarism suggests acertain ingenuousness to the accusations made by teachers. Indeed,in light of the vehemence with which many teachers pursue apparentplagiarisers (see below), it is worth considering the vehemence withwhich many literary scholars defend their adored writers: “Scholarswill tie themselves up in knots exonerating Coleridge” (Mallon, 1989,pp. 32–33). At the very least, there is a degree of hypocrisy here asteachers on the one hand accuse their students of lacking originality,while on the other they defend their cherished creative geniuses againstsuggestions that they were simply resaying what had been said before.On the other hand, it would seem in any case that textual practicesare changing: Even if there once were clearly defined lines betweenthe borrowed and the original, they are starting to fade in a new eraof electronic intertextuality.

Perhaps the best example of plagiaristic hypocrisy can be found inthe following report from the New York Times (June 6, 1980; quotedin Mallon, 1989, p. 100):

Stanford University said today it had learned that its teaching assistants’handbook section on plagiarism had been plagiarised by the University of

212 TESOL QUARTERLY

Oregon. Stanford issued a release saying Oregon officials conceded thatthe plagiarism section and other parts of its handbook were identical withthe Stanford guidebook. Oregon officials apologised and said they wouldrevise their guidebook.

On one level, this is merely laughable. Yet I am left wondering howthis could actually have happened. What was going on here whenguidelines to avoid plagiarism were being copied? This case certainlysuggests that the same double-standards that seem to obtain in literarycircles may also be the case in the academic domain, with one set ofstandards for the guardians of truth and knowledge and another forthose seeking entry. Beyond the obvious observation that plagiarismexists on a large scale in the academic world (see, e.g., Mallon, 1989),there are two other domains that produce a degree of skepticism.First, in the same way that Western literary practices centre aroundthe notion of the individual creator and yet constantly echo the linesof others, academic work also stresses the individual, creative thinker,and writer and yet constantly emphasizes a fixed canon of disciplinaryknowledge. This problem is most obvious for undergraduate students(and especially if they are writing in a second language) who, whileconstantly being told to be original and critical, and to write things intheir “own words,” are nevertheless only too aware that they are atthe same time required to acquire a fixed canon of knowledge and afixed canon of terminology to go with it.

The second problem concerns the power relations between differentacademics and between academics and their students or research assis-tants. One aspect of this is the common practice of senior academics(particularly in the sciences but also in other areas) putting their namesat the head of papers in the writing and researching of which they havehad little or no role.5 More generally, however, this issue touches on farbroader questions of the origins of academic ideas and who gets creditfor them. Just as questions have been raised about Wordsworth’s solitarymale creative genius, because it seems he borrowed heavily from his sis-ter, Dorothy, so it is evident that much of what gets claimed as the resultof original academic work actually draws heavily on the work of silentothers—women, graduate students, research assistants and so on.

The extent of moral rectitude and vehemence with which teachers

5 A controversial case of plagiarism of a questionnaire at Hong Kong University, which waseventually settled in the Hong Kong Court of Appeal in 1993, had its origins in just sucha practice. According to Linda Koo Chih-ling, who brought the case of plagiarism againsta colleague, the origins of the dispute go back to 1983, when she refused to put the nameof a senior colleague on a paper she had written (interview in the South China Morning Post,August 28, 1993). From then on, she claims, she has been ostracised and discriminatedagainst. And, like literary scholars tying themselves in knots to exonerate their cherishedliterary heroes, an internal inquiry (labelled a “kangaroo court” by Linda Koo) has sincebeen working to downplay the implications of the decision by the Court of Appeal.


sometimes pursue student plagiarisers can be extreme. Given the em-phasis on the creative individual as producer and owner of his or herthoughts, it seems that the borrowing of words is often discussed in termsof “stealing,” of committing a crime against the author of a text. Thisparticular connection presumably has its origins in the peculiarly West-ern conjunction between the growth of the notion of human rights andthe stress on individual property (see, e.g., Pollis & Schwab, 1979), thusmaking the reuse of language already used by others a crime against theinalienable property rights of the individual. It is worth noting herein passing that whereas other student “misdeeds,” such as grammaticalerrors, failure to understand a text and so on, may incur frustration,censure, and perhaps wrath, I cannot think of anything else that isviewed as a crime in this way. Although some language purists may railagainst the ways language gets bent and twisted in both our and ourstudents’ hands and mouths, rarely is this taken up in such moralisticterms. Plagiarism, Kolich (1983) suggests, “is a highly emotional subject,and the issue of how to deal with it seems muddled by moral confusion,apprehension, and general loathing” (p. 141). It seems that there is avery clear idea here that texts are “owned” by their “original” creatorsand that to use those words and ideas without acknowledging their own-ership is indeed to transgress amoral (and legal) boundary. In Deckert’s(1993) study of attitudes toward plagiarism, for example, he asked thestudents to identify instances where “the writer committed plagiarism”(p. 145; emphasis added).

And yet even this notion of possessive individualism does not seemto account sufficiently for the moral outrage that is expressed and thezeal with which transgressors are pursued. As Kolich (1983) points out,“The mere hint that a student may have cribbed an essay transforms usfrom caring, sympathetic teachers into single-minded guardians ofhonor and truth” (p. 142). Accounts of plagiarism abound with storiesof the “hunt,” the attempt to catch the offender and bring him or herto trial. “I was thrilled by the chase,” recalls Murphy (1990, p. 900), achase which finally led to the student’s confession of having copiedsome sections from a book. “Within the week,” reports Murphy, “hewas suspended from the university” (p. 900).6 Perhaps another wayof explaining the outrage expressed at plagiarism is to look not somuch at a notion of ownership but rather at authorship and authority.Plagiarism, in a number of ways, undermines the authority of bothteacher and text. Furthermore, if I am right that this tradition is underchallenge from a number of quarters, the ferocity of this hunting

6 Murphy (1990) also discusses the problems with such witch hunts, including a traumaticaccount of accusations made against an anorexic woman.

214 TESOL QUARTERLY

down of borrowed words may be seen as part of a desperate rearguardaction against changing textualities.

Changing Textual Practices

The postmodern and poststructuralist critiques of the notion oforiginality that I discussed in the last section tend to operate at acertain level of philosophical abstraction. There is another side topostmodernism, however, which tends to deal in more materialchanges. From this point of view, we might also ask how communica-tion is changing in post-Fordist industrial contexts, how our writingpractices themselves are undergoing rapid changes through e-mail,word-processing, collaborative writing, electronic words, and so on.Thus, if the view of textuality discussed in the previous section ispostmodern to the extent that it follows the epistemological shiftsbrought about by postmodern philosophical changes, there is also apostmodern approach grounded in the notion that postmodernism isa real condition of late capitalist society. That is to say, whereas onthe one hand we may point to the death of the author brought aboutby deconstructionist approaches to texts, on the other we may seethe death or the demise of the author as a product of changes incommunication in societies dominated by electronic media. Followingmore this second line of thinking, Scollon (1994) argues that “weare currently seeing a shift away from the long dominant Utilitarianideology with its emphasis on the presentation of a unique, individualauthor who is the ‘owner’ of the text toward a much more diffusedform of referencing which has much in common with the forms ofauthorship and responsibility of oral traditions” (p. 33). Scollon goeson to argue that referencing the writing of others is only partly aboutestablishing ownership of language; it is also about establishing theauthorial self of the writer. Thus, teaching attribution in academicwriting may run into a number of difficulties since “the authorial selfmay well constitute an unacceptable ideological position” (p. 35).

As Scollon (1994) suggests, writing practices are changing, and it isnow common to find multiple layering effects in academic texts, wherethe supposed origin of a quote becomes ever murkier. To give oneinstance of this, while researching the ideas for this article, I cameacross the following example of layered quotation: In an unpublishedmanuscript, Morgan (1995) says this about an article by Ann Raimes(1991): “Giroux is then quoted as saying that academic discourse com-munities are ‘often more concerned with excluding new members thanwith ways of admitting them’” (p. 14). So Morgan claims Raimes isquoting Giroux. I was interested to see what Giroux had actually said,


so I had a look at Raimes (1991), where the relevant passage reads thus:“Another thorny problem is whether we view the academic discoursecommunity as benign, open, and beneficial to our students or whetherwe see discourse communities as powerful and controlling, and, asGiroux (cited in Faigley, 1986) puts it, “often more concerned withways of excluding new members than with ways of admitting them”(p. 537). So Raimes is claiming that Faigley is quoting Giroux. Still insearch of the Giroux quote, I went in search of Faigley, which reads:“Giroux finds discourse communities are often more concerned withways of excluding new members than with ways of admitting them.He attacks non-Marxist ethnographies for sacrificing ‘theoretical depthfor methodological refinement’ (p. 98)” (Faigley, 1986, p. 537). SoFaigley appears to be paraphrasing the supposed Giroux quote butquoting another piece of Giroux. And at this point the trail seems togo rather cold: Giroux’s words, which the other two articles suggestare quoted, turn out, it seems, to be Faigley’s. The reference seems tobe to Giroux’s Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for theOpposition in Faigley’s bibliography, but the phrase “theoretical depthand methodological refinement” does not appear on page 98 of thebook (or at least the copy I looked at). And so, as these words andideas circulate around the academic community, it becomes unclearquite what their origins are. And does it matter? The ideas attributedto Giroux are interesting, but do we need to know who really saidthem originally? Within contemporary academic writing practices, withlayers of citations, e-mail, cutting and pasting, and so on, the adherenceto supposed norms of authoriality are becoming increasingly hazy.

Another interesting way in which our textual practices seem to bechanging is happening alongside the greater use of the pronoun I inacademic writing. Formerly, writers would often refer to their ownpublished work as texts “out there,” as objective entities to be referredto or quoted. Thus, Nunan (1988), for example, frequently refers tohis own work in these terms: “The course design model developed byNunan (1985a) is similar in many respects to that devised by Richards”(p. 19); or “For example, Nunan (1986c) studied a number of ‘commu-nicative’ classrooms . . . . In the Nunan data, a study of the lessonplans . . . .” (p. 139); or “This is made clear in the following quote:‘While objective needs . . . ’ (Nunan 1989a, p. 5)” (p. 45). In this tradi-tion, even if one is the author of the text, it is treated like any otherin terms of quoting and referencing. This practice fixes text, owner-ship, and authorship in a clear and objective system.

By 1992, however, Nunan (1992) appears to be using a mixed style:on the one hand employing the old style: “This is exemplified in theaction research programs described by Nunan (1989) . . . .” (p. 103),but on the other hand shifting to greater use of I: “In the second

216 TESOL QUARTERLY

investigation, I looked at a number of different aspects of languageteaching pedagogy, including teachers’ decision-making (Nunan,1991a)” (p. 95); or “In fact, in a recent survey I found that it was themost frequently employed data collection method, being used in halfof the studies analysed (Nunan, 1991 b)” (p. 136). Once this shift occurs,as it seems to be doing in a great deal of academic writing, the relation-ship to one’s own texts clearly changes, enabling a shift from directquotation to easier incorporation. The reference may still be there,but there is a slipperiness over the reusability of one’s own words (self-plagiarism?), a process greatly enhanced by the ease of cutting andpasting between documents on a computer.7

It would seem, then, that both the postmodern skepticism aboutthe myth of originality and the more material considerations aboutchanging writing practices point toward the need to reevaluate beliefsin originality and textual ownership. There is therefore a degree ofhypocrisy in the defense of the culture of originality because postmod-ern understandings of language and meaning, by contrast, point tothe possibility of little more than a circulation of meanings. One ofthe central issues that emerges from this discussion, however, is thatthere is a discourse available to teachers educated in the Westerntradition which stresses the centrality of originality and creativity. Thisis of particular significance when cultural traditions regarding text,ownership, and memorization collide with each other, as is the case inmany writing programs and ESL classes. Scollon (1995) argues that“the traditional view of plagiarism constitutes, in fact, an ideologicalposition which privileges a concept of the person established withinthe European Enlightenment, and . . . as such it obscures our under-standing of the construction of identity in intercultural discourse”(p. 3). It is to this relationship between the Western understanding oftextual ownership and other cultural practices that I now wish to turn.

TEXTUAL CULTURES IN CONFLICT

Before returning to the Chinese contexts with which I started thisarticle, it is important to clarify my understanding of culture. What Iwish to avoid here is the construction of a crude East/West dichotomyor to assume some essentialism version of Chinese culture. First, indiscussing what I described as a “Western” view of text, I was at-tempting to sketch and critique a dominant tradition that has emerged

7 This example seems to be more a case of the rebirth of the academic author rather thanthe death of the author. My point, however, is that it shows how textual practices arechanging in terms of the relationship between text, authority, and ownership.


from European and American contexts. Within the so-called West,there are of course, as Heath (1983) and others have shown, a diversityof literacy practices. Some of these may coincide to a certain extentwith literacy practices from other cultural contexts, whereas othersmay not. My chief interest was to describe what has increasingly beenpromoted as a global academic norm and to contextualise it as a particu-lar cultural and historical practice. Second, by turning to look at Chinaand Hong Kong, I am not attempting to construct some “exotic Other”but rather to return to the teaching contexts with which I am mostfamiliar (most of my life as a teacher has been spent in Japan, China,and Hong Kong) and the contexts in which my own doubts aboutnotions of textual ownership were formed. Furthermore, by lookingat how students in Hong Kong dealt with the everyday difficulties ofstudying, I hope to be able to discuss these contexts in terms of theeveryday practicalities faced by students.

Third, in talking of cultural difference, I want to avoid simplisticarguments such as “it’s OK to plagiarise in Chinese.” This both begsthe question (it does nothing to question the notion of plagiarism) andfails to engage with a sense of difference. Rather, what I am tryingto get at is the ways in which relationships to text, memory, and learningmay differ. To deal equitably with our students, we need to appreciatesuch differences. Finally, it is important to understand the notion ofcross-cultural communication not as some idealized cultural exchange,but rather as a place of struggle and contestation, because alongsidethe tradition of emphasizing the creativity of the West, there hasalso been a tradition of deriding other cultures for their supposedlystagnant or imitative cultural practices (see Blaut, 1993). Thus, I wantto suggest along with Scollon (1994) that because plagiarism is a com-plex notion related to “the cultural construction of human identity,accusations of plagiarism may all too easily mask ideological arrogance”(p. 45). The important point here is that whereas we can see how thenotion of plagiarism needs to be understood within the particularcultural and historical context of its development, it also needs tobe understood relative to alternative cultural practices. It is to anexploration of ways of understanding learning in a Chinese contextthat I shall now turn.

Deriding Chinese Learners

It is not uncommon in discussions of plagiarism to hear those culturalOthers—our students—derided as rote learners. Different educationalapproaches are seen as deficient and backward. Masemann (1986)points to “the implicit evolutionary thinking about pedagogy in whichteaching is conceived as progressing from ‘rote’ to ‘structured’ to

218 TESOL QUARTERLY

‘open’” (p. 18). In this view, memorization is a traditional and out-moded pedagogical practice. Derisory views on Chinese education havea long history, dating back in Hong Kong well into the 19th century.Thus, the otherwise fairly liberal Frederick Stewart, headmaster ofthe Central School in Hong Kong and a strong advocate of bilingualeducation, nevertheless showed little respect for Chinese educationalpractices: In his education report for 1865,8 he wrote, “The Chinesehave no education in the real sense of the word. No attempt is madeat a simultaneous development of the mental powers. These are allsacrificed to the cultivation of memory.” (p. 138). Such views werecommonly held by many colonizers who worked in Hong Kong orChina. The Rev. S. R. Brown, Headmaster of the Morrison EducationSociety School, wrote in a report in 1844 that Chinese children areusually pervaded by “a universal expression of passive inanity: . . . .The black but staring, glassy eye, and open mouth, bespeak little morethan stupid wonder gazing out of emptiness.” This view is linked toBrown’s view of Chinese schools, where a boy may learn “the namesof written characters, that in all probability never conveyed to himone new idea from first to last.” Despite this lack of education, theChinese boy also comes “with a mind to be emptied of a vast accumula-tion of false and superstitious notions that can never tenant an enlight-ened mind, for they cannot coexist with truth” (cited in Sweeting,1990, p. 21). The principal characteristics of Chinese boys are “anutter disregard of truth, obscenity, and cowardliness” (p. 22).

Such views reemerged in the 1882 Education Commission’s interviewwith the Bishop of Victoria:9 “ You know the way they learn; theymemorate [sic], they hear the Chinese explanation, and this goes onfrom morning to night for years, and they get the classics into them”(1882, p. 6). And later, “When a Chinaman goes to school he is givena little book, and he just simply sits and pores over it, not understandingthe meaning of a character, and he goes on growing and getting otherbooks which he does not understand at all, and at the end, when heis in his teens, he begins to have some explanation given to him” (p. 11).This view can be found again in an article by Addis (1889) on educationin China: “In truth Chinese education is—pace the sinologues—noeducation at all. It is no ‘leading out of but a leading back to. Insteadof expanding the intelligence, it contracts it; instead of broadeningsympathies, it narrows them; instead of making a man honest, intelli-gent and brave, it has produced few who are not cunning, narrow-minded and pusillanimous” (p. 206). He then goes on to discuss the

8 The Annual Report on the State of the Government Schools for the Year 1865, publishedin the Hong Kong Blue Book, 1865.

9 Report of the Education Commisson Appointed by His Excellency Sir John Pope Hennessy . . . toConsider Certain Question Connected with Education in Hong Kong, 1882.


sinologues’ excuses for Chinese education: “It is natural that those,who have devoted much time and labour to the study of a languageand literature like Chinese, should be disposed to overrate the valueof that which has cost them so much industry and effort to acquire,and occasional encomiums of the Chinese methods of instruction areonly what we might expect. We are told, for instance, that it is eminentlysuited to the present system of government” (p. 206). He goes on:“The truth is that if the comparative test be applied, almost the onlymerit which can be claimed for Chinese education is that it strengthensthe memory” (p. 206). The poor state of Chinese education he com-pares with Hong Kong where “half a century ago the island was peo-pled by a few half savage settlers steeped in ignorance and superstition”but where “a foreign Government, by the impartial administration ofwise and just laws, has made this dot on the ocean so attractive” (pp.206–207).

Such views, with Chinese learners cast as passive, imitative memoriz-ers, to be enlightened by the advent of the creative West, echo downto the present (see Deckert, 1992, 1993; Jochnowitz, 1986). Sampson(1984) points to how Western teachers in China “respond to memoriza-tion by Chinese students with such derision and scorn” (p. 162), andBiggs (1991) discusses similar stereotypes perpetuated by external ex-aminers at Hong Kong University and discussions of Asian studentsstudying in Australia. From within such discursive constructs of ourmemorizing students, it is easy to see alternative learning practices andrelationships to text as little more than backward, outmoded learningstrategies. Once the students’ authorial creativity is questioned andonce they are positioned within these discourses of cultural derogation,students are treated as potential or actual criminals, with large warningsigns posted around their assignments to make clear what the law is.“If you copy other writers’ words,” teaching materials for first-yearArts Faculty students at Hong Kong University warn, “pretending theyare your own, you are engaging in what is known as plagiarism. If youplagiarise in this way, you are guilty of intellectual dishonesty. You will bepenalised heavily for this. Take care to avoid it, therefore” (emphasis inoriginal).

Cultures of Memory and Text

In comparing cultures of memorization, it is tempting to make acomparison between former Western practices of memorization andmore recent Chinese (and other) practices, thus perhaps suggestingthat the West has simply developed a more modern attitude to thetext. Thus one might see in the following advice on English teachingby Herbert Palmer (1930) an earlier evolutionary stage in the West:

220 TESOL QUARTERLY

“Memorizing or Repetition is especially good, because, by aid of it, theform and flame of expression adhere to the mind, and little by littleTaste is acquired, good literature becoming a sort of personal propertyof the recipient, to act as an antagonism to the mediocre” (p. 32).While acknowledging the importance of understanding these historicalantecedents, I wish to avoid any argument that suggests some evolu-tionary path to cultural change, and I want to suggest that culturaldifference may be more profound than such surface similarities mightsuggest.

It is important first of all to consider different ways in which languageis understood. Harris (1980) argues that “the European is the inheritorof an intellectual tradition which is strongly biased in favour of regard-ing languages as superficially different but fundamentally equivalentsystems of expression” (p. 21). This view is in part a result of a beliefthat language represents a more or less similar “real world.” Thissurrogationist (or representationist) orientation of Western thinkingon language (whereby languages are seen as “surrogational systems”[p. 33], as representations of reality or of thoughts) is a very particularcultural and historical tradition. By contrast, the Confucian doctrineof cheng ming works with the opposite assumption, namely that “thingsare conceived of as conforming to the natural order not in themselves,but in virtue of corresponding to their names” (Harris, 1980, p. 48).In this quite different understanding of language, in which primacyis accorded to language and not to the “real” world, notions such asmetaphor, which suggests that some word “stands for” something else,become quite different because reality is in the language and not inthe world.

This kind of reversal may be seen, I think, in the contemporarysignificance in Chinese society10 of performing acts according to homo-

píng(zi): small bottle) in a reference to Deng Xiao Ping, or peopleeating crabs after the fall of the Gang of Four in a reference tothe phrase héngxíng bàdào. This four-character phrase is made up of“walking sideways” (= running amok) and “feudal rule” and togethersuggests how rule without order (walking sideways = tyranny) ridesroughshod over the people. In the same way that smashing bottleschallenges Deng Xiao Ping, eating crabs (standing metaphorically for“walking sideways”) can signal the end of tyrannical rule. What I thinkis interesting here is the way in which reality appears to reflect language

10 I am not suggesting that Chinese society is still determined by Confucian doctrines suchas Cheng ming. Rather, I want to suggest that such doctrines reflect a long tradition of aparticular understanding of the relationship between language and the world that reversesthe polarity of much Western thinking.


rather than the other way round: Objects in the world are changedin order to effect change through language. This kind of reversal oflanguage and reality, in which “doing language” can stand in for doingreality, also seems to occur in other cultures: Christie’s (1995) discus-sion of literacy among the Yolngu people of Northern Australia sug-gests a similar relationship whereby it is language that shapes realityand not reality that shapes language. Indeed, there is a provocativelyintriguing parallel here between this reversal and a poststructuralistview of language in which, as I suggested earlier, the issue is not somuch how authors produce texts but how texts produce authors.

What I am trying to suggest, therefore, is the possibility that thememorization of texts is not a pointless practice from this point ofview, because the issue is not one of understanding the world andthen mapping language onto it but rather of acquiring language astexts as a precursor to mapping out textual realities. This view of textsand language, which is derided from a Western point of view becausethe learning of texts is seen as meaningless unless coupled to “priorunderstanding,” also ties in with (perhaps produces) a respect fortextual authority. This veneration of old textual authority—akin insome ways to the medieval European view of the text—is often seen asan inherently conservative construction of authority. I want to suggest,however, that it is not necessarily so; rather, it can also be understoodas according primary importance to the text rather than to the world.To assume a material reality that is described by language may wellbe an equally conservative position. In any case, I think these specula-tions at least point to some profoundly different possibilities in howlanguage, texts, and memorization may be understood.

This view is supported by explorations of what Chinese learnersactually do when they memorize. Biggs (1991) has pointed out thatthere is a major contradiction in common perceptions of Asian stu-dents: On the one hand, they are held up as paragons of educationalexcellence, while on the other hand they are derided as rote learners.In an attempt to resolve this paradox, Marton, Dall’Alba, and Tse LaiKun (in press) have shown that there are important distinctions to bedrawn within forms of memorization rather than between memorizationand understanding: “The traditional Asian practice of repetition ormemorization can have different purposes. On the one hand, repeti-tion can be associated with mechanical rote learning. On the otherhand, memorization through repetition can be used to deepen anddevelop understanding. If memorization is understood in this latterway, the paradox of the Chinese learner is solved” (p. 16). The pointhere, then, is that research into Chinese learning practices shows thatthere are different types or levels of memorization. And thus, a stu-

222 TESOL QUARTERLY

dent’s “ownership” over a text may have different causes and differenteffects.

The Everyday Contexts of Borrowing

Importantly, too, we need to try to understand the ways in whichour students develop particular relationships to texts and learningwithin the everyday contexts of their lives as students. To this end Iconducted informal interviews with Hong Kong Chinese students atthe University of Hong Kong who had been “caught” plagiarising. Anumber of different concerns emerge here. In most cases, it seemedthat there was a complex mixture of things going on: It could notsimply be said that students had just copied a passage and hoped toget away with it. Some were aware that the essay had not been verygood and complained of heavy workloads—four assignments due inone week, for example. In these cases, students seemed to be awarethat they had not done a particularly good job (the “plagiarism” wasmore a symptom of careless work than a deliberate strategy). Otherstudents showed less awareness that they had done much wrong butrevealed similar careless study habits in which highlighted parts oftexts were reused in the essay. This was sometimes also linked to abroader dissatisfaction with the first year at the university—studentscomplaining of little incentive to work hard (the first year only requiresa pass) and disappointment with the quality of the lectures and tutor-ials. From this point of view, these study habits became more a caseof resistance than of ignorance, ineptitude, or dishonesty. Indeed, thenotion of plagiarism as resistance is one worth exploring further.

One interesting issue that was raised concerned the distinction be-tween plagiarizing ideas and plagiarizing language. The problem, asone student put it, was that the ideas he was discussing were clearlynot his own, so if he took the ideas but rephrased the language, hewould be plagiarizing ideas but not words. To him, it seemed almostmore honest to simply keep the language the same and leave the ideas.As another student explained, she had understood the author and feltthat to rewrite in her own words would be less effective than usingthe author’s own words. She knew that rewriting would bring aboutmore mistakes and probably a less powerful message. Another studentexplained that if you understand the material but use language fromthe text, that may be the best means to achieve such clarity. Accordingto another student, “It’s my usual practice . . . . When I find somethingthat seems to be meaningful, I will try to take it from the article.”Referring specifically to the passage for which he had been criticised,


he explained: “I think the language of the passage is quite good, soI don’t take time to change the words.”

Interestingly, many of these comments echo those reported by Sher-man (1992) from her Italian students:

They were virtually unanimous that it was a good idea to reproduce largetracts from source material when dealing with an academic subject. Theyfound my requirements for “own wording” rather quaint. . . . They pointedout that the opinion or the facts could not be better expressed than theywere by the source writer, and that they themselves could hardly presumeto improve on a publicly acknowledged expert. Taking over his words wasthus necessary in order to cover the subject, and also a mark of respectfor the originator. (p. 191)

Another student who was unsure what she was supposed to havedone wrong (indeed, it wasn’t very clear to me either) argued thatsecondary school had never prepared them for such issues, eitherpractically or theoretically. In school there were few chances to writeessays: Most of the time they were required to take tests, for whichof course books could not be used and memorization was a key strategy.Essays were generally only for English classes and required interpreta-tion of texts, not citation of facts. Other students made similar com-ments, one explaining that he didn’t see much wrong with what hehad done because “In secondary school no teacher forbids us to dosomething like that.” It was a question of which subject was beingstudied: If it was English, which was the only class designed to “improvemy English,” they were expected to write in their own words and beoriginal; but in other classes there was no problem in borrowing fromother sources—they were supposed to answer the question; how theywrote the answers didn’t matter. Another issue raised was the statusof translated words: One major piece of work a student had done inForm 7 (Grade 13) involved using Chinese sources, which she hadtranslated, using the translated pieces as they were. Her teacher hadbeen more concerned with the content and correct referencing thanwith the origins of chunks of language. In fact, the question of textualownership in relation to translation opens up a whole new domain forinvestigation (see Duranti, 1993).

A number of quite challenging issues were raised by several students,showing that many of them, while sometimes unsure about the rulesof textual borrowing, were nevertheless aware of issues to do withtexts and learning.11 One argued that both of the writing processes

he used (either trying to write original texts or using much morelanguage from the readings) could be useful. There was a satisfaction

11 Indeed, I have elsewhere (Pennycook, 1994) argued that these students may be more awareof issues around textual borrowing than their teachers.

224 TESOL QUARTERLY

in being able to write in one’s own words but useful things to be learnedfrom reusing the structures and words from others’ texts. This processof memorization of such texts, he pointed out, had been a crucial partof how he had learned English at high school. Some students pointedto what they saw as the hypocrisy and unfairness of the system inwhich they were required to do little more than regurgitate ideas butalways required to do so in a foreign language. It was also suggestedthat there was a degree of hypocrisy in lectures where it was evidentthat a lecturer was doing little more than reproducing chunks of thecourse text (with their good textual memories, students were very goodat spotting this) and yet never acknowledged the source. If they tookclose notes, memorized them, and rewrote them in an exam, theycould be accused of plagiarism. Another student directly confrontedthe strict attitudes to borrowing from other texts since it failed to takeinto account what students learned. Perhaps, she suggested, this wasa teacher’s problem not a student’s. The important point here is thatshe was questioning the idea that antiplagiarism attitudes were linkedto better learning. From a student point of view they may not necessar-ily be so: “Whether I copy or not, I know the material. I don’t thinkwe should be forced to say it in our own words . . . . I don’t think ifone plagiarises, that means he doesn’t learn anything . . . . Perhapsplagiarism is a way of learning.”

A final issue that emerged from these interviews (and also other workI have been doing with students at Hong Kong University) concerns theextent to which these students feel the English language remains alanguage of colonialism, a language which, although important to themfor social, academic, and economic advancement, remains a colonialimposition. Thus in a number of students I found an interesting ambiv-alence, on the one hand an acknowledgment of the importance ofEnglish and sometimes a fondness for English (these are the studentsthat have made it to university through their knowledge of English),on the other hand an anger at the imposition of English in their lives.As one student put it, “the teaching of English is a kind of culturalintrusion in Hong Kong and may be regarded as a political weapon”(Ma Wai Yin, 1993, p. 2). The important issue here is that there isoften a deep split between the English/academic domain and the Can-tonese/daily life domain in these students’ lives. Many seem to feel thatthey have no ownership over English—it remains an alien language—and thus to write “in their own words” is not something that can bedone in English. They are obliged to study in a foreign language andthey return the chunks of language in the form in which they receivethem.

What I think this brief summary of the interviews points to is thecomplexity of things going on behind the surface phenomenon of


apparent plagiarism. Students come to our classes with different cul-tural and educational backgrounds, with different understandings oftexts and language, with different approaches to learning. They arealso confronted by a range of more local concerns such as particularassignments which may require little more than the regurgitation ofa set curriculum. Some students were led into trouble through a mix-ture of heavy workloads and inappropriate study skills: good readinghabits but overuse of highlighted sections in their writing. It certainlyseemed important to distinguish here between good and bad plagia-rism, that is between those who reused parts of texts very well andthose who seemed to randomly borrow. Other students seemed to takea more active view in all this and to see their borrowing strategies eitheras an unappreciated approach to learning or as an act of resistance tothe university and the English language context they are obliged towork in.

CONCLUSIONS AND EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

I have been trying in this article to complexity and situate differentunderstandings of texts, memory, and learning, to show how relationsbetween texts and learning are far more complex than a simple accusa-tion of plagiarism will allow. The issue of textual borrowing goes tothe heart of a number of key issues in second language education:the role of memory, the nature of language learning, the ownershipof texts, the concepts of the author, authority, and authenticity, andthe cross-cultural relations that emerge in educational contexts. Forsome, the position I have been trying to establish here may seem toorelativistic, allowing no grounds for asserting that someone’s writingpractices are unacceptable. My point, however, is that although ofcourse we still need to leave a space open to criticise unacceptableborrowing practices, unilateral accusations of plagiarism are inade-quate and arrogant. Part of the problem here lies with the use of theterm plagiarism as if it described some clearly definable practice. WhatI have been trying to show here, by contrast, is that behind this clumsyterm may lurk any number of different concerns, and so, despite thedemands on our time that such reflexivity may make, I believe itis incumbent on us as teachers to develop an understanding of thecomplexity of issues involved in language learning and textual bor-rowing.

Another argument might suggest that whatever complexities theremay be in textual relationships and memorization, there are neverthe-less a very clear set of standards in academic practice to which we needto get our students to adhere. I also want to suggest, however, that

226 TESOL QUARTERLY

this argument is inadequate. It articulates nothing but a normativeview on so-called standards, does nothing to challenge the ways inwhich academic systems operate, and fails to take into account any ofthe complexities that our students may bring in terms of their ownrelationship to texts and memory. I am suggesting, therefore, thatmany of the ways we approach supposed plagiarism are pedagogicallyunsound and intellectually arrogant. It is not adequate to observesimply on the one hand that students “copy” or that on the other handthey need to learn academic writing practices. Both observations aretrivially true but insufficient in terms of an awareness of culturaldifference and a self-reflexivity about the practices to which we adhere.Part of any discussion of citation, paraphrase, textual borrowing, andso forth needs, as Willinsky (1990) observes, to include discussion ofhow and why these notions have been constructed, how authorship,authenticity, and authority have been linked together, and how thesepractices may be in a process of flux. It is not enough, however, tofocus only on Western writing practices as a “cultural syllabus” (Sher-man, 1992, p. 197). Also needed is an attempt to understand the otherside of the coin—our students’ textual and language learning worldsas well as the constraints on their lives and their perceptions of howacademic norms operate and may be flouted.

Given the difficulties in establishing any clear sense of authoriality,it is important to understand authorship, authority, and plagiarismas located not within some objectively describable system of textualrelations but rather in “an historically established system for the distri-bution of social power and privilege” (Scollon, 1995, p. 25). Thus Ihope to encourage others to pause and consider what is going on, totry to consider self-reflexively how a particular notion of authorshipand ownership has grown up, how it is a very particular cultural andhistorical tradition and may now be undergoing transformation, howour students may be operating from fundamentally different positionsabout texts and memory. All language learning is to some extent aprocess of borrowing others’ words and we need to be flexible, notdogmatic, about where we draw boundaries between acceptable orunacceptable textual borrowings.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have been working on and discussing these ideas for a number of years and inmany contexts, so much so that it is unclear quite what the origins of the wordsand ideas in this text may be. I would like to thank colleagues at Hong KongUniversity and members of the Hong Kong Association of Applied Linguists forour many discussions. Ron Scollon and Tse Lai Kun have been particularly helpful.


Members of the Sydney Linguistics Circle, where I presented an earlier versionof this work, also gave me excellent feedback. And my colleagues at MelbourneUniversity have also helped me think through a number of issues.

THE AUTHOR

Alastair Pennycook teaches Critical Applied Linguistics and other subjects at Mel-bourne University. His book, The Cultural Politics of English as an InternationalLanguage (London: Longman, 1994), won the BAAL Book Award for 1995. Hisinterests include cultural and political implications of the global spread of English,critical applied linguistics, and English language teaching and colonialism.

REFERENCES

Addis, C. S. (1889). Education in China. The China Review, 18, 205–212.Bakhtin, M. (1986/1936). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of

Texas Press.Barthes, R. (1977). The death of the author. In Image, music, text (pp. 142–148).

(Translated by S. Heath). Glasgow, Scotland: Fontana/Collins.Biggs, J. (1991). Approaches to learning in secondary and tertiary students in

Hong Kong: Some comparative studies. Educational Research Journal, 6, 27–39.

Blaut, J. M. (1993). The colonizer’s model of the world: Geographical diffusionism andeurocentric history. New York: The Guilford Press.

Christie, M. (1995, Winter). The Yolngu regain their literacy. Fine Print, pp. 14–17.

Deckert, G. (1992, November). A pedagogical response to learned plagiarismamong tertiary-level ESL students. Occasional Papers in Applied Language Studies,Hong Kong Baptist College, pp. 49–56.

Deckert, G. (1993). Perspectives on plagiarism from ESL students in Hong Kong.Journal of Second Language Writing, 2, 131-148.

Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc. (Trans. S. Weber). Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press.

Duranti, A. (1993). Beyond Bakhtin, or the dialogic imagination in academia.Pragmatics, 3, 333–340.

Eliot, T. S. (1975). Tradition and individual talent. In F. Kermode (Ed.), Selectedprose of T.S. Eliot (pp. 37–44). London: Faber & Faber.

Faigley, L. (1986). Competing theories of process: A critique and a proposal.College English, 48, 527–542.

Foucault, M. (1977/1984). What is an author? In D. F. Bouchard (Ed.), Language,counter-memory, practise: Selected essays and interviews (pp. 113–138). Ithaca, NY:Cornell University Press. (Reprinted in The Foucault Reader (Paul Rabinow, Ed.),1994, pp. 101–120)

Goethe, J. W. (1963/1829). Maximen und Reflexionen. München, Germany:Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.

Harris, R. (1980). The language makers. London: Duckworth.Heath. S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and. . .

classrooms. London: Cambridge University Press.

228 TESOL QUARTERLY

Hutton, C. (1990, June). Originality as an academic requirement. Paper presented atthe Conference on the Teaching of English Language/Literature in the HongKong Context, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Jochnowitz, G. (1986). Teaching at a provincial Chinese university. AmericanScholar, 55, 521–527.

Kearney, R. (1988). The wake of imagination. Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress.

Keyes, R. (1992). “Nice guys finish seventh”: False phrases, spurious sayings, and familiarmisquotations. New York: HarperCollins.

Kolich, A. M. ( 1983). Plagiarism: The worm of reason. College English, 45, 141–148.Lensmire, T. J., & Beals, D. E. (1994). Appropriating others’ words: Traces of

literature and peer culture in a third-grader’s writing. Language in Society, 23,411–426.

Mallon, T. (1989). Stolen words: Forays into the origins and ravages of plagiarism. NewYork: Tricknor & Fields.

Marton, F., Dall’Alba, G., & Kun, T. L. (in press). The paradox of the Chineselearner. In D. A. Watkins & J. A. Biggs (Eds.), The Asian learner: Research andpractice. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Masemann, V. L. (1986). Critical ethnography in the study of comparative educa-tion. In P. G. Altbach & G. P. Kelly (Eds.), New approaches to comparative education(pp. 11–25). Chicago: University of Chicago press.

Minnis, A. J. (1984). The medieval theory of authorship. London: Scholar Press.Morgan, B. (1995). Language, power and publishing: A micro-perspective. Unpublished

paper, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.Murphy, R. (1990). Anorexia: The cheating disorder. College English, 52, 898–

903.Ma Wai Yin, E. (1993). My relationship to English. Course assignment for English

for Arts students, Hong Kong University.Norris, C. (1983). The deconstructive turn: Essays in the rhetoric of philosophy. London:

Methuen.Nunan, D. (1988). The learner-centred curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.Nunan, D. (1992). Research methods in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.Palmer, H. E. (1930). The teaching of English. London: John Murray.Pennycook, A. (1994). The complex contexts of plagiarism: A reply to Deckert.

Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 277-284.Pollis, A., & Schwab, P. (1979). Human rights: A western construct with limited

applicability. In A. Pollis & P. Schwab (Eds.) Human rights: Cultural and ideologicalperspectives (pp. 1–18). New York: Praeger.

Raimes, A. (1991). Out of the woods: Emerging traditions in the teaching ofwriting. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 407–427.

Sampson, G. P. (1984). Exporting language teaching methods from Canada toChina. TESL Canada Journal, 1, 19–31.

Scollon, R. (1994). As a matter of fact: The changing ideology of authorship andresponsibility in discourse. World Englishes, 13, 33–46.

Scollon, R. (1995). Plagiarism and ideology: Identity in intercultural discourse.Language in Society, 24, 1–28.

Shaw, P. (1982, Summer). Plagiary. American Scholar, pp. 325–327.Sherman, J. (1992). Your own thoughts in your own words. ELT Journal, 46, 190–

198.


Swan, J. (1994). Touching words: Helen Keller, plagiarism, authorship. InM. Woodmansee & P. Jaszi (Eds.), The construction of authorship: Textual appropria-tion in law and literature (pp. 57–100). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Sweeting, A. E. (1990). Education in Hong Kong, pre-1841 to 1941: Fact & opinion.Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Tatlow, A. (1993). “Those savages—that’s us”: Textual anthropology. Inaugural lecturefrom the Chair of Comparative Literature, University of Hong Kong, October22, 1992. Published in Supplement to the Gazette (Hong Kong University), Vol.40, 1.

Volosinov, V. N. (1973/1929). Marxism and the philosophy of language. (Trans. byLadislav Matejka & I. R. Titunik). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

White, H. O. (1965). Plagiarism and imitation during the English Renaissance: A studyin critical distinctions. New York: Octagon Books.

Willinsky, J. (1990). Intellectual property rights and responsibilities: The state ofthe text. The Journal of Educational Thought, 24, 68–82.

