tesol quarterly (autumn 1990)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TESOL QUARTERLY Volume 24, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1990

A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languagesand of Standard English as a Second Dialect

EditorSANDRA SILBERSTEIN, University of WashingtonReview EditorHEIDI RIGGENBACH, University of WashingtonBrief Reports and Summaries EditorGAIL WEINSTEIN-SHR, University of Massachusetts at Amherst/

Temple UniversityAssistant EditorDEBORAH GREEN, University of WashingtonEditorial AssistantMAUREEN P. PHILLIPS, University of Washington

Editorial Advisory BoardRoberta G. Abrabam

Iowa State UniversityMargie S. Berns

Purdue UniversityJoan Eisterhold Carson

Georgia State UniversityRuth Larimer Cathcart

Monterey Institute of International StudiesGraham Crookes

University of Hawaii at ManoaCatherine Doughty

The University of SydneyPatricia A. Dunkel

The Pennsylvania State University

Additional Readers

Miriam EisensteinNew York University

Liz Hamp-LyonsUniversity of Colorado at Denver

Mary McGroartyNorthern Arizona University

Thomas RicentoJapan Center for Michigan Universities/Central Michigan University

May ShihSan Francisco State University

James W. TollefsonUniversity of Washington

Vivian ZamelUniversity of Massachusetts at Boston

William R. Acton, Bradford Arthur, Nathalie Bailey, Lyle F. Bachman, Gregory Barnes, Patricia L. Carrell,Marianne Celce-Murcia, Carol Chapelle, Christine Clark, James Coady, Ulla Connor, David E. Eskey,Janet L. Eyring, Christian Faltis, Mary Lee Field, Donald Freeman, Fred Genesee, Christine Uber Grosse,Mary Hammond, Sharon Hillis, Thom Hudson, Barbara Kroll, Ann M. Johns, Robert B. Kaplan,Michael K. Legutke, Ilona Leki, Nora E. Lewis, Patsy M. Lightbown, Peter Lowenberg, Peter Master,Jean McConochie, Sandra Lee McKay, Sharon Myers, Eric S. Nelson, Sonia Nieto, Alastair Pennycook,Martha C. Pennington, Elizabeth Platt, Patricia A. Porter, Ann Raimes, Joy Reid, Patricia L. Rounds,Terry Santos, Robin Scarcella, Thomas Scovel, Tony Silva, Marguerite Ann Snow, Margaret S. Steffensen,Michael Strong, Elaine Tarone, Jean Turner, Carole Urzúa, Evangeline Varonis, Roberta J. Vann,Elizabeth Whalley, Rita Wong.

CreditsAdvertising arranged by Helen Kornblum, TESOL Central Office, Alexandria, VirginiaTypesetting, printing, and binding by Pantagraph Printing, Bloomington, IllinoisDesign by Chuck Thayer Advertising, San Francisco, CaliforniaCopies of articles that appear in the TESOL Quarterly are available through The Genuine Article@, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia,Pennsylvania 19104 U.S.A

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CONTENTSTo print, select PDF pagenos. in parentheses

ARTICLESLanguage Minority Education in Great Britain:A Challenge to Current U.S. Policy 385Sandra Lee McKay and Sarah Warshauer Freedman

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Preparing ESL and Bilingual Teachers for Changing Roles:Immersion for Teachers of LEP Children 407Robert D. MilkThe TOEFL Test of Written English: Causes for Concern 427Ann RaimesStudent Input and Negotiation of Meaning inESL Writing Conferences 443Lynn M. Goldstein and Susan M. ConradTeaching the English Articles as a Binary System 461Peter MasterAttitudes of Native and Nonnative Speakers TowardSelected Regional Accents of U.S. English 479Randall L. Alford and Judith B. Strother

(32-51)

(52-67)

(68-85)

(86-103)

(104-120)

REVIEWSRecent Publications in Sociolinguistics 497Sociolinguistics and Second Language AcquisitionDennis PrestonPerspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOLNessa WolfsonReviewed by Jessica WilliamsNewbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit 501Preparing for the TOEFLDaniel B. Kennedy, Dorry Mann Kenyon, and Steven J. MatthiesenPreparing for the Test of Written EnglishLiz Hamp-LyonsReviewed by Marsha Bensoussan

BOOK NOTICES 507Making it Happen: Interaction in the Second Language

Classroom, Patricia A. Richard-Amato (Dorothy S. Messerschmitt)The Foreign Teaching Assistant’s Manual, Patricia Byrd,

Janet C. Constantinides, and Martha C. Pennington (Wanda Fox)Languages and Children—Making the Match, Helena Anderson Curtain

and Carol Ann Pesola (Noriko Isogawa)Conversation Gambits: Real English Conversation Practices,

Eric Keller and Sylvia T. Warner (Teresa Granelli)

Volume 24, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1990

Crazy Idioms: A Conversational Idiom Book, Nina Weinstein (Eda Ashby)Words at Work: Vocabulary Through Reading, Betty Sobel

and Susan Bookman (Elliott L. Judd)Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar, Marianne Celce-Murcia

and Sharon Hilles (Peter Master)A Linguistic Study of American Punctuation, Charles F. Meyer

(K. Scott Ferguson)The Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL, Deborah Phillips

(Terese Thonus)Doublespeak, William Lutz (Vincent G. Barnes)

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIESListening Perception Accuracy of ESL Learners as a VariableFunction of Speaker L1 519George Yule, Susan Wetzel, and Laura KennedyUsing Brainstorming and Clustering with LEP Writers to DevelopElaboration Skills 523 Andrea B. Bermudez and Doris L. Prater

THE FORUMComments on James W. Tollefson’sAlien Winds: The Reeducation of America’s Indochinese Refugeesand Elsa Auerbach’s Review 529

