The CATESOL Journal

This pilot study investigated the attitudes of preservice teachers at a major university in Arizona concerning the Structured English Immersion (SEI) program that is now being used with English language learners (ELLs). Using a survey, we examined how preservice teachers feel about potentially working with ELLs in this SEI context. We focused on their beliefs about language teaching and learning, including their perceived level of preparation to work with ELLs, their attitudes toward them, and the difficulties they anticipate in teaching ELLs in the future. The results show that preservice teachers lack some of the fundamental knowledge necessary to work with ELLs, and they highlight the importance of incorporating the insights of the larger TESOL field into K-12 teacher-training programs. We argue that K-12 teacher-training programs, especially in states with English-only policies, may be serving to marginalize the TESOL profession and the contributions it may provide to the education of ELLs.

Teaching and learning English in the US are complex processes that are not explained by language theories or methods alone. Concepts such as the relationship between language majority groups and language minority groups, language status, immigration, economics, language planning, and policies add to the complexity of language-learning situations. Effective teachers for the more than 5 million English learners (ELs) in kindergarten through 12th grades require unique knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This article provides a review of the language, learning, and language learning theories and practices for second language teaching, focusing on sociocultural theories and practices.

English language learners (ELLs) in K-12 schools continue to increase in number across the country. In California alone, about 1.5 million students are not sufficiently proficient in English to perform optimally in mainstream classrooms. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 emphasizes the need for highly qualified teachers, but just who is qualified to apply best educational practices to help ELLs reach their potential in an academic environment? This article will discuss how the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)/National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) P-12 ESL teacher-preparation standards provide a nationally recognized framework for teacher preparation and evaluation, while at the same time providing for flexibility in the way in which certified ESOL teachers are prepared. Graduates of programs that follow these standards are ready to begin meeting the challenges of educating the next generation of ELLs in American classrooms.

In this pilot study, participating Hispanic and Southeast Asian freshmen took a writing-intensive history survey course with a weekly analytic journal task. The study examined the helpfulness of the weekly journal and the scaffolding steps provided by the professor and teaching assistants, by peers in their learning community, and by out-of-class tutors. Students completed a survey about their perceptions related to the analytic journal task, their self-assessment of their reading comprehension, their views about the helpfulness of the social learning opportunities offered from peers in the course and from tutors, and the time they spent on the journal task. The survey was administered early and late in the semester. The findings show that when students wrote every week in response to primary sources, they got regular practice in reading, critical thinking, and writing. This study suggests that regular reading practice along with scaffolding by a university history professor, while helpful in certain ways, does not seem to be sufficient to help the participating students overcome challenges with reading comprehension and vocabulary of assigned history texts. This pilot study offers practical ideas for instructors of college or university ESL, for those assigning reading and writing journals, and for tutoring center tutors and coordinators.

“Generation 1.5” is a term being used to describe a type of second language (L2) long-term U.S. resident who may demonstrate persistent language-related challenges (Roberge, Siegel, & Harklau, 2009). Among the difficulties commonly noted with Generation 1.5 students are problems in controlling the academic register expected in university writing tasks. Because of the growth of this population in U.S. schools, tertiary instructors need a better sense of whether patterns of language and literacy challenges are present in the writing of Generation 1.5 students. The goal of this exploratory study was to analyze linguistic/textual features of students’ writing. Specifically, this study was designed to determine whether 25 languagerelated measures of Generation 1.5 student writing would distinguish their texts from those of L1 classmates of similar writing proficiency. Results indicate similar patterns of textual features between groups. Implications are discussed in relation to the prevalent claims of Generation 1.5 writing.

A scoring rubric acts as a useful guide for evaluating the quality of students’ written responses. In second language writing, scoring rubrics can be used to measure a variety of discourse and linguistic features. However, certain advantages and disadvantages are associated with particular rubrics (see Hamp-Lyons, 2003; Weigle, 2002). Therefore, numerous factors (e.g., purpose or resources) need to be considered when deciding which type of scoring rubric to use. This study describes the types and features of scoring rubrics that are used to measure English as a second language (ESL) students’ writing in Intensive English Programs (IEPs) at multiple universities throughout the US. Forty-three IEP directors completed a questionnaire and interview that addressed the relevance/role of writing in their programs and the types/features of rubrics they use. The findings highlight some of the decision-making behaviors of IEP directors in their choices of scoring rubrics.

