internationalization, wac, and l2 writers: program...

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Internationalization, WAC, and L2 Writers:

Program Agendas and Curricular Innovation

Karyn Mallett, Anna Habib, Ghania Zgheib, Nicole Sealey

March 23, 2013 | TESOL Presentation | Dallas, TX


Abstract

In this presentation, data and implications derived

from a mixed-method longitudinal research

project on undergraduate L2 writers are presented

in order to substantiate the claim that small, high-

profile programs can provide institutional space

and incentive to build a WAC-like, ESL-ready

curriculum to support a growing body of

linguistically-diverse L2 writers.


CAMPUS

INTERNATIONALIZATION:

A CENTER-BASED MODEL FOR

ESL-READY PROGRAMS

K. Mallett & Zgheib, G. (To appear). Campus Internationalization: A

Center-based Model for ESL-ready Programs. In M. Cox & T. Zawacki

(eds.) WAC and Second Language Writers: Research towards

Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Practices. Digital

Book Series, WAC Clearinghouse. Urbana, NCTE.


Figure 2. Ten year Overall International Enrollment at Mason


Center for International Student Access

(CISA)

ACCESS

Provisionally admitted freshman

Mostly general education courses + language support - 28 credits

Comprehensive first-year experience

Includes language, advising, and acculturation to US education system

BRIDGE

Provisionally admitted

graduate students

EAP courses + graduate

courses – (18-21 credits)

Introduction to graduate study

and professionalization

Includes language, advising,

and acculturation to US

education system


ACCESS Student Language Goals


ACCESS Program Structure

Curricular

• Enhanced English Composition (6)

• Public Speaking + Language Support (4)

• World History + Language Support

• American Cultures (4)

• Introduction to Research Methods (3)

• Mathematics (3-4)

• Freshman Seminar (2)

• Major Course(s) (2-4)

• English Grammar (as needed) (3)

Co-curricular

• Advising

• Peer Support

• Tutoring

• Living Learning

Community

• Co-curricular &

Extracurricular Activities

• Service-Learning

Outcomes

Linguistic Skill Self-Efficacy/

Acculturation Academic Performance


ACCESS Enrollment Data

Year Projected

Enrollment

Headcount

Actual

Enrollment

Headcount

2010-2011 20 22

2011-2012 60 57

2012-2013 80

2013-2014 100

2014-2015 120

---- 90

---- 125

---- 150


ENGLISH 121/122: ENHANCED

ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Team: TESOL/Applied Linguistics + Composition + WAC


“ESL-ready” Curriculum Building Process

ENGLISH 121/122

AAC&U

QEP-SaS

Gen Ed

WAC

ENGH

101

Course

Goals

??? Lang

Program

CEFR

B2


COMM 100 + PROV 103

Team: TESOL/Applied Linguistics + COMM



COMM 100/PROV 103

AAC&U

Gen Ed

COMM

100

Course

Goals

??? Lang

Program

CEFR

B2


HIST 125+ PROV 104

Team: TESOL/Applied Linguistics + HIST



HIST 125/PROV 104

AAC&U

Gen Ed

HIST

125

Course

Goals

??? Lang

Program

CEFR

B2


“ESL-ready” (Matsuda, P.K., 2001)

“In order to provide adequate writing instruction for all students, including second-language writers, all WAC programs must become "ESL ready"; that is, everyone involved in WAC initiatives--including WAC administrators, writing consultants and writing fellows as well as faculty across the disciplines who use writing in their courses--needs to recognize the presence of second-language writers, to understand their characteristics and needs, and to prepare themselves for the challenge of addressing the needs of those students. To practice WAC, then, is to practice ESL. Yet, ultimately, second-language writers are not the only ones who benefit from the efforts to develop more inclusive WAC programs. Such efforts can, in the long run, contribute to the further democratization of U.S. higher education for all kinds of students.”


Disseminating “ESL Ready” Across

the Curriculum


WAC, L2 Writing, and ESL/Applied Linguistics specialists

collaboration

Task CISA Director & Staff ELI/CISA

Assistant Director for Language

Development & ELI Language

Support Course Faculty

WAC Director English Composition

Program Director &

English Faculty Teaching

CISA Courses

Providing students with a wide variety of co-curricular, extra-

curricular, and complementary programming, including

ACCESS-specific student and faculty orientations, Peer

Learning Partners, academic advisors, cultural excursions,

Living Learning Community activities, etc.

Development of new content-based English for Academic

Purposes (EAP) curricula/materials to support two general

education courses (PROV 104 to support World History and

PROV 103 to support Public Speaking) specifically for

ACCESS students.

Development and revisions of co-taught, stretched, and

enhanced English 121-122 specifically for ACCESS students.