Two Readers React . . .Donald A. Ranard and Douglas F. GilzowThe Reviewer Responds . . .Elsa AuerbachResponse to Ranard and Gilzow: The Economics and Ideologyof Overseas Refugee EducationJames W. Tollefson

Comments on Martha C. Pennington and Aileen L. Young's“Approaches to Faculty Evaluation for ESL” 555

A Reader Reacts . . .Alastair PennycookResponse to Pennycook: The Political Economy of Information in TESOLMartha C. Pennington

Information for Contributors 569Editorial PolicyGeneral Information for Authors

Publications Received 573Publications Available from the TESOL Central Office 577TESOL Membership Application 599

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Editor’s Note

The diversity of interests represented among our readers continues tostimulate innovations within the format of the TESOL Quarterly. The nextissue (Winter 1990) will inaugurate a new section: Research Issues. In thisforum aspects of qualitative or quantitative research will be addressed,frequently from somewhat different perspectives by two specialists. I amfortunate that Graham Crookes (University of Hawaii at Manoa) hasagreed to edit this section. Although contributions will typically besolicited, readers are encouraged to submit topic suggestions and/or makeknown their availability as contributors by writing directly to GrahamCrookes at the following address:

Graham CrookesDepartment of ESLUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa1980 East-West RoadHonolulu, HI 96822 U.S.A.

With regret I announce that other responsibilities have taken Linda Stolfifrom her post as TESOL Quarterly Assistant Editor. It is impossible tofully acknowledge her contribution during the journal’s first year at theUniversity of Washington. The editorial staff warmly thanks her for thesecontributions and for her work on Publications Received in this issue.

I am indeed fortunate to introduce an able successor in Assistant Editor,Deborah Green. Deborah comes to the Quarterly with substantial editorialexperience, having been manuscript editor of diverse publications rangingfrom Ramparts magazine to the international neurological journalEpilepsia.

Finally, we cannot omit mention of the conflict that now engulfs theMiddle East. The TESOL Quarterly staff wishes peace for our readersthroughout the world.

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In this Issue

Articles in this issue of the TESOL Quarterly challenge traditionaleducational wisdom in several arenas. The lead article examines Britisheducational policies toward minority language education as a “challenge tocurrent U.S. policy.” The second article describes an innovative teacherpreparation course that challenges traditional training for ESL andbilingual teachers. The third article finds “causes for concern” in theTOEFL Test of Written English. Other articles reexamine claims made forwriting conferences, systems for teaching the English articles, and attitudestudies focusing on regional accents of English. Each article in this issuesuggests approaches to complex issues facing TESOL professionals.

Sandra McKay and Sarah Freedman examine the contrastingperspectives on language minority education in Great Britain and theUnited States. These differing approaches share a common rationale—the protection of equality of opportunity—but result in differenteducational policies. British policies support mainstreaming students.In the U. S., policies favor separating nonnative speakers from theirnative-speaking peers. Acknowledging differences in educationalcontext and history, the authors suggest that teachers in the U.S.examine British policies with an eye toward (re)evaluating U.S. policyfor educating minority language speakers.

Robert Milk describes a teacher training course designed to meet thedifferent yet converging needs of bilingual and ESL teachers. ESLteachers receive an immersion experience in Spanish; bilingual teachersare provided an opportunity to enhance their proficiency in academicSpanish; and all receive an intensive simulated classroom experience insmall-group, content-based instruction. This innovative program isdesigned to respond to the changing roles of ESL and bilingualteachers.

Ann Raimes raises questions about the new TOEFL Test of WrittenEnglish (TWE). She describes the institutional and programmaticcontexts of the TWE within the Educational Testing Service and itsTOEFL. Additionally, an historical overview of ETS composition testsfor native speakers suggests a troubling pattern. Raimes presents sevenareas of concern with respect to the TWE. These issues include topictype and selection, what the test measures, and even the necessity andutility of the test. She ends with seven recommendations for action byteachers.Lynn Goldstein and Susan Conrad investigate claims that writingconferences ensure student participation. The authors examinedstudent input and negotiation of meaning in writing conferencesbetween one teacher and each of three advanced ESL students.

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Goldstein and Conrad conclude that “there were large differences inthe degree to which students participated in the conferences andnegotiated meaning.” These differences are reflected in subsequentdrafts. When students had negotiated meaning, they made revisionsthat improved the text. Even active participation did not result inimproved texts in the absence of negotiation of meaning.

• Peter Master offers a simplified schema for teaching the English articlesystem. Master argues that English articles can be taught as a binarydivision between what he terms classification (a and Ø) andidentification (the). His paper details shortcomings of previousapproaches and outlines a pedagogical approach to this aspect of Eng-lish grammar, notorious in its difficulty for the nonnative speaker.

• Randall Alford and Judith Strother investigate attitudes towardsspecific regional accents of U.S. English. Through the use of amodification of the matched guise technique, the authors comparedreactions of native and nonnative speakers to male and female speakersfrom three U.S. accent groups: southern, northern, and Midwestern.The results indicated that the nonnative-speaker subjects were able toperceive differences in regional accents but that their reactionsdiffered from those of the native-speaker listeners.

Also in this issue:• Reviews: Jessica Williams reviews recent publications in socio-

linguistics: Dennis Preston’s Sociolinguistics and Second LanguageAcquisition and Nessa Wolfson’s Perspectives: Sociolinguistics andTESOL. Marsha Bensoussan reviews two texts from the NewburyHouse TOEFL Preparation Kit: Preparing for the TOEFL by DanielKennedy, Dorry Kenyon, and Steven Matthiesen; and Liz Hamp-Lyons’ Preparing for the Test of Written English.

• Book Notices

• Brief Reports and summaries: George Yule, Susan Wetzel, and LauraKennedy find differences in the ability among different L1 learners tocomprehend English language input from learners with different Lls;Andrea Bermudez and Doris Prater’s findings suggest that the graphicpresentation of concepts (in this case through clustering) may helplimited English proficient students expand their written discussions ofreading material.

