For blog post by Thursday noon. Choose a quote
or a concept about context, literacy,
technology, identity, or dominance
that resonates with you from one of the quote or concept “boxes.” Explain why it resonates with
you, applying it to what else Hyland says about the concept and to relevant writing experiences, life experiences, and/or teaching experiences.
Try to make sure all the concepts are covered. If you choose the same concept as a classmate in a previous post, make sure you reference that post and its author. Thanks!
Read the chapter carefully, not only the material on your chosen concept and quote or concept box.
I found Chapter 2 fascinating, and it was hard for me to choose just one concept to discuss. I decided to go with a quote on page 39, because it resonated with me and what I wrote on my previous post. It is a quote by Carter (1990), and it’s almost at the bottom of the page, and describes Carter and Hyland’s view of an expert writer within a modern concept of literacy: “one who has attained the local knowledge that enables her to write as a member of a discourse community.”
ReplyDeleteI believe that this quote explains really well the way FL or SL writing education is trying to attain. We show students what it means to be part of a particular discourse community, and whether they get there or not will depend on how well we show them the way, but it will also depend on how willing they are to walk on that path and work hard to overcome any obstacle that may appear. I truly believe that this concept can be applied to students learning to write in their own mother tongue, at least if we think about an academic context.
Hyland presents next the idea of expertise {Concept 2.4} which I believe it is a very important concept to bring up to our students while teaching. Students should be aware that expertise in any kind of writing, not only in a SL is “a continuum rather than an end state,” (p.39). Hyland kind of supports my ideas of text-oriented approaches on the following page, when he says that writing competence is partly attained as the “learners become familiar with genres and expectations of their target communities (…)” (p.40). The way we present this concept to our students, and how to get there will make a huge difference in their learning experience and their motivation to continue writing. In my experience, we can know the grammar of a language and write it flawlessly, but that aspect alone won’t qualify us as expert writers.
I grew up during the computer revolution. That is to say, I went from being unaware of computers, to using—and hating—dial-up log-in mainframes, to becoming a graphics programming aficionado in the early personal computing days, to falling behind the tech curve and then never catching up. So, when I sat down to read this chapter, the one topic I knew I wasn’t going to engage for this post was technology. Lo and behold, that section was the one that lit up all my buttons, if you’ll indulge my tech-inspired metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that technology has facilitated composing, particularly revision, but I think it’s a logical leap to assume that this capability has resulted in more heavily-revised texts. It might be more apt to say that it’s changed the way we compose and revise, both for better and for worse. Composing on the computer makes it easier slap something down without much planning, do a superficial clean-up and call it done, and I just can’t believe that the universal response to computers has been more careful composition or heavier revision. I don’t think the wild variation in quality—in terms of writing on the internet, published writing, or student papers—bears this out, either.
The discussion of hypertext also got me thinking about pre-hypertext methods of creating greater freedom for readers and multiple points of entry into a text. The first thing I thought of was formatting that self-consciously promotes alternate approaches to the text, like the Choose Your Own Adventure series or Julio Cortzázar’s Rayuela (translated as “Hopscotch”), that invites multiple configurations. But chapters and chapter headings, tables of content, indices and bibliographies all serve a similar purpose for readers of traditional print books. And authors think about rhetorically creating different points of entry for the different audiences they hope will read their books.
What might have excited me the most, however, was Hyland’s discussion of the way that technology does an end run around gatekeeper functions, meaning that “original writing is no longer inviolate and plagiarism becomes harder to police” (42), requiring readers to become more savvy evaluators of the “and/and/and” universe Douglas signals. As someone who has spent a lot of time over the past few years thinking about authorship within academic contexts, I am equal parts anxious and eager to see what this brave new world will mean for knowledge production and consumption in academe.
*** I know that this post is already too long, but responding to Claudia's post in light of my own, I think it will also be really interesting to see how technology changes our ideas about what expertise is and who determines it in a world where gatekeepers, the author and the cannon have diminished clout, as well as how we will teach about what it means to be recognized as an insider in a particular discourse. I agree with Claudia that expertise is an important concept, and I believe that it will continue to be important, but that the way we engage with it has already begun to shift dramatically and that it will become increasingly challenging for both writers and writing instructors to interface successfully with this now more protean version of what it means to be an expert.
“The main negative effects of the spread of English involve the threat to existing languages, the influence on cultural identity, and the association of the language with an economic elite”
ReplyDelete– McKay 2002 (as cited in Hyland, 2016, p. 47)
This chapter pointed to many practical concerns I face as an ESL/EFL teacher, especially when I focus on writing. While I found the information about multiple literacies and the influence of technology on writing (discussed by Amanda and which I completely agree with) engaging, it was the section on English dominance that had the largest impact because it forced me to reflect on my current beliefs. I found that the above quote from McKay represents my current state of mind, especially with all the political changes occurring. I apologize in advance if this comes off as a bit of a rant.
When I began teaching English I had a narrower view on the influence of teaching English language globally. I saw it as simply a lingua franca that allowed more global communities to communicate and interact with each other. I found that many wanted to learn English as a way to accomplish certain personal goals such as travelling internationally, furthering their education, or achieving better job mobility. It wasn’t until I became more aware of different international perspectives and became more socially active that I began to see the various power dynamics underlying English as a global standard. Not to mention I learned the historical connections with colonialism and political hegemony, that can sometimes be disguised as positive benefits. Now I constantly question the impact of my teaching on the individual and their cultural identity. I think that there can be some impactful implications with teaching people that there is one preferred form or language, and that all others need to adapt to that standard. What happens to the individual and their cultural when they may not belong to this group? Do they feel devalued? Do they see themselves as a lesser quality person that needs to be changed to fit in? What happens to their rich language? Will it disappear? Who is granted the power to decide what constitutes “good” language skills, especially in writing? Why do people have to adapt to western styles of writing rather than respecting the various approaches and forms that each community has? Wouldn’t academia and the world be more interesting if instead of squashing diversity, we embraced it?