Woodmansee, M. (1994). On the author effect: Recovering collectivity. InM. Woodmansee & P. Jaszi (Eds.), The construction of authorship: Textual appropria-tion in law and literature (pp. 15–28). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

230 TESOL QUARTERLY


Interdisciplinary Collaborationin Teacher Education:A Constructivist Approach

DORIT KAUFMAN and JACQUELINE GRENNON BROOKSState University of New York at Stony Brook

Teacher education programs must begin to foster in beginning teach-ers of all disciplines new images of collaboration, involvement, andinquiry—images of classroom environments where students of allcultures engage in interdisciplinary activities and construct knowl-edge rooted in their own personal experiences. The high numberof language minority students who score below the national normin mathematics and science and avoid careers in these areas under-scores the fact that uncoordinated instruction has had negative rami-fications on the academic success of these students. Collaborationbetween ESOL teachers and teachers of other subject areas is impera-tive. Teacher education programs must reevaluate current pedagogi-cal orientations and reorganize to prepare teacher candidates of alldisciplines for coordinated interdisciplinary education for all stu-dents. This article describes the evolution of a collaborative initiativeinvolving undergraduate and graduate students in two teacher educa-tion programs at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.This collaboration, motivated by constructivist approaches, integrateslanguage pedagogy and science instruction. It is based on the premisethat if teachers are to collaborate in schools and create enhancedinterdisciplinary classroom environments that better foster students’linguistic and academic growth, they must experience such pedagogyin teacher education programs at the university.

T he need for integration of language and content and for collabora-tion between ESOL and other subject areas teachers has received

increased attention in recent years (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989;Cantoni-Harvey, 1987; Chamot & O’Malley, 1987; Mohan, 1986; Rich-ard-Amato & Snow, 1992; Short, 1993, 1994; Snow, Met, & Genesee,1989; also see Crandall, 1993, for a review). Interest in such coordina-tion has also been visible in documents published by a number ofprofessional educational organizations. The National Council of

231

Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), for example, has included a newemphasis on language and communication in their most recent curricu-lum and evaluation standards (NCTM, 1989), and the American Asso-ciation for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 1989) has highlightedthe role of language and literacy in science education.

The importance of interdisciplinary collaboration has been under-scored further with the recent dramatic growth in linguistically diversepopulations (National Clearinghouse of Bilingual Education’s Forum,1991; Olsen, 1989, 1991; Waggoner, 1992). This increase has signifi-cantly altered the ethnolinguistic demography of school populationsand caught many administrators and teachers unprepared. Consider,for instance, that only 37 states require any kind of certification orendorsement for teachers intending to teach ESOL (Stewart, 1993),that certified teachers in areas other than ESOL are not required to takecourses relating to teaching linguistically diverse students (McKeon,1994), and that even though half of all teachers teach language minor-ity students at some time in their careers, only 6% have actually takenrelated preparatory courses (O’Malley & Waggoner, 1984; Penfield,1987). On the other hand, where TESOL certification programs doexist, they require very little preparation in teaching content areassuch as science or mathematics.

It is clear that collaboration between ESOL teachers and teachersof other subject areas is imperative for effective education of languageminority students. Indeed, uncoordinated language and content in-struction has had negative ramifications on language minority studentswho academically already lag behind their grade-level native-speakingpeers (Short, 1994). As language minority students need between 7and 11 years to acquire academic language proficiency in order toreach national grade-level native speakers’ norms in language andacademic achievement (Collier, 1987, 1989; Cummins, 1980, 1981),content area instruction cannot be delayed until students exit ESLprograms but must occur concurrently with English language educa-tion (Mohan, 1986; Short, 1991, 1993; Snow, Met, & Genesee, 1989).

Furthermore, several studies have demonstrated that Hispanicsscore below the national norm in mathematics and science and avoidcareers in these areas (Cocking & Mestre, 1988; NAEP, 1983; Rendon,1983). This has been attributed, in part, to the ubiquitous role oflanguage in mathematics (Aiken, 1971; Crandall, Dale, Rhodes, &Spanos, 1990; Cuevas, 1984; DeAvila & Havassy, 1974), the difficultythat language minority students have in the specialized language ofmathematics (Halliday, 1975), and the nature of mathematical textsand word problems, which are highly compact, lack redundancy, andpose special problems for students with limited English proficiency(OBEMLA, 1992).

232 TESOL QUARTERLY

The benefits of integrated curricula for students have been widelydiscussed (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994; Crandall, 1993; Short, 1994).The design, implementation, and assessment of integrated curriculacan be greatly enhanced when teachers of different disciplines forminterdisciplinary teams within their schools for this purpose. However,collaborative models currently prevalent in schools do not generallyinclude team projects in which TESOL and mainstream teachers en-gage in interdisciplinary partnership for curriculum planning, struc-turing of programs, implementation, and evaluation. More prevalentpractices usually include little more than exchange of informationabout lesson content and student performance. This is hardly surpris-ing as teaching behavior is frequently based on prior educational expe-riences and is often most resistant to change (Guskey, 1986; Hollings-worth, 1989; Johnson, 1992; Lortie, 1975; Pajares, 1992; Richardson,1990; Shavelson & Stern, 1981; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). Be-cause teachers’ prior educational experiences, including teacher educa-tion programs, do not commonly incorporate models for interdisciplin-ary inquiry and discourse, it is unrealistic to expect that teachers willinitiate such settings in schools.

For new collaborative models to emerge, teacher education pro-grams must restructure in order to engage teacher candidates in inter-disciplinary exploration, collaborative endeavors, and university andschool-based fieldwork opportunities early in their career preparation.Little documentation exists about innovative ventures within teachereducation programs that are designed to prepare teachers for interdis-ciplinary collaboration and integration of language and content. Thisarticle begins to fill this void by describing the evolution of a collabora-tive initiative involving undergraduate and graduate students inTESOL and science teacher preparation programs at the State Univer-sity of New York at Stony Brook. The collaboration began when stu-dents from the student teaching seminar in the TESOL teacher prepa-ration program and students from the methods course in the scienceteacher preparation program participated in two 3-hour joint sessionsintegrated in the syllabi of both courses. The success of these sessionsled, within a period of 4 years, to the development of a collaborativelytaught interdisciplinary course and other locally and federally fundedprojects.

The endeavor described here draws upon constructivist pedagogy,which highlights active inquiry through problem solving, “minds-on”manipulation of raw data, and opportunities for reflection. Construc-tivist principles have greatly influenced general education theory andscience teaching in recent years but have remained relatively unfamiliarin the field of TESOL. The constructivist perspectives that inspiredthe changes in our own teacher education program will be briefly

INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION IN TEACHER EDUCATION 233

discussed in the next section. This will be followed by a descriptionof the evolution of the collaborative initiative from its outset to thepresent.

CONSTRUCTIVIST PRINCIPLES

Constructivism has gained much attention in educational circles inrecent years. Educators have debated its definition: Is it an epistemol-ogy, a philosophy, a pedagogy, a theory? If it is a theory, is it a theoryof learning or a theory of teaching (Fosnot, 1993)? This article acceptsconstructivism as a theory of human development, rooted in the worksof Piaget (1954, 196’7, 1970), von Glasersfeld (1981) and Sigel andCocking (1977), among many others. Educators subscribing to thistheory of human development are charged with the task of trans-forming such a theory into educational practice. Countless educatorshave researched this transformation and reported its descriptions(DeVries & Kohlberg, 1987; Forman & Kuschner, 1977), effects,(Driver, 1983; Kuhn, Langer, Kohlberg, & Haan, 1977), and dilemmas(Ball, 1993). In the constructivist classroom, teachers holding a set ofbeliefs about knowledge and using a set of practices based on thatknowledge consider optimal ways to mediate the process of learning(Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994). Teachers are themselves learnersas they create dynamic learning environments that foster interplayamong students, materials, and ideas.

The following principles of constructivist teaching undergird thepractices described in this article. First, teachers pose problems ofemerging relevance. The nature of the initial problems posed by theteacher influences the depth to which students can search for answers.Posing problems of emerging relevance and searching for windowsinto the students’ thinking create a classroom setting in which theteacher and the student jointly search for new knowledge.

Another major tenet of constructivist teaching is based on the notionof essential ideas. Teachers structure lessons around important con-cepts and ideas, not facts and skills. Learning occurs in context. Focus-ing on discrete information or specific skills makes sense only whenthe student has a context in which to learn the skills and consider theinformation.

Constructivist teachers look for and value the students’ points ofview. Understanding the students’ points of view helps the teacherdetermine where and how instruction can facilitate learning. Teachersadapt curriculum to challenge students’ suppositions. The opportunityto reflect on one’s present assumptions, premises, beliefs, or conceptu-alizations facilitates cognitive growth. When teachers design lessons

234 TESOL QUARTERLY

FIGURE 1Creating Constructivist-Based Classrooms

Based on Grennon Brooks & Brooks (1993)

that provoke students to confront their initial suppositions, teachersmaximize the likelihood of student learning.

Finally, constructivist teachers assess student learning authenticallyand within the context of teaching. They set up systems and settingsin which students can exhibit work and share ideas with classmates,and they use nonjudgmental responses when responding to students’work.

Characteristics of constructivist-based classrooms are summarizedin Figure 1. These have grown out of observations of successful con-structivist classrooms and have served as a basis for teacher candidatesto evaluate their own growth as effective teachers in fieldwork settings.Many of these attributes are not unique to constructivist teaching butare representative of good teaching in general.

COLLABORATIVE APPROACHES

Real life takes place in a holistic context with all of us learning continuouslythrough multi-disciplinary experiences, yet in school, subject matter is pre-sented in context of specific disciplines . . . Schooling, to be most relevantto students, should instead mirror reality with students engaged in interdis-ciplinary activities anchored in real world problems and environments.(New York State’s Framework, 1994, p. 16)

Teacher education programs, like schools, must engage their stu-dents in interdisciplinary collaborative discourse and reality-basedproblem solving. This is the premise that underlies the collaborative


approaches described in this article. Furthermore, if teachers are toengage in collaborative interdisciplinary endeavors in schools, theymust be able to experience and explore such settings in their teachereducation programs.

Imagine this scenario: Teacher candidates and faculty from theTESOL student teaching seminar and the science methods courseengage in joint exploration twice a semester as their classes meet forjoint sessions. In one of these sessions they explore science and mathe-matics pedagogy. They are working together to design a unit of studyon the water cycle. They are eager to incorporate a recently purchasedmodel of the water cycle in their lessons, but to their dismay, they findthat the covered plastic tray model lacked the drama for which theyhad hoped. The “clouds” did not look like clouds and the “rain” neverreally rained. Getting the model to work took over their deliberations.Forget pedagogy! They wanted those clouds to rain! Maybe the icewas not cold enough? They tried liquid nitrogen. Maybe the sun wasnot warm enough? They tried a new light bulb. Maybe the air was notpolluted enough? They tried seeding the clouds with smoke from amatch. What students knew about wind currents, temperature fluctua-tions, cloud formations, super cooled elements, wattage and voltage,and a host of other phenomena and concepts guided the direction ofthe class. The problem the class was trying to solve was practical.But solving it required sophisticated understandings of theories andtechnologies, understandings that changed as successive attempts toget the model to work failed. The group then considered the role ofsurface area in the model’s efficacy. Some contended that the wholeunit just was not big enough. The problem was one of scale: Themodel did not have a large enough surface area to complete the watercycle. Others wondered why the very reputable manufacturer hadmade the claims that it did. And others suggested that the model inits present state already worked if only for its value in generatingdiscussion and illuminating discrepancies.

The collaboration described here has involved students from theTESOL teacher preparation program in the department of linguisticsand the science teacher preparation program coordinated through aneducational center working on behalf of the many science departmentson campus. Stony Brook, which is part of the state university system,prepares both undergraduate and graduate students for teaching ca-reers in a variety of areas. At any given semester there are approxi-mately 50 science teacher candidates taking pedagogy courses withapproximately 20 more student teaching. A similar number of TESOLteacher candidates take pedagogy courses and approximately 12 stu-dent teach. Science teacher candidates major in academic disciplinessuch as biology, physics, and chemistry, then take a semester of educa-

236 TESOL QUARTERLY

tion courses in order to become certified. Students in the linguisticsdepartment take general and applied linguistics courses and have ex-tensive fieldwork opportunities in classroom settings. These are of-fered through courses such as Language and Science: A MulticulturalPerspective, an interdisciplinary course which will be described later,a Practicum which gives students an opportunity to teach college ESL,and Supervised Student Teaching which provides full time immersionin a public school setting at both the elementary and secondary levelsfor a full semester. These courses, summarized in Figure 2, are allrequired for certification.

The seed for the joint initiative was first planted by local needs.Teacher candidates in both programs who were taking methods andstudent teaching courses involving fieldwork in classroom settings be-came aware of the changing demographics and the need for alternativepedagogical orientations. TESOL teacher candidates wanted to be-come better equipped to teach the content areas of science and mathe-matics, whereas science teacher candidates looked for guidance inadapting their lessons for the benefit of the growing number of lan-guage minority students in mainstream classrooms. Each group ex-pressed their concerns in written journals and oral discussions. Theteachable moment (Newman, 1990, 1991) was then seized by the facultyteaching these courses and the collaboration between the two depart-ments began and evolved in ways that had not been anticipated at theoutset.

Teacher candidates in these courses first met for two experimentalsessions. Based on the teacher candidates’ evaluations, the collabora-tion expanded to four sessions in subsequent semesters. These jointsessions, the focus of the following two sections of the paper, haveengaged students in a variety of activities created by them for theirpeers. These activities have varied from one semester to the nextaccording to the personal interests and background of the participants.

FIGURE 2Courses Providing Fieldwork Opportunities for TESOL Teacher Candidates

Name of course Students Fieldwork

Language and Science:A Multicultural Perspective UG/G A variety of settings

(30–60 hours/semester)Practicum G University ESL (45 hours/semester)Supervised Student Teaching UG/G K– 12 (450 hours/semester)


Activities Designed by TESOL Teacher Candidates

The goal of the TESOL teacher candidates was to sensitize thescience teacher candidates to the linguistic, academic, social, and af-fective needs of the ESL students and to increase their awareness ofthe myriad of cultural and interpersonal communication patterns.The activities they designed have included simulated scenarios wherevariations in body language, eye contact, and physical proximity havecreated uncomfortable communication contexts. In addition, TESOLteacher candidates have also immersed their science peers in a varietyof foreign language minilessons in Arabic, Chinese, French, German,Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Rus-sian, and American Sign Language. Their instructional approacheshave varied from lecture-based lessons to multimedia experiences,from teacher-centered to learner-centered, and from emotionally andacademically supportive environments to nonsupportive ones. Thediversity of approaches in these minilessons has demonstrated theimpact of pedagogical orientation, teacher-student attitudes, and var-ied communication patterns on student learning.

Other activities have focused on specialized varieties of English anda range of dialects to illustrate the many facets of a language as familiaras English. These have included listening tasks with Irish dialects andcomprehension tasks with texts in Middle English, professional lawand accounting documents, and humorous passages written in license-plate code and other invented secret codes. The activities have under-scored the difficulty in achieving academic proficiency in specializedvarieties of any language. Additional activities included immersion inimaginary cultural systems that involve ritual and culinary experiencesunfamiliar to Americans.

All joint sessions have included extensive discussions and reflectionson the impact of these experiences and evaluations and suggestionsfor future collaborative activities. As the science teacher candidates’writing samples show, these sessions have stimulated in them new ideason how to create positive learning environments for speakers of otherlanguages:

The lesson in Hebrew really opened my eyes. I understood nil! I neverrealized that students were mainstreamed without a solid base knowledgeof the English language.

I spend much time thinking about how I would work with a non Englishspeaking student in my classroom . . . . There is always time after class butI want the student to be involved in (what I hope to be) the pertinentdynamics of the lesson during the lesson.

238 TESOL QUARTERLY

Activities Designed by Science Teacher Candidates

Science teacher candidates immerse TESOL teacher candidates inreal-world learning environments and engage them in mathematicsand science activities. They use models, simple materials, and currentphenomena reported in newspapers to invite their “students” to con-sider scientific concepts. For example, a devastating storm that hit theNortheast prompted one science teacher candidate to develop a waveand sand apparatus to help students explore the concepts of erosion.Can it be stopped or only lessened? What effects does the building ofjetties have on the erosion process? What technology and tools doesa builder need to erect a jetty? Using an old paint tray, aluminumfoil, a wire coat hanger, some sand, rock, tiny twigs, and evergreenclippings, the students generated new understandings of a processabout which they had previously not thought too deeply. As happensfrequently in constructivist-based learning environments, it was thestudents who extended the lesson with their questions about the linkbetween social policy and physical science: Who determines when andwhere jetties will be built? Both sets of teacher candidates spoke inanimated, gestural tones, exchanging information, ideology, perspec-tives, and language.

Algebra provides another example of how constructivist-basedlearning opportunities align language acquisition, vocabulary develop-ment, and concept formation. Anyone who has ever taken an algebraclass has solved quadratic functions. But, how many of us can explainhow we did it, why we did it, or who, today, actually does it for anypractical purpose? How many of us ever generated a quadratic func-tion from any real-life event? How many of us ever generated a linearfunction from any real-life event? Most of us worked with numbersout of context. Our teacher candidates come alive when they recognizethe relativity in mathematics. When they generate a linear sequencefrom a group of multilink blocks, then generate a different sequenceby choosing to count the same blocks using a different rule, they makea connection that they had previously not made. The science teachercandidate who taught this lesson commented on the activity with herpeers:

The thing to remember is that nothing is too simple. The multilink blockswere very instrumental in helping the TESOL students understand theconcept of linear sequencing.

In their journals and written evaluations, the TESOL teacher candi-dates reflected on these experiences.


Exchanging ideas and practicing on each other is a terrific idea. I believethat the exchange was beneficial. The constructivist approach made mefeel more at ease with ominous topic of science. I feel that this methodwould be extremely helpful for ESL students.

If everything is hands-on, then they will never forget what they havelearned. I remember what we did! ESL students would surely feel more atease in a classroom where they can test things out and try to figure thingsout themselves than to listen to a lecture that they can’t understand.

I wished I had science teachers like that when I went through school . . .down to earth practicality of the whole lesson and the small group activitiesare great for ESL students and all other students.

The premise guiding teacher candidates from both departmentsis that verbally based educational curricula cannot engage languageminority students and other students and do not capture, accuratelyor equitably, their diverse strengths. Visual and tactile modes are pref-erable when teachers engage students in exploration of content areasbecause they facilitate acquisition of verbal modes for communication(Eylon & Rosenfeld, 1990; Gardner, 1991). The resulting modulesdesigned by teacher candidates have represented a shift from trans-mitting context-reduced information, which is particularly hard forESL students (Cummins, 1981), to immersing students in context-embedded activities to facilitate their acquisition of scientific conceptsand language. The joint sessions described here have become an inte-gral part of the TESOL supervised student teaching course and thescience methods course.

PROJECT ENHANCEMENTS

Over the years, the collaboration has also given rise to several locallyand federally funded projects, workshops for families, a student-editednewsletter, and forums for public presentation and display of theteacher candidates’ interdisciplinary projects. For example, the projectMentors for Richer Education (MORE) was developed to explore alter-native concepts in educating teachers for linguistically and culturallydiverse schools. The project has expanded the existing collaborationbetween the two departments to include a partnership with three schooldistricts that have a large number of low-income, linguistically diversestudents. This partnership has spawned new fieldwork settings whereteacher candidates implement the constructivist-based hands-on sci-ence activities they create to enhance the language development of ESLstudents they mentor. They do so in collaboration with cooperating

240 TESOL QUARTERLY

teachers whose enthusiasm about the collaborative project is echoedin the words of a first-grade teacher who said: “I am very proud tobe a member of the project MORE team!”

At the end of the year, teacher candidates present their activitiesand projects at the project MORE conference, which they organizewith the facilitation of faculty from both departments. The conferencebrings together educators from school districts and students and fac-ulty from the university for presentations and informal exchange ofideas. It is organized in a poster session format where projects arepresented as audiovisual exhibits. These have included projects titledMoney Makes Cents, Planting in Sunshine and Darkness, Shadows,and Buying by the Pound. Videotapes of selected activities highlightingconstructivist approaches are also presented, The conference givesteacher candidates an opportunity to present their work in a familiarand supportive environment in preparation for future presentationsat larger local, state, and international conventions.

Project MORE has also included workshops for families held both atthe university and in schools. For example, a workshop for linguisticallydiverse families was held in one of the participating school districts inconjunction with the school district annual ESL family night. For thisevent, families were invited to learn about the programs and servicesof the district, participate in demonstration English classes for adults,and learn about resources available in the local library and community.The teacher candidates have played a central role at this event as theyengaged parents and children in hands-on linguistic and scientificinquiry. The projects designed by the teacher candidates are interdisci-plinary, rich in graphics and manipulative, and maximize interaction.

Projects have included graphing weather patterns and daily routineactivities, exploring different environments for seed germination andplant growth, experimenting with homemade musical instruments andtelephones to learn the science of sounds, and creating games thatinvolve using currency, weights, and measurements. Other projects forreplication in family kitchens have included simulation of tornadoes inbottles, floating and sinking objects, and “dancing” raisins. Printedinformation is rich in graphics and, wherever possible, available in thenative languages spoken in the community. This event has contributedgreatly to the growth of not only teacher candidates but also to thatof participating families. The following excerpt from a school adminis-trator’s letter attests to this.

The student demonstrators provided us with a corner of high interest andenergy at our parent information evening. Our community of ESL parentsand children were attracted to their displays and were delighted to partici-pate in the many hands-on activities which your people offered . . . on this


important evening. (Coordinator of Foreign Languages and ESL in theschool district)

A NEW COURSE

The interdepartmental collaboration has also spawned a new inter-disciplinary undergraduate course. The new course, Language andScience: A Multicultural Perspective, is cotaught by teacher educatorsfrom both departments and includes a university-based seminar anda fieldwork component. The course curriculum, which focuses on theteaching of language to language minority students through hands-on activities in mathematics and science, includes topics such as theoret-ical and pedagogical issues of L2 learning, emergent literacy and nu-meracy, the acquisition of mathematical and scientific concepts, ele-mentary and secondary mathematics and science curricula, and modelsfor assessment. Students pursuing TESOL state certification are re-quired to take this course.

The course also includes an extensive supervised fieldwork compo-nent in different settings. These are described below and are summa-rized in Figure 3. The first fieldwork setting has involved teachercandidates in mentoring ESL elementary students in local schools.Mentoring activities have focused on developing language skills andknowledge in the content areas by engaging ESL students in hands-on science and mathematics activities. The activities are designed byteacher candidates in coordination with classroom teachers and univer-sity faculty.

A second fieldwork setting is the on-campus Discover Lab, an inter-active laboratory established to bring together elementary and second-ary students for inquiry-based activities designed by teacher candidatesand faculty from the university teacher preparation programs. Activi-ties are designed around central themes that change every 2 months.This past year’s themes included: Getting the Job Done, a theme deal-

FIGURE 3Interdisciplinary Collaborative Fieldwork Opportunities

242 TESOL QUARTERLY

ing with physical science principles, career options, mathematical calcu-lations, and technology design; The Interaction of Populations, atheme with activities entitled Peer into Pond Populations, Study theSecret Society of Crayfish, Measure Millions of Molecules, and GrowSome Grains and Grasses; Keeping Our Planet in Balance, a themethat focused on the three Rs (reuse, reduce, and recycle), includingactivities such as making recycled paper and creating environmentallyfriendly cleansing agents using ingredients like sand, chalk, oil, vine-gar, lemon, toothpaste, and baking soda to clean brass, bronze, andcopper and to remove crayon and chocolate stains. Another centraltheme was What in the World Are We Eating?, a theme centered onfoods from around the world, the use of microorganisms in foodproduction, and food for different kinds of life forms. The lab providesan excellent supervised setting for teacher candidates to experimentwith constructivist approaches as they engage school students withthe interactive exhibits. Such implementation also provides valuablefeedback and suggestions for professional growth and for modifica-tions and improvement of the exhibits.

A third fieldwork opportunity involves teaming with TESOL andscience student teachers in their assigned public school settings. Asstudent teaching is the last stage in the preservice education of teachers,student teachers who themselves work with cooperating teachers inschools serve as mentors to students who are at the beginning oftheir preservice education. Such peer collaboration has two importantfunctions: First, it provides beginning students with an opportunityto visit real classrooms and, second, it boosts student teachers’ selfesteem and confidence when, as mentors, they provide peer supportand guidance to fellow teacher candidates.

A fourth fieldwork setting is the on-campus Biotechnology TeachingLaboratory, a program in which the teacher candidates work withmiddle and high school students using sophisticated equipment andresearch techniques to learn about today’s interdisciplinary field ofbiotechnology. This field of study has proven particularly rich for ourwork with teacher candidates because the field lends itself by definitionto a variety of economic, moral, ethical, political, environmental, medi-cal, and legal questions and explorations. For example, what does theheadline, “Researchers Find Gene for Breast Cancer,” really mean?Students learn the techniques that allow researchers to specificallylocate sections of DNA; students perform such techniques; then stu-dents discuss the assumptions and parameters of those techniques andthe claims that accompany them. What are the mathematics behind“Researchers Find Gene for Breast Cancer?” The teacher candidatesco-investigate these types of concepts with middle and secondary schoolstudents and other practicing teachers and, therefore, experience the


power of such collaborations and the extended information that isgenerated by such deliberations.

A fifth fieldwork setting offers opportunities to work with elemen-tary and secondary students through programs housed in the museumfor natural sciences and the center for environmental teaching andresearch, where learning occurs through inquiry, observation, andexperimentation.

All fieldwork opportunities provide rich contexts for the develop-ment of constructivist environments where all participants, teachers,and students alike, engage in inquiry and discovery, hands-on activities,and meaningful discussions. Regardless of the fieldwork setting,teacher candidates explore opportunities for language developmentand optimal ways for the development of scientific and mathematicalconcepts.

REFLECTION AND EVALUATION

In constructivist environments, teacher candidates explore their pro-fessional growth as confident and competent teachers through inquiryand discovery in the fieldwork. Constructivist settings provide outletsfor reflection, platforms for demonstration of activities and projects,and opportunities for self- and peer evaluation. These have thus farincluded journals, newsletters, an electronic database of activities, port-folios, and videotapes. Weekly journals have kept the channels ofcommunication and discourse open among teacher candidates andteacher educators (Porter, Goldstein, Leatherman, & Conrad, 1990;Rhodes & Christian, 1993) and have served as an outlet for reflectionand a window on teacher candidates’ professional growth as teachers.The student-edited newsletter serves as a platform for teacher candi-dates, faculty, cooperating teachers, and administrators for dissemina-tion of ideas, activities, and reflections. The articles, solicited and editedby the teacher candidates, are typed and published in the computerlab dedicated to the collaborative project. The computer lab also housesan electronic database of the hands-on activities which have been devel-oped and implemented in fieldwork settings.

Additional channels for reflection and evaluation have included vid-eotapes and portfolios. Videotapes have provided visual evidence forprocesses of teaching and learning and have been used as instrumentsfor self- and peer assessment and for studying the nature and diversityof teacher-learner interactions. Videotapes have also been used as theaudiovisual component in the presentation of semester projects. Forexample, 10-minute segments depicting activities designed by teachercandidates to promote language development through active experi-

244 TESOL QUARTERLY

mentation and discovery-based learning are videotaped and tran-scribed. In their project presentations, students analyze the extent towhich they have created constructivist-based learning environments andevaluate their impact on the learners. Such video recordings providea window into a variety of learning environments and engage teachercandidates in exploration of learning processes and the impact of hands-on science and mathematics activities on learners’ motivation, level ofengagement, and acquisition of language and scientific concepts.

Portfolios (Graves & Sunstein, 1992; Harp, 1991; Tierney, Carter,& Desai, 1991) have included process portfolios that show the profes-sional growth of teacher candidates over the course of their participa-tion in the interdisciplinary course and student teaching experiencesand product portfolios displaying teacher candidates’ research projectsand activities. Portfolios have also been used to evaluate the progressof ESL learners throughout the semester.

The long-term impact of the interdisciplinary collaboration de-scribed in this article on teacher candidates’ performance as teachersand on the academic achievements of their prospective students is asyet unknown. What is clear however is that the experience has engagedall participants as learners in a collaborative community in which theroles of teachers and learners have become indistinguishable. A partici-pating school principal said: “We have had the opportunity to workwith and learn from student teachers,” and an undergraduate partici-pant has commented that she has “learned together with the ESLstudents.”

Input from teacher candidates and teachers and administrators incooperating schools has provided insight into the preliminary impactof this collaborative initiative. The excerpts cited in this section attestto its impact on ESL students and teacher candidates as both groupsengage in a learning partnership. The heightened motivation andenthusiasm of ESL students resound in teacher candidates’ journals.

My students’ enthusiasm for learning increased as time passed and theirself esteem improved; they were motivated to begin classwork as soon asI entered the room. I would hear soft voices asking: “Am I with youtoday? What’s in the bag? What are we doing today?” These questions wererepeated with curiosity, wonder, eagerness, and anticipation in what wasto unfold in the shared learning activity.There is a great reward in seeing a child enjoying as well as learning andunderstanding for the very first time . . . . I know I am going to love seeingthem and doing new activities with them each week.

The collaborative initiative has also contributed to teacher candidates’professional growth as teachers. As these excerpts show, the impactvaried with the candidates’ prior experience and needs.


This training project is providing me with a valuable hands-on experienceearly in my training. First, I am able to make direct correlation betweenthe theoretical work in the class and the real life experience in the field.Second, I see that what we learn in class is only a guideline. In the fieldwe have to be flexible. We have to constantly rework and modify ourtechniques to achieve maximum positive results.

I have become very aware of the tremendous influence the teacher’s generalattitude and personality have on the classroom setting . . . . If the teacherwas positive and encouraging in her presentation, then that was exactlyhow the students responded to the instruction.

What was especially effective and unique was the potential for growth thatthis mentoring role created and established in the developmental processof becoming a confident and competent TESOL teacher . . . I stronglybelieve that the mentoring role fills a gap in the developmental teachingprocess.

Cooperating teachers have written to express their satisfaction aboutthe positive impact of the collaborative initiative on the linguistic andacademic progress of their ESL students as well as on the students’increased self confidence.

The group of students coming to work with LEP students has provideda significant and measurable experience to these children. The childrenworking with the mentors have shown significant progress in areas such asletter recognition, name writing, and self image . . . . The mentor programhas provided the Bilingual program with resources required to help thesechildren narrow the gap in their educational process (A participating kin-dergarten teacher)

Through the use of a variety of methods and manipulative materials, thechildren are learning math and science principles in an exciting multi-sensory, discovery approach. The enthusiasm and delight on the faces ofthese children as they come to understand new concepts is wonderful tosee. The language development, vocabulary expansion, and self confidencethis type of program fosters in ESL children is fantastic. (A participatingfirst-grade teacher)

The program provides future teachers with hands-on experience. It allowsthem to explore language acquisition and to design activities. Moreover,the children enjoy the program because they are provided with activitiesthey do not do in class on a daily bases. I hope this program continues sothat future teachers can learn and enjoy new experiences in the classroom(A participating second-grade teacher)

The positive impact of the collaborative initiative has even been evi-denced in ESL students’ accomplishments in the mainstream classroomas is expressed in a letter from a principal of a participating elementaryschool.

246 TESOL QUARTERLY

The lessons taught were related to the district curriculum objectives inMath and Science. The ESL students were able to use the newly learnedlanguage and skills in the ESL class as well as in the mainstream classroom.The mentors and children enjoyed the activities and looked forward toeach session. We feel that this has been a worthwhile program for allinvolved. (A participating elementary school principal)

IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT

The evolving collaborative process described in this article has en-gaged its participants in inquiry and discourse on integrating languageand science pedagogy. The interdisciplinary initiative which grew outof learners’ needs has continued to evolve as have the educationalopportunities. Overall restructuring of teacher education programsto prepare teachers for interdisciplinary classrooms will not occur over-night but as has been shown in this article, new initiatives in redesigningcourses can forge new opportunities for teacher candidates acrossdisciplines and benefit ESL students and their families.

The thrust for interdisciplinary collaboration continues and a newcollaborative endeavor is currently in the planning stages. This willinvolve undergraduate and graduate students in the TESOL and socialsciences teacher preparation programs and will be implemented inthe coming semester. This new initiative will start with three 3-hourcollaborative sessions engaging teacher candidates from the TESOLMethods II course and the social studies supervised student teachingseminar in joint activities. As with the TESOL science collaboration,this new initiative can develop in ways that are as yet unknown.

CONCLUSION

When one reads any newspaper, one reads of adults from diversebackgrounds, affiliations, and responsibilities working together to solveinterdisciplinary, meaningful problems. This occurs in settings fromnational political committees to local school boards to children’s games.Classrooms can offer genuine opportunities for teachers and studentsto participate in these same type of collaborations. And when teachersand students collaborate in this manner, the classroom provides anatural context for growth and development for all participants—those who speak English fluently, those who are learning the language,those who are teaching, and those who are learning.

Education is multifaceted and currently some of its facets are under-going shifts. Aims that were once well defined are changing, and collabo-


rations that gray the distinctions between disciplines are emerging. Wehelp our teacher candidates learn to work with others as learners. Whenlearners witness their own successes and the successes of others generat-ing their own conclusions to self-posed problems, and when they feelthe uncertainty involved in grappling with real problems, they developa vision of themselves as players in important events.

With linguistically diverse classrooms on the increase, we want ourteacher candidates to forge an image of what education in such settingscan be, and to know how to collaborate with others to create them. Wehave found that teacher preparation programs must emanate from in-terdisciplinary settings if teachers are to forge educational visions thatinclude collaborative exchanges and constructivist approaches.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Project Mentors for Richer Education (MORE) has been supported in part bygrants from the U.S. Department of Education (No. P219A30164) and from theOffice of Undergraduate Studies, State University of New York at Stony Brook.Discover Lab is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation(Grant No. DUE9353460). The authors would like to thank Wallace Nelson fromthe Center for Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education for his valuableassistance in this collaboration. The authors would also like to thank Kamal Sridharand the anonymous reviewers of TESOL Quarterly for their insightful commentsand suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.

THE AUTHORS

Dorit Kaufman is Research Assistant Professor and Director of TESOL Certifica-tion in the Department of Linguistics at the State University of New York at StonyBrook. She directs project MORE. Her research interests include language attritionand language pedagogy.

Jacqueline Grennon Brooks is a Lecturer in the Center for Science, Mathematics,and Technology Education and Adjunct Assistant professor in the departmentof Technology and Society at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.She directs Discover Lab. Her research focus is constructivist teaching.

REFERENCES

Aiken, L. R. (1971). Verbal factors and mathematics learning: A review of research.Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 2, 304-312.

American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1989). Science for all Ameri-cans: A project 2061 report on literacy goals in science, mathematics, and technology.Washington, DC: Author.

248 TESOL QUARTERLY

Ball, D. (1993, October). The dilemmas of constructivism. Keynote address. AnnualMeeting of the Association for Constructivist Teaching. Stony Brook, NewYork.

Brinton, D. M., Snow, M. A., & Wesche, M. B. (1989). Content-based second languageinstruction. New York: Harper & Row.

Cantoni-Harvey, G. (1987). Content-area language instruction: Approaches and strate-gies. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

Chamot, A. U., & O’Malley, J. M. (1994). The CALLA handbook: Implementing thecognitive academic language learning approach. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

Cocking, R. R., & Mestre, J. P. (Eds.). (1988). Linguistic and cultural influences onlearning mathematics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Collier, V. (1987). Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academicpurposes. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 617–641.

Collier, V. (1989). How long? A synthesis of research on academic achievementin a second language. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 509–532.

Crandall, J. (1993). Content-centered learning in the United States. Annual Reviewof Applied Linguistics, 13, 111–126.

Crandall, J., Dale, T. C., Rhodes, N. C., & Spanos, G. A. (1990). The languageof mathematics: The English barrier. In A. Labarca & L. Bailey (Eds.), Issuesin L2: Theory as practice/practice as theory. Proceedings of the 7th Delaware Symposium,1985 (pp. 129–150). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Cuevas, G. J. (1984). Mathematics learning in English as a second language Journalfor Research in Mathematics Education, 15, 134-144.

Cummins, J. (1980). The cross-lingual dimensions of language proficiency: Impli-cations for bilingual education and the optimal age issue. TESOL Quarterly, 14,175–187.

Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promotingeducational success for language minority students. In Schooling and languageminority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3–49). Los Angeles: Evaluation,Dissemination, and Assessment Center, California State University.

DeAvila, E., & Havassy, B. (1974). IQ tests and minority children. Austin, TX: Dissemi-nation Center for Bilingual Bicultural Education.

DeVries, R., & Kohlberg, L. (1987). Programs of early education: The constructivistview. New York: Longman.

Driver, R. (1983). The pupil scientist? Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.Eylon, B., & Rosenfeld, S. (1990). Cultivating usual cognition in young children: A

research and development report of the Agam project. Department of science teaching.Rehovot, Israel: The Weizmann Institute of Science.

Forman, G., & Kuschner, D. (1977). The child’s construction of knowledge. Belmont,CA: Wadsworth.

Fosnot, C. (1993). Rethinking science education: A defense of Piagetian con-structivism. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 30, 1189–1201.

Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools shouldteach. New York: Basic Books.

Graves, D., & Sunstein, B. (Eds.). (1992). Portfolio portraits. Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann.

Grennon Brooks, J., & Brooks, M. (1993). The case for constructivist classrooms.Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Guskey, T. (1986). Staff development and the process of teacher change. Educa-tional Researcher, 15, 5–12.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1975). Some aspects of sociolinguistics. Interactions between linguisticsand mathematics education: Final Report. UNESCO Report No. ED–74/CONF808.Paris: UNESCO.


Harp, B. (Ed.). (1991). Assessment and evaluation in whole language programs. Ports-mouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hollingsworth, S. (1989). Prior beliefs and cognitive change in learning to teach.American Educational Research Journal, 26, 160–189.

Johnson, K. E. (1992). The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practicesduring literacy instruction for non-native speakers of English. Journal of ReadingBehavior, 24, 83–108.

Kuhn, D., Langer, J., Kohlberg, L., & Haan, N. S. (1977). The developmentof formal operations in logical and moral judgment. The Genetic PsychologyMonographs, 95, 97–188.

Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chi-cago Press.

McKeon, D. (1994). When meeting “common” standards is uncommonly difficult.Educational Leadership, 51, 45–49.

Mohan, B. A. (1986). Language and content. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). (1983). The third national

mathematics assessment: Results trends and issues. Report No. 123-MA–01. Denver,CO: Education Commission of the States.

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. (1991). Forum, 14, 1–3.National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (1989). Curriculum and evaluation

standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author.Newman, J. (1990). Finding our own way: Teachers exploring their assumption. Ports-

mouth, NH: Heinemann.Newman, J. (1991). Interwoven conversations: Learning and teaching through critical

reflection. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.New York State. (1994). Curriculum instruction and assessment framework for mathema-

tics, science, and technology. Draft for discussion, the University of the State ofNew York, the State Education Department. Albany, NY: Author.

Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs. (1992). Proceedingsof the Second National Research Symposium on Limited English Proficient StudentIssues: Focus on evaluation and measurement. Vols. 1 and 2. U.S. Department ofEducation, Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs.

Olsen, R. E. W-B. (1991, October/November). Results of a K–12 and adult ESLenrollment survey–1991. TESOL Matters, p. 4.

O’Malley, J. M., & Waggoner, D. (1984, June). Results of a U. S. survey: Publicschool teacher preparation in the teaching of ESL. TESOL Newsletter, p. 3.

Pajares, F. M. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up amessy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62, 307–332.

Penfield, J. (1987). ESL: The regular classroom teacher’s perspective. TESOLQuarterly, 21, 21-39.

Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.Piaget, J. (1967). The child’s conception of the world. Totowa, NJ: Little field, Adams.Piaget, J. (1970). The science of education and the psychology of the child. New York:

Basic Books.Porter, P. A., Goldstein, L., Leatherman, J., & Conrad, S. (1990). An ongoing

dialogue: Learning logs for teacher preparation. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan(Eds.), Second language teacher education (pp. 227–240). New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Rendon, L. I. (1983). Mathematics education for Hispanic students in border collegeconsortium. Report on the Math Intervention Project, a grant to the BorderCollege Consortium from the Ford Foundation. Laredo, TX: Border CollegeConsortium.

