Destabilizing Monolingual Assumptions: Translingual WAC Workshops Joshua Belknap, ESL Lab Coordinator Borough of Manhattan Community College jbelknap@bmcc.cuny.edu

“[S]tudents absolutely cannot write”: a reconsideration

“Help me come up w/a plan? ESL students are getting short-changed. ”

Academic Literacy and Linguistics Chair

This semester, I have three classes of respectful students who absolutely cannot write. I have sent most to the Writing Center Or english tutors…..they are telling me that the people at the WCenter are not helpful even though they are well-intentioned. Same with the English tutors. Usually, I have a handful of really good writers who I team up with those who cannot. This semester I am not able to do this.

These students NEED help with English construction, spelling, everything! Critical thinking does not even play into it at this point. Have a lot of chinese students who are struggling with the English language anyway. Any advice? thanks Professor X Professor, Music and Art Department

Monolingual, translingual orientation[s]: some questions

Institutional/Individual instructor expectations

Who are the students in college writing classes?

Where do they come from?

What do they need to know?

How to best teach them?

Essay structure: rhetorical patterns across cultures

ENGLISH

• Five paragraph essay format is more standard • Tend toward deductive reasoning, with a prominent thesis

statement, generally in the first paragraph. Subsequent paragraphs develop and support the thesis in a linear way, until the conclusion.

Writer Responsible

Reader Responsible

ASIAN

• Approach a topic from a variety of viewpoints in order to examine it indirectly, a process that indicates careful, rhetorically-nuanced thinking.

• Considered the “polite” way to write. Many view English’s direct approach as rude or abrupt.

SPANISH/ROMANCE/ EASTERN EUROPEAN

• More loosely organized; fewer boundaries that connect the sentence’s development with its topic • Much greater freedom to digress or to introduce extraneous material • More complex sentence structure, longer (in English, run-

on) sentences acceptable in academic context, reflecting erudition

ARABIC • Construct paragraphs based on a complex series of parallel constructions

• Sensitivity towards politeness, represented by indirectness. • Rather than getting to their point immediately, native Arabic speakers might open open up a topic and talk around the point.

Adapted from Robert B. Kaplan, “Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercultural Education.” Language and Learning 16:15.

Monolingual assumptions/approach to

language

Linguistic homogeneity: Standard American English (SAE)

Student population: “English Only” (as ideal/myth, if not reality)

Language “interference”/difference is contained, quarantined, separated in ESL courses, taught by TESOL specialists and applied linguists

Models of Language, Literacy Acquisition

(Canagarajah, Clarifying the Relationship Between Translingual Practice and L2 writing [2015])

1.

2.

3.

4.

From Monolingual to Translingual Culture of Writing, Teaching

Monolingual → Translingual

pedagogy: transmission exploration

values: “efficiency” labor, tolerance, patience

expectations: correct/appropriate negotiated, recreated

language(s): discrete/stable/uniform interdependent, fluctuating

writing: conformity to code rewriting/transforming

reading: decoding meaning production/negotiation

text: information conduit site of meaning (re)production

students: followers collaborators

Institutional, writing program, classroom binaries

Monolingual Approach: Binaries Translingual Approach: Destabilizing binaries

U.S. Resident/Immigrant Complex spectrum of student language orientation (e.g. migrant, immigrant, generation 1.5, international students, etc.)

English “ideal” (SAE)/Languages other then SAE

Multilingual, multiple (global) Englishes

Proficient/Deficient in SAE = L1 (or L2, L3, etc.) “Interference”

Dynamic palette, expansive and diverse repertoire of linguistic resources, code-meshing

Native English/ESL writers = Programmatic separation, containment, outsourcing of language difference

Language difference incorporated into writing classroom as resource, asset

Translingual approach to writing

Language (including varieties of Englishes, discourses, media, or modalities) as performative: not something we have but something we do. Users of language: actively forming and transforming the very conventions we use and social-historical contexts of use. Communicative practices: not neutral or innocent but informed by and informing economic, geopolitical, social-historical, cultural relations of asymmetrical power. Decisions on language use: shaping, shaped by the contexts of utterance and the social positionings of the writers; thus having material consequences on the life and world we live in. Difference: the norm of all utterances, conceived of as acts of translation inter and intra languages, media, modality during seeming iterations of dominant conventions as well as deviations from the norm. Deliberation over how to tinker with authorized contexts, perspectives, and conventions of meaning making: needed and desired by all users of language, those socially designated as mainstream or minority, native or first, second, foreign speakers, published or student writers. All communicative practices: mesopolitical acts, actively negotiating and constituting complex relations of power at the dynamic intersection of the social-historical (macro) and the personal (micro) levels.

Lu, Min-Zhan, and Bruce Horner. "Introduction: Translingual Work." College English, 78.3 (2016).

Translanguaging

What is translanguaging?

Refers to the language practices of multilingual people

Fluid, flexible use among linguistic resources to make meaning

Deployment of speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard for socially/politically defined boundaries of (national/state) language

Isn’t translanguaging “code-switching”?

Absolutely not. Codes-switching = Two (or more) separate monolingual systems that could be used w/o reference to each other.

Linguistic binary (or set of binaries) of code-switching overlooks fluidity of contextualized practice

Isn’t translanguaging a temporary discourse practice out of which people transition when they’re fully bi-/multilingual?

