The CATESOL Journal

While many have studied Generation 1.5 learners’ sociocultural and language learning experience, few have examined their linguistic errors in detail. This study uses two mini-corpora to compare one linguistic feature, the use of past participles, in essays by English as a Second Language (ESL) and Generation 1.5 college-level learners of various language backgrounds. The study found that Generation 1.5 learners tended to make past participle errors involving the morphological form of the past participle while ESL learners tended to make errors using the correct form in an inappropriate linguistic context. These findings suggest that although Generation 1.5 learners are proficient, sometimes nativelike, speakers of English who often demonstrate a remarkable sense of fluency in their writing, they still make errors involving grammatical forms. These findings suggest that language instruction that focuses on form is still important for their writing development. This instruction should be based on better understanding of this population’s needs and abilities.

For academic writers to use a word, they must know not only its basic meaning, its pronunciation, and the contexts in which the word is used, they must also possess more complex knowledge—a word’s collocational patterns and grammatical constraints (Colombi & Schleppegrell, 2002; Halliday, 1987, 1994). Gaining the lexicogrammatical knowledge needed to use words appropriately in college writing is a particular challenge for Generation 1.5 ESL writers. These students, who come to college with a rich academic and nonacademic vocabulary developed through years of formal study and daily interaction in English, often produce awkward or even ungrammatical sentences when they use this vocabulary productively. This paper focuses on lexicogrammatical errors commonly found in the academic writing of Generation 1.5 ESL students and discusses how discourse-based strategies for teaching grammar can be adapted to help these learners use academic vocabulary in a semantically and grammatically appropriate way. These strategies include having students look at models, teaching dictionary use, and developing students’ analytical self-editing strategies.

Discourse-based research has provided grammar teachers with a great many new and interesting insights into the meaning and use of target structures, thus presenting new challenges regarding how to include this information in a grammar syllabus. Based on an analysis of discourse patterns and recurrent themes from research in the areas of discourse-based grammar instruction, corpus linguistics, and English for Academic Purposes (EAP), this paper proposes guidelines in the form of 10 questions for helping teachers systematically incorporate discourse information into the teaching of all structures in a grammar syllabus. The paper demonstrates how to use the guidelines for providing concrete examples of how and where grammatical structures are used in discourse, and it concludes with a discussion of implications for teaching writing at advanced levels of grammar instruction, with suggestions for using the guidelines at beginner and intermediate levels as well.

This paper explores a kind of language instruction that facilitates student writers’ learning of grammar skills through providing a carefully constructed supportive framework—language scaffolding. To illustrate, a five-step pedagogy for scaffolded instruction is proposed, including contextual-awareness building, model analysis, controlled and guided practice, collaborative construction of text, and independent writing. The author argues that when student writers are provided with flexible, systematic language guidance throughout the writing process, they will gain increasing confidence and competence in exploiting grammar as a resource to construct meaning and exercising language choices beyond the sentence level appropriate to the purpose and function of the written discourse.

For the last two decades, most high school English teachers have offered little grammar instruction, instead focusing primarily on literature. Meanwhile, standardsbased instruction has been mandated at the state and federal levels and concern has grown about the gap between high school preparation in academic literacy and university requirements. The California State University 12th Grade Task Force has created the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum(ERWC) to address that gap. To supplement the ERWC, materials based on ERWC texts enable teachers to integrate grammar instruction into the course. Students observe grammatical forms in the texts they are reading, apply what they have learned in a series of activities, and conclude by editing their own writing. Thus, grammar and the conventions of written academic English are taught as part of a continuous loop within the context of what students are reading and writing in the ERWC classroom.

Many writing teachers desire to know which article errors need to be corrected because they are unacceptable in all circumstances (and which may prejudice the reader against the writing), and which “errors” reflect a choice that the speaker or writer has made that must be incorporated into the meaning of the utterance. This article describes the available choices in different categories, discusses the perception of those choices by teachers as editors, and presents a possible explanation of certain erroneous choices based on an analysis of the lexical choices made.