250 TESOL QUARTERLY

Rhodes, N., & Christian, D. (1993). Teachers and teacher educators learningthrough dialogue journals. In D. Freeman & S. Cornwell (Eds.), New ways inteacher education (pp. 142–146). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Richard-Amato, P. A., & Snow, M. A. (Eds.). (1992). The multicultural classroom:Readings for content-area teachers. New York: Longman.

Richardson, V. (1990). Significant and worthwhile change in teaching practice.Educational Researcher, 19, 10–18.

Shavelson, R. J., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts,judgments, decisions, and behavior. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455–498.

Short, D. (1991). How to integrate language and content instruction: A training manual.Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Short, D. (1993). Assessing integrated language and content instruction. TESOLQuarterly, 27, 627-656.

Short, D. (1994). Expanding middle school horizons: Integrating language cultureand social studies. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 581–608.

Sigel, I., & Cocking R. R. (1977). Cognitive development from birth through adolescence:A constructivist perspective. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Snow, M. A., Met, M., & Genesee, F. (1989). A conceptual framework for theintegration of language and content in second and foreign language instruction.TESOL Quarterly, 23, 201–217.

Stewart, D. ( 1993). Immigration and education; The crisis and opportunities. New York:Lexington Books.

Tierney, R., Carter, M., & Desai, L. (1991). Portfolio assessment in the reading-writingclassroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Tobin, K., Tippins, D., & Gallard, A. J. (1994). Research on instructional strategiesfor teaching science. In D. L. Gabel (Ed.), A handbook of research on science teachingand learning. A project of the National Science Teachers Association (pp. 45–93). NewYork: Macmillan.

von Glasersfeld, E. (1981). The concepts of adaptation and viability of a radicalconstructivist theory of knowledge. In I.E. Sigel, D.M. Brozinsky, & R.M. Golin-koff (Eds.), New directions in Piagetian theory and practice (pp. 87–93). Hillsdale,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Waggoner, D. (1992, October/November). The increasing multiethnic and multi-cultural diversity of the U. S.: Findings from the 1990 Census. TESOL Matters,pp. 12–13.

Zelchner, K. M., & Tabachnick, B. R. (1981). Are the effects of university teachereducation “washed out” by school experience? Journal of Teacher Education, 32,7–11.



Cooperative Learning:Context and Opportunities forAcquiring Academic English*

EVELYN JACOB, LORI ROTTENBERG, SONDRA PATRICK,and EDYTH WHEELERGeorge Mason University

This article explores how the Learning Together form of cooperativelearning influenced opportunities for acquiring academic English byL2 learners in a 6th-grade social studies classroom. Our findingspresent a complex picture. Cooperative learning gave L2 learners awide range of opportunities to acquire academic English. They gaveand received help with academic terms, difficult academic concepts,and para-academic knowledge. They were exposed to and producedlexical and conceptual explorations and homonymic word associa-tions. They received help with conventions of written English. Theyused language for self-help and were invited by their peers to contrib-ute more to the group. Many of these categories included both inputand output opportunities, with L2 learners helping others as much asthey were helped. However, except for help with decoding academicterms, the various kinds of opportunities occurred relatively infre-quently. Moreover, there were some missed opportunities and somenegative input. Several local contextual features (e.g., students’ defi-nitions of the task, features of the task, and participant structures)helped us understand the complex picture we found. Our findingssuggest that (a) developers and disseminators need to take contextinto account, and (b) teachers who want to maximize the benefits ofcooperative learning in support of second language acquisition (SLA)need to have a broad understanding of academic language, includeSLA in their instructional goals, structure classroom tasks to supportthe desired opportunities for L2 learners, monitor what is happeningin the groups, and fine tune their implementation if they are notgetting what they want.

A major goal in U.S. education today is maximizing the success ofnonnative English speakers in our schools. A major component

* An earlier version of this paper was presented by Evelyn Jacob as the keynote address atthe 1994 WATESOL convention.

253

of their success is developing proficiency in academic English. Cooper-ative learning, a group of instructional methods in which small groupsof students work together and aid each other in completing academictasks,1 has frequently been promoted as an effective way to supportthis goal (Enright & McCloskey, 1988; Holt, 1994; Kessler, 1992).

This article explores how cooperative learning influenced opportu-nities for acquiring academic English by L2 learners in a sixth gradesocial studies classroom. We found that although cooperative learningoffered positive opportunities for acquiring academic English, it didnot seem to reach its full potential. Features of the classroom context(e.g., students’ definitions of the task, features of tasks, and participantstructures) helped us to understand this complex picture.

Theorists see cooperative learning as beneficial to L2 learners be-cause it offers opportunities for premodified input that focuses onmeaning in low-anxiety contexts (Krashen, 1985; Wong Fillmore,1991), interactionally modified input (Long, 1983, 1985; Pica, Young,& Doughty, 1994; Rivers, 1994), and comprehensible output (Swain,1985; Swain & Lapkin, 1989).2 Notwithstanding theoretical rationalesfor the benefits of cooperative learning to second language acquisition(SLA), and the widespread promotion of cooperative learning, only afew studies have focused on cooperative learning and SLA.

Early studies of cooperative learning in L2 classrooms comparedteacher-fronted classes to small-group or pair work. These studiesfound that L2 learners had more language practice opportunities anddisplayed a wider range of language functions in group or pair workthan in teacher-fronted classes (Long, Adams, McLean, & Castanos,1976; Doughty & Pica, 1984, as cited by Long & Porter, 1985; Pica &Doughty, 1985). Field experiments conducted in ESL classes with ju-nior high school students in Israel found that two forms of cooperativelearning resulted in better performance on an overall measure ofEnglish proficiency and on a listening comprehension subtest thanwhole-class instruction (Bejarano, 1987; Sharan, Bejarano, Kussell, &Peleg, 1984).3

A few recent studies have examined cooperative learning for L2

1 This broad definition reflects the wide range of non-teacher-fronted classroom practicesthat have been called cooperative learning (e.g., Kagan, 1992).

2 In recent discussions (e.g., Faltis, 1993), advocates of cooperative learning also argue thatit provides a means for improving the academic achievement and social integration of L2learners.

3 In Bejarano’s (1987) study the two forms of group instruction were Discussion Group andStudent Teams—Achievement Divisions (STAD). In Sharan, Bejarano, Kussell, and Peleg(1984) they were Group Investigation and STAD. Bejarano’s (1987) study also found differ-ences between alternative forms of cooperative learning, with students who had the STADform of cooperative learning doing better on grammar than Discussion Group students.

254 TESOL QUARTERLY

learners in everyday4 grade-level classrooms. In Finding out/Descubri-miento (FO/D) classrooms that focused on science and math, studentswho started with limited English proficiency made significant gains inlanguage arts and reading over a 3-year period, as measured by theComprehensive Test of Basic Skills (Cohen, 1994). In peer tutoringdyads, elementary school tutors modified their speech to non-Englishspeakers like adult caretakers and teachers do, presumably to thebenefit of the tutees (Flanigan, 1991).

However, Cohen and her colleagues (Cohen, 1993; Cohen, Lotan,& Catanzarite, 1990) reported that they needed to provide extensiveintervention and ongoing support to obtain consistent implementationand success of FO/D. Studies in classrooms with native English speakers(Castle & Arends, 1992; Meloth & Deering, 1994) report mixed resultsfrom cooperative learning in everyday classrooms. Such research sug-gests that positive outcomes for cooperative learning are not automaticin everyday classrooms. Our study found similar mixed results andattempts to address the question of why such results occur.

OUR APPROACH

The major forms of cooperative learning were produced in a conven-tional manner: University scholars developed and experimentallytested various methods of cooperative learning with the goal that thesemethods would be successful in a wide range of contexts. Operatingwithin this conventional approach, cooperative learning developersexpected their innovations to be implemented exactly as developedand assumed that this kind of implementation was necessary for theinnovation to succeed. This is exemplified in the manuals that identifyfeatures needed for particular forms of cooperative learning to besuccessful (e.g., D. W. Johnson, R. T. Johnson, & Holubec, 1986;Slavin, 1986).

A major problem with the conventional approach to educationalinnovations is that it has a poor track record. Most innovations havefailed to produce meaningful results in everyday classrooms. One rea-son for this failure may be that developers and disseminators of educa-tional innovations fail to appreciate fully that classroom contexts willdramatically influence the implementation and success of an innova-tion. Although few in-depth, longitudinal studies exist of local imple-

4 We use the term everyday to indicate naturally occurring classrooms in which a researcherhas not directly intervened in some way. Such everyday classrooms contrast with bothexperimental settings and field experiments.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING 255

mentation of innovations, the existing literature indicates that innova-tions usually are adapted to the local situation (Cochran-Smith, Paris,& Kahn, 1992; Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1990; Elmore& McLaughlin, 1988; Michaels, 1990; Pace, 1992). As indicated above,the little research that has been conducted on cooperative learning ineveryday classrooms suggests that a similar process of adaptation tothe local situation may occur in such settings.

Another reason that the conventional approach to innovations hasa poor track record may be because it inappropriately views innovationsas independent variables, or “treatments,” and outcomes as dependentvariables. In contrast, we take a sociocultural approach that viewsinnovations as processes that influence and are influenced by theircontexts. Our approach explicitly takes into account and acknowledgesthe importance of the contextual features of everyday classrooms.

Within this broad perspective, we draw on work in SLA as it relatesto cooperative learning. Cummins’ (1984) distinction between basic,face-to-face conversational proficiency and context-reduced, cogni-tively demanding language proficiency (termed academic language) isuseful for our purposes. Research using Cummins’ framework (Collier,1987; Cummins, 1981) suggests that whereas most L2 learners easilymaster basic conversational skills, they have more difficulty with aca-demic language, and this difficulty is related to lower educationalperformance.

Although academic language may have some common featuresacross subject matter, research has identified characteristics of disci-pline-specific academic language in mathematics (Spanos, Rhodes,Dale, & Crandall, 1988), science (Lemke, 1982), and social studies(Short, 1994). Short’s (1994) work indicated that language in socialstudies classes is challenging for L2 learners because it requires fre-quent use of demanding literacy skills. Most of the reading in socialstudies is expository rather than narrative in style; many passages arelong. Writing tasks are also frequently demanding, often involvingwriting essays. Both reading and writing tasks involve special termsand abstract concepts that are hard to demonstrate.

This study explored how cooperative learning influenced opportuni-ties for acquiring academic language in an everyday classroom. Inparticular, we examined how the use of the Learning Together methodof cooperative learning (D. W. Johnson, R. T. Johnson, & Holubec,1986) provided opportunities for the acquisition of academic languagein social studies by L2 learners in an everyday 6th-grade class. Wefound that cooperative learning provided some positive opportunitiesfor language acquisition but did not reach its full potential to providethese kinds of opportunities. We can begin to understand this complexpicture by examining the contextual features of the local setting.

256 TESOL QUARTERLY

METHODS

This study is part of a larger study of cooperative learning in cultur-ally diverse classrooms conducted during the 1988–1989 academicyear. Evelyn Jacob observed this class regularly throughout the yearand conducted semistructured interviews with the teacher and stu-dents. She videotaped 6 cooperative learning groups in the social stud-ies class during November and December and again in March andApril.

Jacob expanded and typed participant observation notes immedi-ately after they were written and entered the expanded notes into TheEthnograph, a computer program for qualitative data analysis. Theresearch team transcribed the cooperative learning lessons from thevideotapes, repeatedly checked them, and then typed and entered thetranscriptions into The Ethnograph to produce text with each linenumbered.

Jacob indexed the observational and interview data using The Ethno-graph and identified patterns across indexed segments through quali-tative analysis.5 Analysis of the videotape data, which form the corefor this article, involved several steps: bracketing the transcripts toidentify foci for analysis, developing categories for analysis, andapplying them to the bracketed transcripts. Focusing on academiclanguage, we bracketed those sections of the videotape transcripts thatinvolved students’ completing the assigned academic tasks, includingbrief side comments that were related to the on-task talk within thebrackets. These segments of the videotape data encompassed 8 3/4hours. We labeled each bracketed segment with a videotape number,an activity descriptor (usually a worksheet), and a task number oracronym (usually a particular question on a worksheet).

Because so little research exists on cooperative learning and SLAin everyday classrooms, we developed our categories inductively. Toidentify categories, we reviewed the bracketed sections repeatedly (us-ing both transcripts and videotapes) for evidence of behaviors thatmight contribute to the acquisition of academic English.6

Most of our categories focused explicitly on academic English, lan-guage that would not typically be heard outside the classroom, includ-ing lexical items and specialized syntactic structures more commonly

5 See Bogdan and Biklen (1992) for a discussion of this process.6 Because our design does not compare cooperative learning to teacher-fronted classes, wedecided not to focus on categories used by earlier comparative studies that compare amountand complexity of communication in the two situations. However, there is some evidencethat cooperative learning did contribute to the amount and complexity of students’ commu-nication. In another analysis of the data, Lara (1993) reported that both native speakersand L2 learners in the classroom were exposed to and participated in a wide range oflanguage functions.


found in academic prose. We looked in particular for problems withacademic English, which occurred when a student’s lack of understand-ing of a term, concept, or structure blocked the student’s comprehen-sion of the academic task.7 Behaviors that indicated a student’s lackof understanding included his or her directly requesting assistance orclarification, pausing at an unfamiliar word when reading aloud, orreceiving unsolicited assistance or correction from his or her peers.

Other categories focused on students making links between academicterms and nonacademic knowledge. Familiar language can provide abridge to academic language, and thus contribute to SLA (Britton etal., 1975, as cited in Jacobs, 1990). These typically involved linkingacademic or specialized terms to more familiar, conversational termsor contexts.

We applied the categories to the bracketed segments for qualitativeanalysis and compilation of frequency of occurrence.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

The classroom was in a culturally diverse elementary school locatedin a suburban county of a large city in the Eastern United States. Theschool comprised grades K–6 and was located in a multiethnic working-class neighborhood. Of its approximately 625 students, 50% wereEuropean American, 18% African American, 16% Asian American,15% Hispanic American, and 1% Native American. More than onethird of the students received a free or reduced price lunch andbreakfast.

Mrs. Parker,8 the social studies teacher whose class is examined here,was one of three 6th-grade homeroom teachers. She had taught for8 years and was recognized as a good teacher. Mrs. Parker taughtthree social studies classes, which encompassed all the sixth graders.

At the beginning of the year, there were 23 students who formedthe focus social studies class: 8 European Americans (6 girls and 2boys), 5 African Americans (all girls), and 10 students (4 girls and 6boys) from a range of other cultural backgrounds.

Eight of these students were L2 learners. All but one had exitedfrom ESOL classes; the student in ESOL had been placed there whenhe transferred to the school in midyear. In the videotapes the studentsexhibited few problems with their morphosyntactic command of basic

7Language “problems” were not taken to include the grammatical problems or incorrectword usage more commonly associated with language difficulties. Instead, we focused oninstances in which language became a focus of the academic discourse rather than simplya medium for transmitting ideas within it.

8 All proper names are pseudonyms.

258 TESOL QUARTERLY

English. Formal language proficiency tests given to the seven L2 learn-ers present at the beginning of the study also support this characteriza-tion. Based on their performance on the Idea Oral Language Profi-ciency Test (IPTI), four were fluent English speakers, two were limitedEnglish speakers, and one student was a non-English speaker.9 On theLanguage Assessment Scales Reading and Writing (LAS R/W), six L2learners scored as competent, and one scored as limited.10

Context of Cooperative Learning

At the time the study was conducted, the atmosphere at the schoolwas supportive of cooperative learning. Prior to the study the principaland several teachers had participated in cooperative learning work-shops, and the principal had given a workshop at the school on theJigsaw method of cooperative learning. Before the project began, threeteachers m the school, including Mrs. Parker, were using cooperativelearning on a regular basis.

The principal decided that cooperative learning would be a focusfor the school during 1988–1989 and included cooperative learningin the official school objectives for the year. Cooperative learning waspart of two inservice sessions at the beginning of the fall semester. Thefirst workshop presented a broad framework based on the LearningTogether method. The second workshop consisted of the Circles ofLearning video (D. W. Johnson, 1983), which also presented the Learn-ing Together method.

However, the principal did not push for a major schoolwide imple-mentation. He planned to implement cooperative learning over severalyears, with teachers participating voluntarily, at their own speed. Thus,teachers had considerable latitude in deciding how and when to usecooperative learning.

Mrs. Parker used the Learning Together method in her social studiesclass with her homeroom students. The Learning Together methodasserts that four basic principles are necessary for successful coopera-tive groups: (a) face-to-face interaction among students, (b) positiveinterdependence, (c) individual accountability, and (d) appropriatesmall-group skills (D. W. Johnson, R. T. Johnson & Holubec, 1986).Face-to-face interaction means that students must work together. Positiveinterdependence indicates that students must perceive that their successis linked to the success of the others in their group. Individual account-ability means that each student is held responsible for learning the

9 Dalton ( 1982) reported studies establishing norms, validity, and reliability for the IPT I.10 Duncan and DeAvila (1988) reported studies establishing the validity and reliability for

the LAS R/W.


material. Small-group skills indicate that students must learn appropriateskills for being a productive group member and that teams must exam-ine how their group is functioning. This emphasis on learning andmonitoring small-group skills is a hallmark of the Learning Togethermethod. The developers of Learning Together present ways to adaptexisting lessons to cooperative learning so that they address these fourprinciples (e.g., D. W. Johnson & R. T. Johnson, 1984; D. W. Johnson,R. T. Johnson, & Holubec, 1986).

Mrs. Parker had initially been exposed to this method during asummer course in 1987. She pursued it further on her own, obtainedresources from a fellow teacher, and participated in three workshopson cooperative learning. She began using cooperative learning in herclasses in Fall 1987.

Near the beginning of the 1988–1989 school year, Mrs. Parker saidthat her goal for using cooperative learning was to have her studentslearn how to work together and help one another. She announced thisgoal to her students and discussed with them why it was important.Near the end of the school year, after she had introduced more stu-dent-centered, divergent tasks, she added to her goals having thestudents learn more independently.

Mrs. Parker knew that L2 learners were a focus of the study butdid not indicate that SLA was an explicit goal for her use of cooperativelearning. When asked about the benefits of cooperative learning shesaid that she thought it benefited ESOL students by giving them helpwith words and having someone else read aloud. She thought that thesecond type of aid would reduce their anxiety at having to read aloudand raise their comprehension.

The focus social studies class, which comprised Mrs. Parker’s home-room students, met once a week for a double period ( 1 ½ hours). Onaverage, the first 45 minutes were devoted to a whole-class activity,while the second 45 minutes were devoted to cooperative learning.Students sat facing each other in heterogeneous groups of four. Mrs.Parker changed the groups several times during the year. Almost allgroups had one or two L2 learners.

At the beginning of the school year, Mrs. Parker established therules to be followed in the cooperative learning groups. She passedout copies of a list of class rules (from Kagan, 1985), discussing eachitem with the class. Individuals had responsibility for trying, askingfor help from their group, helping others in the group, courteousbehavior, and fulfilling a specific role in the group (materials gatherer,reader, recorder, or checker). In practice, the only role that was consis-tently enacted was that of materials gatherer. Teams tended to negoti-ate how they would perform the other roles. For example, teams oftendecided to divide up reading aloud rather than have one person do

260 TESOL QUARTERLY

it all. Mrs. Parker told the students that groups had responsibilityfor helping one another, for using soft voices, and for asking groupquestions (i.e., those which no one in the group could answer).

Mrs. Parker also established a reward system for team behavior atthe beginning of the year. She explicitly monitored group behaviorand publicly assigned groups points according to how well the membersof a group worked together. Groups received rewards based on thenumber of points they accrued. Although Mrs. Parker stopped givingpoints for good group behavior after several months, she continuedto informally monitor the groups by circulating around the roomduring cooperative learning and reminding students of expected be-haviors when they were having difficulty working together. She com-mented that she made the decision to stop giving points for groupbehavior because she thought the students no longer needed pointsto work well together.

At the beginning of each, cooperative learning lesson Mrs. Parkeroutlined the tasks that were to be accomplished. Most of the tasksdone in the cooperative learning groups involved reading and fillingin worksheets that Mrs. Parker had used in previous years. Studentsusually had individual sheets of paper on which to record their work;these sheets were compiled in their individual notebooks, which wereturned in at the end of each grading period. Students took quizzesand tests individually. There were no group rewards for team scoreson tests or quizzes.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING: A COMPLEX STORY

Our findings present a complex picture of the influence of coopera-tive learning on opportunities for acquiring academic language. Al-though we found many such opportunities in our data, we also foundthat these opportunities occurred relatively infrequently and that manyopportunities were missed. We explored the particular context to beginto understand this complex picture.

Opportunities for Acquiring Academic English

We found no instances in the videotape data of native-English-speaking students premodifying their speech for L2 learners in themanner described in discussions of foreigner talk (Ferguson, 1975).However, we did find eight different kinds of instances that providedL2 learners with opportunities for acquiring academic English. Infive kinds of opportunities, L2 learners received input and producedoutput. In one kind of opportunity they only received input and in


TABLE 1Frequency of Positive Opportunities for the Acquisition of Academic Language

two kinds of opportunities they only produced output. Table 1 summa-rizes the frequencies of the various categories we identified in thevideotape data.

We use the terms input and output to highlight whether L2 learnerswere recipients or producers of the relevant language. Although manyESL teachers and researchers are familiar with the role of comprehen-sible input in language acquisition (Krashen, 1985), students’ abilityto produce comprehensible output has also been found to contributesubstantially to SLA (Swain, 1985; Swain & Lapkin, 1989). Accordingto Swain (1985), comprehensible output provides L2 learners with“opportunities for contextualized, meaningful use, to test out hypothe-ses about the target language, and to move the learner from a purelysemantic analysis of the language to a syntactic analysis of it” (p. 252).In other words, the opportunity to negotiate meaning in a languagehelps the learner to move from the most basic strings of words tomore sophisticated, nativelike use of grammar and vocabulary. Wetherefore examined the opportunities that L2 learners had for bothinput and output in the cooperative learning context.

Opportunities Through Both Input and Output

L2 learners received and produced help with academic terms, diffi-cult academic concepts and para-academic knowledge; they also ex-plored lexical and conceptual links between familiar and unfamiliarterms, and played with homonyms.

Academic terms. The most frequent positive opportunity in the datainvolved L2 learners receiving or giving help with academic terms.

262 TESOL QUARTERLY

These instances occurred as one student read aloud and others fol-lowed along during group reading of a worksheet.

The words that proved problematic included general polysyllabicwords (e.g., development, efficient), specific content words found primar-ily in academic contexts (e.g., matrilineal, monarchies), and special propernouns generally found only in a social studies context (e.g., Athens,Ishongo, Agora). Assistance included initial decoding of words, explana-tion of word meaning, or clarification of pronunciation.

In one example, native speaker Doria received help with decodingand the meaning of a word from L2 learner Hak So.11

1. (November 29, 1988)

In another example, L2 learner Jane received help from nativespeaker Thep with the correct pronunciation of a word.

2. (November 15, 1988)

11 The following conventions are followed in transcript sentences. Students’ nonverbal behav-ior is included in parentheses. Words that were read aloud for a worksheet or that wereverbalizations of what the students wrote are enclosed in quotations marks. Words thatwere stressed are underlined. Interruptions in a phrase are indicated by two dashes (--).


Difficult academic concepts. An L2 learner received and gave help inunderstanding a difficult academic concept (i.e., one that posed achallenge for the students in a group and that had to be properlyunderstood in order to successfully complete the assigned task).

The example occurred in November when a group of four nativeEnglish speakers and L2 learner Woody were asked to locate an areaof high population density on the African continent, the “lake region. ”

particular lake, and they spent many minutes trying to find “LakeRegion” on maps of Africa. They eventually sought assistance fromthe teacher, but she did not give them the answer directly, and thestudents continued to work as a group to process the teacher’s addedinformation. Finally, after listening to his classmates’ ideas, Woodytentatively stated his understanding: “It’s a region?” With this explicit(and correct) statement of how to interpret “lake region,” the groupwas able to continue with the rest of the assignment. Although thestudents seemed familiar with the concept region, they appeared tobe unacquainted with the application of that concept to a lake region,an area with many lakes. In this example the presence of other studentsallowed Woody to sharpen his ideas about the academic concept athand. His explicit statement of the alternative interpretation helpedthe group to move ahead and complete that part of the assignment.

Para-academic knowledge. L2 learners received or gave help withissues that were not a direct part of the academic content but thathelped students understand task instructions or sociolinguistic norms.

In one example, L2 learner Jane, who did not understand the in-structions on a group worksheet (Lines 1–6), received help from L2learner Daniel (Lines 7–1 2).

3. (April 29, 1989)

1 Sandra: (rapidly reads task instructions) It says, “Each2 sentence below has one word or term that makes the3 thought incorrect. Underline the incorrect word,4 and write the correct term for this statement in5 the blank. See the example.”6 Jane: I don’t understand it.7 Daniel: Oh! I get it! See? ‘Cause this (pointing to8 example) is an incorrect word. That’s not supposed9 to be the teacher. You underline it, that’s10 incorrect, and you write what it’s supposed to11 be, soldier. “In Sparta, to be a soldier was the12 highest honor.”13 Jane: Oh!

264 TESOL QUARTERLY

If Jane had been asked to do this exercise on her own, it is likely thatshe would have encountered difficulty and fallen behind the otherstudents. However, with help from Daniel, Jane quickly understoodwhat the assignment required.

Lexical and conceptual explorations. Lexical and conceptual explora-tions refer to those instances when students link familiar words tounfamiliar academic words or concepts to help clarify their meaning.

In one example, a group was studying the differences between draw-ings of poor ancient Egyptian farming families and wealthy ancientEgyptian families. They noticed that the poor farming families atebasic foods such as barley, bread, and fish, while the wealthy familiesnot only used gold and silver dishes but also ate more exotic foodssuch as duck, antelope, fruits, and honey. In an effort to characterizethe food of the wealthy families, L2 learner Sung Min suggested (Lines1, 3, and 5–6) several alternatives to Kathleen (who was writing downthe group’s answers) before settling on “gourmet foods.”

4. (March 21, 1989)

1 Sung Min: They ate great foods.2 Kathleen: I know.3 Sung Min: The foods they ate were better.4 Kathleen: I know.5 Sung Min: They ate gourmet foods. (pause) They ate mostly6 gourmet foods.

Sung Min seemed to be extrapolating from what he knew was anappropriate contemporary term for expensive food and applying it tothe ancient Egyptian context.12

Homonyms. L2 learners were exposed to and produced associationsbetween words that sound the same but have different meanings.These homonyms gave L2 learners another language acquisition op-portunity. The homonymic references in the following excerpts ex-tended the meaning of on-task activities by providing another way forstudents to make connections between an on-task activity and some-thing academically unrelated but phonologically and culturally con-nected. Frequently, these analogies interjected a pun into the learningexperience. Because the use of humor in any language indicates arelatively high degree of cultural and linguistic proficiency (Donaldson,1978; Nilsen & Nilsen, 1978; Saville-Troike, 1984), these instancesshow L2 learners displaying creative language use.

12 Although the process of linking the unfamiliar to the familiar may help L2 learners acquireunfamiliar concepts, it also carries a danger that students may apply the familiar to theunfamiliar inappropriately.


One example occurred in November when an L2 learner interjecteda homonymic reference into the group’s efforts to identify the lakeregion in Africa. A native English speaker listed several lakes: “LakeChad, Lake Rudolph, Lake Tangaka [Tanganyika].” L2 learner Woodyimmediately began singing the song, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Rein-deer.” Nakisha, a native English speaker, said: “I knew somebody wasgonna sing that,” and laughed.

Another example occurred in April when native English speakerJessica read the assigned reading about Egyptian ships to her group.As Jessica read the word oarsmen, she interjected a cultural referenceto Ourisman, a local Chevrolet dealer: “‘Smaller boats had one sailand, a line of oarsmen.’ Where’s the Chevrolet?”

An important feature of the categories discussed so far is that theyinvolve both input and output for L2 learners. Mrs. Parker said thatshe hoped that L2 learners would receive help with words they didnot understand; thus, she expected input to be a primary benefit ofcooperative learning. Cooperative learning also provided opportuni-ties for output related to the acquisition of academic language, whichhelped not only the speakers themselves but also other L2 learnersand native English speakers.

Across the three categories that involved students directly providingassistance to one another (i.e., academic terms, difficult academic con-cepts, and para-academic knowledge) 43% of the input to L2 learnerscame from other L2 learners and 57% from native English speakers.L2 learners provided 39% of their assistance (output) to other L2learners and 61% to native speakers.

Opportunities Through Input Only

L2 learners also received assistance from native English speakers inways that mirrored typical teacher-student interactions (i.e., by beingtold the conventions of written English).

Conventions of written English. One of the most challenging aspectsof learning English for L2 learners is acquiring the written code.Academic success depends upon a student’s ability to produce techni-cally sound and rhetorically appropriate texts. We found examples ofL2 learners receiving help in spelling words correctly and in producinga particular academic register.

In the following example an L2 learner received help with spelling:5. (April 4, 1989)

1 Hak So: Is a lot a separate word?2 Jessica: It’s a separate word. Two separate words.

266 TESOL QUARTERLY

This example is interesting because not only did native speaker Jessicasupply the requested information in line 2, but she also corrected HakSo’s inaccurate phrasing of his question. Hak So referred to somethinghe believed might be two words as one word (“a separate word”), whileJessica eventually replies using the correct form (“two separate words”).

In another example native speaker Adam assisted L2 learnersWoody and Peggy in placing information from a reading onto a time-line in the correct format.

6. (April 18, 1989)

1 Adam: “1750 to 1500 B. C.” Well, let’s—’’Crete2 reached its power from 1750 to 15003 B. C.” (reading) Or you can say, “Crete4 reached its power. ”5 (All write.)6 Woody: 1400 B.C.7 Adam: Okay, you ready?8 Peggy: Yeah.9 Adam: “1400 B.C. Civilization on Crete was10 destroyed by unknown invaders about 140011 B.C. You could say, “Civilization was12 destroyed,” or you can put more in if it13 fits, “Civilization on Crete was destroyed.”14 (All write.)

In this example, Adam provided the L2 learners with fairly explicitinstruction (Lines 3-4 and 11–13) in how to write in the appropriatetimeline register. Although the directions to the timeline exercise pro-vided no special directions for the students to translate the full textof the reading to timeline text, Adam understood that timelines usean abbreviated, telegraphic format to convey only the most essentialinformation. In Lines 1–4 and 9–13, he made explicit to the L2 learnersthe process he used to obtain the correct register: He read the full textand then demonstrated how he deletes the unnecessary prepositionalphrases to make his entry. He even showed how to re-expand histimeline entry, space permitting.

Opportunities Through Output Only

Cooperative learning also provided L2 learners with contexts to helpthemselves and contexts in which their peers invited them to do more.

Self-help. Cooperative learning groups provided L2 learners with acontext in which they could talk aloud to themselves—that is, produce“private speech’’—as a way of helping them solve problems.

An example occurred in April when L2 learner Hak So sounded


out “Med-i-terr-a-ne-an” as he wrote the word as part of an answer.Later in the same class, Hak So thought aloud about ancient Egyptianclothing: “Very simple. Very exotic. Exotic. Exotic.” He seemed to beabsorbing and rehearsing the word exotic, adding it to his linguisticrepertoire as the rest of the group worked.

Being invited to do more. Another way that L2 learners were helpedin their language output occurred when peers asked the L2 learnersto produce more language, to think more. Even the most reticentstudents were invited to contribute by their peers. Carmela, who wasso quiet that her name only appears in some transcripts of her groupone or two times, was asked to contribute more language to the group’sefforts during a challenging exercise. The group was making a list ofpredictions about life in Athens by looking at a picture. They seemedto run out of ideas and they realized that Carmela had not yet contrib-uted. In line 2, Carmela was explicitly invited to contribute.

7. (April 25, 1989)

1 Daniel: Number four. (sigh) Let’s see.2 Jane: It’s your turn.3 Carmela: There weren’t a lot of women?4 Jane: What?5 Carmela: There weren’t a lot of women there.6 Jane: Okay.

Although Carmela first stated her answer in a questioning tone in line3, she became more confident in line 5 after she was asked to restateher response. Jane, one of the informal leaders of the group, thenacknowledged the acceptability of the answer for the group to writedown (Line 6).

The examples in this section have identified a variety of ways thatcooperative learning groups provided support for L2 learners’ acquisi-tion of academic language. However, although our examples suggestthe rich possibilities that cooperative learning offers, our findings arenot totally positive.

Lost Potential for Acquiring Academic English

Although the positive opportunities for SLA that cooperative learn-ing afforded were undoubtedly helpful to the L2 learners, we foundonly 71 instances of positive opportunities over a total of 8 3/4 hoursof interaction in the cooperative learning groups. Although this maybe more opportunities than would have occurred during a teacher-fronted class, it does not seem to us that this was as rich an environmentfor L2 learners as it might have been.

268 TESOL QUARTERLY

The kind of positive opportunities that occurred were skewed. Morethan half (53%) of the positive occurrences involved L2 learners eitherreceiving or giving help with academic terms (see Table 1). Althoughhelp with academic terms is clearly important, some of the other,infrequent, positive opportunities supported more complex academiclanguage.

We also found instances of missed opportunities and negative input.Missed opportunities involved L2 learners unsuccessfully asking theirpeers for help. For example, after being asked to identify the factorsthat contribute to the formation of densely populated areas in Africa,L2 learner Woody sought help.

8. (November 9, 1988)

Woody’s request for help in Lines 1–2 was never answered. Instead,the group responded to Tracy’s question in line 7 and discussed Johan-nesburg. It is possible the students did not know the meaning of factors,they did not know how to explain it, or they simply chose to ignorethe question.

Most troubling are examples of L2 learners receiving negative inputfrom their peers about their linguistic capabilities or academic needs.In Line 3 Sung Min sought clarification of his earlier query about thegroup’s next task.

9. (November 22, 1988)

1 Tonya: It said you answer the questions in the2 bottom.3 Sung Min: This, right? (gestures towards paper)4 Sandra: No, you have to answer these first.5 Sung Min: Okay, Sandra, you don’t have to yell at6 me. You don’t have to yell at me.7 Sandra: He can’t understand anybody. (laughs)

In Line 7 native speaker Sandra chose to rebut Sung Min’s rebuke ofher yelling at him (Lines 5–6) with a derogatory comment about hislanguage ability.

A similar example occurred in November when L2 learner Peggywas criticized for asking for help. In response to Peggy’s request for


help, native speaker Kathleen replied, “Would you just stop botheringme?! God! Sheesh! You don’t understand what I’m doing, so justdon’t—(pause)[you] think about it.”

Fortunately, such instances occurred infrequently. Missed opportu-nities occurred 5 times and negative input occurred 3 times. However,their presence suggests that cooperative learning did not reach its fullpotential for supporting L2 learners’ acquisition of academic language.

The findings so far present a mixed picture. Although cooperativelearning offered positive opportunities that supported the acquisitionof academic language, it did not seem to reach its full potential. Positiveopportunities for acquiring academic language occurred relatively in-frequently, the opportunities that did occur were skewed toward sim-pler aspects of academic language, and there were missed opportuni-ties and negative input. How can we understand this mixed picture?

Examining the Context

Our sociocultural approach to educational innovations led us to lookat context as a way to understand this mixed picture. For these analyseswe focused on immediate features of the local context, on which teach-ers can have some direct influence. Students’ definition of the task,the substance of the task, the participant structure enacted by thestudents, and the difficulty of the task helped us understand the lowfrequency of positive occurrences, the kinds of positive opportunitiesL2 learners experience, and the occurrence of missed opportunitiesand negative input.

Students’ Definition of the Task

Students’ definition of the task at hand helped us understand theoverall low frequency of positive opportunities for acquiring academiclanguage. In reviewing students’ spontaneous comments during thecooperative learning groups, we found that students’ main emphasiswas on getting the assigned tasks finished within the class period ratherthan on understanding the material.

One example occurred in March when the students were recordingtheir inferences about the lives of wealthy Egyptians based on a picturethat represented them. After Sung Min mused aloud about how tocharacterize their food (see Example 4 above), he said to Kathleen:“Just write down that. Who cares? Let’s finish this up.” Thus, his desireto finish the task seemed to halt his lexical exploration.

In another example, the group had been waiting for Doria to finishwriting down Allison’s answers to questions on a worksheet. The groupwas waiting for her so they could proceed to read a worksheet together.

270 TESOL QUARTERLY

In Line 1 Doria began to compare Allison’s answers to her own answersand expressed an interest in having “correct” answers, which seemedto mean having answers that matched Allison’s. In Line 3 Nakishastated she was concerned with completion, not accuracy, and in Line4 Allison concurred.

10. (March 14, 1989)

1 Doria: I’m done. Let me see if my answers are correct.2 Allison: I might be wrong.3 Nakisha: We don’t care as long as it’s completed.4 Allison: Good, she’s not complaining, ‘cause I don’t know if I’m right

or not.

Doria then continued to compare her answers with Allison’s, changingsome of her answers to match Allison’s, without any discussion of thecontent when they differed.

Students’ focus on completing tasks can be understood in the largercontext of the assignments, which tended to emphasize finishing thetasks. Most of the activities done in the cooperative learning groupsinvolved students working on worksheets, of which each student hada copy, and which were to be filed in their social studies notebooks.Mrs. Parker collected the notebooks at the end of each grading periodand graded them on the presence of completed worksheets. The infor-mation on the worksheets was partly the basis for individually takenquizzes and tests.13

The emphasis on finishing assignments in contrast to understandingthe content is not unusual. After reviewing studies on the nature ofacademic tasks, Doyle and Carter (1984) concluded that “teachers’ andstudents’ attention in classrooms is often dominated by concerns formaintaining order and finishing assignments” (p. 129).

Substance of the Task

The substance of the task assigned helped us understand the kindof opportunity for acquiring academic English that L2 learners re-ceived. For example, all of the instances of help with decoding aca-demic terms were provided during group reading tasks in which onestudent read aloud while the others followed along silently.

When L2 learners received help with the conventions of writtenEnglish, the focus was on spelling or on the timeline register. L2learners did not receive help in social studies cooperative learninggroups related to the more complex aspects of written English. This

13 The notebooks also served another function in Mrs. Parker’s view. She felt that the emphasison order and maintaining the notebook over a grading period would help the studentslearn a skill that would serve them well when they went to middle school the next year.


seems to be because most of the writing was not connected text butinvolved filling in blanks or making lists. If students are not given thetask to write a paragraph, for example, they will not have to deal withmore complex issues of writing. Moreover, the teacher’s instructionsto students when assigning more complex writing will influence thestudents’ foci in requesting or giving help.

The lexical and conceptual explorations of academic language oc-curred during tasks that were generative, requiring the student toproduce multiple and divergent ideas. An example occurred in Marchwhen students were asked to list their inferences from pictures ofEgyptian families. This suggests that the divergent nature of the taskmay have created a situation that fostered a more generative andcreative mindset in the students.

Participant Structures

The concept of participant structure is a way to look at the socialorganization of a task. It refers to “patterns in the allocation of interfa-ctional rights and obligations among all the members who [are] enactinga social occasion together” (Shultz, Florio, & Erickson, 1982, p. 94).

Mrs. Parker set up three kinds of participant structures for coopera-tive learning: completely cooperative, helping required, and helpingoptional. In the completely cooperative structure students were re-quired to work together jointly to complete the task. In the helpingrequired structure students were told to help one another to completethe task; in the helping optional students were encouraged but notrequired to help one another.

However, the way the teacher structured the groups was not alwayshow the groups functioned. Students often modified the participantstructure set up by the teacher. The participant structure enacted bythe students helped us understand the occurrence of missed opportu-nities and negative input for L2 learners.

All but one instance of negative input and missed opportunitiesoccurred when completely cooperative structures that the teacher hadset up were not fully enacted by the students. The one exception(an instance of negative input) occurred within a helping optionalstructure. Thus, these instances occurred when the students did notsustain a completely cooperative structure or when they chose not tohelp under the helping optional structure.

In Example 9 above, Sung Min received negative input when hesought clarification of the group’s next task. Mrs. Parker had told theteams to read a worksheet and answer the questions on it together,but the focus team had not read the material aloud jointly because

272 TESOL QUARTERLY

they could not agree on who would read. The instance of negativeinput occurred when Sung Min had finished reading the worksheetand asked about the next task.