• The Forum: Donald Ranard and Douglas Gilzow’s commentary onJames Tollefson’s book Alien Winds and Elsa Auerbach’s TESOLQuarterly review is followed by responses from the reviewer and theauthor; Martha Pennington responds to comments by AlastairPennycook on her recent article with Aileen Young, “Approaches toFaculty Evaluation for ESL.”

Sandra Silberstein

IN THIS ISSUE 383

TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 24, No. 3, Autumn 1990

Language Minority Education inGreat Britain: A Challenge toCurrent U.S. Policy

SANDRA LEE McKAYSan Francisco State University

SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMANUniversity of California, Berkeley

British educational policies advocate placing language minoritystudents in mainstream classes where their regular teacher receivesongoing support from a TESOL specialist. By contrast, in theUnited States, the policies favor placing nonnative speakers inseparate programs such as ESL pull-out classes, sheltered English,or bilingual education, where they are taught solely by the TESOLor bilingual education specialist. The same rationale—protectingequality of opportunity—is offered for both approaches. Thisarticle compares the events that led to the contrasting solutionsand the institutional structures that support those solutions; it givesan example of the British mainstream system at work and showshow the different approaches to educating nonnative speakersreflect different assumptions about language development anddefinitions of equality of opportunity. The article concludes byasking language teachers three questions about programs forlanguage minorities that are raised by the contrastive examination:(a) What are the consequences of social segregation in educationalprograms? (b) What are the effects of varied instructional contextson language learning? (c) What are the most helpful roles ESLteachers can play with respect to teaching subject matter andlinguistic competency?

Many parallels exist between the educational issues presented bylanguage minorities in the United States and Great Britain. Duringthe 1960s, both countries experienced a tremendous influx ofimmigrants with varied countries of origin. In both countries, newimmigrants tended to settle in large industrialized urban areas foremployment purposes. Because of this fact, the language minoritystudent population in the urban centers increased tremendously.

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School districts, however, were largely unprepared for this shift indemographics and had no language program in place for the newstudents. Since 1960 both countries have experimented with varioustypes of educational programs to meet the needs of languageminority students. At the present time the two countries seem to bemoving toward very different conclusions as to the best model forthe education of language minorities; while British policies tend tosupport mainstreaming (Department of Education and Science,1965 [The Swann Report]), U.S. educational policies promoteseparate educational programs such as ESL pull-out programs,sheltered English, or bilingual education (in response to legislativeacts such as Title VII and Supreme Court decisions such as Lau v.Nichols). What is ironic is that in both countries the same rationaleis being offered for these very different approaches, namely, therationale of protecting equality of opportunity for languageminority students.

What follows first is a framework for considering differentlanguage minority policies in both Britain and the United States.Then British language minority education policies since the 1960sare described, with the aim of demonstrating how socialassumptions impact the making of educational policy. The Britishdecision to place nonnative speakers in mainstream classrooms isdiscussed in the context of the British educational system, with itsprovision of language specialists working side-by-side with thesubject matter teacher. To show how an ethnically and linguisticallyintegrated classroom works in Britain, we provide a case study of astudent learning in such a setting, illustrating the complexities ofteaching nonnative speakers, who have come into a new cultural aswell as a new linguistic context. We elaborate extensively on Britishpolicies for two reasons: First, British language policies are clearlyarticulated in comprehensive government reports; and second, onlyby a thorough presentation of British policy can we specify thechallenge that these policies present to the United States. With theBritish context firmly in mind, we review the language minoritypolicies in the United States since the 1960s and discuss the decisionsthat have resulted in separate programs for nonnative speakers inthe United States. In conclusion, we provide a challenge to currentU.S. policy as we pose several questions that educators need toexamine before implementing any educational policy for languageminorities.

In this paper, the phrase language minority students will be usedto describe immigrants (i.e., foreign-born children who emigratewith their parents), refugees (i.e., foreign-born citizens who enter acountry under special conditions), and long-term residents who

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come from non-English-speaking homes. Language minoritystudents who lack proficiency in English will be referred to aslanguage minority/limited English proficient (LM/LEP).

Throughout the paper, we will refer to three social attitudestoward policy planning for language minority groups (Ruiz, 1988):language-as-problem, language-as-right, and language-as-resource.According to Ruiz’s framework, a society with a language-as-problem perspective views language minority students as having alinguistic “deficiency” that can best be remedied by replacing thenative language with the dominant language, e.g., English. A societythat adheres to a language-as-right perspective promotes the rightsof language minorities to maintain their native language on legalgrounds. Finally, a society with a language-as-resource perspectiveregards the languages spoken by language minorities as a nationalresource; and thus, educational policies are designed to maintainand develop native languages. These social orientations towardlinguistic diversity have been exhibited in various educationallanguage policies in both Britain and the United States from the1960s to the present, as will be evident from the historical overviewof changing language policies in both countries.

EVOLVING LANGUAGE POLICIES IN GREAT BRITAIN

While Britain, like the United States, has a long history ofimmigration, it was only beginning in the early 1950s that speakersof many languages came to settle in Britain in significant numbersall at the same time. These immigrants were mainly refugees fromEastern Europe, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, and labor migrantsfrom Southern and Eastern Europe, and from former Britishcolonies in South and East Asia and the Caribbean (Martin-Jones,1989). Since these immigrants tended to settle in large urbanindustrialized areas, there has been, since the 1950s, a steadyincrease in the number of LM/LEP students in such areas.

