The CATESOL Journal

The present study investigates 2-way bilingual immersion (TWBI) as a potentially viable pedagogical model for adult language learners. A review of the literature on TWBI at the K-6 level is provided, followed by an examination of key issues in adult second and foreign language education. Implications for potential adult TWBI programs are discussed along with recommendations for further investigation. Finally, the author presents an exploratory study of a nonformal, communitybased adult TWBI program in Los Angeles known as I HABLO U. The results of this study suggest that while adult TWBI shares many of the learner and administrative challenges documented in K-6 TWBI programs, adult learners in TWBI programs contend with a unique set of problems and also enjoy a number of advantages that K-6 learners may not experience. The author concludes that scholars must widen the focus of current research and evaluative efforts of TWBI to consider adult learners.

Prospective teachers pursue a graduate degree in TESOL with the expectation that they will become more qualified, on paper and in practice, and more recognized as professionals in the field. In this article, the authors interrogate that assumption by exploring what it means to be a TESOL professional and how graduate students begin to shape this identity. Using their own professional-development paths and input from other graduate students to guide their investigation, the authors make the claim that when graduate students take advantage of professional-development opportunities in a structured and reflective way, they professionalize themselves and the TESOL field at large.

The challenges of implementing the process approach in a real-life setting are explored through the eyes of a MA TESOL student. While working her 2nd semester as an individual tutor for a developmental writer, the author discovers unexpected interdependencies among tutor, student, classroom teacher, and curriculum designer. This article dissects that experience, reflecting on specific challenges to draw insight on the effectiveness of the process approach with L2 students and the pedagogical implications for a preservice teacher.

Drawing on the author’s experience as both a graduate student and ESL practitioner, this article explores the process of taking on a voice of authority within a new discourse. The author reflects on her struggles with authorship in the professional discourse community of TESOL, and she uses these experiences to illuminate the struggles of her ESL students with authorship in the academic genre. It is suggested that for graduate students or ESL students to become authors in their target discourses, they must be able to use that language for authentic communication.

After following career interests that included anthropology and the visual arts, the author realized that working with adult immigrants with limited formal education and literacy skills was her path and her passion. Since few programs in the TESOL field focused on these learners, the author sought out instruction in nontraditional spaces to supplement her master’s course work with the specific training she desired. She views graduate school as an opportunity to explore fundamental questions about what skill set is essential to effectively teach this population, and in this article she shares her insight, resources, and suggestions for how graduate students can take further agency over their own education and how TESOL teacher training might be more inclusive.

This article is written from the perspective of 4 current MA TESOL graduate students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). These students have written about their experiences by incorporating their theoretical and pedagogical English language-teaching knowledge into the growth and maintenance of a community-based ESL program at the Peace Resource Center in Seaside, California. The article highlights the continual development of their original peace and social justice–themed curriculum, which involves graduate students in Linguistics, Education, and non-TESOL courses at MIIS. The writers respectively reflect upon professional growth as a result of their commitment to the ESL program. In addition, their appendices and details of their work may serve as resources and tools for the TESOL community interested in curriculum development, needs assessment, community-based language instruction, language-program administration, ESL critical pedagogy, and content-based instruction.

In this article, the author discusses how learning to effectively conduct, analyze, and present research has had an impact on her academic success, her ongoing development as an ESL teacher, and her proposals and protocols as the ESL department coordinator at an adult school in the Bay Area. The author triangulates these 3 areas of impact to demonstrate how the ability to employ research as a tool has provided her more knowledge and authority as a teacher and administrator.

Sexual identity is a topic that is relevant to adult ESL instruction, not only because some learners identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender), but also because LGBT identities are a visible part of American culture and ESL learners must learn how to discuss them in culturally and pragmatically appropriate ways. This article shares the results of a survey of ESL teachers’ experiences with LGBT themes and discusses questions and challenges that teachers reported. Because many teachers feel underprepared to handle these challenges, the authors propose that sexual identity be included in TESOL professional development, and they offer suggestions for incorporating the theme into both existing TESOL curricula and in-service training for practicing teachers.