There was variability in the degree to which the completely coopera-tive structures broke down. Partial breakdowns involved the studentsworking individually but sharing their ideas aloud or only part of thegroup working together cooperatively. Complete breakdowns involvedstudents working on their own without any sharing of ideas. Taskdifficulty seemed to be interwoven with breakdown of participantstructures in the occurrence of missed opportunities.

Difficulty of the Task

We analyzed task difficulty by categorizing tasks into comprehension,analysis, and synthesis tasks (Bloom, 1956). We also examined thetranscripts for evidence regarding the students’ experience with a task,and found that some “easy” comprehension tasks were experiencedas difficult by the students.

Missed opportunities occurred during completely cooperative struc-tures when there was a partial breakdown of that structure and thecontent was experienced by the students as difficult (4 cases), or whenthe completely cooperative structure that the teacher had set up brokedown completely (1 case).

In Example 8, L2 learner Woody did not have his question aboutfactors answered by his peers. Mrs. Parker had told the class to worktogether to arrive at their answers. The focus team partially enactedthis structure by working individually but sharing their thoughts andideas aloud. The comprehension question being addressed in Example8 (“What are some factors that contribute to dense populations inAfrica?”) was difficult for the team. Various students read the questionaloud, for a total of five times, but no one ventured an answer aloud.One student suggested skipping the question. Another, after readingthe question aloud, immediately said, “I have no idea,” and proceededto read the next question.

Difficult tasks that Mrs. Parker asked the students to carry out inchallenging ways (i.e., completely cooperatively), seemed to providehigh potential/high risk opportunities. Although such tasks and partici-pant structures can lead to opportunities to learn challenging academiclanguage and provide settings for true collaboration and growth, ouranalyses indicate that they also raise the chance of missed opportunitiesoccurring. It seems that when completely cooperative structures brokedown partially, and students were confronted with tasks they foundchallenging, they were less willing or able to help each other.


CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Our findings present a complex story. In the social studies classroomwe studied, the Learning Together method of cooperative learningprovided L2 learners with a wide range of opportunities to acquireacademic English. Many of these included both input and outputopportunities, indicating that L2 learners helped others as much asthey were helped. However, except for help with decoding academicterms, the various kinds of opportunities occurred relatively infre-quently. Moreover, there were some missed opportunities and somenegative input. Several local contextual features (students’ definitionsof the task, features of the tasks, and participant structures) helpedus understand the complex picture we found.

Other features of the context influence what happens in cooperativelearning (Jacob, 1993). For example, Cohen’s (1993, 1994; Cohen,Lotan, & Catanzarite, 1990) research indicates that status relationsamong students influence the frequency with which students contrib-ute in small-group settings. Such status relations might have influencedthe interactions between native English speakers and L2 learners, andthus L2 learners’ opportunities for acquiring academic English in thecooperative learning groups examined here. However, examinationof status relations and other contextual features is beyond the scopeof this article but will be addressed in future work.

Our findings indicate that cooperative learning can be useful forSLA by providing opportunities for input (Long, 1983, 1985; Pica,Young, & Doughty, 1994; Rivers, 1994) and output (Swain, 1985;Swain & Lapkin, 1989). The existence of categories that involved bothinput and output, and frequent occurrence of utterances that func-tioned as both input and output, suggest that it may not be productiveto argue whether input or output is more central to SLA in cooperativelearning because they frequently appear to be intertwined and co-occur.

The mixed picture of positive opportunities and lost potential isconsistent with other research in mainstream classrooms. Cohen (Co-hen, 1993; Cohen, Lotan, & Catanzarite, 1990) reported on the needfor extensive intervention to achieve the desired results. Work by Castleand Arends (1992) and by Meloth and Deering (1994) report mixedresults from studies in grade-level classrooms with native Englishspeakers. Such findings support a more contextually sensitive approachto the implementation of cooperative learning. Cooperative learningis not a silver bullet; neither does it deserve to be one more innovationthat is tossed out when it does not work. It is a potentially powerfulinstructional strategy that requires careful attention.

Our contextual data help us understand why experimental studies

274 TESOL QUARTERLY

that report positive results have been followed by studies of cooperativelearning in everyday classrooms that report mixed results. In conduct-ing field experiments, researchers are careful to control the implemen-tation of cooperative learning. Such control is difficult, if not impossi-ble, in actual classrooms. Moreover, as our study has shown, contextualfactors can help understand the processes that ensue when cooperativelearning is implemented in classrooms. This suggests that contextualfactors must be taken into account when disseminating cooperativelearning if the innovation is to achieve its full potential.

Just as context provides a way to begin to understand the complexpicture we found of cooperative learning, we think that attention tocontext also provides an avenue for teachers to help them maximizethe effectiveness of cooperative learning in their classrooms. Our studymight seem to offer some specific suggestions to teachers for maximiz-ing cooperative learning’s effectiveness, but we do not want to suggestthat the contextual patterns we found will automatically be applicableelsewhere. The issue of whether some contextual features have recur-ring influences will have to be determined empirically.

In the classroom we studied, the teacher did not explicitly have SLAas a goal for her use of cooperative learning. However, she saw somebenefits for L2 learners, namely developing’ vocabulary, improvingcomprehension, and reducing their anxiety at reading aloud.

Recent efforts to integrate language and content and to team L2teachers with grade-level teachers suggest that supporting SLA shouldbean instructional goal for grade-level teachers. Other work has devel-oped a broad, complex approach to academic language that couldbeneficially inform such goals. For example, Kutz, Groden, and Zamel(1993) argued that academic language should be understood as en-abling students to become participants in an academic community:

It is not a specific set of truths, attitudes, or set forms of discourse thatour students must acquire . . . . To be effective learners, our students haveto care about the problems, issues, and concepts that are under discussionin our classes, they have to feel that these matter. They also have to feel thatthey have both the right and the responsibility to engage in the discussions:questioning and challenging the ideas of authors, professors, and otherstudents; analyzing and applying the concepts they are being taught; andreflecting skeptically on the terms and claims they encounter. (p. 81)

Our findings suggest that teachers who want to maximize the benefitsof cooperative learning in support of SLA need to have a broad under-standing of academic language like that summarized above, includeSLA in their instructional goals, structure classroom tasks to supportthe desired opportunities for L2 learners, monitor what is happeningin the groups, and fine tune their implementation if they are not


getting what they want. There must be “continual, ongoing assessmentof activities” (D. M. Johnson, 1994, p. 204). Our findings supportothers’ arguments for a reflective approach to cooperative learning(e.g., D. M. Johnson, 1994) and to programs for L2 learners morebroadly (Milk, Mercado, & Sapiens, 1992).

Some existing manuals for cooperative learning offer some tools forteachers to monitor group activities (e.g., Cohen, 1994; D. W. Johnson& R. T. Johnson, 1984; Kagan, 1989). Ford (1991) offers an observa-tional scheme for monitoring whether L2 learners in cooperative learn-ing groups display the discourse features that theorists suggest shouldfoster SLA. The teacher research literature (e.g., Hubbard & Power,1993) also offers general guidelines for teachers interested in monitor-ing the processes and outcomes of their instructional activities. Therecent trend toward L2 teachers working collaboratively with grade-level teachers offers an important opportunity in this regard. Withtwo teachers present in a classroom, one might focus on monitoringwhile the other directs a lesson.

Although the story we present here is more complex than is usuallypresented about an innovation in a classroom, we think that it is closerto reality than studies that present simpler stories of success or failure.We hope that it will lead to more studies of the complexity of coopera-tive learning and other instructional innovations and that it will encour-age teachers to monitor and fine tune their uses of cooperative learningrather than assuming that they are working or throwing them out atthe first sign that they are not working as well as hoped.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Donna Christian, Virginia Collier, Bruce Davis,Deborah Short, and anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier draftsof this article, and Steven Weinberger for his helpful consultations.

THE AUTHORS

Evelyn Jacob is Professor, Graduate School of Education, George Mason Univer-sity. She is interested in the roles of culture and context in educational innovationsand in the educational experiences of culturally diverse students. She is currentlywriting a book that examines contextual influences on cooperative learning in twoculturally diverse classrooms. She co-edited with Cathie Jordan Minority education:Anthropological perspectives (Ablex) and has written about qualitative researchmethods.

Lori Rottenberg has a Masters in Linguistics and ESL Literacy from George MasonUniversity. Having spent several years as a writer for nonprofit organizations, she

276 TESOL QUARTERLY

is interested in contrastive rhetoric and cohesion in nonnative writing. She hastaught ESL at adult education programs in the Washington, DC area and currentlyworks for the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, where she man-ages a national pesticide education program for migrant farmworkers.

Sondra K. Patrick is finishing her PhD in Education at George Mason University(GMU), specializing in educational research and higher education administration.In addition to teaching education research methods, she is director of GMU’sfaculty development program. Her research interests focus on teaching and learn-ing in culturally diverse college classrooms and faculty development.

Edyth Wheeler is a lecturer and researcher in Early Childhood Education atGeorge Mason University. Her research interest is young children’s peer conflicts.She teaches and supervises students in a combined licensure program in earlychildhood, early childhood special education, and English as a second Language.Additional research includes evaluation of hands-on science teaching in elemen-tary classrooms in Washington, DC.

REFERENCES

Bejarano, Y. (1987). A cooperative small-group methodology in the languageclassroom. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 483–504.

Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educationalgoals. New York: Longman.

Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (1992). Qualitative research for education: An introduc-tion to theory and methods. (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Castle, S., & Arends, R. (1992, April). The practice of teaching: Cooperative learning.Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Educational ResearchAssociation, San Francisco, CA.

Cochran-Smith, M., Paris, C., & Kahn, J. (1992). Learning to write differently. Nor-wood, NJ: Ablex.

Cohen, E. (1993). From theory to practice: The development of an applied re-search program. In J. Berger & M. Zelditch, Jr. (Eds.), Theoretical research pro-grams: Studies in the growth of theory (pp. 385–415). Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press.

Cohen, E. (1994). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom. (2nded.). Minneapolis, MN: Interaction Book Co.

Cohen, E., Lotan, R., & Catanzarite, L. (1990). Treating status problems in thecooperative classroom. In S. Sharan (Ed.), Cooperative learning: Theory and research(pp. 203–229). New York: Praeger.

Collier, V. P. (1987). Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academicpurposes. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 617–641.

Cummins, J. (1981). Age on arrival and immigrant second language learning inCanada: A reassessment. Applied Linguistics, 2, 132–149.

Cummins, J. (1984). Language proficiency, bilingualism and academic achieve-ment. In J. Cummins, Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment andpedagogy (pp. 130–151). San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press.

Dalton, E. R. (1982). IPT I: Technical Manual, English. Brea, CA: Ballard & Tighe.Donaldson, M. (1978). Children’s minds. London: Fontana/Collins.


Doyle, W., & Carter, K. (1984). Academic tasks in classrooms. Curriculum Inquiry,14, 129–149.

Duncan, S. E., & DeAvila, E. A. (1988). Technical report, validity and reliability: LASR/W. Monterey, CA: CTB/McGraw-Hill.

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. (1990). Volume 12, no. 3.Elmore, R., & McLaughlin, M. (1988). Steady work: Policy, practice, and the reform

of American education. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.Enright, D. S., & McCloskey, M. (1988). Integrating English: Developing English

language and literacy in multilingual classrooms. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Faltis, C. J. (1993). Joinfostering: Adapting teaching strategies for the multilingual class-

room. New York: Macmillan.Ferguson, C. A. (1975). Toward a characterization of English foreigner talk.

Anthropological Linguistics, 17, 1–14Flanigan, B. (1991). Peer tutoring and second language acquisition in the elemen-

tary school. Applied Linguistics, 12, 141–158.Ford, E. (1991). Criteria for developing an observation scheme for cooperative

language learning. Canadian Modern Language Review, 48, 45–63.Holt, D. (1994). Cooperative learning: A positive response to linguistic diversity.

Cooperative Learning, 14, 4–5.Hubbard, R. S., & Power, B. M. (1993). The art of classroom inquiry: A handbook for

teacher-researchers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Jacob, E. (1993, November). It depends on the situation: Teachers’ uses of cooperative

learning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropologi-cal Association, Washington, DC.

Jacobs, S. (1990). Building hierarchy: Learning the language of tbe science do-main, Ages 10–13. In U. Connor & A. Johns (Eds.), Coherence in writing: Researchand pedagogical perspectives (pp. 151–168). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Johnson, D. M. (1994). Grouping strategies for second language learners. InF. Genesee (Ed.), Educating second language children: The whole child, the wholecurriculum, the whole community (pp. 183–211). Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Johnson, D. W. (1983). Circles of learning (video cassette format). New Brighton,MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., &Johnson, R. T. (1984). Cooperation in the classroom. Minneapolis,MN: Interaction Book Co.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E.J. ( 1986). Circles of learning: Coopera-tion in the classroom. (Rev. ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision andCurriculum Development.

Kagan, S. (1985) Cooperative learning: Resources for teachers. (Rev. ed.). LagunaNiguel, CA: Resources for teachers.

Kagan, S. (1989). Cooperative learning: Resources for teachers. Laguna Niguel, CA:Resources for Teachers.

Kagan, S. (1992). Cooperative learning. San Juan Capistrano, CA: Kagan Coopera-tive Learning.

Kessler, C. (Ed.). (1992). Cooperative language learning: A teacher’s resource book.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. London: Longman.Kutz, E., Groden, S. Q., & Zamel, V. (1993). The discovery of competence: Teaching

and learning with diverse student writers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.Lara, J. (1993). Status relationship in multi-ethnic cooperative learning groups

(Doctoral dissertation, George Mason University, 1993). Dissertation AbstractsInternational-A, 54/02, p. 420.

278 TESOL QUARTERLY

Lemke, J. (1982). Classsroom communication of science (Final Report, NSF/RISE#SEDR 79–18961). New York: City University of New York, Brooklyn Collegeof Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 222 346)

Long, M. (1983). Linguistic and conversational adjustments to nonnative speakers.Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5, 177–193.

Long, M. (1985). Input and second language acquisition theory. In S. Gass &C. Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 377–393). Rowley,MA: Newbury House.

Long, M., Adams, L., McLean, M., & Castanos, F. (1976). Doing things withwords—Verbal interaction in lockstep and small group classroom situations. InJ. Fanselow & R. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL ’76 (pp. 137–153). Washington,DC: TESOL.

Long, M., & Porter, P. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and second lan-guage acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 206–228.

Meloth, M., & Deering, P. (1994). Task talk and task awareness under differentcooperative learning conditions. American Educational Research Journal, 31, 138–165.

Michaels, S. (1990). The computer as a dependent variable. Theory into Practice,29, 246–255.

Milk, R., Mercado, C., & Sapiens, A. (1992). Re-thinking the education of teachers oflanguage minority children: Developing reflective teachers for changing schools (Occa-sional Papers in Bilingual Education, No. 6). Washington, DC: National Clear-inghouse for Bilingual Education.

Nilsen, D. F., & Nilsen, A. P. (1978). Language play: An introduction to linguistics.Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Pace, G. (1992). Stories of teacher-initiated change from traditional to whole-language literacy instruction. Elementary School Journal, 92, 461–476.

Pica, T., & Doughty, C. (1985). The role of group work in classroom secondlanguage acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7, 233–248.

Pica, T., Young, R., & Doughty, C. (1994). The impact of interaction on compre-hension. In R. Barasch & C. James (Eds.), Beyond the monitor model: Commentson current theory and practice in second language acquisition (pp. 97–119). Boston,MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Rivers, W. (1994). Comprehension and production: The interactive duo. InR. Barasch & C. James (Eds.), Beyond the monitor model: Comments on current theoryand practice in second language acquisition (pp. 71–95). Boston, MA: Heinle &Heinle.

Saville-Troike, M. (1984). The ethnography of communication. (2nd ed.). Oxford:Blackwell.

Sharan, S., Bejarano, Y., Kussell, P., & Peleg, R. (1984). Achievement in Englishlanguage and in literature. In S. Sharan, P. Kussell, R. Hertz-Lazarowitz,Y. Bejarano, S. Raviv, & Y. Sharan (Eds.), Cooperative learning in the classroom:Research in desegregated schools (pp. 46–72). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Short, D. (1994). Expanding middle school horizons: Integrating language, cul-ture, and social studies. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 581–608.

Shultz, J., Florio, S., & Erickson, F. (1982). Where’s the floor? Aspects of thecultural organization of social relationships in communication at home and inschool. In P. Gilmore & A. Glatthorn (Eds.), Children in and out of school: Ethnogra-phy and education (pp. 88–123). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Slavin, R. (1986). Using student team learning: The Johns Hopkins Team LearningProject. (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University, Center forResearch on Elementary and Middle Schools.


Spanos, G., Rhodes, N., Dale, T. C., & Crandall, J. (1988). Linguistic features ofmathematical problem solving: Insights and applications. In R. Cocking &J. Mestre (Eds.), Linguistic and cultural influences on mathematics learning (pp. 221-240). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensibleinput and comprehensible output in its development. In S. Gass & C. Madden(Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 235–253). Rowley, MA: NewburyHouse.

Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1989). Canadian immersion and adult second languageteaching: What is the connection? Modern Language Journal, 73, 150–159.

Wong Fillmore, L. (1991). Second language learning in children: A model oflanguage learning in social context. In E. Bialystok (Ed.), Language processingin bilingual children (pp. 49–69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

280 TESOL QUARTERLY


Teachers’ Maxims inLanguage Teaching

JACK C. RICHARDSThe University of Auckland

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in general researchon teaching as well as research on L2 teachers, in the mental images,thoughts, and processes teachers employ while they teach. Thesemental processes are believed to provide interpretative frames whichteachers use to understand and approach their own teaching. Thisarticle focuses on the nature and role of teaching principles. Observa-tions of teachers and conversations with them about how they conducttheir lessons suggest that teachers develop personal principles whichinform their approach to teaching. These principles function likerules for best behaviour, or maxims, and guide many of the teachers’instructional decisions. The nature of teachers’ maxims is discussedthrough analysis of teachers’ accounts of their teaching and lessonprotocols. Teachers’ maxims appear to reflect cultural factors, beliefsystems, experience, and training, and the understanding of whichmaxims teachers give priority to and how they influence teachers’practices is an important goal in teacher development. Implicationsfor teacher education are discussed.

The final source of the knowledge base [of teaching] is the least codifiedof all. It is the wisdom of practice itself, the maxims that guide (orprovide reflective rationalization for) the practice of able teachers. (Shul-man j 1987, p. 11)

I n recent years, research on teaching has attempted to understandteaching from the inside, rather than from the outside in (Cochran-

Smith & Lytle, 1990). In both general research on teaching (e.g., Cor-tazzi, 1991) as well as research on L2 teaching (e. g., Bailey & Nunan,1995), the need to listen to teachers’ voices in understanding classroompractice has been emphasized.

What is missing from the knowledge base for teaching, therefore, are thevoices of the teachers themselves, the questions teachers ask, the way teach-ers use writing and intentional talk in their work lives, and the interpretive

281

frames teachers use to understand and improve their own classroom prac-tices. (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, p. 2)

Such an approach seeks to understand teaching in its own terms andin ways in which it is understood by teachers. This approach is incontrast to earlier research traditions which presented an outsider’sperspective on teaching and sought to identify quantifiable classroombehaviors and their effects on learning outcomes (Dunkin & Biddle,1974; Chaudron, 1988). This article further explores an insider’s per-spective on teaching by examining teachers’ understanding of teachingand the motivations for language teachers’ decisions and actions duringteaching. It seeks to explain the basis for teachers’ interventions interms of working principles or maxims which teachers consciously orunconsciously refer to as they teach. The nature of these maxims andthe ways in which they shape teachers’ interpretation and managementof teaching are also explored.

TWO DIMENSIONS OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE

Teachers employ different types of conceptual organization andmeaning when they teach. One level of meaning relates to subjectmatter knowledge and how teachers conceptualize curricular and con-tent aspects of teaching (Shulman, 1987). Woods (in press) describesteachers’ conceptions of lessons as made up of conceptual units orelements at different levels of abstraction. He distinguishes betweenoverall conceptual goals—the overall purpose teachers identify for acourse; global conceptual units—the individual subcomponents of thecurriculum (e.g., the grammar, reading, writing, and listening compo-nents of an integrated skills course); intermediate conceptual units— activi-ties or clusters of activities framed in terms of accomplishing one ofthe higher level conceptual goals; local conceptual units— the specificthings teachers do to achieve particular instructional effects. Otherconstructs which have been proposed to account for how teachersrealize the curricular agendas they set for lessons and the kinds ofcognitive processes they employ include lesson formats (Wong Fillmore,1985), tasks, (Doyle, 1983), scripts, and routines (Shavelson & Stern,1981). Constructs such as the ones above seek to describe how teachersapproach the subject matter of teaching and how they transform con-tent into learning. Much of this research has drawn on a frameworkof cognitive psychology and has provided evidence of the kinds ofpedagogical content knowledge, reasoning, and problem solving teach-ers make use of as they teach (Clift, 1991).

In addition to the curricular goals and content which lessons are

282 TESOL QUARTERLY

planned around, teachers have other more personal views of teaching.Zeichner, Tabachnick, and Densmore (1987) try to capture this withthe notion of perspective, which they define as the ways in which teachersunderstand, interpret, and define their environment and use suchinterpretation to guide their actions. They followed teachers throughtheir year-long professional training and their first year of teachingand found that teachers’ personal perspectives served as powerfulinfluences on how they taught. In describing the basis for teachers’conceptualizations of good teaching, Clandinin (1985) introduces theconcept of image, which she describes as “a central construct for under-standing teachers’ knowledge” (p. 363). An image is a metaphor suchas the classroom as home, setting up a relationship with children,meeting the needs of students, which teachers may have in mind whenthey teach. Johnston (1992) suggests that images such as these are notalways conscious, reflect how teachers view themselves in their teachingcontexts, and form the subconscious assumptions on which their teach-ing practices are based. In a study of what L2 teachers perceive to begood classes, Senior (1995) found that experienced ESL teachers inan Australian educational setting attempting to implement a communi-cative methodology, appeared to have arrived at the tacit assumptionthat to promote successful language learning, it is necessary to developa bonded class, that is, one in which there is a positive, mutuallysupportive group atmosphere. The teachers appeared to employ arange of both conscious and unconscious strategies in order to developa spirit of cohesion within their class groups.

Halkes and Deijkers (1984) refer to teachers’ teaching criteria, whichthey characterize as personal values teachers pursue and use whileteaching. Teachers hold personal views of themselves, their learners,their goals, and their role in the classroom, and presumably try toreflect these in their teaching. Marland (1987) examined the principlesthat teachers use to guide and interpret their teaching and identifiedfive such working principles which were derived from stimulated recallinterviews with teachers. For example, the principle of progressivechecking involved checking students’ progress periodically, identifyingproblems, and providing individual encouragement for low-ability stu-dents. Conners (1978) studied elementary teachers and found that allnine teachers in her study used three overarching principles of practiceto guide and explain their interactive teaching behaviour: suppressingemotions, teacher authenticity, and self monitoring. The principle ofteacher authenticity involved the teacher presenting herself in sucha way that good personal relationships with students and a sociallysupportive classroom atmosphere would be achieved. This principlerequired the teacher to attempt to be open, sincere, honest, as well asfallible.

TEACHER'S MAXIMS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING 283

In summary, two different kinds of knowledge influence teachers’understanding and practice of teaching. One relates to subject matterand curricular issues and how the content of a lesson can be presentedin an effective and coherent way. This is the aspect of teaching thathas to do with curricular goals, lesson plans, instructional activities,materials, tasks, and teaching techniques. The other kind of knowledgerelates to the teacher’s personal and subjective philosophy of teachingand the teacher’s view of what constitutes good teaching. It is thisdimension of teaching that forms the focus of this article.

TEACHERS’ ACCOUNTS OF WHAT THEYSET OUT TO ACHIEVE IN LESSONS

When teachers talk about their teaching they generally present arational view of the kind of learning environment they try to createin their classes. They often describe their approach to lessons in termsof beliefs or principles which they try to put into practice in theirteaching, reflecting their individual belief systems. Teachers’ beliefsystems are founded on the goals, values, and beliefs teachers hold inrelation to the content and process of teaching and their understandingof the systems in which they work and their roles within it. Thesebeliefs and values serve as the background to much of the teachers’decision making and action and hence constitute what has been termedthe culture of teaching (Richards & Lockhart, 1994). Teachers’ beliefsystems are stable sources of reference for teachers, are built up gradu-ally over time, and relate to such dimensions of teaching as the teachers’theory of language, the nature of language teaching, the role of theteacher, effective teaching practices, and teacher-student relations(Johnson, 1992).

Teachers are generally articulate in describing their belief systems,as the following extracts from conversations with teachers illustrate.1

Celia, a British Council ESL teacher in Hong Kong, completed hereducation degree in the 1960s and taught elementary school childrenfor many years but only recently returned to L2 teaching. Both herearlier experience as a primary teacher and her more recent experienceas a teacher of adults have influenced her approach to teaching.

I think it’s important to be positive as a personality. I think the teacher hasto be a positive person. I think you have to show a tremendous amount ofpatience. And I think that if you have a good attitude you can project

1 The teachers’ narratives cited in this paper are part of a corpus of teacher narratives,teacher interviews, and lesson observations, collected with the assistance of the BritishCouncil, Hong Kong, in 1995. All names are pseudonyms.

284 TESOL QUARTERLY

this to the students and hopefully establish a relaxed atmosphere in yourclassroom so that they will not dread to come to class but have a good class.I feel that it’s important to have a lesson plan. Even though I did teachmany years ago, at this stage coming back into the classroom, I think it’simportant to have a lesson plan of some sort. Because you need to knowwhat you want to teach and how you are going to go from the beginningto the end. And also taking into consideration the students, where theirability is, what their background is. I have been in situations where I didnot understand what was being taught or what was being said, and howfrustrating it is and so when I try to approach it I say: How can I make itthe easiest way for them to understand what they need to learn?

Celia’s philosophy emphasizes the teacher’s attitude and the need tocreate a supportive environment for learning in the classroom. Sheemphasises the need for lesson planning but her justification for lessonplans is based on helping the students rather than helping the teacher.

Teresa, who also teaches for the British Council in Hong Kong, hasmore than 10 years teaching experience in a wide variety of situations,and is a certified TESL teacher and teacher trainer. Over the years,her view of her role as a teacher has changed, moving from an earlierphase where she favoured a teacher-led, tightly planned and executedapproach to teaching, to her current approach in which she sees herselfas more of a guide or facilitator; she tries to create lessons whichenhance communication and cooperation between learners and inwhich the teacher takes a back seat.

She tries to implement this philosophy in every lesson, including abusiness English class she is currently teaching. Prior to one of herlessons she described the approach she planned to take to the lesson.

I know it’s a business lesson but I really like to activate their knowledge.My beliefs are very much humanitarian in that they will learn if they feela warm cooperative atmosphere in the classroom, so I’m very concernedthat they build up a trust amongst themselves, and with me, so I like themto do activities that are more student-centred rather than relying on theteacher all the time. I’d like to be more a guide, a motivator rather thanthe one-and-all person who knows it all. A lot of students here are reluctantto accept that. They are reluctant to take on that responsibility. So sometimesit’s like teaching them how to learn, and I find it a bit frustrating sometimes.I feel that perhaps they come in with expectations which aren’t met. Somestudents receive those ideas very well and other students have barriers. Sothat’s me as a teacher, and I like to vary things very much especially inthree hours and twenty minutes. It’s just very tiring. So I love to havevariety of activities and that you could only do standing on your feet, in away.

Here Teresa articulates a student-based approach to teaching that isdependent on establishing trust between the students and the teacher.

TEACHER’S MAXIMS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING 285

In order to achieve a student-centred lesson, Teresa conducts most ofthe lesson as small-group activities, with students working on tasks inpairs or groups and carrying out many of the functions that the teachermight perform in a more teacher-fronted class. The teacher’s roleis limited to setting up activities, monitoring activities, occasionallycorrecting errors, and maintaining variety and pace throughout thelesson. To enable her to achieve variety and timing she makes useof a brief written lesson plan and monitors students’ interest levelthroughout the lesson to decide when to move from one activity tothe next. As she says,

The final judge [of whether to keep to the lesson plan or not] is theatmosphere in the class and the looks on my students’ faces.

As the examples above illustrate, teachers are generally concernedwith more than simply issues of curriculum content. When they teachthey also attempt to implement a personal philosophy of teachingwhich reflects their understanding and beliefs about what good teach-ing is and how it is achieved.

THE NATURE OF TEACHERS’ MAXIMS

Maxim: A rule for good or sensible behaviour, especially one which isin the form of a proverb or short staying. (Cobuild English LanguageDictionary)

Conversations with teachers such as the ones above and observationsof how teachers conduct their lessons suggest that teachers’ beliefsystems lead to the development of rational principles which serve asa source of how teachers interpret their responsibilities and implementtheir plans and which motivate teachers’ interactive decisions duringa lesson. These principles function like rules for best behaviour in thatthey guide the teacher’s selection of choices from among a range ofalternatives. They hence function as maxims which guide the teacher’sactions. These maxims are reflected both in how teachers conduct theirteaching as well as in the language they use to talk about it.

Some interesting examples of the role of teachers’ maxims in L1teaching are given in Cortazzi (1991). He examined 1,000 narratives(accounts of personal experiences) from elementary school teachersdiscussing their beliefs, perceptions, values, perspectives on teaching,and accounts of teaching incidents. Although the teachers in his samplewere not teaching L2 students, several general working principlesrecurred in the teachers’ narratives, including: treat each child as anindividual, be flexible and play it by ear, and maintain a sense ofhumour.

286 TESOL QUARTERLY

An example of a teacher responding to a personal maxim and aban-doning her lesson plan as a consequence is seen in the following extractfrom one of the narratives in Cortazzi’s study:

Most of the teaching has to be very planned, sometimes things might cropup. Well, you know we’re doing this book about your school, well, it wassomebody’s birthday in the unit (for partially hearing children). So I de-cided, “Right, how old are you?” So I taught them to lip read the question,“How old are you?”And they’ve learnt to write “I’m 5,” “I’m 6,” “I’m 7.”And then cropped up, something I hadn’t planned for but which croppedup because one of the children in the unit, she was 8. She’s in the otherclass.And I just jumped on it. So whatever else I had planned for the day I justdidn’t do because something else had come up that was much more exciting.I mean, it may not sound exciting to you, but for me . . . we have to makethings exciting, we have to grasp anything we can use.Well, basically my teaching is planned because I’ve got to have a schemeof work in my mind, but I do play it by ear to a certain extent you’ve gotto, if you’ve got something of interest you’ll get far more from the childrenusing it there and then. (Cortazzi, 1991, pp. 68–69)

In this extract, the teacher explains how she abandoned what shehad planned for a lesson and improvised a lesson around her pupils’ages, based on the children’s response to something that occurred inthe book they were reading. The teacher made an interactive decisionbecause “something else had come up that was much more exciting.”The teacher rationalizes this as “we have to make things exciting, wehave to grasp anything we can use.” This teacher is responding to animplicit maxim which can be stated as:

The Maxim of Involvement: Follow the learners’ interests to maintain studentinvolvement.

When faced with a choice between following her lesson plan and doingsomething more exciting, the teacher opts for the second option be-cause it will be more engaging for her learners.

An example of a L2 teacher using a similar maxim is given in Woods(in press), which includes case studies of two teachers teaching the sameESL course in a Canadian university. One of the teachers reported thatthe primary belief which influenced his approach to the course centredon the importance of student involvement in the content of the courseand the notion of student responsibility. The teacher believed in alearner-centred rather than teacher-centred classroom.

In discussing the teacher’s approach to his teaching Woods (in press)describes how this belief influences the teacher’s decision making.


For this teacher, moment-to-moment decisions in the lesson were influencedby the students. In the videotaped lesson, there were many points at whichhis decisions were affected by a consideration of the learners which overrodethe curriculum and his lesson plan. One activity in the lesson had twoplanned components; but the second one was abandoned when it becameclear that the lesson had evolved in a different direction led by the interestsof the learners. He made particular decisions on the spot on how to groupthe students for an activity in order to avoid certain personality clashes,and then he joined the groups in a certain order and dealt with the studentsin specific ways, decisions which were later elaborated on while watchingthe videotape in terms of his past experiences with these students, in termsof their personalities and working habits, and in terms of the preparationthey had done for the activity. All of these factors influenced who he satdown with and what issues he broached.Even at the most local level of his classroom decision-making, his style ofspeech with the students reflected an attitude of working things out withthe students as the lesson proceeded. For example, when a learner broughtup a point that he had not planned, he said, “OK, I agree with you there. ”When he discussed his planning in the interviews as well, the content ofhis discourse as well as the style revealed a readiness to go wherever thestudents took him. (Woods, in press)

Woods attributes the teacher’s beliefs about effective teaching to hisown experience as a language learner and his teaching experience.

In contrast to the teacher described above, Woods describes a casestudy of another teacher working in the same ESL programme forwhom the planned curriculum was the primary reference point inher teaching. Her concern throughout her teaching was to cover thematerial prescribed in the curriculum and consequently to ensure thatmaterial she had planned to teach, got taught. A maxim she operatedfrom was:

The Maxim of Planning: Plan your teaching and try to follow your plan.

Woods gives an example of how this maxim influences the teachers’decision making during a lesson. The teacher is presenting a lessonon definitions and has a carefully planned outline for the lesson. Dur-ing the lesson a student volunteers an alternative interpretation of adefinition pattern she is presenting. But the teacher downplays thestudent’s comments to enable her to keep to her plan. She later com-ments:

After I did it [elicited the students’ opinions] I was glad that I did it becauseI thought it worked out well . . . and the information they provided mewith helped lead me to where I wanted to go, although I had to kind of fill outwhat they said because they were on the right track but they weren’t exactlygiving me what was necessary. In the afternoon class I did the same thing . . .

288 TESOL QUARTERLY

and that time it didn’t work as well because the students didn’t give me thekind of information I was looking for. (Woods, in press; italics added)

Woods comments that for this teacher, the preplanned curriculumwas central in her thinking. She involved the students only to theextent of helping her implement her preplanned lesson but was notprepared to depart from it in response to student feedback. Woodscomments:

At various points in the course when there was a conflict between stickingwith her planned curricular activity and following another direction initi-ated by the students, she made the decision to carry out the planned activity.

This teacher’s approach could be attributable to her personal style andher views about how a language is best taught. As she puts is,

I like things to be organized or else I feel out of control and nervous . . . .I’m one of those [people] who spends a lot of time organizing and planning. . . . (Woods, in press)

She viewed many aspects of language learning as mastery of a progres-sion of items,

beginning with the most basic in a simplified and decontextualized form,and leading to the more complex and more contextualized. Her commentsreflected a view that learning starts with explicit information, which firsthas to be consciously understood, and then has to be applied and practisedin order to be used in other contexts. (Woods, in press)

Differences between the implicit maxims underlying these two teach-ers does not imply however that the student-centred teacher was supe-rior to the curriculum-centred one. As Woods (in press) points out,Teacher A’s focus on the curriculum “does not imply a lack of concernfor the students, but rather a particular view of the roles of the curricu-lum and the students in the instantiation of the course.”

The way in which teachers’ personal maxims can lead to very differ-ent approaches to teaching is further illustrated in a case study of twoESL teachers in a Hong Kong secondary school, described in Tsui(1995). For one of the teachers, a central principle in her teaching isto keep the class disciplined and orderly so that students can learnmost effectively from her lessons. This can be described as the Maximof Order.

The Maxim of Order: Maintain order and discipline throughout the lesson.

The teacher is a Chinese woman with 8 years teaching experiencewho was teaching a secondary four (10th-grade) class. Her class wasregarded as one of the best in the school because of the students’academic results and their well-disciplined behaviour. She conducted


her class in a somewhat formal teacher-centred manner and judgedher lessons as effective according to whether they accomplished whatwas planned and achieved their learning outcomes. She saw her roleas to ensure that the classroom was a place where students couldlearn in a well-disciplined manner. Tsui (1995) attributes much of theteacher’s approach to her cultural and educational background:

May Ling had been brought up in the Chinese culture, which valued subser-vience to authority and emphasized observation of protocol. She had beeneducated in a system that viewed teachers as people with knowledge andwisdom, and in a society that held teachers in great respect. In this culture,the teacher’s role was to impart knowledge, the students’ role was to receiveknowledge, and the relationship between students and teachers was formal. . . .May Ling observed the traditional classroom protocols as an accepted meansof showing respect for the teacher. To her, the classroom is a place wherestudents learn in a well-disciplined manner, and the teacher should be incontrol of herself, her students, and her subject.Despite her wish to encourage student participation in her classes, herstudents “seldom volunteered answers, and she sometimes had to call onsomeone and wait for a long time before a response was forthcoming.”(p. 357)

Tsui compares this teacher with another teacher who was teachingstudents of the same level in the same school but whose class was verydifferent from May Ling’s. For him, a different maxim was central inhis approach to teaching:

The Maxim of Encouragement: Seek ways to encourage student learning.

This teacher was a New Zealander with 3 years of teaching experience,who attempted to break away from typical Hong Kong classroompractices in his class.

Students did not have to stand up to greet him, and they did not have toraise their hands or stand up when they answered questions. The classroomatmosphere was very relaxed. The students were noisier in the sense thatthey volunteered answers from their seats, and there was a lot more laugh-ter. George was quite happy to accept whatever contributions they made,whether they raised their hands or not. (Tsui, 1995, p. 357)

In comparison to the students in May Ling’s class, George’s studentswere much more confident and outspoken. When asking questions hewould give students time to discuss the question among themselvesbefore answering because he felt it made responding in front of theclass less threatening. He encouraged an informal relationship withhis students. He felt he was not obliged to follow conventional seatingarrangements with students in single rows but did whatever he felt

290 TESOL QUARTERLY

was necessary to promote student-student interaction. Tsui ( 1995) at-tributes this teacher’s approach to teaching to his Western culturalbackground.

George, had been brought up in the Western culture and had gone througha Western education system, in which more emphasis was placed on theindividual, most classrooms had done away with the traditional protocol,and the relationship between students and teachers was much less formal.These differences in cultural and educational backgrounds seemed to per-meate the practical theories underlying the two teachers’ classroom prac-tices. (Tsui, 1995, p. 359)

The examples discussed above demonstrate that teachers possessrational orientations toward teaching as well as personal beliefs aboutwhat constitutes good teaching and these lead them to try to createspecific conditions in their classrooms. These conditions reflect theteacher’s view of the role of the teacher and of the learners, theirbeliefs about the kind of classroom climate they think best supportslearning, what they believe constitutes good methodology, and thequality of classroom interaction and language use they seek to achieve.The working principles or maxims which teachers develop reflect theirpersonal and individual understanding of the “best” or “right” way toteach and provide the source for much of the teacher’s interactivedecisions throughout a lesson.

Other maxims which teachers refer to in describing their teachingphilosophies and which appear to account for many of their preactiveand interactive decisions include:

The Maxim of Accuracy: Work for accurate student output.The Maxim of Efficiency: Make the most efficient use of class time.The Maxim of Conformity: Make sure your teaching follows the prescribed method.The Maxim of Empowerment: Give the learners control.

Teachers presumably have a range of maxims they employ and inany particular lesson choose the ones which seem most likely to helpthem create a successful lesson. Maxims which a teacher seeks to realizein an elementary level class may be different from those the teacherfeels are appropriate for an advanced class. The constraints of theclassroom, however, often restrict the teacher’s choice of maxims, ac-counting for the fact that teachers sometimes do not practice whatthey preach. For example, Yim (1993) describes a study of L2 teachersin Singapore, who in describing their approach to teaching, articulateda clear preference for a communicative methodology in which thefocus was on authentic meaning-focused activities. But when observedin their classrooms, many of the teachers made greater use of accuracy-focused activities because they felt these were necessary in order to


prepare students for examinations. This problem is articulated byFrank, an experienced ESL teacher at the British Council in HongKong, who is committed to a communicative approach to teaching andwho sees his role as a facilitator whose role is to create an optimumlearning environment. In one of his observed lessons, however, thisphilosophy was less in evidence. It was more of a grammar-focusedseries of activities which culminated in a writing task. When asked if thislesson reflected his beliefs in a communicative approach to teaching, hecommented:

I don’t necessarily apply teaching principles all the time. My general princi-ple is just to make things student-centred and communicative. The problemwith this class is that I can’t always do that because people are very shy. Soyou can’t really make it student-centred because the students don’t sayanything. You have to call everyone by their name which makes it a littlebit more teacher-centred. It was communicative in a sense there were writingtogether in groups rather than on their own. That’s why I got them aroundthe table to emphasize they are not just working on their own.