For example, while in 1978 the inner London area had only 10%LM/LEP students, by 1983 these students comprised 23%. In 1983LM/LEP students represented 172 different languages with only 14of these languages spoken by more than 100 students (Martin-Jones,1989). In spite of tendencies in Great Britain toward a nationallycentralized system of education, with a long tradition of nationalexaminations and now the new national curriculum, British schooldistricts, called Local Education Authorities (LEAs), have,according to Martin-Jones (1989), “considerable autonomy in policyformulation and curriculum development within their area.” Policyguidelines for LM/LEP students “issued by the central government

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 387

through the Department of Education and Science (DES) have nomandatory force, although, increasingly, financial controls arecentrally imposed and these, in turn, have an impact on localautonomy” (p. 9).

Early policies viewed LM/LEP students as social problems, anddecisions about their education were based on what was perceivedas best for the Anglo majority. During the 1960s, one of the firstprograms local school districts established for LM/LEP studentsprovided separate language centers, termed induction centres, forLM/LEP students. According to Reid (1988), LM/LEP studentswere

separated from their English-speaking peers ostensibly so that theycould be taught English to a level which would allow them to join classesin ordinary schools, but also, of course, to satisfy majority parents thattheir children would not be “held back by the presence of largenumbers of immigrant children in the same classes. (p. 187)

The Department of Education and Science, meanwhile,advocated a policy of dispersal or busing since parents in areaswhere there were large concentrations of LM/LEP pupils werecomplaining about the emergence of “ ‘black majority’ schools”(Martin-Jones, 1989, p. 44). Because of these complaints theDepartment of Education and Science issued a set of guidelines in1965 for what they called the dispersal of minority children. Theguidelines for this policy presented the following rationale:

Experience suggests . . . that, apart from unusual difficulties (such as ahigh proportion of non-English speakers), up to a fifth of immigrantchildren in any group fit in with reasonable ease, but that, if theproportion goes over about one third, either in the school as a whole orin any one class, serious strains arise. It is therefore desirable that thecatchment areas of schools should, wherever possible be arranged toavoid undue concentrations of immigrant children. Where this proves tobe impracticable simply because the school serves an area which isoccupied largely by immigrants, every effort should be made todisperse the immigrant children round a number of schools and to meetsuch problems of transport as may arise. (Department of Education andScience, 1965, pp. 4-5, as cited in Martin-Jones, 1989, pp. 44-45)

Of particular significance is the fact that the promotion of thisdispersal policy was made purely on the basis of an untested socialassumption, namely, that if the immigrant population in a particu-lar school were allowed to exceed one third, “serious strains”(Department of Education and Science, 1965, as cited in Martin-Jones, 1989, p. 45) would arise. Determining language policies onthe basis of unchallenged social assumptions is, as we shall see, a

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common pattern throughout United States and British minorityeducation history.

Accompanying the view that these children present socialproblems is the view that their language, too, is a problem. In 1971,the Department of Education and Science issued a national policydocument clearly exemplifying a language-as-problem perspectiveof minority languages:

If there is any validity in Bernstein’s view that the restricted code ofmany culturally deprived children may hinder their ability to developcertain kinds of thinking, it is certainly applicable to non-Englishspeaking children who may be suffering, not only from the limitation ofa restricted code in their own language, but from the complication oftrying to learn a second language. Experiencing language difficulties,they may be suffering handicaps which are not conspicuous becausethey concern the very structure of thought. (Department of Educationand Science, 1971, p. 9, as cited in Martin-Jones, 1989, pp. 45-46)

A major and public challenge to the language-as-problemperspective occurred in 1975 with the publication of what is knownas the Bullock Report. This central government report wasproduced by a committee of inquiry whose primary purpose was toinvestigate native-speaking children’s language development acrossthe school years. However, in the chapter on the language needs ofLM/LEP children entitled “Children from Families of OverseasOrigin,” the committee argued that

in a linguistically conscious nation in the modern world, we should see it[mother tongue] as an asset, as something to be nurtured, and one of theagencies that should nurture it is the school. Certainly the school shouldadopt a positive attitude to its pupils’ bilingualism and wheneverpossible should help to maintain and deepen their knowledge of theirmother tongues. (Department of Education and Science, 1975, p. 294)

Ironically, after the publication of the report, few programs wereestablished to promote native language maintenance even thoughthe rhetoric of the report suggested that this should be done,illustrating a discrepancy between policy recommendations and theimplementation of these recommendations.

DECISION FOR MAINSTREAMING

In 1985, a second major educational policy statement regardingLM/LEP students was issued with the publication of theDepartment of Education and Science’s report, Education for All,commonly known as the Swann Report. This report was preparedby a national committee whose task was solely to examine


educational policies for language minority students. Whereas theBullock Committee considered looking at issues such as main-streaming outside their scope, they did assert, “Common sensewould suggest that the best arrangement is usually one where theimmigrant children are not cut off from the social and educationallife of a normal school” (Department of Education and Science,1975, p. 289). The Swann Report went one step further and stronglyendorsed the mainstreaming of LM/LEP students: “We are whollyin favour of a move away from E2L [English as a second language]provisions being made on a withdrawal basis, whether in languagecentres or separate units within schools” (Department of Educationand Science, 1985, p. 392). The Swann Report argued thatwithdrawal classes “establish and confirm social and racial barriersbetween groups” and “whilst not originally discriminatory in intent”were “discriminatory in effect” because they deny children “accessto the full range of educational opportunities available . . . byrequiring them to miss a substantial part of the normal schoolcurriculum” (p. 389). The report argued strongly that the informalinteraction that occurs in schools is as important for languagedevelopment as the formal context of language development andthus, that it is important for LM/LEP students to be placed in acontext where they could interact with native speakers. Main-streaming was viewed as “offering an opportunity for all teachers toconsider the language demands of the work they do with allchildren in the classroom, whatever the language background”(Martin-Jones, 1989, p. 52).