This study explored the role of school in promoting positive bicultural and bilingual identities through the encouragement of Spanish use in 7 Latino children in 1 kindergarten classroom in North Carolina. Using a case study approach, researchers collected data through participant observations and interviews to examine the classroom practices of teachers with self-reported positive attitudes toward the use of Spanish by their students in this school. The results from the data revealed that there was a disconnect between what teachers espoused about heritage-language retention and the actual practices used to encourage native language use. While teachers openly stated in interviews that it was important for the Latino students to continue to speak and use their native language, the culture of the classroom and common practices used in this classroom failed to provide these Latino students with meaningful interactions with one another or their native English-speaking peers. In fact, mandates for silence and the separation of students in the kindergarten classroom resulted in very little use of language, whether in Spanish or in English. Implications for educators are discussed.

This study analyzes the methods that teachers employ in written feedback to student writing and how the policies of the program and the teachers’ embodied histories influence the strategies used. Data were gathered from 2 novice teachers as they taught their first graduate-level ESL writing course and consist of the teachers’ feedback in addition to interviews and personal narratives. Participants were educated in the same MA TESOL program and taught the same course; however, striking similarities and differences in their written feedback indicate identity and personal history are as important as program policies in determining the methods and content of the feedback. Implications for novice teacher development are that reflective teaching should include reflections on both beliefs and classroom practices to identify misalignments between the two.

This paper reports the results of a survey of California TESOL educators about issues related to nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs). A good deal of research suggests that NNESTs are as effective, if not more so, than native Englishspeaking teachers (NESTs) and that their treatment in today’s work world should be reconsidered; in addition, much research has interrogated the “native/nonnative” dichotomy itself, that is, whether we should or even can believe in “native speakers” and “nonnative speakers” of English. What seems to be missing, however, is a discussion of what graduate TESOL educators should be doing with nonnative English-speaking master’s students, how they already interact with them, and if and how they treat them in any way “differently.” The survey, conducted by 2 professors in a MA TESOL program, asked TESOL educators in California about how they work with and teach future teachers of ESL or EFL who are both native speakers and nonnative speakers.

Many graduate TESOL programs grapple with whether to admit applicants who fall short of meeting established admission criteria yet who show promise as future TESOL professionals. This study examined key characteristics affecting the success of candidates admitted conditionally to graduate TESOL programs. Participants were 21 students who had been admitted conditionally to master’s-level TESOL programs at 2 faith-based universities. Correlations between several independent variables and success in those programs were studied. Experience abroad and holding a teaching certification had the highest positive correlations with academic success as measured by GPA in the 1st semester of course work. Previous ESL teaching experience had a respectable, yet smaller, correlation. All of these variables had higher correlations than undergraduate GPA. These findings suggest that considering undergraduate GPA in isolation is unlikely to result in informed decisions about conditional admits in graduate TESOL programs as there are many other factors that predict TESOL candidates’ success.

This article describes a 6-year, districtwide staff-development project that was implemented in an attempt to change teacher attitudes and practices as they relate to English learners (ELs). The specific goals of the project were (a) to help the district’s teachers develop the knowledge base, pedagogical skills, and professional attitudes required to provide the English learners enrolled in their classrooms with effective English language development and academic subject matter instruction, and (b) to enable the teachers who still needed it to earn a Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development (CLAD) certificate. Reflective journal entries and classroom observations were both learning tools and methods of data collection. Results indicate that the project had a positive impact on teacher attitudes and practices.

As teachers and students have taken more active roles in assessment practices, our field has begun to pay more attention to classroom-based assessment (CBA). As a result, we have gained a better understanding of CBA principles but we have also become aware of challenges, particularly in applying traditional assessment concepts such as reliability and validity to the classroom context. In this article I continue the argument that viewing assessment through a sociocultural perspective will help us broaden our understanding of classroom learning environments and rethink traditional assessment concepts for CBA.

In the U.S., writing proficiency exams (WPEs) often employ a construct of writing proficiency that is based on U.S. English and essay-text literacy. As universities internationalize, they should reconsider whether such exams reflect the literacy requirements of a globalizing world. Since the ways in which universities respond to international students reflect their commitments to internationalization, this article presents the experiences of 8 international students taking a WPE. Results show that the exam did not always promote opportunities for participation, a sense of belonging, or respect for student knowledge, factors known to promote international student success. Concrete suggestions are made for redesigning WPEs such that the writing proficiency construct is based on the ability to negotiate a rhetorical situation. Doing so would be an important symbolic shift away from privileging the linguistic form of one social group, and it would benefit U.S. monolingual students and faculty as well as international students.