Ulichny (1996) provides a detailed account of how a teacher renego-tiates her teaching in process as one working principle is replaced byanother. The teacher is an experienced ESL teacher teaching a collegeESL reading class. Among the principles the teacher sought to bringto her teaching was a belief in the need to help students see reading asthe building of meaning from texts (rather than focusing on linguisticforms), to create lessons that were at an appropriate level of difficultywhich were not discouraging to students, and to provide lessons inwhich students were actively engaged in reading rather than directedby the teacher. In a segment of a lesson Ulichny describes in detail,the teacher has assigned students to read a chapter from a sociologytext. She has given the class a simplified lecture that restates some ofthe main points of what they have read and the students are asked tolocate some of the main points in the text. As the lesson proceeds according to the teacher’s first principle of helping the students makemeaning from the text, she discovers that they have not understoodthe main points of her lecture. So she decides to adjust her plannedlesson in order “to make the text and the classroom talk comprehensibleto the students” (p. 184). A different principle now comes into play,the principle of creating a lesson at an appropriate level of difficulty,which she does by creating a scaffold or propositional structure of thetext through questions and answers with the students. Gradually theteacher takes on more of the tasks she had originally planned for thestudents to do.

Her first recourse in the face of difficulty is to simplify the level of thetask and to provide the class with more guidance to complete it. But when

292 TESOL QUARTERLY

these techniques fail, she pushes them forward onto the next question bycompleting the task herself. (Ulichny, 1996, p. 191)

Ulichny’s study demonstrates the interaction of different beliefs andprinciples during teaching as the teacher unconsciously weighs onefactor against another. Ulichny concludes:

I maintain that a teaching event is a constant mediation between enactingplanned activities and addressing students’ understandings, abilities, andmotivation to carry out the activity. How a teacher determines which activi-ties to engage the class in, how she assesses the students’ participation inthe task, and what she determines are reasons and remedies for lack ofadequate participation are the basic units of the teaching moment. Theparticular construction or “sense-making” of the moment is a product ofan individual teacher’s past learning and teaching experiences, beliefs aboutteaching and learning—from both professional training as well as folkwisdom gleaned from fellow teachers—and her particular personality.(Ulichny, 1996, p. 178)

Teachers’ maxims thus can be viewed as outcomes of teachers’ evolv-ing theories of teaching. They are personal working principles whichreflect teachers’ individual philosophies of teaching, developed fromtheir experience of teaching and learning, their teacher educationexperiences, and from their own personal beliefs and value systems.Maxims are more specific and practical than the images which havebeen described by researchers such as Clandinin (1985, 1986) andJohnston (1990, 1992). They can be regarded as images that have beentransformed into models for practical action. The development ofpersonal working principles or maxims can be viewed as an importantgoal in teacher development.

At the initial stages of teacher development, what Shulman (1987)terms instructional skills are a central component of the teacher’s exper-tise. Instructional skills refer to strategies for organizing and pres-enting content and for the effective management of teaching andlearning in the classroom. Developing skill in these aspects of teachinginvolves the mastery of routines and procedures which teachers cancall upon in order to move successfully through the agenda of a lesson(Berliner, 1987). To move to the next level in teaching involves thedevelopment of a personal theory of teaching, one containing a coher-ent set of beliefs, values, and principles that provide an orientation toteaching and a framework for practice. Elbaz (1981) refers to thisgrowth from use of procedures to the employment of principles bydistinguishing between “rules of practice” and “principles of practice,”the latter corresponding to the notion of teaching maxims presentedhere.


According to Elbaz, rules of practice are brief, clearly formulated statementsprescribing how to behave in frequently encountered teaching situations.Implementation of a rule of practice is a simple matter of recognizing asituation and remembering the rule. In contrast a principle of practice isa more general construct than a rule of practice, derived from personalexperience, and embodying purpose in a deliberate and reflective way,which can be drawn upon to guide a teacher’s actions and explain thereasons for those actions. (Clark & Peterson, 1986, p. 290)

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHER EDUCATION

The view of teaching presented here offers a perspective on teacherdevelopment which has some useful implications for teacher education.The focus on teachers’ subjective accounts of the principles underlyingeffective teaching offers an important perspective on what teaching isand how teachers acquire the capacity to teach. If teachers are guidedin their teaching both by personal maxims as well as by general instruc-tional considerations, the nature, status, and use of such maxims clearlydeserves recognition in teacher education programs.

Personal maxims or principles might provide a useful perspectivefor student teachers to examine in the course of their professionalpreparation, as they explore both their own thinking-in-action as wellas that of other teachers. The making explicit of beliefs, principles,and values can be an ongoing focus of teacher development programs,because as Clandinin and others have demonstrated, teachers’ imagesand perspectives often have a powerful and lasting influence on teach-ers’ thinking and practice and may also create resistance to alternativemodes of thought and action.

Identifying the maxims which teachers and student teachers use toguide their teaching can be achieved in a variety of ways, includingnarratives, journal writing, discussion, and other forms of critical re-flection. Once identified, student teachers’ maxims can serve as onesource of information that can help them interpret and evaluate theirown teaching as well as the teaching of others. In practice teaching,for example, student teachers can articulate the maxims they hope todraw on during a lesson. Following the lesson they can then reviewthe lesson to see the extent to which they were able to implement theirmaxims or whether others would have been more appropriate.

However, as with images of teaching, it is not the case that teacher’smaxims should go unchallenged (see Calderhead & Robson, 1991;Johnston, 1992). A supervisor may conclude that a teacher is teachingwith an inappropriate maxim, for example, or that a maxim is beingoverused to the detriment of student learning. Although a supervisor

294 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not agree that the maxims a teacher follows represent an appro-priate way of teaching, recognizing them and examining their role inshaping thoughts and actions can be a useful step in facilitating thestudent teacher’s future professional growth.

THE AUTHOR

Jack C. Richards has recently been appointed to the Chair in Language Teachingat the Universlty of Auckland, where he is Director of the Institute of LanguageTeaching and Learning. He has published widely in the areas of teaching method-ology and teacher education and served as Chair of TESOL Publications from1991–1996.

REFERENCES

Bailey, K., & Nunan, D. (Eds.). ( 1995). Voices from the language classroom. New York:Cambridge University Press.

Berliner, D. C. (1987). Ways of thinking about students and classrooms by moreand less experienced teachers. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachers' thinking(pp. 60–83). London: Cassell.

Calderhead, J., & Robson, M. (1991). Images of teaching: student teachers’ earlyconceptions of classroom practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 7, p. 8.

Chaudron, C. (1988). Second language classrooms. New York: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Clark, C., & Peterson, P. (1986). Teachers’ thought processes. In M. Wittrock(Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed.). (pp. 255-296). New York:Macmillan.

Clandinin, D. J. (1985). Personal practical knowledge: A study of teachers’ class-room images. Curriculum Inquiry, 15, 361–385.

Clandinin, D. J. (1986). Classroom practice: Teacher images in action. London: FalmerPress.

Clift, R. (1991). Learning to teaching English—Maybe: A study of knowledgedevelopment. Journal of Teacher Education, 42, 357–372.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1990). Research on teaching and teacher research:The issues that divide. Educational Researcher, 19, 2–11.

Conners, R. D. (1978). An analysis of teacher thought processes, beliefs, and principlesduring instruction. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Alberta, Ed-monton, Canada.

Cortazzi, M. (1991). Primary teaching how it is: A narrative account. London: DavidFoulton.

Doyle, W. (1983). Academic work. Review of Educational Research, 53, 159–199.Dunkin, M. J., & Biddle, B. J. (1974). The study of teaching. New York: Holt,

Rinehart & Winston.Elbaz, F. (1981). The teacher’s “practical knowledge”: Report of a case study.

Curriculum Inquiry, 7, 43–71.Halkes, R., & Deijkers, R. (1984). Teachers’ thinking criteria. In R. Halkes &

J. Olson (Eds.), Teacher thinking: A new perspective on persisting problems in education.Lisse, Switzerland: Swets & Zeitlinger.


—

Johnson, K. (1992). The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices duringliteracy instruction for non-native speakers of English. Journal of Reading Behav-ior, 24, 83–108.

Johnston, S. (1990). Understanding curriculum decision-making through teacherimages. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 22, 463–471.

Johnston, S. ( 1992). Images: A way of understanding the practical knowledge ofstudent teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 128–136.

Marland, P. W. (1987). Response to Clandinin and Connelly. Journal of CurriculumStudies, 19, 507–509.

Richards, J. C., & Lockhart, C. ( 1994). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms.New York: Cambridge University Press.

Senior, R. (1995, March). Teachers’ craft knowledge: The importance of developing apositive group feeling in language classrooms. Paper presented at the 3rd Interna-tional Conference on Teacher Eduction in Language Teaching, Hong Kong.

Shavelson, R. J., & Stern. P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts,judgments, decisions, and behavior. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455–498.

Shulman, L. S. ( 1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform.Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1–22.

Tsui, A. B. M. (1995). Exploring collaborative supervision in inservice teachereducation. Journal of Curriculum Supervision, 10, 346–371.

Woods, D. (1996). Structure and process in ESL teaching. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Wong Fillmore, L. (1985). When does teacher talk work as input? In S. Gass &C. Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 17–50). Rowley, MA:Newbury House.

Ulichny, P. (1996). What’s in a methodology? In D. Freeman & J. C. Richards(Eds.), Teacher learning in language teaching (pp. 178-196). New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Yim, L. W. (1993). Relating teachers’ perceptions of the place of grammar to their teachingpractices. Unpublished masters thesis, National University of Singapore.

Zeichner, K., Tabachnik, B. R., & Densmore, K. (1987). Individual, institutionaland cultural influences on the development of teacher’s craft knowledge. InJ. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachings’ thinking (pp. 21-59). London: Caswell.

296 TESOL QUARTERLY


Academic Listening/Speaking Tasksfor ESL Students:Problems, Suggestions,and Implications*

DANA FERRIS and TRACY TAGGCalifornia State University, Sacramento

Survey research on academic skills that ESL students need to functioneffectively at English-speaking universities has, for the most part,focused extensively on reading and writing skills. Complementaryresearch on subject-matter instructors’ perceptions of linguistic/academic problems of ESL students has similarly emphasized literacytasks. The present study therefore investigates college/universityprofessors’ views on ESL students’ difficulties with listening/speakingtasks.

Content-area instructors at four different institutions and in avariety of academic disciplines responded to questions and providedcomments about their ESL students’ aural/oral skills. Respondents feltthat their ESL students have great difficulty with class participation,asking and responding to questions, and general listening compre-hension (as opposed to lecture comprehension). They also suggestedstrongly that ESL instructors strive for authenticity in their EAPactivities, specifically that they give students opportunities to practicelistening to real lectures by a variety of speakers, interact with nativespeakers, and cope with genre-specific vocabulary, reading materials,and writing tasks.

I t is axiomatic that ESL students at English-speaking universitieshave major challenges to overcome. Great attention has been paid

to teaching such students the academic literacy skills they will need tosucceed in higher education. A number of surveys, opinion pieces,and articles on pedagogy have been devoted to the topic of Englishfor academic purposes (EAP)—specifically what professors actually

*Results from the first part of the survey reported on here appeared in Volume 30, Number1 of the TESOL Quarterly.

297

require (Horowitz, 1986)—and how best to prepare ESL students forthese expectations. Though these studies have been very helpful toEAP teachers, few have looked beyond reading and writing skills towhat college/university professors actually require with regard to aca-demic listening and speaking skills and which of these tasks are mostproblematic for ESL students in tertiary institutions. In the presentstudy, therefore, we asked content-area professors at four differentinstitutions about the academic aural/oral skills of their ESL students,specifically what sorts of communicative activities cause ESL studentsthe most difficulty and what advice the instructors would give to ESL-EAP teachers who are preparing students for U.S. academic require-ments.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Research in Academic Listening and Speaking.

Though there has been little survey research on the nature of aca-demic listening/speaking tasks required by university professors, agreat deal of descriptive work has focused on the communicative needsof ESL university students. For instance, a new collection of researchpapers entitled Academic Listening (Flowerdew, 1995) examines the is-sues surrounding the comprehension of academic lectures by L2 learn-ers. This volume includes psychometric, discourse analysis, and ethno-graphic studies and strongly emphasizes the practical applications ofthe research, including implications for ESL teaching and teachertraining, test construction (Hansen & Jensen, 1995), and training ofcontent-area lecturers (Lynch, 1995b).

Categories

In general, research on academic listening/speaking skills falls intofour major categories:

1. Description of academic lectures, listening comprehension pro-cesses, and L2 students’ difficulties in and strategies for understand-ing L2 lectures (e.g., Benson, 1989; Brown & Yule, 1983; Buck,1992; Cervantes & Gainer, 1992; Chaudron, 1995; Chaudron,Loschky, & Cook, 1995; Chaudron & Richards, 1986; Dunkel, 1988;Dunkel & Davis, 1995; Flowerdew, 1995; Dunkel & Davy, 1989;Flowerdew & Miller, 1992; Long, 1989; Mason, 1995; Mendelsohn& Rubin, 1995; Murphy, 1987, 1991; Olsen & Huckin, 1990; Pow-ers, 1986; Richards, 1983; Strodt-Lopez, 1991; Thompson, 1994)

298 TESOL QUARTERLY

2.

3.

4.

Studies of students’ academic speaking skills, including formalspeaking and pronunciation (e. g., Graham & Picklo, 1994; Wright,1980)

Studies of students’ ability to interact with native speakers in theuniversity context (e.g., Kinginger, 1994; Loheyde & Kunz, 1994;Mason, 1995; Ostler, 1980; Zuengler, 1993)

Studies and descriptions of techniques and programs designed toimprove L2 students’ academic oral/aural skiills (e.g., Anderson &Lynch, 1988; Graham & Picklo, 1994; Hendrickson, 1983; Lynch,1995a; Morley, 1995; Murphy, 1991; Rost, 1990, 1995; Schmidt-Rinehart, 1994; Tschirner, 1992; Ur, 1984; Wintergerst, 1993;Wright, 1980).

Generalizations Instrumental in the Design of the Studies

Though it is not possible here to provide a complete description ofthe methodologies used in and conclusions of these studies, the follow-ing generalizations emerged from reviewing the literature and wereinstrumental in the design of the present study.

1. Academic listening tasks pose formidable challenges for L2 stu-dents, even those highly proficient in English. Ostler (1980), forinstance, found that her subjects felt much more proficient at every-day listening and conversation (e.g., with friends, store clerks) thanwith listening and speaking tasks in their classes. Mason (1995)claims that even students with TOEFL scores high enough foradmission to most U.S. university programs (550–600) may notbe linguistically proficient enough for the academic listening tasksconfronting them. Flowerdew (1995) notes that academic listeninghas its own distinct characteristics and demands placed upon listen-ers, as compared with conversational listening:

• type of background knowledge required• ability to distinguish between what is relevant and what is not relevant• application of the turn-taking conventions• amount of implied meaning or number of indirect speech acts• ability to concentrate on and understand long stretches of talk without

the opportunity of engaging in the facilitating functions of interactivediscourse

• note-taking• ability to integrate the incoming message with information derived from

other media (e.g., textbook, handouts, overhead, chalkboard). (pp. 11–1 2)

2. L2 listening comprehension processes are similar, but not identical,to L2 reading processes. There are a variety of L2 learning and

ACADEMIC LISTENING/SPEAKING TASKS 299

teaching strategies which appear to assist ESL listeners in lecturecomprehension.

3. ESL college/university students are often intimidated by academicspeaking tasks, including both formal presentations and participa-tion in large- or small-group class discussions. Reasons for thishesitation appear to stem from insecurity about linguistic compe-tency and differences between the native and L2 culture with regardto classroom discourse.

Based on these generalizations, we were able to form several hypoth-eses about academic listening/speaking skills which professors wouldthink problematic for ESL students—that academic listening compre-hension could be difficult for them, that some ESL students would bebetter than others at lecture comprehension due to effective learningstrategies and helpful preparation for subject-matter lectures in EAPclasses, and that students’ speaking skills, including both formal presen-tation skills and class participation, would be of concern to their con-tent-area professors.

Prior EAP Survey Research

Two early EAP surveys (Johns, 1981a; Ostler, 1980) asked facultymembers and ESL students, respectively, which language skills theyfelt were most crucial for ESL students’ academic success. When Johnsconducted her survey, which was fairly general, she found that facultymembers thought that receptive skills (reading and listening) weremore important than productive skills (writing and speaking) and con-cluded that some activities currently used in ESL classes were notspecific and practical enough to prepare students for pursuing theirmajors. Ostler’s survey was a bit more detailed, finding that, withrespect to oral skills, ESL students at a large private university thoughtthat taking notes, asking questions, and participating in discussionswere most important for their academic endeavors. Several years later,a larger scale study by Bridgeman and Carlson (1984) surveyed 190academic departments in 34 universities, finding that there is consider-able variability across disciplines in the types of writing tasks and topicsassigned.

A recent ethnographic study by Mason (1995) similarly found thatgraduate ESL students at a private university felt that academic lis-tening/speaking tasks are growing more complex and require morethan the traditional note-taking and formal speaking skills. Finally, inour own survey of specific listening and speaking tasks required bycollege and university instructors at four institutions (Ferris & Tagg,1996), we found that professors’ expectations and requirements for

300 TESOL QUARTERLY

their students’ listening and speaking skills vary considerably acrossacademic discipline, institution, and class type (graduate, upper divi-sion, or lower division), and that, although lecture comprehension andnote-taking are still very important, today’s professors also require avariety of tasks, including graded collaborative assignments, informalpresentations on case studies or course readings, and on-the-spot reci-tations on laboratory projects. With the exception of business profes-sors, however, most faculty indicated that traditional up-front studentpresentations are not as common as we might think, even in graduateclasses.

Other EAP studies have focused on academic literacy skills in orderto describe and categorize specific academic reading and writing tasksrequired of university ESL students. These studies have resulted intwo important conclusions:

1. Neither content-area professors nor ESL students feel that the typesof writing typically stressed in composition courses are representa-tive of the writing tasks they will face in their major courses (Horo-witz, 1986; Kroll, 1979).

2. Writing tasks and specifications vary considerably across academicdisciplines (Bridgeman & Carlson, 1984).

These conclusions with respect to writing were also reached for lis-tening/speaking skills in our own recent survey (Ferris & Tagg, 1996).

This EAP research has led to debate and practical suggestions rele-vant to academic oral skills as well as literacy. Spack (1988) summarizesthe debate well: Do we provide students with a broad background inacademic skills, focusing on the humanities/social sciences topics andtasks traditionally emphasized in composition classes, or do we strivefor authenticity by having students listen, read, speak, and write inthe specific academic disciplines/genres for which they are preparing?Spack concludes that the former approach is necessary and appro-priate, but the debate continues today (e.g., Dudley-Evans, 1995;Johns, 1981b, 1988, 1992, 1995; Ramanathan & Kaplan, in press;Tauroza & Allison, 1995; Young, 1995).

Suggestions as to how to make the material in university ESL classesmore realistic and practical have also emerged from the survey research(Ferris & Tagg, 1996; Horowitz, 1986; Johns, 1981a, 1981b, 1988,1992; Mason, 1995; Ostler, 1980; Reid, 1989; Spack, 1988). For exam-ple, it has been found that content-area professors only rarely askstudents to expound upon their own experience or opinions—rather,they want students to be able to analyze and synthesize assigned coursereadings. The obvious implication of this finding for ESL writingteachers is that they need to prepare their students to respond appro-


priately to authentic texts. Additional generalizations need to be uncov-ered for academic aural/oral tasks so that ESL teachers who are prepar-ing their students for U.S. academic life can help their students developthe skills they need to succeed.

Research Questions

. .

1.

2.

3.

The survey project was guided initially by three research questions:

What types of listening and speaking tasks do professors expect orrequire of college/university students?

In what way(s) do the academic listening/speaking abilities of ESLstudents fall short in enabling them to complete these classroomtasks successfully?

What could university and university-preparatory ESL classes doto better fit their students for the oral/aural tasks they will face intheir college and university classes?

Due, however, to the extensive amount of data gathered for this proj-ect, the discussion in this article is limited to analysis of results whichpertain to the second and third research questions.1

M E T H O D

Subjects

ESL coordinators at four tertiary institutions were contacted andasked to provide a list of the most popular majors of ESL students ontheir campus. The four schools were Sacramento City College (SCC), alarge community college with a sizable ESL population; CaliforniaState University, Sacramento (CSUS), a large public university whichfocuses primarily on undergraduate teaching; the University of Cali-fornia, Davis (UCD), a large public university which focuses heavilyon research and graduate programs; and the University of SouthernCalifornia (USC), a large private school which emphasizes research andgraduate programs. We then used catalogues and campus directories tocompile a list of 946 full-time professors who teach in disciplines whichattract significant numbers of ESL students.

1 Analysis of professors’ responses about their general expectations of all students is providedin a separate article (Ferris & Tagg, 1996).

302 TESOL QUARTERLY

Survey Administration and Analysis

A complete copy of the survey instrument is provided in the Appen-dix. A pilot version was sent to a small sample of instructors on ourlist. Following minor adjustments, the surveys were then mailed to theremainder of the list. Returned surveys were collected during a 6-week period. Survey responses were then coded for statistical analysesand entered into a computer database. In addition to examining overallfrequencies, percentages, and other descriptive statistics, we appliedKruskal-Wallis one-way analyses of variance (a chi-square test for non-parametric data) to examine differences in survey responses acrossacademic majors.

RESULTS

Response Patterns

Twenty-five of the surveys were returned as undeliverable. Of theremaining 921, 234 were completed and returned, a response rate of25.6%. Because the response rate was fairly low, it should be empha-sized that the results do not reflect the opinions of all of the instructorsin the academic departments surveyed. As the survey was rather long,it is likely that the respondents were primarily those who had stronginterest in or concerns about their ESL students and may thus notbe representative of all instructors. (For an in-depth analysis of thedemographic variables see Ferris & Tagg, 1996). In most of the classes(68.8%) about which the respondents chose to comment, ESL studentsmake up either 10–25% or 25–50% of the student population, a mixof international and immigrant students. The responses to the surveyitem about the most common nationalities/first languages of ESL stu-dents in this course were often so vague (“Asian,” “Oriental,” “Don’tKnow”) that they proved impossible to quantify accurately; however,it can be said that these professors serve a wide variety of students,with the most frequently mentioned specific native languages beingChinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.

Responses to Part D

Problems ESL students have in meeting professors’ expectations/require-ments for academic oral skills. Responses to the 10 questions in surveyPart D, classified by the professors’ academic discipline, are shown inTable 1. Results of the statistical analyses showed that there weresignificant differences across academic disciplines in responses to all


questions except the last, Question 31 (about whether or not ESLstudents take advantage of professors’ office hours). Interestingly,there were very few Always responses in this section, and more Some-times than Often responses. This suggests that if the professors feltthat their ESL students struggled with particular oral skills, they didnot necessarily see this as an overwhelming problem.

Specifically, the majority of the business and music professors saidthat their ESL students Often or Sometimes received low grades inclass participation (when applicable), the business and engineeringprofessors felt that their ESL students had problems with working insmall groups, working with peers on graded assignments, and givingoral presentations (Questions 22–25), though music professors alsoresponded strongly to the item about oral presentations. Business pro-fessors were more concerned than faculty in any other disciplines aboutESL students’ abilities in leading discussions, participating in debates,and completing assignments which require interaction with nativespeakers (Questions 26–28).2 The professors from all majors felt thatESL students had some difficulty in taking effective lecture notes(Question 29). Finally, all professors claimed that their ESL studentsasked questions and came to office hours fairly often, though not asregularly as the general student population (Questions 30–31).

Responses to Part E

Advice from content-area professors to ESL instructors about the relativeimportance of different listening/speaking skills. Table 2 shows theranking for each of seven specified oral/aural skills. This was calculatedby assigning weighted values to the rankings (e.g., 1 point for each 1response; 6 points for each 6 response) and dividing the totals bythe number of responses in each category.3 This table provides somesurprising rankings for oral skills, given the responses to Part D (Table1). For example, in all disciplines, the respondents felt that GeneralListening Comprehension should be a higher priority for ESL teachersthan lecture note-taking. Similarly, most professors, with the exceptionof the business faculty, felt that Communication with the Professor ismore crucial than Communication with Peers. It is also interesting tonote that pronunciation, which is often emphasized in ESL listening/speaking courses, ranked only in the middle of the various skills.Formal speaking, a skill commonly focused on in EAP courses at the

2 It should be noted, however, that these types of activities or assignments were fairly rarein the respondents’ classes. See Ferris & Tagg (1996).

3 Comments under Other were not included in these calculations and are discussed below.

304 TESOL QUARTERLY

TABLE 1ESL Students’ Difficulties With Academic Oral Skills

Rank-Ordered By Respondents’ Discipline

TABLE 1Continued

TABLE 2Professors’ Rankings of Academic Oral Skills*

urging of researchers (Mason, 1995; Ostler, 1980), also had relativelylow rankings.

Further, there was considerable variation across disciplines as to therelative importance faculty members assigned to the various oral skills.Ability to participate in class and to communicate with peers was rankedas more important by the business professors than by instructors fromother academic areas; this ranking is consistent with the interactionpatterns noted in the discussion of Part D (Table 1).

These rankings, however, should be interpreted with caution. Thereappeared to be some confusion on the part of the respondents as tohow to rank the skills. We gathered from their handwritten commentsthat some were ranking the skills in terms of general importance, whileothers ranked them with regard to areas in which they felt their ESLstudents were weak. For example, several professors remarked thatthough they felt note-taking skills were very important, it was theirimpression that their ESL students already had strong note-takingskills, at least relative to their other aural/oral abilities, and that ESLclass time might better be spent in working on something else. Similarly,several business professors commented that oral presentation skillswere very important but that they already worked hard within theBusiness School to develop these skills.

Qualitative Analyses

Responses in Parts E and F. The comments under Other in Part Eand the comments given in Part F were counted and categorized and


are summarized in Table 3. Parts A and B of Table 3 summarize therespondents’ comments about specific language skills (oral skills, andother language skills, including writing, grammar, reading, vocabulary,and thinking). These categories broke down further into either state-ments about the ESL students’ perceived problems with these skills orsuggestions about what ESL teachers or the students themselves shoulddo to improve students’ language skills.

Comments on oral skills. Under oral skills, a number of professorsspecifically mentioned ESL students’ need to overcome cultural inhibi-tions/shyness about speaking up in class, to learn to ask and answerquestions effectively, and to communicate more with native speakersof English or less with speakers of their own language. Twelve respon-

TABLE 3A Summary of Comments From Parts E and F

DisciplineCategory Business Engineering Music Science Miscellaneous Total

A. Oral SkillsClass Participation/

Cultural AwarenessListening SkillsSpeaking Skills/

PronunciationOral Skills: Subtotal

B. Other SkillsWriting/GrammarReading/VocabularyThinking SkillsOther Skills: Subtotal

C. Positive CommentsD. Comments About

Classroom PracticesE. Comments About

the General Needfor GoodCommunication

F. Comments AboutTeacher Awareness/Training

G. Comments/Complaints AboutSurvey

H. Other CommentsGrand Total:

All Comments

142

257

52

45

1—

2

4916

9 15 1 4 3196

1172

1816

1

86

422

4134

68116

—31

2

4

8 24

7 10 1 4 26

6 6 2 14

3 3—

35

97

12141

—1

262

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

dents specifically mentioned Asians as having cultural differenceswhich inhibited their oral participation in class, willingness/ability toask questions, learning style (memorization/rote learning), and so on.Some professors also seemed especially concerned that their studentsunderstand the value, in general, of communication skills for meetingboth academic and career goals. One engineering professor com-mented that both ESL students and native speakers need to understandthat they cannot “quietly sit in the corner and not have to deal withanything except a machine.”

Despite the professors’ concerns, noted in D (Question 29), abouttheir ESL students’ lecture comprehension and note-taking abilities,there were only eight comments about students’ lack of strong lecturecomprehension skills, and these were balanced by a number of positivecomments regarding ESL students’ strong comprehension/oral skills.Similarly, there were only four comments which expressed concernwith ESL students’ pronunciation; the comments on speaking skillsdealt more generally with students’ oral fluency than their accuracy.

As far as suggestions for improvement, professors urged ESL teach-ers to tell their students to interact with native speakers (includinghaving U.S. roommates) and to be more “aggressive,” to listen to differ-ent lecturers (besides their ESL teachers), and to sit in on authenticlectures “before their grade depends on it.” Business and engineeringinstructors were also concerned with formal presentation skills andsuggested that students be given many opportunities to practice theirspeaking skills, including learning “Toastmaster techniques.”

Comments on writing and reading skills. Many of the respondents werevery concerned with their students’ writing skills, and several seemedactually irritated that we had not asked about writing on the survey.Many described writing as being “more important than oral skills” (ora bigger problem than oral skills) and said their students’ writing skillswere “terrible,” often including native speakers in this characterization.Several professors mentioned that their students needed informationon specific writing tasks, such as technical writing, responding to essayexamination questions, and research papers, and help with variouswriting problems, including grammar, coherence/logic, and pla-giarism.

The professors also felt that reading skills, especially the ability tounderstand technical vocabulary, were vitally important and trouble-some for ESL students. The suggestions for improvement rangedfrom “reading good literature” or “reading proper books” (one froma business professor who requires students to read Hemingway’s AFarewell to Arms in his Business Communication class) to giving students


instruction in reading technical literature and understanding scientificvocabulary, although one professor said that ESL students “do betterwith new scientific vocabulary than with ‘common’ English vocabulary.”

Positive comments about ESL students/ESL teachers. In addition tocomments about specific language skills, there were a number of otherstatements or suggestions offered by the professors in Part F. Onefairly large subsection was a set of positive comments about the abilitiesof the respondents’ ESL students. Many commented that they felt thatmost ESL students had very strong language and academic skills, thatthey were highly motivated, and that their achievements were as im-pressive as, if not greater than, those of the native speakers. Onebusiness professor commented, “My ESL students have impressed mebecause they work harder to make up for their language deficiencies.I have observed that mental capacity is a much more important factorto succeed in school than accents/vocabulary.” Another noted that“subject matter and interest cause skills to transfer across languages.”An engineering professor said, “My ESL students tend to be bothtalented and dedicated.” Of ESL teachers, a science professor com-mented, “ESL instructors are doing magnificent work against incredi-ble difficulties.” Several commented that ESL teachers should collabo-rate more with content-area lecturers and should train professors tocommunicate effectively with nonnative speakers in their classes. AUSC business professor noted that “We need to sensitize instructorsabout speaking slowly, using visual aids, being careful about use ofslang, understanding ESL humor, and avoiding stereotypes.”

CONCLUSIONS

Summary of Findings

In what way(s) do the academic listening/speaking abilities of ESLstudents fall short in enabling them to complete classroom tasks success-fully? As shown by the qualitative analysis (Table 3) and the responsesto Question 22 (Table 1), the respondents were very concerned withtheir students’ ability to interact with others in the classroom. Therewere many statements about ESL students’ perceived inability or un-willingness (which many attributed to “cultural inhibitions”) to partici-pate in class discussions, interact with peers (except for those whospeak their native language), or ask or respond to questions. ThoughESL students’ ability to take effective lecture notes was a concernfor many respondents (Table 1, Question 29) only a few commentedspecifically about this in Part F (Table 3), and it was ranked in Part E

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

(Table 2) as being of lower importance than general listening compre-hension. Further, some professors commented either that they providewritten/visual materials to help their students follow lectures or thatthey felt that ESL students’ lecture comprehension skills were quitestrong, compared with their speaking, writing, and reading skills.

As far as giving oral presentations, only the business professorsexpressed great concern about ESL students’ abilities; this finding isof course influenced by the relative importance of formal presentationskills in this field. The respondents also did not appear to be especiallybothered by ESL students’ pronunciation problems, as demonstratedby the ranking given to pronunciation in Part E (Table 2) and thescarcity of comments (four) in Part F about students’ accents. In gen-eral, the qualitative comments showed that, with regard to speakingskills, professors were most concerned with ESL students’ ability toexpress themselves fluently in class discussions and to give clear, coher-ent answers to questions asked of them.

What could university and university-preparatory ESL classes do tobetter fit their students for the oral/aural tasks they will face in theircollege and university classes? The respondents’ rankings in Part E andcomments in Parts E and F (Tables 2 and 3) showed some clear trends:Content-area professors wish that ESL teachers would better preparetheir students for the expectations of the U.S. university classroomby impressing upon them the importance of communication skills ingeneral, by teaching them to ask and respond to questions effectively,by giving them practice speaking, and by encouraging class participa-tion. In addition, many commented that ESL students should haveopportunities and encouragement to interact with native speakers (orat least classmates who do not speak the same language). Several peda-gogical implications are suggested by these findings.

Implications

Importance of Developing Communication Strategies

EAP teachers should devote serious time and energy to making theirESL students aware of and ready for the interactive nature of U.S.classrooms. Even though the majority of ESL students at our owninstitution are first-generation immigrants who have lived and goneto school in the U.S. for many years, they still express discomfort withsmall-group discussions and graded group projects in their generaleducation and major courses, despite feeling quite at home with thesesame types of activities in their ESL classes. Somehow, we need to helpthem bridge the gap between the safe interactions they experience inESL classes and the activities they find more challenging and threaten-


ing in content classes. This could involve explicit discussion and obser-vation of the differences in classroom discourse patterns between theirhome culture and U.S. educational culture.

As with discussions of contrasting rhetorical patterns in academicwriting classes, teachers can suggest that nonnative students add to,rather than replace their repertoire of communicative strategies (“Iknow that in your country it’s not considered polite to interrupt theteacher by asking questions or to argue with the teacher or your class-mates. But U.S. university professors expect you to let them know ifyou don’t understand something and think it’s fine to express youropinion—politely—when you disagree.”) Such discussions can be sup-ported by in-class role plays or simulations. In addition, it would behelpful to have subject-matter college professors come and addressEAP students about their expectations of their own students, perhapseven providing demonstrations of the type of give and take they mightallow or expect from their students.

Importance of Developing Listening Strategies

Teachers should also be aware that the growing trend toward inclu-sion of student questions, comments, and presentations in classroomdiscourse may place an even greater burden on nonnative speakersthan the traditional chalk-and-talk lecture. As discussed above, Flower-dew (1995) outlines qualitative differences between “academic lis-tening” and “conversational listening” (pp. 11–12). But a classroomsituation in which there is frequent give and take between teacher andstudents, including perhaps formal, planned lecture material, informalquestions or comments from the students, and unplanned responsesto students by the professor, really fits into neither side of Flowerdew’sdichotomy. Such a hybrid form of classroom discourse may minimize(or render nonexistent) the advantages of both academic and conversa-tional listening (e.g., the rhetorical devices of planned lectures whichcan signal information to listeners or the negotiation between interlocu-tors in conversation which can aid comprehension).

The most obvious pedagogical solution to students’ dilemma is totrain professors to respond clearly and effectively to students’ informalquestions and comments (Lynch, 1995b). Assuming this is not alwaysfeasible, ESL teachers should simulate free-form classroom lecture-discussions for their students and analyze videotaped classroom inter-actions with their students so that ESL students can be better preparedfor the realities of the U.S. college/university classroom. In any case,it is unfair to let students think that all of their classroom listeningwill involve a traditional, carefully planned, predictable chalk-and-talk

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

lecture and that all of their speaking will be low risk (e.g., in small-group discussions) or preplanned (in formal presentations).

The recurrent theme of these pedagogical suggestions is authentic-ity. Even though many U.S. ESL/EAP classes are already communica-tive and student centered and involve a variety of interactive activities,some of these tasks may not adequately reflect the more rough-tuneddiscourse they will confront in their other classes. Further, what therespondents in this study said over and over is that ESL students needto move out of their comfort zone in preparing for college coursework:They need to hear subject-matter professors giving actual lectures, tocommunicate with native speakers, to grapple with technical texts andvocabulary, and to practice authentic writing tasks. Though these pro-fessors are doubtless unaware of the general versus genre-specific EAPdebates in which ESL professionals engage, the majority, if asked,would most likely come down on the side of genre-specific academicpreparation. It should also be remembered, however, that these re-spondents were discussing major courses, rather than general educa-tion classes. It is possible that a more diverse sample of faculty wouldhave expressed a wider range of opinions.

As several respondents noted, ESL teachers should be more involvedin training subject-matter lecturers, not just ESL students. These com-ments echo those of L2 researchers (e.g., Flowerdew, 1995; Lynch,1995b). In particular, Flowerdew (1995) notes

In terms of cost effectiveness, it might well be that a higher level of under-standing would be achieved by the lecturers’ modifying their lecturing style,so as to enhance comprehension optimally, than by the learners and theirlanguage teachers struggling to improve their level of listening proficiency.(p. 240)

To this end, Lynch ( 1995b) suggests strategies for “training lecturersfor international audiences,” particularly “the selection of culturallyaccessible examples when giving explanations” and “the managementof audience questions” (p. 269). It should not be inferred from thissuggestion that such training should lead to the oversimplification ofthe curriculum or discourse of the U.S. university but rather thatsubject-matter instructors would become more aware of the issuesfacing L2 students in academic listening comprehension and wouldbe given some strategies to help their students respond effectively tothe demands placed upon them.

Directions for Further Research

Because the aim of this survey project was breadth, rather thandepth, it necessarily lacks detailed analyses that would be helpful. For


instance, although we assume that more informal, interactive lecturingstyles pose more problems for L2 listening comprehension than morepredictable planned lectures, there is little psychometric researchwhich has investigated this issue (though ethnographic data supportthis assumption, e.g., Mason, 1995). Similarly, in order to addressthe respondents’ concerns in this study about ESL students’ lack ofparticipation in class discussions, it would be helpful to know moreabout why students do not participate—especially in the case of immi-grant students like those at SCC, CSUS, and UCD, who have beenresident in the U.S. for relatively long periods of time and cannot citelack of knowledge about the expectations of the U.S. classroom as thereason for their reticence. The professors in this survey often assumedthat “cultural inhibitions” were the reason for ESL students’ “shyness,”when perhaps adjustments in their own lecturing or discussion-leadingstyle might cause nonnative speakers to comprehend more and gainconfidence in their listening and speaking abilities.

Of particular interest would be further research which examinedaccommodations professors make to assist their ESL students and thedegree to which it helps the students (in contrast to students whoseprofessors do not claim or appear to make any such adjustments), andthe effectiveness of programs which sensitize and train instructors toimprove their ability to communicate effectively with ESL students.All of these lines of research could inform our ability to better prepareESL students for the communicative tasks they will confront in theU.S. academic discourse community—a community whose norms arevariable across institutions, academic disciplines, and the idiosyncrasiesof particular instructors, and whose practices, like those of ESL profes-sionals, are constantly being reviewed and changed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the Faculty Professional Development Mini-Grant Program atCalifornia State University, Sacramento, which partially funded this research.

THE AUTHORS

Dana Ferris is Assistant Professor in the English Department at California StateUniversity, Sacramento, where she is Coordinator of the MA TESOL program.Her research interests are in L2 writing, EAP, and teacher training.

Tracy Tagg is an MA candidate in TESOL at California State University, Sacra-mento. She has interests in all aspects of ESL teaching but particular expertise incomposition (both L1 and L2).

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES

Anderson, A., & Lynch, T. (1988). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Benson, M. (1989). The academic listening task: A case study. TESOL Quarterly,

23, 421-445.Bridgeman, B., & Carlson, S.B. (1984). Survey of academic writing tasks. Written

Communication, 1, 247–280.Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis. New York: Cambridge University

Press.Buck, G. (1992). Listening comprehension: Construct validity and trait characteris-

tics. Language Learning, 42, 313–357.Cervantes, R., & Gainer, G. (1992). The effects of syntactic simplification and

repetition on listening comprehension. TESOL Quarterly, 26, 267–270.Chaudron, C. (1995). Academic listening. In D.J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.),

A guide for the teaching of academic listening (pp. 74–96). San Diego, CA: DominiePress.

Chaudron, C., Loschky, L., & Cook, J. (1995). Second language listening compre-hension and note-taking. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening: Researchperspectives (pp. 75–92). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chaudron, C., & Richards, J. C. (1986). The effect of discourse markers on thecomprehension of lectures. Applied Linguistics, 7, 113–127.