The Swann Report did not support bilingual education“principally on the grounds that to implement it, minority childrenwould have to be segregated. They feared that this might highlightdifferences and have a detrimental effect on race relations”(Edwards, Moorhouse, & Widlake, 1988, p. 81). While the reportargued that Local Education Authorities should make schoolbuildings available for native language instruction, the SwannCommittee viewed the maintenance and development of LM/LEPstudents’ native language as a responsibility of the ethniccommunity itself rather than the school. The committee argued thatby putting LM/LEP children in mainstream classes, schools couldprovide a framework for promoting a pluralistic society:

We also see education as having a major role to play in countering theracism which still persists in Britain today and which we believeconstitutes one of the chief obstacles to the realization of a trulypluralistic society. We recognize that some people may feel that it isexpecting a great deal of education to take a lead in seeking to remedy

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what can be seen as a social problem. Nevertheless we believe that theeducation system and teachers in particular are uniquely placed toinfluence the attitudes of all young people in a positive manner.(Department of Education and Science, 1985, p. 319)

The Swann Report has sparked substantial debate. The majorcriticisms have come from advocates of instruction in the student’sfirst language (see, for example, Khan, 1985; National Council forMother Tongue Teaching, 1985). First, the critics challenged thereport’s definition of pluralism, arguing that the report, by notadvocating native language instruction in the schools, waspromoting a type of linguistic assimilation in which the ability tospeak English was equated with being British (National Council forMother Tongue Teaching, 1985). Advocates of instruction in thenative language lamented the fact that the Swann Report offered nosupport for the earlier recommendation of the Bullock Report fornative language instruction in the schools (see, for example, Devall,1987). In essence, the critics viewed the Swann Report as presentinga language-as-problem perspective.

The critics further argued that the Swann Report failed torecognize the important link between first and second languagedevelopment. Pointing to bilingual programs in the United Statesand Scandinavian countries and to the work of Cummins (1982,1984), critics argued that the report ignored the important role thatfirst language maintenance can have in both cognitive developmentand in the acquisition of a second language. In addition, proponentsof instruction in the native language viewed the development ofLM/LEP children’s first language as a way of promoting a trulypluralistic society in which government policies actively promotedlinguistic pluralism.

Finally, proponents of native language instruction criticized theSwann Report for its failure to see the intimate connection betweenlanguage and culture. Critics argued that

in failing to recognise the intrinsic links between language and culture,the Report does not perceive the centrality of language in culture, in thedevelopment of ethnicity and of the individual’s cultural identity. At thevery outset of the Report, ethnic identity is described by stressing aphysical attribute of race—skin color—rather than the social attribute oflanguage. (National Council for Mother Tongue Teaching, 1985, p. 501)

More recently, support for the Swann Report’s negative stancetoward bilingual education has come from the Kingman Report(Department of Education and Science, 1989), authored by theconservative forces currently controlling education in Great Britain,who contend that placing language minority students in mainstream


classes benefits all students’ awareness of language. This recentreport, which outlines a national curriculum in English, maintainsthat

bilingual children should be considered an advantage in the classroomrather than a problem. The evidence shows that such children will makegreater progress in English if they know that their knowledge of theirmother tongue is valued, if it is recognised that their experience oflanguage is likely to be greater than that of their monoglot peers and,indeed, if their knowledge and experience can be put to good use in theclassroom to the benefit of all pupils to provide examples of thestructure and syntax of different languages, to provide a focus fordiscussion about language forms and for contrast and comparison withthe structure of the English language. (p. 10.12)

While the authors of the Swann and Kingman Reports andadvocates of bilingual education disagreed on important issues, allaccepted the idea that ethnic pride and cultural respect should becentral concerns in the formulation of a language policy. All sharedthe idea of promoting an ethnically pluralistic society, but for theSwann and Kingman Committees this pluralism meant promotingcultural pluralism in mainstream classrooms, while for proponentsof bilingual instruction this pluralism meant developing linguisticpluralism even if it resulted in cultural segregation. What issignificant, however, is that in all instances a discussion of therelationship between ethnicity and language programs was consid-ered necessary to the educational decision-making process.

The Role of the Language Specialist in theMainstream Classroom

In his summary of linguistic minorities and language education inEngland, Reid (1988) points out that today

“separate” ESL classes and learning materials are becoming increasinglyrare; they are being replaced by “English Support” for BilingualLearners, provided in the context of mainstream classes at both primaryand secondary school level; or, very recently, by “collaborativelearning” or team teaching. (p. 189)

When LM/LEP students are placed in mainstream classes, there isa call for close collaboration between ESL teachers, who are calledsupport teachers, and the subject specialists. In the Britisheducational context, language specialists or support teachers ofLM/LEP students play a role unfamiliar in U.S. schools. Asregularly certified teachers who have returned to the university orto a teacher training college for a postgraduate degree, the support

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teachers function as resource teachers; however, instead of pullingstudents out of the regular classroom, they go into the mainstreamclassroom to help the subject-matter specialist teacher teach theLM/LEP students. The language specialist helps both in languageinstruction and in providing LM/LEP students with the supportnecessary for meeting the normal demands of subject-matterinstruction. Riley and Bleach (1985) explain the benefits of thelanguage and subject-matter teachers working together:

The development of co-operative teaching looks to be central. It is morestimulating and a good learning situation for both teachers and forchildren. No matter how gifted the class teachers are, how muchlanguage knowledge they have, or how good their initial training hasbeen, the full responsibility for the language learning and total educationof developing bilingual pupils should not rest with classroom teachersunsupported. If responsibility is taken away from them, they can neverbegin to develop their classrooms as places where bilingual pupils havean equal right to learning and being. The same is true of ESL specialistsoperating in a separatist structure. Co-operative teaching is not thesticking together of two pedagogues, but the development of somethingnew. Co-operative teaching and the taking of responsibility fordeveloping bilingual pupils by the whole school means that fromreception stage onwards pupils can be supported over much longerphases of their learning and across all language modes. Literacy can bedeveloped earlier and more consistently, and the students will then havethis, as well as spoken means, as an impetus for further languagedevelopment. (p. 88)

Britain maintains well-established postgraduate programs fortraining language support teachers. For readers interested in adetailed discussion, Levine (1985) describes the program at theUniversity of London, Institute of Education.