Scholarship in applied linguistics has not sufficiently addressed learner motivation in mandatory writing classes in postsecondary settings. The data collected through short interviews from 20 students enrolled in a mandatory academic writing program at the junior/senior level in a California State University indicated that learner motivation in these classes was largely the result of how learners related themselves to variables such as self-efficacy, goal orientedness, interest in writing activities, novelty of teaching methods, and relevance of the writing genre for their intended careers. The findings, in overall, were in agreement with the claims made in applied linguistics and educational psychology that learners’ cognitive and emotional appraisals of self, task, and the learning environment would largely determine how they would conduct themselves in and relate to the whole classroom environment (Dörnyei & Otto, 1998; Paris & Turner, 1994; Schumann, 1997, 2001).

Communicating in a second language could be seen as a process requiring the deconstruction and reconstruction of cultural meanings. If this is the case, how do second language (L2) learners express cultural meanings of their first language (L1) expressions that do not have semantically equivalent L2 expressions? Twenty-nine Japanese students learning English as a second language in the US were asked to translate Japanese cultural expressions that do not have equivalent English expressions. This study found that the students either (a) entirely eliminated the expression from the statement, (b) replaced the expression with an English expression commonly used in a similar context, but with a different meaning, or (c) literally translated the expression into an English expression that made little sense. The study suggests the importance of helping L2 learners develop this bicultural capability to convey rich cultural meanings of L1-specific expressions in L2-based communication.

This case study of an adjunct-model English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course linked to a policy-analysis course describes an effective approach for putting “specificity” into practice in EAP curriculum design. The rationale for interdisciplinary collaboration, the positive learning outcomes from the EAP writing course, the learning transfer to the policy course, and the pedagogical implications are described in detail. It is suggested that the EAP instructor work primarily with texts within students’ disciplines, teach the universal principles of well-written discourse implicit in the text type, and teach students to analyze those features of the text that vary according to the audience, context, and rhetorical situation. The findings and pedagogical implications add to the current body of research about curriculum design in EAP and the positive learning outcomes appear to negate the argument that EAP instructors need specialized training in learners’ fields to teach disciplinary writing courses.

Both California state law and the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) require that all schools assess the English language proficiency of newly enrolled students who speak a language other than English at home and, annually, all English learners (ELs) already enrolled. California meets this requirement by administering the California English Language Development Test, or CELDT. The CELDT has three primary purposes: to identify students who are ELs, determine their English proficiency level, and assess their progress in acquiring listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English through time. We examine data on the validity and reliability of the CELDT to determine if it is an appropriate tool for carrying out these purposes. We conclude that the CELDT is likely a sufficiently valid and reliable tool for making judgments about groups of students but not for making crucial educational decisions about individual students.

Claiming that poetry is essentially an oral art and thus eminently suitable as discourse for language teaching and learning, the author guides readers through stepby-step strategies in how to make the pictures of poetry visible and the sounds of poetry audible for language-learning students. Using the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author presents strategies that allow us to see and understand the people, the place, and the drama felt throughout the poem. She makes clear that these strategies can be used with most poems. She chooses objects and moments from students’ everyday experiences to demonstrate each technique, and she explains how such ordinary objects and events can bring out the essence of each poem. These techniques also offer opportunities for the practice of all language skills, and they promote student group and pair work for vocabulary recycling and practice of structure as they enjoy literary content.

For many ESL students, the linguistic resources needed for explicit development of abstract ideas, a central tenet of academic writing, are difficult to control (Schleppegrell, 2004). Using the linguistic notion of Theme and Rheme (Halliday & Mathiessen, 2004), this piece is intended to share a way for teachers to explain differences between these two genres (analytical and personal) and raise students’ awareness of the new expectations of academic writing. The notions of Theme and Rheme focus instructors and students on specific language resources and at the same time reference broader discourse features that allow teachers the flexibility of both a micro and macro approach to writing instruction. Such an approach also provides ESL students a toolkit with which they can evaluate their own linguistic choices and incorporate their strengths with the personal genre of writing into a more academic, analytic genre of writing.