Dudley-Evans, T. ( 1995). Variations in the discourse patterns favoured by differentdisciplines and their pedagogical implications. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academiclistening: Research perspectives (pp. 146–158). Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Dunkel, P.A. (1988). The content of L1 and L2 students’ lecture notes and itsrelation to test performance. TESOL Quarterly, 22, 259–281.

Dunkel, P. A., & Davis, J. N. (1995). The effects of rhetorical signaling cues onthe recall of English lecture information by speakers of English as a second ornative language. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspectives(pp. 55–74). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dunkel, P. A., & Davy, S. (1989). The heuristic of lecture notetaking: Perceptionsof American and international students regarding the value and practice ofnotetaking. English for Specific Purposes, 8, 33–50.

Ferris, D., & Tagg, T. ( 1996). Academic oral communication needs of EAP learn-ers: What subject-matter instructors actually require. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 31–58.

Flowerdew, J. (1995). Research of relevance to second language lecture compre-hension: An overview. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspec-tives (pp. 7–29). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Flowerdew, J., & Miller, L. (1992). Student perceptions, problems, and strategiesin L2 lectures. RELC Journal, 23, 60–80.

Graham, J. G., & Picklo, A. R. (1994, March). Increasing relevancy in a speaking coursefor graduate students. Paper presented at the 28th Annual TESOL Convention,Baltimore, MD.

Hansen, C. & Jensen, C. (1995). Evaluating lecture comprehension. In J. Flower-dew (Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspectives (pp. 241–268). Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Hendrickson, J. M. (1983). Listening and speaking activities for foreign languagelearners: Second collection. Canadian Modern Language Review, 39, 267–284.

Horowitz, D. M. (1986). What professors actually require: Academic tasks for theESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 445–461.


Johns, A. M. (1981a). Necessary English: A faculty survey. TESOL Quarterly, 15,51-57.

Johns, A. M. (1981b). The ESL student in the business communication class.Journal of Business Communication, 18, 31-38.

Johns, A.M. (1988). The discourse communities dilemma: Identifying transferableskills for the academic milieu. English for Specific Purposes, 7, 55–60.

Johns, A. M. (1992). Academic English: What can we do? Journal of IntensiveEnglish Studies, 6, 61–69.

Johns, A. M. (1995). Genre and pedagogical purposes. Journal of Second LanguageWriting, 4, 181–190.

Kinginger, C. (1994). Learner initiative in conversation management: An applica-tion of van Lier’s pilot coding scheme. Modern Language Journal, 78, 29-40.

Kroll, B. (1979). A survey of the writing needs of foreign and American collegefreshmen. English Language Teaching Journal, 33, 219–227.

Loheyde, K., & Kunz, N. (1994). “Yes I think it’s you”: A discussion of interculturalcommunication. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 10, 47–66.

Long, D. R. (1989). Second language listening comprehension: A schema-theoreticperspective. Modern Language Journal, 73, 32–40.

Lynch, T. (1995a). The development of interactive listening strategies in secondlanguage academic settings. In D. J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide forthe teaching of academic listening (pp. 166–185). San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

Lynch, T. (1995 b). Training lecturers for international audiences. In J. Flowerdew(Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspectives (pp. 269–289). Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.

Mason, A. (1995). By dint of: Student and lecturer perceptions of lecture compre-hension strategies in first-term graduate study. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academiclistening: Research perspectives (pp. 199–218). Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Mendelsohn, D. J., & Rubin, J. (Eds.) (1995). A guide for the teaching of academiclistening. San Diego, CA: Dominic Press.

Morley, J. (1995). Academic listening comprehension instruction: Models, princi-ples, and practices. In D. J. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teachingof academic listening (pp. 186–221 ). San Diego, CA: Dominie press.

Murphy, J. M. (1987). The listening strategies of English as a second languagecollege students. Research and Teaching in Developmental Education, 4, 27-46.

Murphy, J. M. (1991). Oral communication in TESOL integrating speaking, lis-tening, and pronunciation. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 51–75.

Olsen, L. A., & Huckin, T. N. (1990). Point-driven understanding in engineeringlecture comprehension. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 33–47.

Ostler, S. E. (1980). A survey of academic needs for advanced ESL. TESOL Quar-terly, 14, 489–502.

Powers, D. E. (1986). Academic demands related to listening skills. LanguageTesting, 3, 1–38.

Ramanathan, V., & Kaplan, R. B. (in press). Audience and voice in current L2composition texts: Some implications for ESL student writers. Journal of SecondLanguage Writing.

Reid, J. M. (1989). English as second language composition in higher education:The expectations of the academic audience. In D. Johnson & D. Roen (Eds.),Richness in writing: Empowering ESL students (pp. 220–234). New York: Longman.

Richards, J. C. (1983). Listening comprehension: Approach, design, procedure.TESOL Quarterly, 17, 219–239.

Rost, M. (1990). Listening in language learning. London: Longman.

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

Rost, M. (1995). On-line summaries as representations of lecture understanding.In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspectives (pp. 93–127). Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schmidt-Rinehart, B.C. (1994). The effects of topic familiarity on second languagelistening comprehension. Modern Language Journal, 78, 79–89.

Spack, R. (1988). Initiating ESL students into the academic discourse community:How far should we go? TESOL Quarterly, 22, 29-51.

Strodt-Lopez, B. (1991). Tying it all in: Asides in university lectures. AppliedLinguistics, 12, 117–140.

Tauroza, S., & Allison, D. (1995). Expectation-driven understanding in informa-tion systems lecture comprehension. In J. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening:Research perspectives (pp. 35–54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thompson, S. (1994). Frameworks and contexts: A genre-based approach to ana-lyzing lecture introductions. English for Specific Purposes, 13, 71–86.

Tschirner, E. (1992). From input to output: Communication-based teaching tech-niques. Foreign Language Annals, 25, 507–518.

Ur, P. (1984). Teaching listening comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Wintergerst, A. C. (1993). Why-Questions in classroom discourse. College ESL, 3,70–79.

Wright, D. W. (1980). TEFL and ESL in French higher education: The case studyand role-play approach. System, 8, 103–111.

Young, L. (1995). University lectures—macro-structure and micro-features. InJ. Flowerdew (Ed.), Academic listening: Research perspectives (pp. 159-176). Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Zuengler, J. (1993). Encouraging learners’ conversational participation: The effectof content knowledge. Language Learning, 43, 403–432.


APPENDIX

Survey: Academic Listening and Speaking Skills for ESL Students

A. Demographic Information1.

2.

3.

4.

Institution (circle one): CSUS UCD SCC USC

Department:

Number of years at your institution:

Courses you generally teach (check all that apply):

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

320 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE FORUMThe TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in theTESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to articles or reviewspublished in the Quarterly. Unfortunately, we are not able to publish responsesto previous Forum exchanges.

From Critical Research Practiceto Critical Research Reporting

A. SURESH CANAGARAJAHBaruch College, CUNY

■ Recent discussions on qualitative and critical research orientationsin the pages of this journal reflect and encourage the wide range ofresearch approaches emerging as an alternative to, and in some casesin opposition to, traditional scientific-empirical approaches that havedominated most disciplines in the academy. But the modes of reportingresearch have been left out of consideration. Though research meth-ods have been insightfully reconstructed for their hidden assumptionsand interests in keeping with a poststructuralist/postmodernist per-spective on knowledge (see Peirce, 1995b; Pennycook, 1994), the ideo-logical nature of research reporting has been overlooked. We mustnote that even if a study is carried out according to the emergingrealizations, one can defeat or contradict these assumptions when pres-enting the findings according to the traditional conventions of aca-demic research reporting. (Can we pour new wine into old bottles?)

It is understandable, therefore, that in many disciplines outsideTESOL much attention is being given today to critiquing the governingassumptions of research writing at the same time that a critical researchpractice is being developed. There is energetic experimentation withalternate forms of research reporting that would better reflect ouremerging realizations on the nature of research and knowledge pro-duction. In light of these developments, it is significant that in a recentintroduction to ethnographic methods in Research in the Teaching ofEnglish, Steven Athanases and Shirley Brice Heath (1995) are com-pelled to include a discussion on strategies of reporting research find-ings. Developing a feminist approach to composition research, GesaKirsch and Joy Ritchie (1995) find that encoding such concerns willrequire nothing less than new forms of academic writing and proceedto consider the rhetorical changes this will entail. It is therefore impor-

321

tant for scholars in TESOL to explore directions for more criticalresearch reporting.

We must first realize that writing/reporting research findings is noinsignificant appendage to the research process. It is the written docu-ment that embodies, reflects, and often constitutes the whole researchactivity for the scholarly community. Because the reams of field notes,audiotapes, transcripts, and statistical printouts are never convenientlyavailable to the scholarly community, and the lengthy research processin the many sites is rarely accessible for readers, it is understandablethat the report is treated as proxy for the study. It is of some concern,therefore, if the genre conventions of research reporting can modify/corrupt/eclipse the reported data. In a very revealing statement, sea-soned ethnographers George Marcus and Michael Fischer (1986) con-fess that “given the sort of heightened critical self-consciousness withwhich fieldwork is undertaken and conducted, the usual dissonancebetween what is known from fieldwork and what is constrained toreport according to genre conventions can grow intolerable” (p. 37).

Natural scientists have come to a position of acknowledging thatgenre conventions can have a predictive function and actively shapethe research process. Peter Dear (1991) has noted the “ways in whichliterary forms can direct the cognitive content of science through con-straining problem-choice or through requiring . . . particular kinds oftheoretical and experimental formulation” (p. 5). This insight reflectsthe radical awareness of contemporary scholars that “science is indeedfundamentally rhetorical, drenched as it is in language” (Selzer, 1993,p. 13). It is not surprising therefore that certain disciplinary communi-ties go to the extent of arguing that explorations into research re-porting feed into central concerns of their field, not excluding theoreti-cal development: “Theory-building in social and cultural anthropologyat present is a simultaneous function of devising textual strategies thatmodify past conventions of ethnographic writing” (Marcus & Fischer,1986, p. 67). The genres of academic writing are thus much moreintegral to intellectual practices than we have traditionally assumed.If the written document holds such importance, it is necessary tounderstand the values it embodies and the ways in which it mediatesthe research process.

RECONSTRUCTING RESEARCH REPORTING

The genre that enjoys almost paradigmatic status in scholarly circles(including our own) constitutes the four-part report of introduction,methods, results, and discussion, belonging to the scientific-empiricaltradition. It is interesting that even qualitative research reports oftenadopt a variation of this structure (see, e.g., the categories for Re-

322 TESOL QUARTERLY

porting the data under Qualitative Research Guidelines for authorsin the TESOL Quarterly). The teleological structure— beginning fromthe tentative hypotheses and moving to the research inquiry, the discov-ery of the results, and the application of the findings for solving priorproblems and confusions—embodies a triumphalistic movement thatreflects the heady mood of positivism in the early days of empiricalscience. The passive syntax and impersonal tone, together with theinductive structure, serve to maintain the pretense of objectivity, de-tachment, and neutrality, suppressing the agency of the researcher.The written product conveys the impression of infallible scholars me-chanically driven along by their methodology and data to the inevitablefindings.

Although this genre is most typical of natural sciences, variationsof the above empirical-scientific rhetoric (also called realist writing inthese circles—see Lay, 1995, p. 296) influence research reporting inother academic disciplines. For example, historians value the realistnarratives in their discipline in which detached prose is supposed toensure an accurate representation of past events (see White, 1973).Marcus and Fischer (1986) characterize the dominant genre of ethno-graphic reporting in the following way:

Realist ethnographies are written to allude to a whole by means of partsor foci of analytical attention which constantly evoke a social and culturaltotality. Close attention to detail and redundant demonstrations that thewriter shared and experienced this whole other world are further aspectsof realist writing. In fact, what gives the ethnographer authority and thetext a pervasive sense of concrete reality is the writer’s claim to representa world as only one who has known it firsthand can, which thus forges anintimate link between ethnographic writing and fieldwork. (p. 23)

The notion that the text reflects the real world, with the multitudeof concrete details photographically depicting the research context, isthe mimetic view of art/literature that derives from the 19th-centuryempirical tradition. This genre is also influenced by the “window pane”theory of language—that is, language as a transparent medium thatreveals unproblematically the material world outside. Because theselinguistic and philosophical assumptions were popularized by the Real-ist movement, paralleling the rise of empirical science, it is apt thatthe appellation realist is widely used in different disciplines to describethis genre of academic writing.

Although Carol Berkenkotter (1993) has questioned the appropri-ateness of this genre for qualitative studies that do not conduct con-trolled experimental research, the values fostered by this mode ofpresentation is questioned even in psychometric and natural science

THE FORUM 323

circles today. The recent access to Louis Pasteur’s diaries and thediscovery of the matters he chose not to report in his papers haveraised serious ethical and ideological concerns about research re-porting among scientists (see Geison, 1995; Porter, 1995). What theyrealize is that “realist” writing hides huge chunks of reality, apart fromembodying values and ideologies, despite its claim of transparency.

Let us consider therefore the shaping of research knowledge by thevalues behind reporting conventions. The need for coherence in thereport—achieved by the closure, the tight structure, and seamless writ-ing—can hide the false starts, wrong moves, misleading tracks, andinterpretive gambles that usually characterize the research process.There is a similar suppression of the gaps, contradictions, and conflictsin the data for the sake of textual coherence. The report thus getsconsiderably removed from the existential conditions of research. Thegenre conventions of objectivity and detachment can also function tosuppress the mediation of various levels of discourses in the researchprocess—such as the values of the researcher, the values of the re-search methodology, the values of the discipline, and the values ofthe academic community concerned.

Such abstraction and detachment have profound implications forthe representation of the knower/researcher in the report. For allpractical purposes, the researcher is absent from the report, loomingbehind the text as an omniscient, transcendental, all knowing figure.This convention hides the manner in which the subjectivity of theresearchers—with their complex values, ideologies, and experiences—shapes the research activity and findings. In turn, how the researchactivity shapes the researchers’ subjectivity is not explored—eventhough research activity can sometimes profoundly affect the research-ers’ sense of the world and themselves. Furthermore, the shifting/conflicting interests of the researcher—that is, professional, personal,ideological—in carrying out the study are not acknowledged. Realizingthe significant place of the “personal” in the construction of knowledge(see Rich, 1989; Harding, 1991, for the politics of location), recentfeminist scholarship has called for a complex reflexivity from research-ers to interrogate how they influence and are influenced by the researchprocess. However, such concerns are typically deemed irrelevant bythe traditional report genre.

The scope for adequately representing the researched/subjects aresimilarly limited. Because the subjects exist in the report only throughthe voice of the researcher, there is a natural tendency for their com-plexity to be suppressed and their identity to be generalized (or essen-tialized) to fit the dominant assumptions and theoretical constructs ofthe researcher and the disciplinary community. The power relation-ships between the researcher and the subjects also get concealed in

324 TESOL QUARTERLY

the objective report. If any production of knowledge demanding codi-fication, systematization, and categorization involves a measure of con-trol and colonization (as poststructuralists argue), studying and analyz-ing powerless groups like minority groups or students becomes highlypolitical. Minority scholars like bell hooks (1990) have protested againstthe practice of academic researchers using knowledge of/from subordi-nate groups for their own intellectual, academic, or professionalagendas. Furthermore, research frequently involves a measure of ma-nipulation and deception as interviewers and participant-observersmake subjects feel friendly, comfortable, and powerful in order toreveal their intimate thoughts and experiences. But such ethical andpolitical concerns in the “process” of the research activity are sup-pressed in the “product” of the report. In fact, feminist scholars havealso called for a caring, reciprocal relationship with subjects in theresearch process (see Oakely, 1981). They would encourage activeinvolvement in the life of the subjects, to the extent of taking measuresto improve their social and material conditions. But such close involve-ment is discouraged by the research report because it serves to preju-dice the researcher and pollute the findings. A studied detachmenttowards the subjects and contexts of research is the preferred relation-ship in this genre. Therefore, the rigorously self-examining attitudeof the researcher and a caring personal investment in the life of thesubjects demand new reporting conventions.

CONSTRUCTING ALTERNATE MODES OF REPORT

Among the initial shifts in research writing is the more relaxed useof the first person pronoun. But this perfunctory “I-dropping” (seeRaymond, 1993) is too weak a gesture to incorporate the complexsplits and shifts in the subject positions of the researcher, characterizedby a mixture of divided interests and values influencing the researchprocess. Another rhetorical move has been to open the report with anannouncement of the subject positions occupied by the researcher: “Iam a white male tenured liberal from the mid-west.” I have myselfresorted to a similar rhetorical strategy—albeit at paragraph length inthe middle of the analysis (see Canagarajah, 1993, pp. 620–621). Butcritical research calls for a more sustained and rigorous explorationof the ways the researcher’s subjectivity influences the research process.Boxing this concern into a single section in a largely detached, univo-cally authored, realist text is unsatisfactory.

Much of the research reporting in fields like composition and an-thropology today is even more experimental in negotiating the valuesthat mediate research reporting. These are polyphonous or dialogictexts that encode multiple voices/perspectives simultaneously and en-

THE FORUM 325

gage the reader more actively in the interpretive process. These textsillustrate developments in new ways of reading and writing in postmod-ern literature. Marcus and Fischer (1986) refer to experimental textsin their field as modernist ethnographies (to contrast with realist ethno-graphies), whereas some composition scholars call these multivocal texts(see Cushman, 1996).

For example, Kevin Dwyer’s (1982) Moroccan Dialogues attempts tobuild into the text the complexity of the fieldwork/research situationand the polyphony of voices in the research context to encouragereadings from multiple points of view. Through a series of lightlyedited interview transcripts, Dwyer dramatizes the exploratory, hypo-thetical, recursive, cumulative interpretive process of the researcher.Through this mode of presentation, he exposes how the neat lineartextualization of ethnography distorts the immediacy of the fieldworksituation and hides the researchers’ shaky control over their under-standing of the culture about which they later write with authority.The readers are similarly taken through the process of arriving at adeeper understanding of the new cultural system—while also acquiringan understanding of their own values and predisposition which moti-vated the partial initial readings. Gesa Kirsch observes that confrontedwith an informant who was decidedly against her own feminist perspec-tive, she resorted to providing lengthy excerpts from the interviewtranscripts to voice the other’s opinion, accompanied by her own expla-nation and theorization (Kirsch & Ritchie, 1995, p. 19).

We must note, however, that even in such presentations there islittle room for “authentic” representation of the informant’s views asthe researcher eventually holds the pen. It is the researcher who enjoysthe authority to choose and organize the words of the informants,apart from providing coherence for the text with an overarching gener-alization or theory (that would neutralize any tensions). A more promis-ing strand of experimentation has focused on coauthoring texts. Suchtexts are jointly written by the researcher and the informants/subjectsand, therefore, considered collaborative reports. They attempt to drama-tize the tensions between the perspectives of the researchers and sub-jects. Keeping in check the usual authority of the researcher/authorto offer solutions to contradictions generated by the data, such textsinvite the readers to struggle with these tensions. Birds of My KalamCountry (Bahr, Gregorio, Lopez, & Alvarez, 1974) and Piman Shamanism(Majnep & Bulmer, 1977), where western academics collaborate withnative informants to explicate indigenous cultural practices, are earlyexamples of such texts. In English studies, Susan Miller has coauthoreda study on academic underlife with several of her undergraduatestudents (see Anderson, Best, Black, Hirst, Miller, & Miller, 1990).The process of writing such texts can be very tense as researchers

326 TESOL QUARTERLY

and subjects negotiate their footing and attempt to reach a commonplatform to address the readers. Though the project can face thedanger of being abandoned altogether due to irreconcilable differ-ences—as confessed by Ritchie regarding a text she attempted to co-author with two of her ESL students (see Ritchie, Kaur, & Meyer, inpress)—the experience can be richly educational in its own right.

A variation of the above genre is the dialogic text that consists ofcounterpoised dialogues between the researcher and informants/sub-jects. Although the text more authentically explores the conflictingvoices of the subjects, resolving the ensuing interpretive tensions isthe responsibility of readers. The article by Magda Lewis and RogerSimon (1986) on their differing student/teacher perspectives on malediscourse in the classroom in a graduate course is one of the earliestexemplary texts in this regard. Beverly Clark and Sonja Wiedenhaupt(1992) have coauthored a report on writer’s block, with the researcherand student telling their stories from opposing standpoints.

Furthermore, narratives are gaining prominence in research publi-cations because they represent holistically the local knowledge of thecommunities studied. In opposition to grand theories and globalknowledge structures, narratives represent knowledge from the bot-tom up; in opposition to explicit forms of theorization, they embodyimplicit forms of reasoning and logic; in opposition to positivistic schol-arly discourses which are elitist in their specialized and abstract nature,narratives represent concrete forms of knowledge that are open tofurther interpretation. Narratives, then, represent the research processin all its concreteness and complexity, remaining open-ended for cre-ative theorization. It is also worthy of note that marginalized groupssuch as women, Blacks, and traditional oral communities, who widelypractice empathetic ways of knowing, are considered to conceive/embody knowledge in narrative forms (see Royster, 1996, on the intel-lectual role of narratives in the Black community in an essay writtenin narrative form). Narratives open up possibilities for these groupsto participate in knowledge construction in the academy.

Another form of writing gaining ground in English studies is moreintrospective and personal, voicing the inner thought processes of theresearcher in engagement with the context and subjects. A recentrefereed publication in composition research proceeds as follows: “OK,so I was a little annoyed at Elizabeth—who I thought was trying to getme to help write her paper for her. And when I saw the draft she hadwritten I was further displeased. Oh this is so lifeless and conventional,I thought. I looked at Elizabeth as ‘a cheerleader of the middle class’(this is the phrase from my field notes)” (Dixon, 1995, pp. 265-266).With such stream of consciousness appearing in research writing, wehave certainly come a long way from mechanical scientific prose. In

THE FORUM 327

fact, this mode of presentation can accommodate a narrative progres-sion with the personal voice. Arleen Schenke (1991) has similarly re-flected on her ESL students, employing a series of episodes in class-room and community.

The lines of textual experimentation outlined above make us con-sider how they can invigorate ESOL research reporting. Take, forexample, participant action research, much publicized in recent ESOLscholarship for the democratic manner in which it ensures the activecontribution of the subjects in the research process (see Auerbach,1994; Barndt, 1986). However, if solely the researcher presents thefindings from the study, the potential for the subjects’ perspectives toemerge from the report will be limited. The researchers’ understand-ing of the subjects (usually relatively powerless students) will find aprivileged position through their authorial control. It is necessary,therefore, to see reports co-authored by ESOL researcher/teachersand students. Rather than the researchers filtering the students’ diver-gent positions through their own perspectives, it is important to letthe students’ views remain in tension (if necessary) with the researchers’positions.

To take an ideologically more sophisticated example, consider thecase of Bonny Norton Peirce’s (1995a) classroom-based social research.Peirce employs a theory of subjectivity very similar to that outlined inthis article, providing a much needed challenge to notions of identityin language acquisition. However, the construction of the researchreport in the traditional genre with an unobtrusive author begs manyquestions. Though the writer applies the notion of split, shifting, multi-ple subjecthood insightfully to her subjects, the report fails to show areflexive application of this notion to the researcher herself or theresearcher’s interactions with the subjects. Furthermore, because de-veloping a sensitivity to those social contexts where learners negotiateidentities for language acquisition is the thrust of the article, andbecause the interview/research situation is one such context, it is impor-tant to know how the subjects negotiated subject positions with theresearcher. This issue can become more engrossing in the case ofdisempowered immigrant ethnic women interacting with a researcherfrom a relatively more privileged background in a study that perceivesidentities as a “site of struggle” (p. 15). How were such cultural andpolitical tensions handled? Moreover, a study that highlights the impor-tance of “investment” in language acquisition may be expected toexplore the desires of the subjects in participating in the study. Whatwas the contribution of the researcher to the socioeconomic strugglesof these women to survive in the new setting—besides listening to theirstories and plotting their language development? In the only place wehear the voice of the researcher (transcript of an interview in Peirce,

328 TESOL QUARTERLY

1995a, pp. 24–25), we listen to a voice that cuts subjects short in themiddle of their turn, poses solely questions for subjects who solelyanswer, suggests answers, knowingly elicits further information. Giventhe pedagogical goals of this research, is it not valuable to make stu-dents aware that such research situations too exemplify “how opportu-nities to speak are socially structured” (p. 26)? The point here is notthat the researcher failed to attend to these issues in her research; shevery well might have. What is more important is that we need a genreof presentation that will encourage us to articulate and explore suchconcerns.

Such unrelenting reflexivity and critical open-endedness in researchreporting need not drive us to despair on our ability to representknowledge and experience. Although this process involves breakingthe limits of language and textuality, the challenge is to strike the rightbalance between acknowledging the multiple values and conditionsthat impinge on the research process while explicating the significantthematic strands for readers. Needless to say, researchers cannotchange their reporting conventions overnight. Gatekeeping processesof academic/ research institutions and editorial boards, which institu-tionalize the scientific-empiricist assumptions of knowledge productionand transmission, can exert considerable pressure on writers to con-form to the dominant conventions. Furthermore, disciplinary commu-nities respond differently to such concerns—within the humanitiesitself, some like linguistics are more resistant, whereas those like com-position are less so. Readers, too, should acculturate themselves to thenew interpretive responsibilities. We must hope, therefore, that theTESOL professional community, academic institutions, and publishinghouses will grow sensitive to the politics of research reporting andaccommodate more critical and creative writing.

REFERENCES

Anderson, W., Best, C., Black, A., Hurst, J., Miller, B., & Miller, S. (1990). Cross-curricular ablex: A collaborative report on ways with academic words. CollegeComposition and Communication, 41, 11–36.

Athanases, S. Z., & Heath, S.B. (1995). Ethnography in the study of the teachingand learning of English. Research in the Teaching of English, 29, 263–287.

Auerbach, E. R. (1994). Participatory action research. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 693–697.

Bahr, D. M., Gregorio, J., Lopez, D. I., & Alvarez, A. (1974). Piman shamanismand staying sickness. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Barndt, D. ( 1986). Just getting there. Toronto: Participatory Research Group.Berkenkotter, C. (1993). A “rhetoric for naturalistic inquiry” and the question of

genre. Research in the Teaching of English, 27, 293–304.Canagarajah, A. S. ( 1993). Critical ethnography of a Sri Lanka classroom: Ambigu-

ities in student opposition through ESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 27, 601–626.

THE FORUM 329

Clark, B., & Wiedenhaupt, S. (1992). On blocking and unblocking Sonja: A casestudy in two voices. College Composition and Communication, 43, 55–74.

Cushman, E. (1996). Rhetorician as an agent of social change. College Compositionand Communication, 47, 7–28.

Dear, P. (Ed.). (1991). The literary structure of scientific argument: Historical studies.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Dixon, K. (1995). Gendering the “personal.” College Composition and Communication,46, 255–275.

Dwyer, K. (1982). Moroccan dialogues: Anthropology in question. Baltimore, MD: TheJohns Hopkins University Press.

Geison, G. (1995). The private science of Louis Pasteur. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

hooks, bell. (1990). Choosing the margin as a space for radical openness. InYearning: Race, gender and cultural politics (pp. 145–54). Boston: South End.

Kirsch, G., & Ritchie, J. S. (1995). Beyond the personal: theorizing a politics oflocation in composition research. College Composition and Communication, 46, 7–30.

Lay, M.M. (1995). Rhetorical analysis of scientific texts: Three major contributions.College Composition and Communication, 46, 292–302.

Lewis, M., & Simon, R. (1986). A discourse not intended for her: Learning andteaching within patriarchy. Harvard Educational Review, 56, 457–472.

Majnep, I., & Bulmer, R. ( 1977). Birds of my Kalam country. Auckland, New Zealand:Oxford University Press.

Marcus, G., & Fischer, M. M. J. (1986). Anthropology as cultural critique: An experimen-tal moment in the human sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Oakley, A. (1981). Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms? In Helen Robert(Ed.), Doing feminist research (pp. 30–61). New York: Routledge.

Peirce, B. N. (1995a). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOLQuarterly, 29, 9-32.

Peirce, B.N. (1995b). The theory of methodology in qualitative research. TESOLQuarterly, 29, 569-576.

Pennycook, A. (1994). Critical pedagogical approaches to research. TESOL Quar-terly, 28, 690–693.

Porter, R. (1995, June 16). Lion of the laboratory—Pasteur’s amazing achieve-ments survive the scrutiny of his notebooks. Times Literary Supplement, No. 4811,pp. 3–4.

Raymond, C. I. (1993) I-dropping and androgyny: The authorial I in scholarlywriting. College Composition and Communication, 44, 478–483.

Rich, A. (1989). Notes on a politics of location. In Blood, bread and poetry (pp. 210–231). New York: Norton.

Ritchie, J., Kaur, M., & Meyer, B. C.. (in press). Women students’ autobiographicalwriting: The rhetoric of discovery and defiance. In E. Jessup & K. Geissler(Eds.), Valuing diversity: Race, gender and class in composition research. Portsmouth,NH: Heinemann.

Royster, J. J. (1996). When the first voice you hear is not your own. CollegeComposition and Communication, 47, 29–40.

Schenke, A. (1991). The “will to reciprocity” and the work of memory: Fictioningspeaking out of silence in ESL and feminist pedagogy. Resources for FeministResearch, 20, 47–55.

Selzer, J. (Ed.). (1993). Understanding scientific prose. Madison: University of Wiscon-sin Press.

330 TESOL QUARTERLY

White, H. V. (1973). Metahistory: The historical imagination in nineteenth century Europe.Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Comments on Bonny Norton Peirce’s “SocialIdentity, Investment, and Language Learning”

A Reader Reacts . . .

STEPHEN PRICEMonash University

■ Peirce’s central concern in her TESOL Quarterly article (Vol. 29, No. 1)is to contribute to an overcoming of the “artificial distinctions [drawn]between the language learner and the language learning context”(p. 10) and the “arbitrary mapping of particular factors on either theindividual or the social” (p. 11). Her central argument is that “SLAtheorists have not developed a comprehensive theory of social identitythat integrates the language learner and the language learning context.Furthermore, they have not questioned how relations of power in thesocial world affect social interaction between second language learnersand target language speakers” (p. 12).

I believe Peirce advances our understanding of the way in whichpower relations have a direct effect on language use and learning, andher attempt to deal with challenges raised by poststructural thoughtfor language learning is gratifying. However, I wish to raise severalquestions concerning her theorising of social identity, whether it actuallydoes overcome the dichotomy she addresses and make consequentcomments on agency, power, and practice in the application of post-structural thinking to SLA.

SOCIAL IDENTITY AND THE CASES OF MARTINA AND EVA

Peirce clearly shows that power is embedded in the social relationsMartina and Eva are engaged in. Martina’s position as an ‘immigrant’induced silence. However, because Martina’s “investment in Englishwas largely structured by an identity as primary caregiver in the family”(p. 21), she claimed the right to speak “by setting up a counterdiscoursein her workplace and resisting the subject position ‘immigrant woman’in favour of the subject position ‘mother’” (p. 23). Peirce’s concernwith learners exercising their right to speak in order to practice theirtarget language underpins the classroom objectives she suggests in thelast section of her article.

Whether Peirce overcomes the dichotomy of language learner/learn-

THE FORUM 331

ing context is questionable, as is, consequently, whether she raises themost pertinent and pressing questions that poststructural theory raisesfor second language acquisition (SLA) theory.

Borrowing from Weedon, Peirce asserts “the multiple nature of thesubject; subjectivity as a site of struggle; and subjectivity as changing”(p. 15). Fundamental to her argument is the application of these char-acteristics to social identity. But this theoretical conflation of subjectiv-ity and identity weakens her own position because it blinds her to thepractical distinction she in fact necessarily continues to make. Sheasserts, following Weedon, that “language is the place . . . where oursense of selves, our subjectivity is constructed” (p. 15). Yet, in herinterpretation of Martina’s case, she asserts that “despite feelings ofinferiority and shame . . . Martina refused to be silenced” (p. 21). Thiswas because “her social identity as a mother and primary caregiver inthe home led her to challenge” (p. 21) the prevailing expectations ofthe discursive contexts she found herself in. Somehow then, Martinafinds the resources to maintain her identity as mother despite the“multiple sites of Martina’s identity formation [as] immigrant, amother, a language learner, a worker, a wife” (p. 21).

The problem here is that Martina somehow can insist on one identity(mother) over others, despite the way discourse might construct her(e.g., immigrant) at any given moment. Peirce seems obliged to appealto an ongoing identity (mother) that seems in fact remarkably constant,reaching back even to the decision to migrate to Canada.1 There is nosense here that identity is multiple and a site of struggle. Indeed,mother, migrant woman, and other identities are all presented asremarkably unitary. The multiplicity and site of struggle that Peirceargues for exists between the options which present themselves toMartina, as she struggles to take up one or another alternative identity.That is, a pre-given Martina, decides between these alternative optionsaccording to her own pre-given interests (e.g., her investment as amother). In Peirce’s account, there is no sense that these identities(mother, migrant) and Martina’s interests change as a function ofongoing discursive practices. Whereas discourse presents the options,choice between them and the sustaining of their meaning is presentedas a function of individual capacities, not of discourse practices.

I am suggesting then that for Peirce, discourse and power facilitates

1 It might be better to argue that Martina identifies with the signifier mother. However, Peirceis suggesting that she identifies with the signified, as if this remains constant. But it is notwithin Martina’s or any other subject’s capacity to insist on a constant signified; this isstressed by much poststructural thought (Lacan’s theory particularly utilises the distinctionbetween signifier and signified. Jacques-Alain Miller, 1991, a leading exponent of Lacan,states, “The subject is nothing more than the effect of the combination of the signifier”(p. 33).

332 TESOL QUARTERLY

or impedes the taking up of different identities/positions but does notseem to be involved in the construction of them. There is no indicationof how Martina’s identity as mother varies in meaning and significanceaccording to ongoing discourse practices. The meaning of motherseems to be given by Martina herself, which she safeguards despitethe changing discursive and social contexts to which she is subject.

Precisely how Martina maintains certain meanings or what powershe draws on to insist on them remains unclear, but Peirce’s argumentdoes seem to point toward a subject-agent that is capable of circum-venting the constitutive role of discourse and resisting the power rela-tions, through an act of will, an act of courage, of determination, thussetting up a counterdiscourse. And this leaves us with the possibilitythat some learners will simply lack the fortitude to insist. If my readingis valid, then it would seem that the dichotomy between languagelearner and context remains fundamental to Peirce’s account.

I am suggesting then that Peirce’s argument places discourse as amedium through which subject interests may be facilitated or impeded,but that she fails to adequately incorporate into her account how thoseinterests themselves, and the subject as such, is constructed by dis-course. The identity the learner takes up and the resistance offeredto alternative positions are presented as depending on meanings main-tained individually, rather than socially. The danger here is of reducing(social) language use to (individual) language competence. Conse-quently, there is no indication that in challenging the discourse prac-tices themselves, the subject identity and motivating interests are atthe same time brought into question.

I want next to suggest how Peirce’s theorising makes insistent appealto such a pre-given subject and indicate possible alternative directionssuggested by poststructuralist thinking.

INVESTMENT AND AGENCY

Peirce substitutes the term investment for motivation, arguing that itbetter signals “the socially and historically constructed relationship ofthe women to the target language” (p. 17). Yet investment does seemto be a function of a dominant and enduring identity (e.g., mother inthe case of Martina) rather than of prevailing practices and which,like motivation, seems the dominant factor in determining whether ornot the subject will insist on speaking. Although Peirce shows theimportance of circumstance in shaping the relative ease or difficultywith which the right to speak can be claimed (in contrast to the conceptof motivation that she claims provides no space for such variability),not only does her argument rely on the concept of a continuing identity(mother in Martina’s case) that resists prevailing practices because it

THE FORUM 333

insists on a meaning independent of those practices, but she alsogrounds investment itself in a noncontingent, ahistorical subject.

Thus, she argues that “if learners invest in a second language, theydo so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range ofsymbolic and material resources” (p. 17). She adds, “learners will ex-pect or hope to have a good return on that investment” and furtherthat “this return on investment must be seen as commensurate withthe effort expended on learning the second language” (p. 17). Thereis no suggestion this a priori calculative rationality directing investmentchanges across cultures and over time. That is, it is not constructed indiscourse but is an inherent quality of all human subjects. This isa very contentious claim and yet central to Peirce’s argument. Theassumption of such a given, rational subject has been a central objectof criticism by much poststructural and critical thinking alike.2

I am suggesting that on the one hand Peirce resorts to a pre-givensubject-agent, yet on the other argues that “subjectivity is producedin a variety of social sites, all of which are structured by relations ofpower” (p. 15). The place of the subject-agent needs further clarifica-tion, especially if the dissolution of agency into social/discourse deter-minism is to be avoided.3

Peirce deals with agency simply by asserting “the subject has humanagency” and that consequently “the subject positions a subject takesup within a particular discourse are open to argument” (p. 15) by thesubject. However, whether the subject who resists does so accordingto interests and faculties that are discourse mediated or pre-givenremains very unclear. Despite Peirce’s intention of overcoming thedichotomy between pre-given learner and language learning context,I am suggesting she remains locked into the impasse.

PRACTICE

Peirce addresses the issues of social identity and power relationsfrom an SLA perspective that emphasises the importance of practice.She draws on two different concepts of practice. These two are exem-plified perhaps in the statement: “While Eva had been offered theopportunity to engage in social interaction, to ‘practice’ her English,her subject position within the larger discourse of which she and Gailwere a part undermined this opportunity” (p. 16). Practice on the onehand refers to rehearsal and to the learner developing competence in

2 One attempt to understand the subject as a function of the structuring of desire, and hencehistorically contingent, rather than being essentially rational and ahistorical, can be foundin Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn, & Valkerdine (1984). See also comments by McCarthy(1993, p. 11).

3 McCarthy (1993) discusses this risk in Foucault’s thinking.

334 TESOL QUARTERLY

systematic aspects of language use. On the other hand, language useentails a realisation of social practice, which in the above quote involvesEva in enacting a social identity and relations that ensured her silence.Practice in the former sense accentuates systematic aspects of languageuse that cut across context, “rules” that can be properly internalised,autonomised, and applied appropriately. Practice in the latter senseaccentuates the moment of realisation of meaning and its contingency.Eva takes up her position and is silent because she can already respondto the discourse. In this sense an important aspect of acquisition hasalready taken place. How remains unexplored. To resist being silenced,she must oppose one identity to another.

Peirce at this point appeals to a pre-given subject rather than lookingfor resistance that is rooted in factors inherent in the discourse itself.Such inherent resistance may or may not lead to speech. Claiming the“right to speak” in itself is not necessarily the desired goal. Silence canbe “produced in ways other than that of victimisation and suffering. . . . being insurgent is not to trade one form of knowledge/powerfor another, but to move transversal to the logic of what is. To move,that is, and to speak, across and through the symbolic, while remainingfully, yet reflexively, implicated in it.” (Schenke, 1991, p. 49, italics inoriginal). 4

The relationship between the two views of practice I have mentionedis problematic. Bourdieu (1977) suggests they are not compatible. Heargues that there is an “abstraction in the concept of competence”(p. 646) which suggests the autonomisation of “linguistic production.”This “competence can be autonomised neither de facto nor de jure.”Language, he asserts, is a praxis, by which he means one acquires a“practical competence.” “Understanding is not a matter of recognizinginvariable meaning, but of grasping the singularity of a form whichonly exists in a particular context” (p. 647).

Peirce’s concern is not with how a learner takes up a position ac-cording to “the particularity of the form . . . in a particular context. ”Rather, she is concerned with exercising the right to speak, with indi-vidual resistance to power relations once such meanings and positionshave been recognised and taken up; resistance in order to maximiselanguage practice and pre-given interests. Her argument presupposesthat learners have responded to changing identities offered by differ-ent discourses in specific contexts, yet how this occurs seems to be themore interesting problematic that poststructural thinking raises. Peirceneglects this problem, instead framing her problematic in terms ofcompetency and fluency development. Her stance distracts us from

4Schenke’s article provides, amongst other things, valuable comments on the complexity ofsilence in language acquisition and use.

THE FORUM 335

recognizing the problematic nature of silence, and the complex processof recognizing and utilising meaning in novel circumstances, and ofhow language is not only something we master and use (as subjectsusing a tool to achieve our interests) but as integral to the practice ofan ongoing construction of social reality and identity.