A British Mainstream Classroom at Work

What does the British mainstream classroom look like, and howdo LM/LEP students learn in this context? In his essay, “Khasru’sEnglish Lesson: Ethnocentricity and Response to Student Writing”(1990), Alex Moore provides one example. Moore has writtensensitively about Khasru, a Bangladeshi boy learning to write in aBritish mainstream classroom. Moore raises issues about Khasru’sneeds that transcend the specifics of the teaching context and showshow a teacher’s ethnocentricity can cause communication problemswith an LM/LEP student independent of the classroom model.

Khasru has been in England for less than two years. He is in hisfourth year of secondary school, the U.S. equivalent of ninth grade,


and the first of two years during which British students prepare forthe national examinations that they must pass in order to graduatefrom secondary school. His teacher has read the class a love storyand has asked the students to write their own love stories for theirexamination folders. Khasru’s first draft begins:

once aponar time I fund a grill and I ask har exquiseme wher you goingshe said?I went to go some way wher you ask me for.’ I said No I-s Just Ask youyou going I am sory about that have you dont mind she said thats OKand anther I fund har on the buse and is was set on the Front and shewas set on the back about 4 Five Minuts ago two bay was come And ther

Khasru continues by describing going over to the girl who then asksfor his help. They get off the bus together, but she is too afraid towalk home alone, so Khasru agrees to help her. During their walkhome she declares her love for him, and he says that he loves hertoo. They then discuss their siblings at some length, and Khasruconcludes, “Now we go every day. ” Moore explains:

There is a support teacher in Khasru’s class, who sits with Khasru to workwith him on this preliminary draft. This support teacher’s corrections areof two kinds. First, there is a concentration on the production ofacceptable Standard English sentences, spellings, punctuation, andparagraphing; on presenting the story so that it makes immediate senseto any reader; and on helping Khasru with obvious confusions. . . . Thesecond set of corrections, made simultaneously with the first, relate toKhasru’s storytelling style . . . [e.g.,] “Let’s get rid of some of these‘ands’.” (p. 2)

After three sessions with the support teacher, Khasru’s seconddraft shows dramatic improvements in the acceptability andaccessibility of the language and in sentence-level grammar:

Once upon a time I saw a girl and I asked her, “Where are you going?”She said “I’m just going somewhere. What are you asking for? Do youwant to know for any special reason?”I said “No. I was just asking where you were going. I’m sorry. I hope youdon’t mind.”She said “That’s okay.”Afterwards, I saw her on the bus. I was sitting at the front and she wasat the back. After about five minutes, two boys got on. They sat at theback near the girl and one of them said to her “Hello. Where are yougoing?”

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She was scared, and the boys tried to do something bad to her. (p. 2)

The rest of the story continues in this vein. At this point in Khasru’sprocess, Moore concludes:

The omens at this stage are good. Khasru is clearly pleased about hiswork so far, and his showing it to other Bangladeshi boys in the classseems to have had the effect of encouraging them to take their ownstories more seriously. Khasru is fortunate, too, to have one teacher whocan work with him on a one-to-one basis, apparently for as long as isnecessary to complete each stage of the project: not just any teacher,either, but one committed to a multicultural approach to teaching that,to use his words “condemns the Eurocentrism that has afflictedcompulsory education in this country since its inception.” (p. 25)

Moore quotes the support teacher who explains why he thinksbilingual students should be “in ‘mainstream’ classes in ‘mainstream’schools” (p. 25):

Of course they need to be in the mainstream classes: they need to read,listen to, and join in with the languages and behaviors of their Englishpeers—and they need that sort of audience and feedback for their work.They need to know, and deserve to know, that we’re taking themseriously: seriously enough to listen to what they’ve got to say, and togive them the sort of space and opportunities we give to every other kidin the school. (p. 25)

Khasru’s draft again goes to the support teacher who again sitsbeside him to discuss further possible improvements before Khasrumoves on to revise again. Problems surface, however, when thesupport teacher, in discussing this second draft, questions Khasru’scontent, asking about the suddenness of the declaration of love andabout the talk about siblings. When the support teacher suggests “allthis stuff about relations . . . This isn’t really necessary, is it . . . Forthe reader . . . What do you think?” he is met with silence fromKhasru (pp. 25-26). The support teacher then asks Khasru if peoplewould really talk this way: “Do people talk that way? In real life?Do they talk about how old their brothers and sisters are?” Khasrureplies, “Yes, Sir.” Then the support teacher responds, “DO youthink so? I’m not so . . .“ (p. 26).

At the end of this session the support teacher instructs Khasru:“Well, take it home with you, Khasru, think about what we’ve said,and see if you can make Chapter 1 any better” (p. 27). Khasrubecomes confused. He has been asked to write a story that is true tolife, but when he does so, he is told that what he writes is not reallytrue to life. Khasru stops working on the story and never completesit.