Absolutely not. Multilinguals adapt language practices to the particular communicative situation, to optimize communication/understanding

Multilingual families do not “stop” translangual practices

Is translanguaging a valid discursive practice?

Indeed. Translanguaging builds flexibility in language practices

Translingual WAC/ESLAC Workshops: Reorienting Monolingual Pedagogy

Creating multilingual-sensitive faculty/tutor training materials for WAC/WID (Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Discipline)

Reaching out to colleagues across disciplines to establish grounds for more substantive collaborations, in order to avoid unidirectional monological discourse

Faculty/Tutor Workshop 1: Getting our own translingual bearings

Consider my pedagogical and tutor training methods, attempt to situate them within research from each field

Share our own history and experience(s) with language acquisition and study

Discuss how we can

strive for transparency of expectations, goals, and writing tasks

design assignments so that multilingual writers can utilize linguistic knowledge/cultural background as resources

Feedback: 1) contact 2) comment, and 3) follow-up

Faculty/Tutor Workshop 2: Grammar Feedback

Limit focus to errors that seem frequent, serious and treatable

Note distinction between errors and mistakes

Teach self-editing strategies (time limits, etc.)

Reading out loud, copying models, etc.

Do not edit student papers – ineffectual, reduces students’ opportunity to learn

Provide implicit feedback to help students notice the mistakes and gradually reduce the support

Faculty/Tutor Workshop 3: Dialect and Code-Meshing

Discuss dialect

Sensitize tutors and faculty to code-meshing, introduce assignments and activities that do not privilege SAE over other Englishes

Faculty, tutors and students mix codes to negotiate the meaning of English texts and to compose stories or journals in expressive, creative, or reflective writing

Stress that rather than hampering the acquisition of English, the negotiation of codes can indeed facilitate it

Translingual strategies for inclusive

teaching/tutoring

Treat cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource

Create opportunities to understand language tasks

Enunciate clearly, pause for processing

Visuals, gestures, and props to clarify key concepts

Use Multiple Modes

Present information in multiple ways (say it, write it, model it)

Provide clear step-by-step instructions, model procedures for new tasks

Render tasks accessible

Preview readings to activate students’ prior knowledge about a topic

Give students opportunities to interact in small groups and ask questions of peers

Strategies for Destabilizing Monolingual Assumptions

Examination of canonical texts from different historical periods, disciplines, and genres and within the “same” disciplines and genres to reveal the radically varying character of what is and has been deemed “standard” /“appropriate” written English

Etymological investigations to reveal the “mixed” linguistic character of English

(WAC) Translingual theory and practice:

Ideas for next steps

Wealth of research conducted on translingual writing research and pedagogy

Translingual Writing website: Horner, et al

CCCC transnational writing group

Paul Kei Matsuda’s L2 writers bibliography

The Journal of Second Language Writing

Connect with other groups that advocate for multilingual writers (e.g. applied linguistics/ESL specialists, international student center, ethnic studies program, etc.)

Change institutional landscape for multilingual writers (e.g. cross-cultural courses across the curriculum, increase visibility of multilingual students and faculty)

Gather data about, and conduct research on, multilingual writers on your campus

Make resources on multilingual writing and writers available to tutors, faculty

Discuss multilingual writers during all institutional conversations about writing

Suggestions for further reading

Atkinson, Dwight, et al. “Clarifying the Relationship Between L2 Writing and Translingual Writing: An Open Letter to Writing Studies Editors and Organization Leaders.” College English 77 (2015): 383-386.

Canagarajah, Suresh. “Clarifying the Relationship Between Translingual Practice and L2 Writing: Addressing Learner Identities.” Applied Linguistics Review 6.4 (2015): 415-440.

--Critical Academic Writing for Multilingual Students. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan (2002).

CCCC Statement on Second Language Writing and Writers

Cox, Michelle. “WAC: Closing Doors or Opening Doors for Second Language Writers?” Across the Disciplines 8.4. (2011). Available at http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/ell/cox.cfm

Horner, Bruce, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline J. Royster, and John Trimbur. “Opinion: Language Difference in Writing-Toward a Translingual Approach.” College English 73.3 (2011): 303-321.

Horner, Bruce, Samantha NeCamp, and Christiane Donahue. "Toward a Multilingual Composition Scholarship: From English Only to a Translingual Norm." College Composition and Communication (2011): 269-300.

Lu, Min-Zhan, and Bruce Horner. "Introduction: Translingual Work." College English, 78.3 (2016).

Lu, Min-Zhan and Bruce Horner. “Translingual Literacy, Language Difference, and Matters of Agency.” College English 75.6 (2013): 582-607.

Matsuda, Paul Kei. “Basic Writing and Second Language Writers: Toward an Inclusive Definition.” Journal of Basic Writing 22.2 (2003): 67-89.

--“The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition.” College English 68.6. (2006): 637-651.

Pennycook, Alastair. “English as a Language Always in Translation.” European Journal of English Studies 12 (2008): 33-47.

Zamel, Vivian, and Ruth Spack. “Teaching Multilingual Learners Across the Curriculum: Beyond the ESL Classroom and Back Again.” Journal of Basic Writing 25.2 (Fall 2006): 126-52.

Questions?