CONCLUSION

Although the practical suggestions Peirce makes in the last sectionof her article seem of great value, I have questioned how far theyrespond to and grow out of issues raised by poststructural thoughtand how far her argument does in fact integrate the language learnerand language learning context. I have questioned how far Peirce movesbeyond the concept of a unitary subject. I have argued that her concernwith resistance, power, and silence rests ultimately on an appeal toindividual capacities and does not explore far enough the way theindividual subject/learner is implicated in social and discourse prac-tices. If attention is directed more to the radical contingency of subjectidentity, interests, and desires (and rationality), which are formedwithin discourse practices; if this is the focus of attention, then froman SLA perspective, the ways in which learners respond to the specific-ity of discourses and take up positions and the ways in which resistanceitself can be grounded in such practices will take on greater prominenceand urgency.

The focus shifts from the ways in which learners might come toexercise the right to speak and develop competence in order to realiseindividually given and sustained pre-given interests to how interestsand discourse positions are structured and taken up by learners inever changing contexts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to Alastair Pennycook and the students inhis graduate course The Politics of Language Education/Critical Applied Linguis-tics for comments made on a first draft of this response. I would also like to thankBrian Lynch for very helpful comments made on subsequent drafts.

REFERENCES

Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges, Social Sciences Informa-tion,16, pp. 645–668.

Henriques, J., Hollway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C., & Valkerdine, V. (1984). Changingthe subject. London: Methuen.

McCarthy, T. (1993). Ideals and illusions: On reconstruction and reconstruction incontemporary critical theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

336 TESOL QUARTERLY

Miller, J. (1991). Language: Much ado about what? In E. Ragland-Sullivan &M. Bracher (Eds.), Lacan and the subject of language. London: Routledge.

Schenke,, A. (1991). The “Will to Reciprocity” and the work of memory: Fictioningspeaking out of silence in ESL and feminist pedagogy. ” Resources for FeministResearch, 20, 47–55.

Interpreting Data: The Role of Theory

BONNY NORTON PEIRCEUniversity of British Columbia

In some schools of poststructuralist theory, advocates celebrate the“death of the author” (Foucault, 1977, p. 117). In its strong version,advocates argue that the author’s intentions and objectives are notcentral to the meaning of a text and that the meaning of a text shiftswith every reading. It is clear that Price does not support this schoolof poststructuralist theory because he has questioned whether his read-ing of my article, “Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learn-ing,” (Peirce, 1995a) is a valid one. Further, he has given me, theauthor, the opportunity to elaborate on my research and clarify myobjectives. I value this opportunity to engage in debate on postmodernthought and its relationship to the field of language learning andteaching.

As an author, I am in the privileged position of determining whetherPrice’s reading of my article is indeed a valid one. Because he raisedsome critical questions, there is, to some extent, a conflict of interest.I am both the accused and the judge of his critique. As I sought todistance myself from these conflicting identities and read Price’s cri-tique as a disinterested scholar, it struck me that the process I wasgoing through served to validate further the theories of social identityand investment I was exploring in my article. My identity was multi-ple—I was accused, judge, and scholar. By extension, my identityalso shifted over time as I reread the critique from different subjectpositions and with different investments. In sum, the complex relation-ship between me and the social world mediated my engagement withPrice’s text.

But this is not the central argument I wish to make to support thetheories of social identity and investment explored in my article.Rather, I defend the position that Price’s reading was structured byan a priori assumption that was not consistent with the objectives ofmy research. This assumption is made explicit in the conclusion of hiscommentary. Price asserts that although the practical suggestions Imake in my article seem of great value, he questions the extent towhich they “grow out of issues raised by poststructural thought.” In

THE FORUM 337

conducting my research and in writing the article, it was never myintention to serve as an apologist for poststructuralist theories. Instead,I drew on poststructuralist theories to help me make sense of my dataand to examine how they might inform second language acquisitiontheory. Whereas I recognize that there is a complex relationship be-tween theory and research (Peirce, 1995b), I do not believe a researchershould tailor her or his analysis to suit a particular theoretical orienta-tion. Thus the question I asked in my research was as follows: “Towhat extent can poststructuralist theory help me to understand mydata?” The question was not, as Price assumes, “To what extent doesmy data support poststructuralist theory?”

To defend this argument, I would like to address the questions Priceraises about my interpretation of the Bart Simpson exchange betweenEva, one of the participants in my research, and Gail, one of Eva’s co-workers. When Eva is silenced in the course of the exchange, I argueas follows, “This discourse must be understood not only in relation tothe words that were said, but in relationship to larger structures inthe workplace, and Canadian society at large, in which immigrantlanguage learners often struggle for acceptance in Canadian society”(Peirce, 1995a, p. 16). Price questions this interpretation, arguing thatI did not theorize Eva’s silence as a form of resistance. “Peirce at thispoint appeals to a pre-given subject, rather than looking for resistancethat is rooted in factors in the discourse itself.”

In this regard, there are two issues that I need to address. First,Price has challenged me to be accountable for my interpretation ofEva’s silence. This, I believe, is essential for scholarly inquiry, and Iwelcome the opportunity to elaborate on my analysis. The second issue,however, is more problematic. Without having met Eva, spoken to her,or read any of her work, Price feels qualified to interpret her actions.As he argues, “Eva takes up her position and is silent because she canalready respond to the discourse. In this sense, an important aspectof acquisition has already taken place . . . . Such inherent resistancemay or may not lead to speech.” He provides little evidence to supportthis analysis, resorting only to secondary sources.

To return then to the first issue: How can I defend my interpretationof Eva’s silence? In a more comprehensive account of my research(Peirce, 1994) I had consulted Eva on this topic, attempting to establishwhy she had turned silent during the course of the exchange. I wasunable to find evidence to support the view that her silence was acovert form of resistance. Groping for words, Eva explained her humil-iation to me by describing herself through the eyes of her interlocutor,“‘You don’t watch TV?’ And I felt, ‘What are you doing.’ I was thinkinglike, ‘This strange woman.’” (Peirce, 1994, p. 197). Tempting thoughit was, I could not sustain the interpretation that her silence was a

338 TESOL QUARTERLY

covert form of resistance. The only defensible argument I could makewas that Eva had remained silent because she had, like many immigrantwomen in Canada, felt “strange” and marginalized in her anglophoneworkplace. Under such conditions, it was her anglophone co-workerGail who was in a position of power relative to Eva, and it was Gailwho could structure the conditions under which Eva could speak.

It was only much later—a year later—that I was able to find evidencethat Eva’s identity as an immigrant women had changed, and with it,the extent to which she claimed the right to speak. First, she explainedthat she had reached a point where she felt that if people treated herwith disrespect it was “their problem” and not her problem. Second,she described an encounter with an anglophone customer who hadaccused her of “putting on an accent” to get more tips. Rather thanremaining silent, Eva had defiantly responded, “I wish I did not havethis accent because then I would not have to listen to such comments”(Peirce, 1994, p. 118). Although I did not find evidence of resistancein the Bart Simpson exchange, I could find such evidence in the secondexchange, a year later. In addition, I could find evidence that Evahad a changing conception of herself, her relationship to the widercommunity, and her insistence on her right to speak. Poststructuralisttheories of identity, which theorize identity as changing over time,helped me to make sense of this data.

Notwithstanding this evidence that identities change over time, Pricechides me for being unable to provide evidence from Martina (anotherparticipant) that “identities are changeable over time.” Again, the cen-tral question for me is not whether my research can support poststruct-uralist theories, but whether poststructuralist theories can help me tounderstand the conditions under which language learners will speak.In the case of Martina, the poststructuralist theory that identity ismultiple and a site of struggle helped me to understand Martina’scomplex identities and the surprising conditions under which shespoke. Although she said that as an immigrant she frequently felt“inferior,” she drew on her resources as a mother to claim the right tospeak. The fact that Martina’s identities as mother, immigrant woman,worker, and wife do indeed appear, as Price argues, “remarkably uni-tary” over time, is not necessarily inconsistent with the view that identi-ties are changeable. The data collection period was limited to theduration of a year, during which time Martina’s children remaineddependent on her as the primary caregiver of the family, notwithstand-ing social and economic changes in their lives. Had my project contin-ued for a few more years, I may well have found that the meaningof “mother” had changed dramatically for Martina—along with herrelationship to the wider community and the conditions under whichshe spoke.

THE FORUM 339

In response to Price’s critique, I have argued that I am more con-cerned about investigating the conditions under which language learn-ers speak than with validating the central tenets, of poststructuralisttheory. Whether my theorising of social identity and investment helpsto explain the conditions under which learners speak is subject tofurther inquiry. Nevertheless, I hope that my research makes a contri-bution to a highly complex set of questions about the relationshipbetween the language learner and the social world. Further research(see, e.g., McKay & Wong, in press) is necessary to refine, extend, orrefute the theories presented. I hope that Price’s interest in theory iscomplemented by a passion for research.

REFERENCES

Foucault, M. ( 1977). What is an author? In M. Foucault, Language, counter-memory,practice: Selected essays and interviews (pp. 113- 138). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-sity Press.

McKay, S., & Wong, S. L. (in press). Multiple discourses, multiple identities:Investment and agency in second language learning among Chinese adolescentimmigrant students. Harvard Educational Review.

Peirce, B. N. (1994). Language learning, social identity, and immigrant women. Unpub-lished doctoral dissertation. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/Univer-sity of Toronto.

Peirce, B. N. (1995a). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOLQuarterly, 29, 9-31.

Peirce, B. N. (1995b). The theory of methodology in qualitative research. TESOLQuarterly, 29, 569-576.

340 TESOL QUARTERLY

RESEARCH ISSUESThe TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of qualitativeand quantitative research. For this issue, we asked two researchers to discussthe topic of gender in research on language.

Edited by DONNA M. JOHNSONUniversity of Arizona

Gender in Research on Language

Researching Gender-Related Patternsin Classroom Discourse

DEBORAH TANNENGeorgetown University

■ TESOL classroom researchers have shown increasing interest inexamining gender-related patterns of behavior in their work. Thisinterest draws on and contributes to a burgeoning literature on genderand language. It is important, however, to bear in mind that gender-related patterns dovetail with all the other dynamics of language behav-ior: Ethnic, class, regional, and age differences all affect speakingstyles, along with such influences as sexual orientation, professionaltraining, and individual personality. In designing a study of genderand language, it is tempting to isolate specific linguistic strategies orfeatures, such as interruption, tag questions, indirect speech acts,amount of talk produced, and then audiotape classroom discourseand count up occurrences of those features in the speech of femalesor males. Conclusions about the “meaning” of these patterns oftenseem to follow almost self-evidently. But there are many reasons forwhich such an approach is not nuanced enough to capture the dynam-ics underlying gender-related or any other linguistic patterns.

First, a linguistic feature that can be used for one purpose can alsobe used for another, even opposite, purpose. I will illustrate with alinguistic strategy that is particularly relevant to the TESOL class, inwhich students are likely to have very different cultural backgroundsand consequently very different assumptions and habits with respectto its use, that is, overlap— more than one voice going at the same time.I prefer the term overlap to the more commonly used term, interruption,because interruption is interpretive: It implies that a second speakeris violating the conversational rights of the first, and assumptions about

341

the second speaker’s intentions seem to follow logically from that. (Heis trying to dominate, and so on). In some cases this is exactly what isoccurring, but in many cases it is not. For example, a second speakermay talk along with a first in order to show enthusiastic listenership.Ironically, although many researchers have found that men tend tointerrupt women more than women interrupt men, James and Clarke(1993), surveying studies of interruption and gender, note that re-searchers who compared all-female to all-male conversations found ahigher rate of interruption in the all-female conversations. However,these interruptions were typically supportive in nature, reinforcingthe point made by the original speaker rather than wresting the floor.

This brings us to further cautions that must be kept in mind when-ever language is observed in interaction: One must take into account(a) the context in which a linguistic strategy is used, (b) the conversa-tional styles of the participants, and (c) the interaction of those styles.Furthermore, intentions and effects are not necessarily the same. Forexample, regardless of the speaker’s intentions, the effect of an overlapcan be obstructive when used with a speaker who believes only onevoice should be heard at a time—and consequently feels compelled toyield the floor-but constructive when used with a speaker who feelsthat two voices going at once is the sign of a lively, involved conversa-tion—and consequently feels free to continue speaking over theoverlap.

The interruption/overlap example also illustrates the danger of as-suming that a linguistic feature is accomplishing only one interfactionalgoal, such as power or dominance (or, if the strategy under consider-ation is, for example, indirectness, then the opposing motives of soli-darity or powerlessness). As I have argued and illustrated at length(Tannen, 1994), power and solidarity (or status and connection) arenot mutually exclusive but rather intertwining and dovetailing: Everyinterchange must balance both. Thus, speaking along with anothercan serve both power and solidarity at the same time. There are speak-ers for whom a lively conversation entails a vigorous and invigoratingcompetition for the floor, resulting in a mutually balanced shoutingmatch that leaves both energized and satisfied.

Because of the dangers inherent in focusing too narrowly on oneaspect of speech behavior, it is fruitful to view gender-related patternsfrom what Bateson (1979) calls the corner of the eye. One begins not bylooking directly at features associated with gender but rather by lookingat other dynamics of interaction and then looking to see how womenand men tend to fall within the pattern. The theoretical approach Ihave found most enlightening to achieve that end is framing (Bateson,1972; Goffman, 1974; Tannen, 1993).

342 TESOL QUARTERLY

A study that is exemplary in this regard was conducted by Kuhn(1992) on the classroom discourse of professors at U.S. and Germanuniversities. She found the language used by the U.S. women profes-sors she taped initially puzzling: They were more assertive than theirmale colleagues in giving students direct orders at the beginning of theterm. But a deeper analysis of the framing underlying these linguisticchoices—that is, the alignment the speakers were taking up to theinformation conveyed and the students to whom they were conveyingit—led Kuhn to observe that the women professors spoke of “therequirements” of the course as if these were handed down directlyfrom the institution. This framing is what led them to tell students,without hedging, how they could fulfill the requirements. For example,one said, “We are going to talk about the requirements” (p. 319). Kuhncontrasts this with the men professors in her study who framed therequirements as decisions they personally had made. For example,one said, “I have two midterms and a final. And I added this firstmidterm rather early to get you going on reading, uh, discussions, sothat you will not fall behind” (p. 323). In other words, the significantdistinction in the classroom discourse of the women and men profes-sors in Kuhn’s study resided not in the linguistic form of their dis-course, but rather in the way the women and men positioned them-selves with respect to the requirements and the students. The linguisticforms they chose can only be understood in light of that framing.

Interest in gender-related patterns of classroom discourse will enrichan understanding of the dynamics of the TESOL classroom. Drawingon the rich theoretical foundation of frames theory will ensure thatresearch into the dynamic of gender will reflect the complex natureof linguistic behavior.

THE AUTHOR

Deborah Tannen is University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at George-town University. Her research interests include discourse analysis, interfactionalsociolinguistics, gender and language, and cross-cultural communication. Amongher books are You Just Don’t Understand (William Morrow), Talking from 9 to 5(William Morrow), Talking Voices (Cambridge University Press), and Gender andDiscourse (Oxford University Press).

REFERENCES

Bateson, G. (1972). A theory of play and fantasy. In Steps to an ecology of mind(pp. 177–193). New York: Ballantine.

Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and nature. New York: Ballantine.Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.

RESEARCH ISSUES 343

James, D., & Clarke, S. (1993). Women, men, and interruptions: A critical review.In D. Tannen (Ed.), Gender and conversational interaction (pp. 231–280). Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Kuhn, E.D. (1992). Playing down authority while getting things done: Womenprofessors get help from the institution. Locating power: In K. Hall,M. Bucholtz, & B. Moonwomon (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Womenand Language Conference (Vol. 2), (pp. 318–325). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Womenand Language Group, University of California.

Tannen, D. (Ed). (1993). Framing in discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Tannen, D. (1994). The sex-class-linked framing of talk at work. In Gender and

Discourse (pp. 195–122) (Paperback ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Research as Gendered Practice

JERRI WILLETTUniversity of Massachusetts

Gender is one of the major social relations continually negotiatedas we engage in social practices. It is a complex and contradictorysystem that operates not only on language practices and identitiesof learners and teachers but also on the practices and identities ofresearchers—the questions we ask, the methods we use, the interpreta-tions we make of our data, the implications we draw from our research,the controversies we choose to argue and even the identities we con-struct in the process of conducting our research. I would like to posea few provocative questions to highlight the tensions that must bemanaged in the gendered practice of research.

If gender is so ubiquitous, why has the TESOL profession taken solong to examine gender? Is it that without adequate theorizing ofgender and second language, we do not notice the invisible relationsbeing negotiated as we engage in research? Or is it that TESOL theo-rists are merely interested in other topics, having conceptualized lan-guage use and language learning as primarily cognitive processesrather than social processes, as argued by Rodby (1992)? Do someresearchers avoid topics such as gender, race, ethnicity, and class inorder to stay out of identity politics? If so, how does this avoidanceaffect theoretical development of the social processes of language useand language learning? Whose stories are being told in our research,how are these stories essentialized (made to seem as if they were univer-sal stories), and who reads the stories we tell? What relations are beingconstructed when a male researcher tells the stories of female teachersor language learners or when a feminist researcher tells the story oflearners or teachers whose gender ideologies differ from those ofthe researcher? To view research as gendered practice is to become

344 TESOL QUARTERLY

enmeshed in gender politics and there is no neutral place from whichto explore the notion.

The theoretical language that researchers use to formulate questionsand make sense of data is also part of gender politics. Selecting a lessexplicitly political language (e.g., ethnography of communication orinterfactional sociolinguistics) positions a researcher in these politicaldebates as much as selecting a more explicitly political language (e.g.,critical theory or feminist poststructuralism). What are the conse-quences of selecting one language over another or a combination ofseveral? Do descriptions of differences (e.g., girls talk less than boysin class discussions) sustain dominant cultural scripts about how to bemale or female in society? And does the reconstruction of these cul-tural scripts undermine rather than transform women’s positions insociety (e.g., the belief that traditional ideologies ensure women a placeof honor in the cultural system). In what complex and multiple waysdoes gender (in accordance with racial, ethnic, sexual, social class iden-tities) affect the kinds of theoretical lenses that we choose? Do maleresearchers read feminist theories on gender and language? Why doI see so few males attending sessions on gender at AERA (AmericanEducational Research Association)? And why are those few more likelyto attend if the session is coded as “critical” or “poststructural”? Aremale researchers more comfortable with the politically oriented theo-ries? How do ideologies about gender acquired through nonacademicinteractions contradict ideologies carefully constructed through theorybuilding? How do researchers manage these contradictions? Do femaleresearchers find it more difficult to participate in the more explicitpolitical agendas (e.g., transforming gender relations) of critical theorybecause these clash with unconscious cultural scripts about femininity(see Willett & Jeannot, 1993)? How do male researchers who readfeminist theories position themselves in the discourse and how arethey positioned by female researchers? (See Hearn & Morgan, 1995,for one perspective on the issue of male researchers of gender). Arefemale researchers sensitive to the ways men are also positioned toassume certain social roles? These questions highlight some of thetensions at the heart of gendered research. They are negotiated inconference presentations and discussions, journal reviews, classes, dis-sertation committees, and personnel committees. Viewing researchas gendered practice, plunges researchers “into a complicated andcontroversial morass” (Flax, 1995, p. 146).

Constructing gender relations in the field is no less political thanconstructing gender relations in the academy (see Bell, Caplan &Karim, 1993, for analyses of gender relations in the field of anthropol-ogy). For example, how does gender shape access to the field, whetheror not one focuses on gender? I knew I had to tread carefully when

RESEARCH ISSUES 345

gaining access to a male ESL teacher’s classroom for a study I wasconducting (but never completed). He had not had formal training inESL, and an informant warned me that I might intimidate him becauseof my formal training and practical experience in teaching ESL. Ithought I had negotiated my relationship with him carefully by stress-ing the importance of his “local knowledge” in helping me understandhow the children in his classroom were learning English. Much to mysurprise, he interpreted my interest in his ideas as romantic. Whatkinds of gendered scripts did we both draw on to negotiate this relation-ship? Did my downplaying my authority as a researcher and experi-enced teacher call forth the familiar “playing dumb” script used toconstruct gender relations in courtships?

Negotiating access with children is no less problematic. In my studyon language socialization of first graders (Willett, 1995), I spent consid-erable time thinking about how to introduce the idea of individual chil-dren wearing a micro-tape recorder to record their language in the class-room and in the playground. I designed a blue denim harness and pouchon which I sewed an Extra Terrestrial (ET) sticker. The children wouldwear it in the front so that the microphone could pickup what they weresaying. I chose a girl as the first child to wear the contraption. She imme-diately named the tape recorder her “ET baby,” ending any possibilityof getting the boys to wear the tape recorder. Although I had thoughtabout making the tape recorder gender-neutral, I had not given anythought about what choosing a girl to wear the recorder would mean tothe children. The children’s script was obvious, but was I using culturalscripts such as “girls first” to introduce the tape recorder? If I recallcorrectly, the boys were clamoring to wear the tape recorder, but I chosefrom among the “quiet and well-behaved” girls. This one act forced meto focus on girls. On the other hand, focusing on girls enabled my accessto children’s lives outside of the classroom. I took the girls to Brownies,observed them in the playground, and had both formal and informaltalks with their parents, particularly their mothers. Especially consider-ing that two of the girls were from Muslim families, had I been a maleresearcher, would I have had this kind of access? Do cultural scriptsabout men and children make it more difficult for male researchers tostudy any children, whether male or female? This is not to say that maleresearchers have essential qualities that make them unsuitable to studychildren; rather I am suggesting that cultural scripts that work to limitmale access to children exist in many societies. How does this affect ourtheories?

These are just a few of possible questions that need exploring. Flax(1995) points out that “gender is a social relation that enters into andpartially constitutes all other social relations and activities” (p. 147).

346 TESOL QUARTERLY

Isn’t it time that we begin examining how gender enters into andconstitutes research in TESOL?

THE AUTHOR

Jerri Willett is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Massachusettsat Amherst, in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies. Herresearch interests include the ethnographic study of L2 literacy and multiculturalliteracy in classrooms, schools and communities, and feminist perspectives onteacher education.

REFERENCES

Bell, D., Caplan, P., & Karim, W.J. (Eds.). (1993). Gendered fields: Women, men &ethnography. New York: Routledge.

Flax, J. ( 1995). Postmodernism and gender relations in feminist theory. In M. Blair& J. Holland with S. Sheldon (Eds.), Identity and diversity: Gender and the experienceof education (pp. 143–172). Philadelphia, PA: Multilingual Matters.

Hearn, J., & Morgan, D. (1995). Contested discourses on men and masculinities.In M. Blair & J. Holland, with S. Sheldon (Eds.), Identity and diversity: Genderand the experience of education (pp. 173–185). Philadelphia, PA: MultilingualMatters.

Rodby, J. (1992). Appropriating literacy: Writing and reading in English as a secondlanguage. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Willett, J. (1995). Becoming first graders in an L2: An ethnographic study of L2socialization. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 473–503.

Willett, J., & Jeannot, M. (1993). Resistance to taking a critical stance. TESOLQuarterly, 27, 477-494.

347RESEARCH ISSUES

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIESThe TESOL Quarterly invites readers to submit short reports and updates ontheir work. These summaries may address any areas of interest to Quarterlyreaders. Authors’ addresses are printed with these reports to enable interestedreaders to contact the authors for more details.

Edited by GRAHAM CROOKES and KATHRYN A. DAVISUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

Exploring Automatization ProcessesROBERT M. DeKEYSERUniversity of Pittsburgh

The applied linguistics literature of the past 10) years has given a promi-nent place to various interrelated questions about the teaching of L2grammar rules. Although there is evidence now for the usefulness of focuson form (see, e.g., Spada & Lightbown, 1993; White, Spada, Lightbown, &Ranta, 1991, for classroom studies; Doughty, 1991, for laboratory re-search) and explicit rule teaching (see, e.g., Scott, 1989, for classroomresearch; Alanen, 1992; De Keyser, 1995; N. Ellis, 1993; Robinson, inpress, for laboratory studies), no research so far has tried to provide anyfine-grained empirical evidence for or against the existence of automatiza-tion processes in L2 grammar learning. In other words, in spite of thepractical importance of this issue, there is no good evidence of what canbe done to take students from explicit rule knowledge to spontaneous,fast, and relatively error-free rule use. This brief report presents therationale for and the results of a pilot study that tries to document indetail how automatization takes place as the result of different kinds ofintensive practice.

BACKGROUND

Automaticity

Automaticity has received considerable attention in the cognitive litera-ture of the past 20 years. Despite continuing disagreements about theexact nature of capacity limitations and the role of attention (e.g., Pashler,1994), about the relationship between automaticity and implicit knowledge(Seger, 1994), and about how automaticity is brought about (with compet-ing models as a result, such as Anderson’s [1993] ACT-R model, Schneider

349

and Detweiler’s [1988] connectionist-control model, and Logan’s [ 1988;Logan & Etherton, 1994] instance learning model), substantial progresshas been made. It is now clear that there is a continuum of automaticityrather than an automatic-controlled dichotomy. Researchers widely agreethat phenomena such as drop-offs in reaction time and error rates (bothtaking the form of a power function) and diminished interference fromand with simultaneous tasks (see, e.g., Logan & Etherton, 1994) are reliablecriteria of automaticity. Some of the experiments showing these effectshave become classics, for example, Schneider and Shiffrin (1977), (Foran excellent overview of theories of automaticity see Schmidt, 1992.)

The most widely accepted theory on how automaticity is brought aboutis embodied in Anderson’s Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT) modelof the human cognitive architecture (Anderson 1987, 1992, 1993). Ac-cording to this model, knowledge starts outs as explicit (declarative) infor-mation, which is turned into specialized procedural rules for very specificbehaviors through analogy with a series of examples and with the helpof very general behavioral rules. It is then fine-tuned over time as afunction of cost-effectiveness (probability of being correct and cost interms of mental resources). The result of this last process is a gradualdrop-off in reaction time and error rate; this drop-off is generally heldto take the form of a power function (Newell & Rosenbloom, 1981; Ander-son, 1993, 1995). The ACT model has been tested very extensively andsuccessfully in empirical studies on the learning of algebra, geometry,and computer programming (see especially Anderson, 1993).

Automatization of Second Language Rules

In the field of applied linguistics, the notion of automatization (the grad-ual bringing about of automaticity through practice) was used loosely byproponents of audiolingualism (e.g., Rivers, 1964) and cognitive code(e.g., Chastain, 1971) and elaborated didactically by early communicativemethodologists (Paulston & Bruder, 1976). These authors claimed, respec-tively, that automaticity was to be achieved by overlearning of stimulus-reaction chains, grammar teaching followed by extensive drill practice,and the careful sequencing of mechanical, meaningful, and communica-tive drills. At the time, no psychological theory of automaticity existedthat would have allowed testing these claims in any empirical detail.

Since the late 1970s, the notion of automatization has been questionedby numerous authors. Some, most notably Krashen (e.g., 1982, 1985,1994), question the usefulness of any rule learning or focus on form, andargue that the spontaneous use of a rule after it was taught and practicedby no means results from automatizing that rule but is the result of acompletely independent, implicit process of acquisition, resulting fromexposure to large amounts of comprehensible, meaningful input. Others,while recognizing that focus on form is useful, still see it as a way ofimproving the implicit intake of structures from the input, and thereforeconsider practice in production useless for language acquisition (Cadierno,1995; VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993a, 1993b) but acknowledge that “learn-

350 TESOL QUARTERLY

ers need to develop their abilities in accessing the developing system forfluent and accurate production” (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993a, p. 239).Swain (1985; see also Swain & Lapkin, 1995), however, argues that, inproducing L2 output, learners are sometimes forced into a more syntacticprocessing mode than is the case in comprehension, which leads them tonotice elements of L2 and modify not only their output, but their compe-tence in the process. R. Ellis (personal communication, October 1995) takesan intermediate point of view. He agrees with VanPatten and Cadierno inthe sense that form-focused output practice may be useful only for formulaicknowledge, for pronunciation, and for the development of “fully proce-duralized” knowledge (R. Ellis, 1993, p. 109), but also agrees with Swainand Lapkin in the sense that a learner’s communicative output “also contri-butes to the acquisition of implicit L2 knowledge by (a) ‘pushing’ thelearner to conform to target language norms and (b) providing ‘auto-input’” (R. Ellis, 1994, p. 106).

In summary, there is still very little empirical evidence for the usefulnessof practice in production, and certainly no precise documentation of theprocess of automatization of rules through such practice; the few studiesin the domain of L2 learning that have built on Schneider and Shiffrin’s(1977) methodology have been limited to vocabulary learning (e.g.,Favreau & Segalowitz, 1983) or reading (e.g., McLeod & McLaughlin,1986).

The issue of automatization of L2 grammar rules through practice inproduction remains largely uninvestigated because psychological theoryand methodology of the 1960s and 1970s were insufficiently developedto address the complexities of automatization in language learning andbecause L2 researchers in the 1980s were reluctant to conduct empiricalstudies on it, due to the prevailing doubts about the usefulness aboutlearning and practicing rules. But the time is now ripe to carry out suchresearch, given the renewed confidence in teaching/learning at least somekinds of rules, and the experimental and analytical tools now at ourdisposal for the study of automatization.

Specificity of Production Rules

Related to the controversy over whether automatization exists in L2learning, or whether L2s are learned in a completely different way, dueto the autonomous nature of the linguistic module of the mind, is theissue of the specificity of knowledge. Those who claim that linguisticcompetence is acquired implicitly also argue that the same knowledge,once acquired, is drawn on for both production and comprehension,making practice in production unnecessary (Krashen, 1985, 1994; Van-Patten & Cadierno, 1993a, 1993b). Those who argue that all cognitiveskills are acquired through the same mechanisms of proceduralization ofdeclarative knowledge see proceduralized knowledge (production rules)as highly specific so that comprehension and production, for instance,draw on completely different sets of procedural rules and therefore

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 351

require separate practice (see, e.g., Anderson, 1993, pp. 37–38, wherethis is illustrated in detail for reading and writing computer code).

Experiments reported in VanPatten and Cadierno (1993a, 1993b) area notable exception to the neglect of this issue in empirical researchon second language acquisition. These studies suggest that practice inproduction does not contribute anything beyond form-focused teachingfollowed by comprehension practice. It is unclear, however, how validtheir results are, given that it appears that those with only comprehensionpractice received more explanation than the subjects with productionpractice, and how generalizable they are, given that the structures testedare quite simple morphologically, and therefore harder to notice andeasier to produce than more complicated forms would be. Furthermore,VanPatten and Cadierno only investigated the initial stages of learning/acquisition; their study did not address the issue of automatization.

Therefore, I decided to conduct a fine-grained empirical study on thedifferential effect of comprehension practice and production practice ona variety of rules in the highly controlled environment of the computer-assisted learning of a miniature linguistic system.

METHOD

Hypotheses

The following hypotheses follow from the brief literature review above:

1. Once L2 grammar rules have been explicitly assimilated, practice willlead to gradual automatization as measured by reduced reaction timeand reduced error rate (see, e.g., Newell & Rosenbloom, 1981).

2. This practice effect will be skill-specific in the sense that students whohave practiced certain rules in comprehension tasks will outperformstudents who practiced the same rules in production tasks when thecriterion is performance on a comprehension test and vice versa (see,e.g., Anderson, 1993).

The Language

In order to make sure that very specific types of rules can be incorpo-rated into the language being learned and can be combined in variousways, and that the meanings of the relevant lexical and grammatical mor-phemes can easily be presented pictorially, I have found it necessary touse a specially created miniature linguistic system. This system, however,constitutes a natural language, unlike the artificial grammars used bycognitive psychologists.

Autopractan is an agglutinative SVO language with number and casemarking on the noun, and gender and instrumental aspect marking onthe verb. The Implexan lexicon contains 32 words at this point, 16 nounsand 16 verbs.

352 TESOL QUARTERLY

Subjects

As the amount of time required of each subject was considerable, thelearners in this experiment had to be paid volunteers (college students),two for each condition, six in total. As the rules to be taught involve gendermarking and case marking, experience with Romance languages, German,Russian, Latin or other commonly taught languages could have affectedthe results; therefore, subjects in the three groups were matched on theirexperience with these languages.

Design and Procedure

The entire experiment, from the initial presentation of grammar andvocabulary to the final testing, was computer controlled. It took 15 sessionsof an hour or less, spread over an 8-week period. All students were taughtthe four grammar rules and 36 vocabulary items of Autopractan by meansof a traditional presentation of grammar rules, along with a presentationof the vocabulary accompanied with pictures to represent the people(nouns) and actions (verbs) involved. To make sure the grammar wasthoroughly understood, a number of sentence/picture combinations werethen presented with sets of questions about the inflectional morphemesand their relationship with the meaning represented by the pictures.

After going through this presentation twice (Sessions 1 and 2), the stu-dents were tested on their explicit knowledge of vocabulary and grammar(Sessions 3 through 5): Recall of all vocabulary items was tested in random-ized order, and three different fill-in-the-blanks tests about explicit gram-mar rule knowledge were administered. By the end of Session 5, all studentsdemonstrated complete knowledge of both vocabulary and grammar.

At that point, the subjects were assigned to one of three practice condi-tions. Group A practiced the rules for number of the noun and instrumen-tal aspect of the verb in comprehension and the rules for case markingon the noun and gender marking on the verb in production; for GroupB it was the other way around. Group C practiced all four rules in bothcomprehension and production but with half as many items each asGroups A and B so that the total number of items was the same for allthree groups. The subjects practiced comprehension by selecting one ofa set of four pictures that matched a sentence displayed in the middle ofthe screen; the four pictures were always chosen so that the two grammarfeatures being practiced were critical to choosing the correct picture.Production practice took the form of typing in the sentence correspondingto a picture displayed on the screen; again two grammar rules were criticalto giving a correct answer. In each of the nine practice sessions (Sessions6 through 14), subjects worked through two sets of 16 comprehensionand production items; only the results of the second set, always consistingof new sentences/pictures, were recorded. The first set, consisting of itemsseen in previous sessions, functioned as a warm-up.

In this way, all subjects were taught the same rules explicitly and thenreceived the same amount of practice/exposure for each rule. All subjects


also had the same amount of practice in both skills and therefore also thesame amount of experience with both practice/testing formats. The onlydifference between the three groups was the amount of practice of specificrules in specific skills/formats. Thus the design allows for testing the speci-ficity of procedural skill (comprehension versus production) acquired asa result of systematic practice of that skill after all subjects had achievedthe same quantity and quality of explicit knowledge.

After the nine sessions of practicing and testing specific combinationsof rules and skills, a final session consisted of two parts. First, the subjectswere tested, with a new set of sentences and pictures, on the usual combina-tions of rules and skills (without warm-up this time). Second, they weretested on the opposite combination: The rules that were previously prac-ticed and tested in comprehension were now tested in production, andthe other way around. It should be stressed here that the subjects did notengage in any new tasks at this stage, and were not tested on any newrules, only on task/rule combinations they had not encountered before.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The first hypothesis, that reaction times and error rates would show agradual decline with practice, was largely confirmed. The pattern forreaction times is very clear: For both comprehension and production,there is a sharp drop-off between the first and the second practice/testsession, followed by a much smoother reduction in the next five or sixsessions, which seems to become asymptotic in the last couple of sessions.In production, reaction time drops from an average of about 34500 milli-seconds per item in Session 1 to an average of 22500 milliseconds inSession 2 and 14000 milliseconds in Session 9. In comprehension, thecorresponding figures are 18000 milliseconds on the average in Session1, 7500 milliseconds in Session 2, and 4000 milliseconds in Session 9.

The error curves go up and down more and level off more quickly. Theyshow no clear improvement after the third session for comprehension andafter the fourth for production. Average error rates (out of eight) forcomprehension are 1.4 in Session 1, 0.4 in Session 2, 0.0 in Session 3, andthen vary between 0.8 and 0.4 in Sessions 4 through 9. In productionthey are 3.4 in Session 1, 2.6 in Session 2, 3.0 in Session 3, and then varybetween 2.0 and 0.4 in Sessions 4 through 9. Anderson (1995) points outthat error curves level off more quickly and that reaction time is moresensitive to differences at more advanced stages of learning. One shouldtake into account, of course, that with only six subjects, and with onlyeight items per test, the data are rather unstable, especially as the numberof errors tends to be small (typically one or two out of eight items).Moreover, in the case of production, errors are not always due to thegrammar rules in question but sometimes caused by vocabulary errors oran occasional typing mistake.

The second hypothesis, that the practice effect would be skill-specific,was also largely confirmed. Here again, the pattern for reaction times

354 TESOL QUARTERLY

is closer to the hypothesized pattern than the one for error rates. Incomprehension, where subjects were tested on the opposite rule set ofthe one they were used to, their reaction times virtually doubled comparedto their performance on the rules they had previously practiced in compre-hension, from 3217 milliseconds per item (with a standard deviation of746 milliseconds) to 7317 milliseconds (SD= 1540). In production, theywent up by about one fourth, from 13970 milliseconds (SD= 5834) to17778 milliseconds (SD=471). The error data show an average increasingfrom .75 errors (SD=0.5) to 1.75 (SD= 1.25) out of eight sentences incomprehension when the rule/skill combination is reversed, but the aver-age in production remains exactly the same: 1.25 (SD dropping from .95to .50). As was stated above, the error data for production have to betreated with caution because they include vocabulary and typing errors,and are therefore especially unstable. That may explain why in this oneinstance, the hypothesis could not be confirmed.

It appears, then, that the acquisition of the four grammar rules at issuein this study shows the same learning curves that have been observed instudies of the effect of practice on a variety of nonlinguistic cognitiveskills (but formal testing of the goodness-of-fit between the data and apower function model was, of course, not possible with this very limiteddata set). It also appears that the procedural knowledge gained frompractice is very skill-specific, in a way analogous to what was shown instudies of computer programming. Therefore, this study lends tentativesupport to the overall hypothesis that L2 grammar learning can be charac-terized by the same stages of skill acquisition as other domains of cognitivefunctioning and that automatization in L2 learning is not a mere illusion.

It should be stressed, of course, that this study was very limited innumber of subjects, number of practice sessions, number of items persession, number of grammar rules, and number of vocabulary items.Therefore, the results are extremely tentative. I decided to publish theresults of this pilot study, however, because I consider the issue of whetherand how explicit rule knowledge can be automatized of crucial importanceboth to the theory of L2 learning and the practice of L2 teaching, fromcurriculum design and materials development to the management of class-room activities, and thus I would like to encourage other researchers toimprove on the design of this study and to contribute to the embryonicempirical literature on automatization processes in L2 grammar learning.

In the meantime, I am preparing for a study with a much larger numberof subjects, more practice sessions, and more items per session. This shouldallow for a formal testing of the hypothesis that the learning curves fit apower function. I am also planning on changing the format of the produc-tion task to make it less sensitive to vocabulary and typographical errors.Most importantly, I hope to incorporate interference with/from a second-ary cognitive task as a third criterion of automaticity.

REFERENCESAlanen, R. A. (1992). Input enhancement and rule presentation in second language

acquisition. Master’s thesis, University of Hawaii at Manoa.


Anderson, J. R. (1987). Skill acquisition: Compilation of weak-method problemsolutions. Psychological Review, 94, 192–210.

Anderson, J. R. (1992). Automaticity and the ACT* theory. American Journal ofPsychology, 105, 165–180.

Anderson, J. R. ( 1993). Rules of the mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Anderson, J. R. (1995). Learning and memory. An integrated approach. New York:

Wiley.Cadierno, T. (1995). Formal instruction from a processing perspective: An investi-

gation into the Spanish past tense. The Modern Language Journal, 79, 179–193.Chastain, K. (1971). The development of modern language skills: Theory to practice.

Philadelphia, PA: Center for Curriculum Development.DeKeyser, R. (1995). Learning second language grammar rules: An experiment

with a miniature linguistic system. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17,379–410.

Doughty, C. (1991). Second language instruction does make a difference. Evidencefrom an empirical study of SL relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisi-tion, 13, 431–469.

Ellis, N. (1993). Rules and instances in foreign language learning: Interactions ofexplicit and implicit knowledge. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 5, 289–318.

Ellis, R. (1993). The structural syllabus and second language acquisition. TESOLQuarterly, 27, 91-113.

Ellis, R. (1994). A theory of instructed second language acquisition. In N. Ellis(Ed.), Implicit and explicit learning of languages (pp. 79–114). London: AcademicPress.

Favreau, M., & Segalowitz, N. (1983). Automatic and controlled processes in thefirst- and second-language reading of fluent bilingual. Memory and Cognition,11, 565–574.

Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. EnglewoodCliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Krashen, S. D. (1985). The input hypothesis. London: Longman.Krashen, S. D. (1994). The input hypothesis and its rivals. In N. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit

and explicit learning of languages (pp. 45–77). London: Academic Press.Logan, G. D. (1988). Toward an instance theory of automatization. Psychological

Review, 95, 492–527.Logan, G. D., & Etherton, J. L. (1994). What is learned during automatization? The

role of attention in constructing an instance. Journal of Experimental Psychology:Learning, Memory and Cognition, 20, 1022–1050.

McLeod, B., & McLaughlin, B. (1986). Restructuring or automaticity? Reading ina second language. Language Learning, 36, 109–123.

Newell, A., & Rosenbloom, P. S. (1981). Mechanisms of skill acquisition and thelaw of practice. In J. R. Anderson (Ed.), Cognitive skills and their acquisition (pp.1–55). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Pashler, H. (1994). Dual-task interference in simple tasks: Data and theory. Psycho-logical Bulletin, 116, 220–244.

Paulston, C. B., & Bruder, M. N. (1976). Teaching English as a second language:Techniques and Procedures. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.

Rivers, W. M. (1964). The psychologist and the foreign language teacher. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Robinson, P. (in press). Learning simple and complex second language rules underimplicit, incidental, rule-search and instructed conditions. Studies in Second Lan-guage Acquisition, 18.

356 TESOL QUARTERLY

Schmidt, R. (1992). Psychological mechanisms underlying second language flu-ency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 357–385.

Schneider, W., & Detweiler, M. (1988 ). The role of practice in dual-task perfor-mance: toward workload modeling in a connectionist/control architecture. Hu-man Factors, 30, 539–566.

Schneider, W., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1977). Controlled and automatic human infor-mation processing: I. Detection, search and attention. Psychological Review, 84,1–66.

Scott, V. M. (1989). An empirical study of explicit and implicit teaching strategiesin French. The Modern Language Journal, 73, 14–22.

Seger, C. A. (1994). Implicit learning. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 163–196.Spada, N., & Lightbown, P. M. (1993). Instruction and the development of ques-

tions in L2 classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 205–224.Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some rules of comprehensible

input and comprehensible output in its development. In S. Gass & C. Madden(Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 235–253). Rowley, MA: NewburyHouse.

Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output and the cognitive processesthey generate: A step towards second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 16,371–391.

VanPatten, B., & Cadierno, T. (1993a). Explicit instruction and input processing.Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15, 225–243.

VanPatten, B., & Cadierno, T. (1993b). Input processing and second languageacquisition: A role for instruction. The Modern Language Journal, 77, 45–57.

White, L., Spada, N., Lightbown, P., & Ranta, L. (1991). Input enhancement andL2 question formation. Applied Linguistics, 12, 416–432.

Author’s Address: Department of LinguisticsUniversity of PittsburghPittsburgh PA 15260


REVIEWSThe TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant toTESOL professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, theseinclude computer and video software, testing instruments, and other forms ofnonprint materials.

Edited by H. DOUGLAS BROWNSan Francisco State University

Business Skills for the Intermediateto Advanced Student

In Print: Reading Business EnglishRod Revell and Simon Sweeney. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1993. Pp. iii + 122.

Business Across Cultures: Effective Communication StrategiesLaura M. English and Sarah Lynn. White Plains, NY: Longman,1995. pp. V + 181.

Business Communications: International Case Studiesin EnglishDrew Rodgers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Pp. vii + 151.

Effective reading, cross-cultural communication, and communicativecompetence are the focus of the three intermediate to advanced busi-ness textbooks reviewed here.

In Print by Rod Revell and Simon Sweeney is best suited for theintermediate- to advanced-level student interested in reading businesshandbooks, reports, contracts, company accounts, and journals fromBritish and U.S. sources. The textbook is organized into 12 chaptersthat introduce and reinforce reading skills and focus on such topicsas computers, marketing, economics, financial planning, and legal con-tracts.

Chapter 1 introduces the reading skills of scanning, predicting, identifying the main idea, skimming, understanding relationships between

sentences, and using context clues. These skills are reinforced and

359

expanded on in the following chapters. Explanations, practice activi-ties, and an answer key are included. Charts are used to representeffective reading, describe the reading process for longer texts (a flowchart), and outline a text about the costs of too much travel (a treediagram). Activities to reinforce skills are evenly spread out in thebook, except in chapter 4, where there are too many exercises andnot enough text.

The textbook strives for relevance and authenticity. A reading pur-pose is introduced by placing the reader in realistic situations such asresearching the costs and potential problems of placing senior manag-ers in an overseas factory or investigating the advantages, costs, andalternatives of integrating computers. Because the readings come fromreal business materials, they contain many statistics, straightforwardlanguage, bullets, and lists. The reader will find, for example, pagesfrom a sales manager’s handbook, a company budget, or charts andgraphs of displays of economic and financial indicators. Most monetarystatistics are given in British pounds. Though the majority of extractspresents information about a specific area of business, more generalinterest readings include an Economist article about the fate of a saxo-phone company as well as descriptions of cross-cultural misunder-standings and tips from International Management, Managing CulturalDifferences, and Going International.

Authenticity sometimes goes too far. One chapter includes the con-cepts and steps to running Lotus 1–2–3 software, complete with thesmall, unclear print on computer screens. Even though excerpts fromcomputer manuals and screens are authentic, completions of suchreading tasks are not. Step-by-step computer functions without thecomputer can make for a dry read. Other parts of the book sacrificeclarity for authenticity. Some of the charts and print are too small toread without difficulty, and at one point the layout is crooked and theprint cut off.

On the other hand, the vocabulary building activities are especiallyuseful. High-frequency words are introduced or highlighted and vo-cabulary is expanded through exercises featuring word families, pre-fixes, usage in memos, synonyms, and cause-effect relationships. Onechapter is particularly good at introducing language found in contracts.

In Print would make a fine reading text for the motivated businessEnglish student wanting to build more reading skills and vocabularyvia authentic texts and diagrams. For students unsure of their commit-ment to reading the technical language of business, the instructormay need to supplement the text with more general interest businessreadings or with interactive classroom activities related to the readings.

An abundance of classroom activities building cross-cultural commu-nication skills for the international marketplace is found in the interme-

360 TESOL QUARTERLY

diate-level textbook, Business Across Cultures, by Laura M. English andSarah Lynn. The chapters are organized into 10 units that deal withstereotypes, protocol, time, negotiations, contracts, marketing, man-agement, and living overseas. Each chapter is introduced with an attrac-tive and humorous illustration followed by questions or introductoryconcepts. This is followed by a short case study, comprehension ques-tions, short vocabulary exercises, and interactive classroom activities.

The case studies are realistic and exemplify common cross-culturalissues. For example, one case study focuses on differing concepts oftime between a Swiss engineering company and its Italian client. An-other case highlights different management styles between a Germanand Mexican manager and another asks students to hire a publicrelations representative for a London-based pesticides company inEcuador whose environmental history includes toxic pollution inMexico.

Reading the case studies and answering the questions that followcan be done for homework but are short enough activities to be donein class. Many questions lead to culture-general understanding skillssuch as identifying expectations, recognizing cultural values, and con-sidering a variety of perspectives when deciding on solutions. Half ofthe cases involve misunderstandings U.S. business people have whenworking with another culture and the other half involves misunder-standings between nonnative speakers of English. More cases pres-enting the latter would be preferable, especially if students will bedoing most business with people from outside the U.S.

The discussions, short readings, information gap interviews, andsimulations include culture-general and culture-specific learning. Forexample, in an activity in which U.S. business people must decideamong three people to send to Nigeria, students may be tempted notto send the woman because they assume that Nigerians will not listento women. However, the cultural description explains that Nigeriansare quite used to dealing with women in business. In other activities,students exchange information about customs in their countries, suchas the use of titles, places to socialize, and gift giving. The last chapterincludes an activity in which students choose a possible training pro-gram in preparation for work in India. At the end of that chapter,students can complete a comprehensive project requiring research andapplication of previous concepts. There are realistic and revealingsimulations throughout the textbook as, for example, asking studentsfrom the same culture to demonstrate introductions while the rest ofthe class watches for the use of space and for responses to differentsettings and genders. However, other simulations are overly contrivedand may not be successful, especially if students are not comfortablewith the experiential approach.

REVIEWS 361

Though activities abound, students are not presented with a strongtheoretical framework. For example, one activity asks students to thinkof four important cultural values in the their culture and in U.S.culture. This exercise could be difficult to complete without a modelof value orientations (e.g., Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961). Thoughmodels describing concepts such as polychronic/monochromic time andexplicit/implicit styles of agreement are introduced through one ortwo paragraph readings, charts, and diagrams, they are not dealt withfully enough for students to see the influence of the larger culture onthe business world and independently apply concepts learned in onechapter to another. For example, a reading or audiotaped lecture onhigh and low context cultures (Hall, 1976) could connect activitiesfocusing on nonverbal communication, contracts, and styles of persua-sion. An introduction to Hofstede’s (1983) work on high and low powerdistance and individualism/collectivism could bring fuller understand-ing to the use of titles, negotiator qualities, and management styles.

Also lacking is an adequate treatment of women in internationalbusiness. Though two or three short activities consider cultural as-sumptions toward women in business, students are left without anunderstanding of gender roles in the office and differing expectationsof foreign compared to native women.

Overall, Business Across Cultures quite adequately fills the need tobring cross-cultural skills into the business curriculum. Despite itsdrawbacks, its light approach and abundance of activities would makeculture learning interactive and engaging for the intermediate-levelstudent.

Business Communications: International Case Studies in English, the bookthat requires the highest proficiency and most expertise of the three,eases students into the analysis of cases, which can include informationgathering.

The first nine chapters are closed-ended cases in which, accordingto the preface, all the information to solve the case is presented. Thelast four chapters feature open-ended cases requiring library researchor interviews. All the closed-ended cases take place within British orU.S. contexts and provide the cultural background which is relevantto those cultures and important to solving the case. Both the closedand open-ended sections begin not with typical case studies but withgeneral descriptions of business activities. The later chapters in eachsection present more typical case studies including a labor dispute, anenvironmental violation by a local power company, and an airlinecompany’s increasing customer and employee complaints.

All cases lead to discussion, class presentations, group work, or roleplay which mirror actual business tasks like preparing for a job search,developing a portfolio presentation, negotiating, and developing a

362 TESOL QUARTERLY

marketing strategy. The questions after the cases challenge the higherproficiency student because they focus on discussion, not comprehen-sion, and the language portion of the chapters simply presents wordsand expressions without practice which can be used for the role play,presentations, or written tasks. The preface lists six chapters that re-quire the least amount of business background. Others require morebusiness expertise and information. For example, a closed-ended caserecommends that some students have a background in finance andinvestment. Another requires the class to read the play or see themovie Other People’s Money.

The Language Mastery Exercises are especially useful. They givestudents the language they will need to complete the activities. Forexample, there is a list of power verbs needed to write a resume,adjective-noun and verb-adverb combinations used when dealing withstocks (e.g., a rapid increase/ to increase rapidly, a gradual deteriora-tion/ to deteriorate gradually), meeting terminology (“Are there anyadditions, corrections, or questions?”), and expressions of confronta-tion or mutuality (“If you do not . . . we will . . . .” “We are willing to. . . . ”). The chapters also include an extensive glossary of business terms.

Business Communications would be best suited for high intermediate-to advanced-level language proficiency students wanting to practicevocabulary and use their business expertise when discussing cases andperforming realistic business tasks. It is also best suited for teachers whohave some business background and time and resources to facilitateinvolved role plays, presentations, and possibly outside research.

REFERENCES

Hall, E. (1976). Beyond culture. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Hofstede, G. (1983). The cultural relativity of organizational practices and theo-

ries. Journal of International Business Studies, 14, 75–89.Kluckhohn, F., & Strodtbeck, F. (1961). Variations in value orientations. Evanston,

IL: Row. Peterson.

BARBARA HYNDMANUniversity of California, Berkeley

Brave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy ThroughGlobal Learning Networks.Jim Cummins and Dennis Sayers. St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Pp. 374.

Brave New Schools presents an analysis of North American educationby focusing on three interrelated issues: the direction of contemporary

REVIEWS 363

educational reform, increasing cultural diversity and immigration, andthe global networking possibilities ushered in by the advent of theInternet. By skillfully integrating these three issues, the authors pro-vide an inspiring vision of how new technologies can enhance a trans-formative pedagogy based on collaborative critical inquiry.

The first chapter introduces the authors’ view of Intercultural GlobalLearning Networks, which make use of new technologies to allowstudents to “actively generate their own intercultural literacy throughdialogue and collaborative research with colleagues in their own class-room and in classrooms across the globe” (p. 13). The next chapterprovides eight compelling examples of these kinds of networks, includ-ing, for example, a three-way exchange between a bilingual class ofmostly Mexican students in San Francisco, a class of mostly AfricanAmerican students at the same school, and a class of Spanish-speakingAfro-Caribbean students in New York. The three classes used newand old technologies to collaboratively investigate the folklore andgames of each group; the project, and in particular the involvementof the Spanish-speaking Black students from New York, helped thestudents get a new perspective on race, culture, and language.

Succeeding chapters place these long-distance exchanges in a well-developed theoretical perspective, as the authors put forward theirFreirian view of a transformative pedagogy which seeks to bring stu-dents together into cross-cultural communities of collaborative criticalinquiry. They distinguish this from both traditional pedagogy, basedon transmission of basic facts or skills, and also progressive pedagogy,which they say is collaborative and experiential but fails to addresslarger social realities. The authors provide a wealth of historical, cul-tural, socioeconomic, political, and educational information and re-search to demonstrate that a transformative approach is needed inorder to overcome the deep educational, linguistic, and social dividesin North American society. Particularly valuable is the in-depth intro-duction to earlier European educators Célestin Freinet and MarioLodi, who organized interscholastic exchanges based on collaborativecritical inquiry long before the development of the personal computer.Also valuable is the authors’ point-by-point refutation of many of themain arguments of conservative educational reformers.

The book concludes with a lengthy and thorough guide to Internetresources for parents and teachers, including information about In-ternet sites related to multicultural education, bilingualism and secondlanguage education, and language arts.

The examples of cross-cultural exchanges given in the book focuson the use of electronic mail and other technologies, such as exchangeof video- and audiotapes, with little discussion about how newer In-ternet applications such as student publishing on the World Wide Web

364 TESOL QUARTERLY

could be used to further the goals laid out. But as the authors pointout, this is not intended to be a book about technology. Rather it is abook about pedagogy, and an extremely interesting and importantone at that, and in that sense, it is timeless.

MARK WARSCHAUERUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

The Language Instinct.Stephen Pinker. New York: William Morrow, 1994. Pp. 494.

Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct is an ambitious attempt to writea popular book about language acquisition. Despite some limitations,it presents a wealth of information about psycholinguistic theory in aclear and readable format. Classroom teachers will be especially pleasedto find answers in this book to many of their questions about thecognitive leaps and limitations of their students.

Pinker’s first key argument is that the acquisition of language is aninstinctive process. Following this line of reasoning, he argues thatchildren recognize the patterns of any language because they have themetalinguistics pattern (which he terms Mentalese) built into their brains.Pinker downplays the cultural limitations of language, however, anddisputes the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis that a given language shapes thereality of its speakers. As an ESL specialist who deals with cross-culturalcommunication in the classroom every day, I did not find his critiqueof Whorf-Sapir convincing.

Another key argument is that the process of language acquisitioninvolves great cognitive leaps not explainable by a purely behavioristapproach. The remarkable sophistication of a 4-year-old’s grammarand vocabulary simply cannot be learned by imitation because care-givers do not offer enough input or correction. In fact, he arguesagainst the teachability of language. Pointing to the overwhelmingevidence that young children ignore correction, he prefers to see acqui-sition as a natural process largely governed by cognitive development.

Pinker does not try to be balanced, so readers should be aware ofhis biases: He is firmly in the cognitive science camp and follows hismentor, Noam Chomsky, very closely. He nevertheless presents awealth of information about language, especially about its acquisitionby children and its loss by adults (due to head injuries or brain damage.)chapters 9 and 10, which focus on these issues, are especially interest-ing. Opting for an early cutoff to the so-called critical period forlanguage acquisition, Pinker considers children under the age of 7 to

REVIEWS 365

be highly adept language learners, while he views anyone older thanthat as steadily losing this ability. He attributes the narrowness of thislanguage learning window to evolutionary pressure: Young childrenneed to learn language to survive, but the energy consumed by thebrain in these first years is simply not sustainable over a lifetime.

One of the most valuable aspects of this book is its frequent referenceto research, including numerous case studies of aphasic adults, mutechildren, and children acquiring languages other than English aroundthe world, including deaf children who are acquiring sign language.Although there are no footnotes, each of these studies is included inhis chapter notes and in his list of references.

Pinker’s book is infinitely more readable than most linguistic textsand language enthusiasts will be delighted by the many linguistic factsand anecdotes. It provides insights into the innateness of language, akey issue which may one day help us unravel the mysteries of firstand second language acquisition.

ALLISON PETROUniversity of Rhode Island

Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach.Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollon. Cambridge, MA: BasilBlackwell, 1995. Pp. xii + 271.

In this volume, Scollon and Scollon present an interpretive theoreticalframework on intercultural communication. Readers familiar withtheir first book, Narrative, Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication(1981), will find the authors’ former ideas on face systems and cross-system interaction revisited in the present volume. Although Scollonand Scollon contextualized their discussion between East Asian speakersof English (i.e., China, Korea, and Japan) and Westerners, the bookcontains valuable generalizable information on intercultural discoursesystems.

Scollon and Scollon define intercultural communication as:

a term we use to include the entire range of communications across bound-aries of groups or discourse systems from the most inclusive of thosegroups, cultural groups, to the communications which take place betweenmen and women or between colleagues who have been born into differentgenerations. (p. xi)

366 TESOL QUARTERLY

Their view suggests that individuals belong to multiple discourse com-munities and utilize different rhetorical strategies for communicatingin different discourse systems. In illustrating the complexities of face-to-face communication, the authors engage the reader’s attention toboth theoretical and practical issues confronting intercultural speakers.

Chapters 1 and 2 provide real-life examples of how speakers’ expec-tations, participant roles, and prior knowledge affect professional com-munication in business encounters. They report that although speakerspresuppose shared common language goals with their audience, lan-guage is inherently ambiguous, and speakers frequently do not sharemutual intent, purpose, and understanding. Therefore, the task ofthe competent, intercultural communicator is to identify the limitationsof discourse systems and develop strategies for enhancing successfulcommunication.

Against this backdrop, chapters 3 through 5 provide evidence onhow face (i.e., politeness) strategies and conversational inference workto strengthen speakers’ footings in face-to-face interactions. Scollonand Scollon emphasize the structure of the East Asian face system inorder to provide the reader with essential knowledge for understand-ing the mindset and language usage of East Asians, which are commonimpediments to successful communication between cross-culturalspeakers.

After highlighting the major differences between East Asian andWestern rhetorical strategies, the authors devote significant attentionin chapter 6 to how and why these differences exist. Their analysisincludes a brief historical survey of Confucianism and its impact onEast Asian discourse. This chapter provides the theoretical basis forextending their initial discussion of intercultural discourse beyondcohesive devices and discourse strategies to include the impact of ideol-ogy on East Asian and Western social life.

In chapter 7, Scollon and Scollon discuss ways that specific culturaldifferences in ideology and socialization may affect incidental, one-on-one communication. The remaining four chapters explore commu-nication problems related to corporate, generational, professional, andgender discourse systems. The discussion in these chapters leads to agreater understanding of the commonalties and differences whichinvite or prevent participation within the most common discoursesystems.

Intercultural Communication represents a unique inquiry into the theo-retical and practical issues confronting discourse systems. This bookwill appeal widely to students, teachers of ESL, and researchers inter-ested in understanding miscommunication in intercultural, profes-sional encounters. Specific chapters (e.g., chapter 8) might also appealto business people who have face-to-face encounters with East Asians.

REVIEWS 367

As the 21st volume in Blackwell’s Language in Society series, it is anoutstanding addition to their notable collection.

REFERENCE

Scollon, R., & Scollon, S.B.K. (1981). Narrative, literacy and face in interethnic communi-cation. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

TRINIDAD LEWISBoston University

Understanding English Grammar: A Linguistic Approach.Ronald Wardhaugh. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1995. Pp. x+ 279.

■ Any college instructor seeking to present a comprehensive pictureof English grammar in an orderly fashion will find this book a valuableand effective tool. Unlike many grammar texts, this text begins withthe traditional parts of speech. This is essential to laying the ground-work for understanding all later grammatical models such as thephrase-structural, transformational, and functional models. The vol-ume also includes morphology and phonetics to the extent that theyimpinge upon syntax. Indeed, it exceeds its stated goal of serving“’beginning students” (p. ix). By including finer points such as theperiphrastic genitive (p. 11) and epistemic and deontic uses of modalverbs (p. 53), it is certain to titillate the initiated few. Further Reading,the last of its 14 chapters, is an exhaustive listing which students willfind useful as well as the Indexed Glossary at the end.

My classroom experience with this text has been rewarding. In pres-enting grammar as an organized system whose structural hierarchy isaffected by social meaning and language use, the work leads studentson an “eclectic” (p. ix) road drawing on phrase-structure diagrams,deep-surface correlations, functional roles, concepts of governmentand binding, movement, and trace. And yet, thankfully, no familiaritywith Chomsky or Fillmore is required. This is possible because of theauthor’s expert explanations of some of the most complicated issuesin linguistics today.

Another strength of the text is the exercises at the end of eachchapter, with suggested answers and explanatory notes provided inan instructor’s manual. These exercises trigger classroom responsesranging from comment to debate, as do the frequent citing of gram-matical behavior at variance with standard speech. For a subject many,

368 TESOL QUARTERLY

curiously enough, regard as boring, any enlivening moment is causefor delight.

There is room for improvement, however. First, the book’s organiza-tion and format tend to obscure its content. Dividing each chapterinto sections is not enough for a work of this scope and for subjectmatter of such complexity. What appears to be inconsistent indentationof paragraphs and examples impedes reading. Thus layout could beredesigned to strengthen cohesiveness and make topic changes readilydiscernible. Second, inflections and derivations are introduced as earlyas page 6 without a sufficiently clear distinction being drawn betweenthe two. One could indeed turn to page 217ff for clarification, buteven there notions such as inflectional and derivational affixes, stems,and bases are presented in a somewhat less than illuminating way.Fortunately these minor drawbacks are easily corrected.

In sum, this text succeeds in striking a balance between reaffirmingconventional approaches and introducing contemporary linguisticanalyses. In a rather crowded field, this new entrant has made its casefor trial adoption.

HELEN CHAU HUCalifornia State University, Long Beach

Writing From Sources: A Guide for ESL StudentsGeorge Braine and Claire May. Mountain View, CA: MayfieldPublishing, 1996. Pp. xiv + 225.

Writing from Sources is a textbook for lower division ESL universitycomposition courses. Designed to lead the student from personal ex-pressive writing to academic writing based on sources, the guidingprinciple of this book is the view of the student not just as a developingwriter but as a developing academic. The book is divided into 10chapters; the first four chapters review academic writing techniques,and chapters 5 to 10 lead the student through the preparation of athree-paper portfolio based on a chosen research topic.

Initially, Writing from Sources draws heavily on the ideas of the processapproach to writing. The chapter entitled Planning Your Paper in-cludes exercises in listing, freewriting, and clustering in order to helpstudents narrow a topic from a more general subject. More impor-tantly, the book explicitly stresses the need for revision in the writingprocess. It includes a detailed form for students to evaluate their owntexts (called “planning/self-evaluation of draft”) as well as the texts oftheir fellow classmates (peer review). To illustrate the way this works,

REVIEWS 369

the book provides a model of an ESL student’s first draft followed bya copy of a completed peer-response form. The subsequent draft showshow the writer, prompted by his classmate’s comments, reorganized hispaper. The process approach also informs the way in which issues ofgrammar and sentence style are discussed; both are treated within acontext of revision. One exercise, for example, presents a student textwhich needs editing for verb tense and agreement.

A major strength of the book is that it is designed to have studentscompile a portfolio. In completing the portfolio, students are ledthrough a series of rhetorical tasks. First, each student chooses onesubject from a list of current topics such as ethnic/religious violence,the status of women, or nuclear issues (these can be easily substitutedor augmented), which will serve as the basis for all three writing assign-ments. The first task, called Writing from Experience, asks the studentsto write an essay displaying their knowledge and opinions about theirchosen topics. In preparation for this, students discuss and practicetwo different strategies for developing texts: narrative and description.The second assignment, Writing to Inform, requires students to findoutside sources and to incorporate these readings into their writing.Paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing are reviewed in addition todefining and classifying strategies. For the final assignment, Writingto Persuade, effective argumentation strategies are discussed. Takentogether, the writing tasks prompt the writer to manipulate what isessentially similar content into different rhetorical forms reflectingdifferent purposes. For each of these assignments, the authors includemultiple examples of their previous students’ papers. This gives thestudents the opportunity to examine “good, ” achievable models as wellas to develop their skills for discussing and evaluating writing.

Another strength of the book is the way in which its exercises andcommentary extend the writing domain of the student beyond theconfines of the composition classroom. One such exercise has studentsbring to class a writing assignment from another course so that itspurposes and text features can be analyzed. In a similar vein, onechapter, Answering Essay Examinations, helps students reconstructessay questions. Some exercises suggest visits to the computer andwriting labs and the library while others ask students to interview aprofessor about the kinds of writing valued in his or her discipline.Such activities can help students become critically aware of what tasksare required of them at a university level, while at the same timecreating the opportunity to explore campus resources and individualstrategies that can enable them to cope with unpredictable academicdemands.

One weakness of the book is that the readings are limited to samplesof student papers. For instructors who prefer teaching from a text

370 TESOL QUARTERLY

composed of varied readings, this is a drawback. Also, the discussionof a writer’s audience is undeveloped. Although issues of readers’needs and expectations are raised, the book nevertheless lacks writingassignments that effectively require students address an audience otherthan their own teacher. Despite this, Writing from Sources presentsan easy-to-follow program of writing exercises and assignments thatintroduces novice writers to the conventions of general academic writ-ing and takes them beyond the composition classroom. It is a welcomeaddition to the volumes devoted to the writing needs of academicallysituated students.

ANNE JANUARYSan Diego State University

Writing in a Second Language: Insights from First andSecond Language Teaching and Research.Bruce Leeds (Ed.). New York: Longman/Addison-Wesley, 1996. Pp.vi + 218.

For any ESL writing teacher whose training did not include secondlanguage writing pedagogy, this book is a godsend. Intended as atextbook for graduate training of ESL and EFL teachers, Writing in aSecond Language also can serve as a compass for teachers in the field.It is a collection of articles by some of the great names in L1 writing(Peter Elbow, Linda Flower) and L2 writing (Ann Raimes, Ruth Spack,Ann M. Johns, Vivian Zamel) spanning the past 10 or so years. Thebook is organized under seven headings: Tradition in L1 and L2Composing; Writing and Reading; Writing and Reader Awareness;Composing; Revision; Teacher Feedback; Writing Assessment.

Of greatest interest for the writing teacher in the field are articlesfrom the first and last chapters. The chapter on traditions follows thecourse of writing pedagogy theory through the years, so that we cansee how we got to today’s current theories. It gives a perspective to whatmay otherwise be dismissed as fashions or fads: Today’s techniquesin teaching writing (e.g., brainstorming, prewriting discussion, peerfeedback) have grown out of a decades-long process. The consensusof writing professionals is that the composition process for good L2writing is similar to that for good L1 writing. The writing processinvolves at least three distinct stages: (a) a writer-based phase in whichideas are generated; (b) a product-based phase of composing andstructuring the writing; (c) a reader-based phase of revision and recon-

REVIEWS 371

struction. The many techniques used in writing classrooms serve todevelop these phases of the process.

The final chapter, dealing with assessment and evaluation, addressesone of the most vexing questions for teachers of writing: How do Ifairly grade the writing efforts of students? The answer is not easy,but it is reassuring to find that even the most respected teachers alsograpple with this problem, and they offer some techniques (e.g., holisticgrading, portfolio assessment) which help to make the process fairerand more reliable.

Each of the seven topical chapters, usually containing two or threearticles, is preceded by an editor’s introduction, and a number ofprereading questions—a reminder that the book is primarily intendedas a text. At the end of each chapter the editor has added follow-upquestions and activities. The book will certainly be successful in itsmain aim of providing a text for the exploration of writing pedagogy bystudents in, for example, master’s in TESOL programs. The practicingteacher of second language writing may elect to ignore those guidedquestions and activities and still gain much from the book.

WILLIAM ROZYCKIWaseda University

Springboard to Success: Communication Strategies for theClassroom and Beyond.Patricia Skillman and Cheiron McMahill. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall Regents, 1996. Pp. xii + 337.

The authors of Springboard to Success have demonstrated throughthe writing of this intermediate-level oral communication text thatthey have kept a finger on the pulse of current ESL teaching practices.Accessible to both the experienced and novice ESL instructor, Spring-board to Success is a communicative, learner-centered text with a focuson authentic academic preparation.

This text, which includes an in-depth instructor’s manual and anaudiotape of Model Conversations and Rhythm Practices, is dividedinto 12 straightforward chapters. Each chapter focuses on a themerelated to the academic future of students; for example, chapter 4focuses on Negotiating with Instructors whereas chapter 9’s theme isGetting Help at the Library. Even such chapters as Actively LearningVocabulary, which may not overtly appear to be academic in nature,

372 TESOL QUARTERLY

include such skills as asking questions in class for clarification anddiscussing classroom expectations.

Each chapter progresses from a simple listening task to more produc-tive activities such as giving a speech based on an out-of-class interview.Chapters begin with a short list of objectives and a Rhythm Practicein the form of a chant. Rhythm Practices focus on pronunciation andintonation and are followed by Model Conversations which introducethe theme and target expressions in a context. Next, there are Sectionswhich include Preview Questions, Overviews (of target structures),and several Practices. The Practices are short, structured activitiesdirectly tied to the Overview. Following Sections are Reviews of Over-view Expressions. These are cloze exercises which assess the students’acquisition of the target expressions. Finally, each chapter concludeswith Follow Up Activities. These are complex, open-ended activitieswhich allow students to take what they have learned and use it bothinside and outside the classroom to accomplish authentic tasks suchas creating a student-led library tour (chapter 9) or inquiring aboutstudent services and giving a presentation to the class (chapter 12). Theaccompanying instructor’s manual gives clear and concise guidance forthe teaching of each chapter as well as a detailed discussion on thepurpose and presentation of each portion of the chapters. Includedin the instructor’s manual are suggestions for implementation of thematerials in multilevel or large classroom settings.

Springboard to Success is indeed a much needed text in today’s ESLclassroom. It provides students with an overview of academic life alongwith an abundance of guided and open-ended oral communicationactivities which are deeply rooted in the real-life challenges they willface as students. This text would be appropriate for any ESL programwhich seeks to prepare college-bound students for their academic fu-tures and could be implemented as a segue into either an advancedcontent-based ESL course or an introductory-level college course.

ERIN MORGANMonterey Institute of International Studies

Arrivals: Cross-Cultural Experiences in Literature.Jann Huizenga. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1995. Pp. xi + 193.

It was a pleasure to read Arrivals. The passages, short stories, andpoems were well chosen not only for the content but also for the levelof difficulty. Aimed at young adult ESL readers, the passages are notso challenging as to be discouraging, yet the difficulty level is advanced

REVIEWS 373

enough to be an inspiration as well as a learning experience for thestudent.

I say an inspiration because all the selections were written by eitherfirst or second generation immigrants, showing the student that sucha level of expression can be achieved in the English language not onlyby native speakers but also by those who have other first languages.As one of the authors of a short story in Arrivals wrote: “As a nativePuerto Rican, my first language was Spanish. It was a challenge, notonly to learn English, but to master it enough to write poetry in it—my ultimate goal” (p. 99).

The book is divided into six units, following the typical chronologicalorder of both the physical and emotional events which take place in thelife of most immigrants. Therefore, there is something for everyonereading this book.

Before each selection there is a brief introduction to each author’sbackground followed by two exercises entitled Anticipate the Storyand Global Reading. The former, by helping readers think in advanceabout the story and then directly or indirectly getting them to relateit to their life, aids the reader in thinking about the upcoming selectionconceptually. The latter, which consists of a tip on how to read theselection quickly and grasp the main idea, yet answering some of thespecific questions or issues raised in the preceding exercise, helps thereader to think broadly and specifically at the same time.

The four exercises which follow each passage have a twofold objec-tive: to get the reader to think about the passage on a linguistic levelbut also on a conceptual level. For instance, Look at Language getsthe reader to look at new vocabulary closely, at grammatical styles,and at various literary devices used by the particular author. In thelast activity, Move Beyond the Story, readers get a chance to expressthemselves in much the same way that the author of the selection did.The reader is given a somewhat broad topic to think and then writeabout, yet this topic does relate to the author’s work. For example, thefirst selection of the book is entitled “Exile” by a first generation Polishimmigrant, Eva Hoffman. In it she expresses many of the negativeexperiences and emotions she suffered when first moving to the UnitedStates. In Move Beyond the Story for this chapter, readers are askedto write about a time when they “felt like Eva: angry, sullen or sad”(p. 9).

The only reservation that I have with this book is that one of itsgoals, to “develop an interactive community of readers” (p. viii), maybe somewhat contrived. The activities which encourage discussionguide the students’ conversations toward the book’s goals and notnecessarily toward their own, resulting in discussions that could berather superficial in nature.

374 TESOL QUARTERLY

Otherwise, I highly recommend this book, not only to the ESL stu-dents but also to anyone interested in gaining further insight into whatcan go on in the mind of a person having to live in conflict with twocultures.

MARIA OTT SPANGENBERGUniversity of Pennsylvania

REVIEWS 375

BOOK NOTICESThe TESOL Quarterly prints brief book notices of 100 words or less announcingbooks of interest to readers. Book Notices are not solicited. They are descrip-tive rather than evaluative. They are compiled by the Book Review Editor fromselected books that publishers have sent to TESOL.

Language and Development. Tony Crooks and Geoffrey Crewes(Eds.). Jakarta, Indonesia: Australia Language Foundation, 1995.Pp. xvii + 213.

■ This is a collection of papers selected from the April 1995 InternationalConference on Language in Development, held in Bali, Indonesia. Thefour sections of the volume, each with four papers, represent a broadrange of topics and issues. The first section examines language projectdesign and evaluation; the second focuses on the sustainability, or continu-ation of a project after the life of the project; the third section relates tocurricular issues—course design, methodology, and approaches; and thefinal section offers commentaries on the political nature of languages indevelopment, with specific examples from Cambodia and South Africa,where teachers are wrestling with issues of freedom and authority in theclassroom.

Network Based Classrooms: Promises and Realities. BertramBruce, Joy Kreeft Peyton, and Trent Batson.Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993. Pp. x + 302.

n This book is about a type of network-based classroom known as Elec-tronic Networks for Interaction (ENFI), developed at Gallaudet Univer-sity. In the original version, deaf students used communications softwareon a local computer network to develop their abilities to read, write, andengage in collaborative problem solving. Similar approaches have nowbeen adopted in classes for both hearing and deaf students from K–12,for ESL students, and for college writing classes. The 14 chapters inthis anthology explore these innovations from a number of differentperspectives through critical analyses of institutional contexts, studentneeds, and teaching goals.

CALL: Theory and Application. Peter Liddell (Ed.). Victoria,Canada: University of Victoria, 1993. Pp. xi + 398.

■ These papers from the second Canadian Computer Assisted LanguageLearning (CALL) Conference at the University of Victoria serve as areview of the state of the art in CALL in North America and Europe.Papers representing plenary sessions compare European and North Amer-

377

ican advances in CALL and make a case for professional recognition ofthe CALL “industry.” Other essays in the volume focus on such issues asintegrating CALL into the curriculum, the place of CALL in a learner-centered curriculum, reviews of software development in several foreignlanguages, CALL as a tool for developing writing skills, journal writing,and literature text analysis.

Cultural Diversity in Schools: From Rhetoric to Practice.Robert A. DeVillar, Christian J. Faltis, and James P. Cummins(Eds.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994.vii + 401.

Pp.

This book confronts the patterns of school failure often faced by subordi-nated minority groups in the U.S. It does so by presenting a socioacademicframework that is based on the notion that all groups can have comparableaccess to quality schooling, comparable participation in the schooling, andderive comparable educational benefits from their participation. Orga-nized around three key, interrelated components–communication, inte-gration, and cooperation–the book combines theoretical concepts withactual classroom practices that support change. It moves the reader froma position of rhetoric about educational quality to one that actively ad-dresses the socioacademic needs of students in a culturally diverse society.

Language and Understanding. Gillian Brown, KirstenMalmkjaer, Alastair Pollitt, and John Williams (Eds.). Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. v + 208.

What does it mean to understand a language? This volume assemblescontributions from a wide range of related areas and addresses issues inpsycholinguistics, pragmatics, second language acquisition, syntax, textlinguistics, language testing, and sociolinguistics, as well as educationaland applied linguistics. The papers are intended to enable applied linguiststo keep abreast of current thinking in these diverse fields. Editorial intro-ductions to each paper show how their contents relate to other papersand discuss some of the practical implications for language teaching,learning, and assessment.

Second Language Reading and Vocabulary Learning. ThomasHuckin, Margot Haynes, and James Coady (Eds.). Norwood, NJ:Ablex, 1993. Pp. vi + 309.

This anthology of papers by a wide variety of researchers in the fieldof learning and teaching reading offers 14 papers, each dealing with somespecific research study or studies in the field. Topics include research onvocabulary acquisition, implications of L1 vocabulary acquisition researchfor L2 vocabulary acquisition, strategies (e.g., guessing, word-solving, ob-

378 TESOL QUARTERLY

serving cognates, and inferring word meaning in context) and researchon innovative instructional approaches. Authors include the three editors,Cheryl Brown, Fraida Dubin, William Grabe, Elite Olshtain, Kate Parry,and Fredricka Stoller. The final chapter offers a summary of the previouspapers and directions for future research.

Tasks in a Pedagogical Context: Integrating Theory andPractice. Graham Crookes and Susan Gass (Eds.). Clevedon,England: Multilingual Matters, 1994. Pp. vii + 163.

This anthology deals with the ways in which tasks are used in secondlanguage classrooms and how syllabus design and materials developmentare affected by a task-oriented perspective. Some chapters look at elementsthat make up or are associated with the classroom task, particularly usefulfor materials designers. Other chapters explore the language which isproduced as a function of tasks, with implications for matching task typeswith differing student needs. There is also a consideration of how teachersand students see the classroom, with the goal of bringing syllabus designinto closer touch with how teachers and learners actually operate. Authorsinclude the editors, Michael Long, David Nunan, and B. Kumaravadivelu.

Adult Biliteracy in the United States. David Spener (Ed.).Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1994. Pp. vii +237.

This collection of articles by 15 researchers and teachers explores thesocial, cognitive, and pedagogical aspects of developing biliteracy/literacyin two languages. Chapters cover such themes as: linguistic diversity andthe education of language minority adults; how national population stud-ies treat biliteracy; the literacy practices of immigrant families; socio-linguistic considerations in literacy planning; and ways of promoting bili-teracy in classrooms, elementary school through adult. The intendedaudience is researchers, teachers, and administrators working in K– 12and adult ESL and bilingual education settings. Authors include NancyHornberger, Reynaldo Macias, Arnulfo Ramirez, Gail Weinstein-Shr, andWalt Wolfram.

Language, Culture, and Education. Michael C. Beveridge andGordon Reddiford (Eds.). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters,1993. Pp. iv + 184.

The papers in this collection were presented at the annual meetingof the Colston Research Society, University of Bristol. The papers hererepresent the fields of psychology, linguistics, philosophy, culture theory,special education, and others. The interdisciplinary emphasis is evidentin topics such as the following: power and political significance of language

BOOK NOTICES 379

in a pan-African context; a critique of Piaget’s contentions about the roleof cognitive skills in early childhood; the role of telling stories and readingaloud on the emotional development of children; the intrusion of racistand sexist language in the classroom and the opposition between humaneand traditional values; and the language and culture of blind and deafchildren in the classroom.

TESOL QUARTERLY380

Editor Research Issues Editor Brief Reports and ... - CiteSeerX

Documents

Transcript of Editor Research Issues Editor Brief Reports and ... - CiteSeerX