Moore concludes that the support teacher, at this point, albeitunintentionally, is imposing his reality on Khasru’s writing. Further,the support teacher assumes

there is a way or set of ways of talking to one another and a way or setof ways of telling a story—in both cases, traditional English ways. . . .This leaves no room for the possibility of linguistic diversity in thebroadest sense, that embraces genre, perception, and form, and that issuggested by the whole-school policy—which on one level the teachersupports. (p. 26)

Moore warns:

There is a very real danger that such children [as Khasru] will grow upnot thinking “Yes, they do and see things differently here,” but “Yes,they do and see things properly here’’—and that consequently, school-learning will always be that much harder for them: for it is surely easierto learn new ways that are set into a framework where they can coexistwith existing ways than it is to learn new ways that must simply replaceold ones; psychologically, the problem is very different. . . . schoolsmust clearly work hard to develop and to adopt new styles of pedagogy:styles that will encourage the development of required expertise withoutpromoting the corresponding, and all too prevalent, loss of faith. (p. 27)

Khasru’s experience shows how a piece of writing evolved in aBritish mainstream context, with the support teacher helping thestudents in a regular class achieve regular curricular goals, in thiscase preparing for the national examination. It also serves as a cau-tionary tale about the potential effects of unintended ethnocentricresponse to student writing by teachers of LM/LEP students,whether these students are in a mainstream or a separate classroomcontext.

CHANGING LANGUAGE POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATESDIFFERENT DECISIONS

In the United States, educational and government leaders whofavor programs that take LM/LEP students out of regular classesargue that these programs are necessary to support students’language development. Unlike their British counterparts, theyrarely address the potential social effects of these programs’ culturalisolation, segregation, and racism. In order to understand thedifferent emphases that underlie United States and Britisheducation policies for LM/LEP students, we turn now to the UnitedStates language minority policies since the 1960s.

Like Britain, the United States experienced a large increase inimmigrants during the 1960s, largely due to the change in

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immigration laws of 1965, which abandoned the national originsquota system and gave preference instead to family reunificationand occupational skills. As in Britain, these recent immigrantstended to come from varied countries of origin and to settle in largeindustrialized urban centers. In the sixties, urban schools in theUnited States, as in Britain, were faced with a large influx ofnonnative speakers of English with very diverse languagebackgrounds. As in Britain, local school districts in the United Stateshave a great deal of autonomy. State and local governments havethe primary responsibility for funding and developing policies forpublic elementary and secondary schools. According to Rotberg(1984), the limited educational funding that comes from the federalgovernment is “intended to increase equality of educationalopportunity by providing additional resources for areas of thecountry and for population groups with special needs” (p. 134).

The United States has little comparable to the Bullock, Swann orKingman Reports, which set forth national language policies forLM/LEP students. Rather United States policies develop fromconstitutional, statutory, or judicial sources. As Wong (1988) pointsout, most LM/LEP programs have arisen from legal issuesregarding the entitlement of LM/LEP students to languageeducation services. The primary constitutional basis for LM/LEPservices is the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, whichstates that “No state shall . . . deny to any person within itsjurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The major statutorybases for LM/LEP language education services are Title VI of theCivil Rights Act of 1964, The Equal Educational Opportunities Actof 1974, and Title VII of the 1968 Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act (also known as Title VII or the Bilingual EducationAct). The Civil Rights Act (Section 601), as cited in Wong (1988),states:

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, ornational origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefitsof, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activityreceiving Federal financial assistance. (p. 372)

The Equal Educational Opportunities Act (Section 170 (f)) states:

No state shall deny equal educational opportunity to an individual onaccount of his race, color, sex, or national origin, by. . . the failure of aneducational agency to take appropriate action to overcome languagebarriers that impede equal participation by its students in itsinstructional programs. (p. 372)

These two acts, along with the Fourteenth Amendment, are used to


argue for language education programs for LM/LEP students onthe basis of equal protection under the law. As we shall see, the issuethat has been argued in applying these rights to LM/LEP students iswhether equality is to be interpreted as equality of access orequality of outcome.

The third significant statutory basis for language programs forLM/LEP students is Title VII. As Hakuta (1986) notes,

[Title VII] heralded the official coming of age of the federal role in theeducation of persons with limited English-speaking ability. Seven and ahalf million dollars were appropriated for the 1969-1970 fiscal year, tosupport experimental programs responsive to the “special educationalneeds of children of limited English-speaking ability in schools having ahigh concentration of such children from families . . . with incomebelow $3,000 per year” (Bilingual Education Act, 1968). (p. 198)

Rotberg (1984) cites the language of the Title VII Program to notethat the original purpose was to encourage the “use of bilingualeducational practices, techniques and methods” (p. 134). However,in 1983, Secretary of Education Terrell Bell proposed amendmentsthat were designed to give school districts greater flexibility in theirchoice of instructional approaches, so that instruction in LM/LEPstudents’ native language would no longer be required for Title VIIfunds (Rotberg, 1984, p. 135). From the beginning, the majority ofprograms funded under this piece of legislation have beentransitional in nature, with LM/LEP students’ native languagesregarded as a problem rather than a resource. As Ruiz (1988) pointsout,

the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) of 1968 and the state statutes whichhave followed start with the assumption that non-English languagegroups have a handicap to overcome; the BEA, after all, was concernedand formulated in conjunction with the War on Poverty. Resolution ofthis problem—teaching English, even at the expense of the firstlanguage—became the objective of the school programs now generallyreferred to as transitional bilingual education. (p. 7)The major judicial foundation for LM/LEP language education

programs is the 1974 Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court decision. In thiscase, the parents of 12 LM/LEP Chinese American students filed aclass action suit against the San Francisco Unified School Districtarguing that they had been denied an education because of a lack oflanguage classes with bilingual teachers. Two of the main legalissues dealt with in the case were equality of access versus equalityof outcome and discriminatory intent versus discriminatory impact(Wong, 1988).

Although in previous Supreme Court decisions regarding equal

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educational opportunity, such as in the 1954 Brown v. Board ofEducation Case, the Court “found a denial of equal protection onlywhere the state has made different provisions for similarly situatedcitizens without adequate justification” (Grubb, 1974, as cited inWong, 1988, p. 374), in Lau v. Nichols the Court ruled that, althoughthe LM/LEP students had been given equality of access to theregular classroom, they had been denied equality of outcomebecause they did not have the necessary language background tobenefit from the program. As quoted in Wong (1988), the Courtdecided:

There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with thesame facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum; for students who donot understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningfuleducation.