Even with this belief, I find that I yo-yo between wanting to teach the western standards and forms and utilizing those of the language and culture of my students. An important consideration mentioned by Claudia was that part of one’s writing journey can depend on their desire to learn the discourse necessary and overcome any obstacles. In addition to this desire, Hyland points out that learning English also functions as an individual choice and an opportunity for students to assert their agency. These are the reasons that seem to keep me grounded when I think about English dominance on a global level. Who am I to impose my beliefs about language and culture on to others?
ReplyDeleteThe notion of identity drives me to think of my position as a writer. As a PhD student as a non-native English speaker, I consider myself as a learner, but in the past when I was in Korea, I was an English teacher. Those factors define my identity as a teacher as a learner. Sometimes my professional identity as a PhD students, even bring more stress whenever I make a mistake in writing in English, even I'm not a native speaker. In this case, the position is entitled to ask certain responsibilities.
In terms of my writing experience, I often write an essay or a diary in Korean, but in English, I have focused mostly on academic writing, such as reflection papers, synthesis, or research papers, which take more time to think before writing than in Korean. I barely have proofread when I wrote in Korean, and I’m less stressful when I made a mistake in my writing in Korean.
Moreover, I realized that my attitude towards teaching both languages, Korean and English, are different. When I taught English, I always prepared what I need to read or write, regardless of my competence. However, whenever I taught Korean to my children, I tended to correct their grammatical mistakes in their conversation immediately and often provide instant feedback or instruction verbally. Furthermore, the attitude towards my children and my EFL students were also different. I got less stressful and tried to understand whenever my students felt difficult to comprehend or complete their test based on the assumption of difficulties in learning L2, but when I taught my children I became more embarrassed and serious whenever they made mistakes in their L1, Korean. I might be more serious because their ability of speaking L1 is coherent in their identity as Korean, which caused an internal pressure for children who speak marginalized heritage learner. As my children get older the frequency they made mistake in L1 increases, but they make less mistake in L2, English, even when they code switches the languages. In this situation, parents got frustrated about their L1 loss. In this situation, children often struggle between internal pressure to speak in L1 and external pressure to speak in L2.
Even though my children sometimes experience conflicts and negotiation in their identity while using both languages, this process is important for them to become a bilingual. Sometimes I met some families who suggest their children to speak in English only at home because their parents think that English is prior language and they assume that their children lost their L1 as they get older after all. In this case, language ideology is dominated by power mechanism of language, what McKay (2002) referred was English dominance would threat heritage languages, as well as cultural identity (Hyland, 2016, p48).
ReplyDeleteThe concept that I want to bring is in the intersection part of technology and writing identity. In the last paragraph of the technology part, Hyland pointed out the change of one’s identity through online writing. For example, people tend to fashion fictional personalities or try different aspects of their own identity on the internet, and writing gives them the venue to do so. After reading this, the first thing came to my mind is the movies such as Twilight, Harry Porter, or other many American movies about heroes, which some aspects of the main characters should come from the author’s very deep internal preferred expression of the person he or she hopes to be. Another example is the scholar Paul Kei Matsuda who is an influential figure in SLW and also an active Facebook user. When he relayed the call for proposals for the SSLW symposium, he used his picture of wearing the diving suit as the background. As Kress’s affordances concept shows, being central means being the center. In this case, Matsuda is mixing his professional work with his personal life habit. He is also combining his role as a founder of the symposium, a scholar in SLW, with his role as a diving lover. If we only look from the professional lens, the identity work constructed by Matsuda is aimed to show to his scholar colleagues of his credible membership and achievement in diving.
Amanda mentioned the revision involved in online writing, I have same feelings toward that, both positive and negative. In my eyes, writing was more simple when a writing piece was done by a paper and pencil. Now, if you want to publish a post on Facebook, the published posts from your friends, their updates, the group lists on the left, and many other background information make writing deviate from its very nature. As Amanda pointed out, the composing process has been changed dramatically. Given that the political issues recently, sometimes when I want to publish or share a post, I thought about my friends on the Facebook who have different political positions with me and the influence my post could bring, I just simply closed the post or the editing window. My identity withdrawal hides my voice from the public and writing in this situation is intertwined with too many factors, making literacy as multifunctional.
On my opinion I prefer writing and identity like Kyle Gon. I like this quote Identity is refers to the ways that people display who they are to each other’ (Ben well and stoke, 2006) I believe when a writer is writing she tries to explain her thoughts, ideas and feelings into a paper. For example; I am now writing about the challenges faced by students in Tanzania. In my own experience as a Tanzanian student I faced lucking text books that could enable me and other students to read and pass my exams. In this paper I express my feelings of which I believe other students feel the same.
ReplyDeleteAs I was teaching advanced Swahili last semester, I gave my students a task of watching Swahili music on You-tube and try to write about what they have learn from the music and what they think the musician mean. Most of the students came up with answers which were similar. They wrote about selfish Tanzanian leaders who do not want to give up to their positions to the new generation so that they keep working as corrupt leaders.
As a second language teacher I find it very important to respect people identity. I feel responsible to support my students who want write more on the second language. I think students find their roles in writing a second language. Writing also helps people to find their social group that they belong. Student writers can present their own work in their second language on any topic that they feel interested.