Hiring, staffing, and observations of all ACCESS faculty.*

Conducting training sessions for CISA faculty across the

disciplines on approaches to written feedback on multilingual

writers’ work.

Assessing and reporting on language proficiency (initial,

midyear, and exit) for all enrolled ACCESS students.

CISA Faculty Committees to determine and revise program-

wide academic and language policies as well as major

curricular and programmatic changes (e.g., Curriculum

Committee, Language Acquisition Committee, Advisory

Committee, etc.).


THE RESEARCH PROJECT

Faculty and Student Perceptions of Writing Expectations


Research Questions 1) How do ACCESS students’ perceptions of their academic,

linguistic, and cultural experiences compare with ACCESS-

affiliated faculty perspectives on teaching multilingual students

across the ACCESS-included disciplines?”

a) Are the writing-support structures and resources that we had collaboratively put

in place perceived by both participant groups as helpful? Why or why not?

a) Is teaching in the ACCESS program pedagogically challenging and/or rewarding

for faculty? Why or why not? If yes, in what ways?

2) How does a language supported approach to

internationalization open doors for participating faculty and L2

writers that WAC institutionalized practices may have

inadvertently closed in the past?


Participants

Students

18 undergraduate

91% international classification

70% male

59% Gulf region

70% spoke Arabic as L1

48% former IEP students

35% interested in business, 25% in engineering, 10% in global studies; remainder undeclared

Faculty

7 faculty members

1 History, 1 Communication, 1 Anthropology, 1 Higher Education, 1 English, 2 TESOL/AL

4/7 no prior formal pedagogical training

Each elected to teach in ACCESS

6/7 had prior overseas living experience


Data Collected Data Collection Number of

Participants

Frequency of

data collection Student interviews 18 3

Faculty interviews 4 1

Student surveys 22 14

Faculty surveys 7 14

Classroom observations 5 4

Samples of student writing 21 3

Samples of faculty feedback on student writing 21 3

Student focus groups 21 3

Student entrance, mid-year, and exit language

proficiency tests

21 3


Benefits & Challenges for Faculty

Teaching in ACCESS Program • ACCESS faculty reportedly developed more thoughtful, reflective

pedagogical practices

• Composition and language faculty were more concerned with transfer of learning and student development beyond the writing/language class; other content faculty were not

• Content faculty reported “relief” to have a language specialist with whom to collaborate when assessing student work and preparing curriculum/materials

• Content faculty did not recognize or anticipate student confusion over course- and/or faculty-specific writing expectations

• Content faculty reportedly struggled to provide feedback on student writing

• Academic faculty reported an emerging sensitivity to the needs of multilingual students and L2 writers


Faculty Struggle to Provide Written

Feedback • When asked about the importance of grammatical accuracy for success in their

course on the week 8 survey, 66.7% of faculty said that accuracy was “very

important,” 16.7% said “important” and 16.7% said “somewhat important.”

• 83.3% requested additional professional development in the form of a workshop on

providing effective feedback on student written work.

• Though most feedback on student writing included one or mixed forms of sentence-

level feedback, end comments addressed issues related to the content, organization,

development, or support of ideas throughout the students’ writing.

• “And so when I gave an assignment and the students wrote something, I said [to

myself], “Oh, well I need to judge this for their thinking rather than how they’re

writing it.” So that was a big adjustment for me and I found myself, like, getting

together with grammar books and making sure I was trying to review the correct

markings…and I really struggled with this idea of, you know, … that this class is

about really just being thoughtful and applying what you're learning and more

experiential stuff. So I didn’t want to cross their thinking by making lots of edits on

their papers, but I felt like they needed that because they’re still working on

[accuracy].” (End of the year interview)


Emerging Awareness of L2 Writer

Needs “Frankly [teaching in ACCESS] was more work that I’m used to. I don’t mind that, but that’s the difficult part. I mean, I had more students turning in drafts of papers. I’ve always had a policy where students could turn in drafts, but frankly, American students turn in maybe 10%. But these kids, some of these kids were turning in three or four drafts each. I was [also] trying to put more into the organizational clarity of the course, and it was work. I think it was good for me to have that, so I’m not complaining, but it was work.”


Benefits to ACCESS Students of a

Language-supported Program

• Students reached the program language requirements

• Students reported awareness of curriculum innovation, the majoring claiming the English class as the most useful

• Students felt satisfied with the ACCESS program, but requested more/longer language-support classes and more co-taught classes

• Students were satisfied with their language progress, but frustrated with the pace of the progress overall

• Students were completely unaware of how/why faculty had different expectations/requirements for their writing


2010-2012 ACCESS Proficiency

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

26

28

30

A1 A1+ A2 A2+ B1 B1+ B2 B2+ C1 C2

# o

f st

ud

ents

CEFR Level

2010-2011 INCOMING ACCESS 2010-2011 OUTGOING ACCESS 2011-2012 INCOMING ACCESS

2011-2012 OUTGOING ACCESS 2012-2013 INCOMING ACCESS


Emerging Awareness of Self as Writer

“I’m a whole different person right now …. Something

changed me here. I just, I really changed here, this

year. I’ve become, like, I work harder. I just think …

more honestly and do things more, not just honestly,

but just from the bottom-up. I write what I think is

right. At home, I just write things because I have to

do it. A lot of things have changed me here, but

something has to do with writing.”