Listener responses are essential to the progress and intelligibility of conversation. Learners of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) have only rarely been taught the forms and functions of these conversational particles. This paper offers a simple taxonomy of the most common listener responses; compares English listener responses with those of Spanish, German, Japanese, and Chinese; and discusses the pragmatics and interpretation of listener responses. It examines the placement and interpretations of three types of listener responses: minimal responses, the most common of backchannels, continuers (e.g., uh-huh), and reactive expressions (e.g., o.k.). Pedagogical tools for raising awareness, eliciting intuitions, and using listener responses are recommended.

This exploratory study investigates how successfully advanced Generation 1.5 college writers can revise their grammar errors in out-of-class writing when a specific set of grading symbols is used and grammar addressing these same points is being taught. While recent research on Generation 1.5 writers’ error correction using data from in-class writing gives insight into their ability to self-edit (Ferris, 1997; Ferris & Roberts, 2001), it does not address the more demanding task of revising an out-of-class analytical paper. The study involved comparing an early draft (with errors indicated in various ways) and the final draft of an analytical paper of 58 Generation 1.5 students in an advanced ESL composition class to determine their success in correcting eight of their most frequent and problematic grammar errors. The average success rate for all untreated errors was 32% versus a success rate ranging 77-81% for errors treated in some way, indicating a marked disparity in correction success between marked and unmarked errors. The study also shows conditional and word-choice errors are the most difficult of the errors studied for these students to correct. Implications of the findings for error treatment and grammar instruction are discussed.

To improve reading fluency and comprehension and to acquire vocabulary, ESL students must be exposed to a wide variety of readings, particularly continuous text. Recently, there has been renewed interest in literature as a valuable tool in teaching English as a Second Language. Therefore, as a supplemental reading assignment, two instructors of advanced-level students in an Intensive English Program (IEP) collaborated on a theme-based approach to teaching reading, writing, and critical thinking using The Tortilla Curtain by T. C. Boyle and a news survey of relevant articles. The choice of this particular novel proved timely because of its connection to current events and the abundance of media reports and political debates regarding illegal immigration and the rights of undocumented immigrants. Students explored issues related to immigration, racism, and social justice. This thematic approach helped the students develop reading fluency and comprehension and improve their vocabulary and critical-thinking skills.

In response to the current climate of accountability, many districts have turned to scripted reading programs as the solution to literacy instruction in schools with populations of students with high needs. While scripted programs may be beneficial for some students, they often limit a teacher’s ability to create active learning environments to facilitate the second language learning and literacy skills in English Learners (ELs). Specifically, this paper critically examines three aspects of scripted programs that include whole group instruction, repetition, and pacing guides to understand how ELs experience these lessons. Additionally, it describes how one first-grade teacher in a highly diverse urban school has been able to embed strategies that work for ELs within a classroom guided by scripts.

For second language learners everywhere there is a conflict between acquiring the target language and culture and pressure to maintain the primary culture and language identity. Second language acquisition (SLA) techniques from the voicebased business process outsourcing (BPO) field are outlined to help learners and teachers find cultural and linguistic balance while effecting the kind of holistic change needed for full, second language acquisition.

By merging legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and action research (Nunan, 1992), this paper encourages teachers to question their pedagogical choices in relation to those of their teaching community(ies) of practice. This paper discusses two questions: (a) How can action research–based methods be used to highlight crucial differences between novice and expert instruction in the same teaching community?; and (b) how did the author’s pedagogical decisions reflect legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and hence “situated learning,” or fuller participation in the teaching community in which the author’s “bridge” class was situated. The reason for this twofold examination is to develop a dynamic understanding, or “meta-awareness” (Ramanathan, 2002), of how teaching choices were related to those of the local teaching community. Such “metaknowledge” is important in that it allows teachers to more effectively embrace or resist their teaching community norms.