Implications

Program Revision • 3-pronged approach to program revision, including: faculty

development, materials development and curriculum and transfer of learning beyond the course

• Pre-semester faculty training extended to include workshop on approaches to feedback on student writing, including CWF (Ferris, 2009)

• Potential expansion to transfer population

L2 Writing - The need for ACCESS faculty to clarify writing

expectations aligns with the WAC (Thaiss and Zawacki, 2006) and L2 Writing (Gentil, 2011), supporting the recommendation that faculty can and should purposefully guide students’ early awareness of differing purposes and expectations for student writing across disciplines.


Internationalization Opens Doors to

Innovative Curricula & Programs for L2

Writers

“In the end, by working together on these smaller programs designed specifically for recruited multilingual students who generally pay high tuitions and for whom the university is strategically invested, there is potential to establish a well-connected team of writing experts and an ESL-ready model program structure that is comprehensive, realistic, and transferrable to other contexts across the university. Further, the institutional energy that goes into developing these programs should open the door to wider conversations about the language and writing needs of multilingual students across campus.”


References Bevis, T. B. & Lucas, C. J. (2007). International Students in American Colleges and Universities: A History. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cox, M. (2011, December 21). WAC: Closing doors or opening doors for second language writers? Across the Disciplines, 8(4). Retrieved August 17, 2012, from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/ell/cox.cfm

Ferris, D. R. (2009). Response to student writing: Implications for second language students. NY: Routledge.

Gentil, G. (2011).A Biliteracy Agenda for Genre Research. Journal of Second Language Writing, 20, 6-23

Haworth, K. (April 1997). Report Urges Colleges to Inspire Students and Improve Teaching. Chronicle of Higher Education: A14.

James, M. A. (2009) “Exploring Learning Transfer in L2 Writing Education.” Presentation at Symposium of Second Language Writing. Tempe, AZ. Available at http:www.public/asu.edu/~mjames6/index.html.

Leki, I. (2003a). A challenge to second language writing professionals: Is writing overrated? In Barbara Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (pp. 315- 332). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Matsuda, P. K. (1999). Composition studies and ESL writing: A disciplinary division of labor. College Composition and Communication, 50, 699-721.

Matsuda, P. K. (2001). Opening statement: Academic.writing forum: Connecting WAC and ESL? Retrieved August 29, 2012, from http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/forums/fall2001/

Matsuda, P. K. (2006). The myth of linguistic homogeneity in U.S. college composition. College English, 68(6), 637-51.

Matsuda, P. K. & Jablonksi, J. (2000). Beyond the L2 metaphor: Towards a mutually transformative model of ESL/WAC collaboration. AcademicWriting: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Communication Across the Curriculum. Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/articles/matsuda_jablonski2000.pdf

McLeod, S., & Miraglia, E. (2001). Writing across the curriculum in a time of change. In S. H. McLeod, E. Miraglia, M. Soven, & C. Thaiss (Eds.), WAC for the new millennium: Strategies for continuing writing-across-the-curriculum programs (pp. 1-27). Urbana, Illinois: NCTE.

McLeod, S. H. (2008). The future of WAC - Plenary Address, Ninth International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference, May 2008 (Austin, Texas). Across the Disciplines,5. Retrieved August 28, 2012, from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/articles/mcleod2008.cfm

Thaiss, C. & Zawacki, T. M. (2006). Engaged writers and dynamic disciplines: Research on the academic writing life. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Walvoord, B. E. F. (1997). In the long run: A study of faculty in three writing-across- the-curriculum programs. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.

Zawacki, T. M. (2010). “Researching the local/writing the international: Developing culturally inclusive WAC Programs and Practices." Presentation at IWAC Conference: Bloomington, IN. Available at http://www.iub.edu/~wac2010/zawacki.shtml


Thank you!

SLIDES AVAILABLE AT

http://cisa.gmu.edu/2013/03/tesol1/

Nicole Sealey Director, CISA

[email protected]

Karyn Mallett Assistant Director, English Language Institute

Assistant Director, Language Development, CISA

[email protected]

Anna S. Habib

English Course Coordinator and New Faculty Leader, CISA

[email protected]

Ghania Zgheib

Core Instructor/English, Acad Purposes Specialist, English Language Institute

[email protected]





mailto:[email protected]




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