Basic English skills are at the very core of what these public schoolsteach. Imposition of a requirement that, before a child can effectivelyparticipate in the educational program, he must already have acquiredthose basic skills is to make a mockery of public education. We knowthat those who do not understand English are certain to find theirclassroom experiences wholly incomprehensible and in no waymeaningful. (p. 378)

The second issue addressed in the case was the issue ofdiscriminatory intent versus discriminatory impact. The Courtargued that placing non-English-speaking students in the regularclassroom was discriminatory in effect while not discriminatory inintent because LM/LEP students did not have the basic skillsneeded to function in the regular classroom. The Court argued thatsome program must be devised for LM/LEP students other than toleave them in the regular classrooms, but it left the implementationof the remedy to the local school boards (Wong, 1988). Accordingto the decision: “No specific remedy is urged upon us. TeachingEnglish to the students of Chinese ancestry who do not speak thelanguage is one choice. Giving instructions to this group in Chineseis another. There may be others. Petitioners ask only that the Boardof Education be directed to apply its expertise to the problem andrectify the situation” (Teitelbaum & Hiller, 1977, as cited in Hakuta,1986, p. 201).

United States educational policy has tended to interpret thisdirective to mean that some type of language development mustoccur before an LM/LEP student is placed in the regular classroom.In fact, according to the decision, the placing of LM/LEP studentsin regular classrooms without support services would be a violationof fundamental rights (Wong, 1988). In Britain, however, the


current educational policy of mainstreaming assumes that thedevelopment of language skills of LM/LEP students can best occurwhile they are in regular classes, if some type of language supportservice is provided. Indeed, the Swann Report argued that anysolution that would require withdrawing the students from theregular classroom was discriminatory in effect if not discriminatoryin intent.

CONFLICTING ASSUMPTIONS

What is the basis for such differing perspectives between the twocountries? At issue is a definition of what type of equality ofopportunity is being considered. In Lau v. Nichols, the issue was thequestion of equality of opportunity in reference to language skills.Linguistic equality, the Court seemed to suggest, was the primaryissue since LM/LEP students would not experience equality ofoutcome unless they acquired those basic skills referred to in thedecision. The fact that special programs dealing with linguisticinequality can result in racial segregation has not been raised as achallenge in the courts even though the basis for the Lau decisionwas Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. By focusing on equality interms of linguistic opportunities, the Supreme Court argued that“Chinese-American, non-English-speaking students were deniedequal educational opportunity under Title VI of the Civil Rights Actwhen instructed in English, a language they did not understand”(Rotberg, 1984, p. 135).

One of the few expressions of concern about the matter of racialsegregation in LM/LEP language programs came from the 1974American Institutes for Research evaluation report for Title VIIprograms. It found that often students were assigned to Title VIISpanish-English classes not on the basis of their proficiency inEnglish, but rather on their ethnic background (Rotberg, 1984). Toavert the segregation that could arise from assigning students toclasses on the basis of ethnic background, the 1978 Title VIIAmendments dealt with the issue in the following manner:

In order to prevent the segregation of children on the basis of nationalorigin in programs assisted under this title, and in order to broaden theunderstanding of children about languages and cultural heritages otherthan their own, a program of bilingual instruction may include theparticipation of children whose language is English, but in no event shallthe percentage of such children exceed 40 per centum. (U.S. Congress,1978, as cited in Rotberg, 1984, p. 141)However, striving to minimize segregation by placing students

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whose native language is English in bilingual classes is quitedifferent from the philosophy underlying the Swann Report. Itrecommended that racial integration be maintained at all costs in allclassrooms even if it results in a lack of support for bilingualmaintenance programs. While the Title VII Amendments expressconcern about the problem of possible segregation caused byspecial language programs, there are no documents in the UnitedStates comparable to the Swann Report, which argues that onlylanguage programs adhering to racial integration are acceptable.

The contrasting language policies of the United States and Britainrest on very different pedagogical and social assumptions. In theUnited States, the current policy of removing LM/LEP studentsfrom regular classes rests on a definition of equality of opportunityas linguistic opportunity in which the development of Englishlanguage skills is taken to be primary, even if the languageprograms result in racial segregation. This view often results inlanguage programs in which LM/LEP students learn English inclasses without a large number of native speakers present. InBritain, on the other hand, advocates of the Swann Report equateeducational opportunity with the idea of social equality and racialintegration, even if this integration results in a lack of support forthe native language. Language programs for LM/LEP students areto be undertaken in the mainstream classroom where there are alarge number of native speakers.

The different definitions of equality of opportunity evident inU.S. and British language minority programs provide a frameworkfor re-examining the social and linguistic assumptions languageteachers wish to make regarding language programs for LM/LEPstudents. The authors support, as does Rex (1988), the idea that thefirst step in designing any social or educational program is to make“value standpoints clear and explicit” in order to demonstrate “whatthe system is achieving and failing to achieve” (Rex, 1988, p. 219). Inhis review of British language minority programs, Rex begins byciting the work of Gunnar Myrdal (1944) and his classic study ofU.S. race relations. He points out that when Myrdal was asked toundertake a study of race relations in the United States, he arguedthat social scientists need to state the goals they wish to achieve sothat they can then determine what practices are “conducive to theattainment of those goals” (p. 205).

In the tradition of Myrdal, the authors suggest that, as languageteachers, we state our goals and value standpoints on languageminority programs clearly before we make any recommendationsregarding particular programs for LM/LEP students. We urge acareful examination of the following questions:


1. What are our views on social segregation in educationalprograms? How does social segregation rank in our order ofpriorities in determining language policies for LM/LEPstudents? Programs that separate LM/LEP students frommainstream classes often result in social segregation. Are thebenefits of separate programs greater than any potentialnegative effects of social segregation?

2. What are our views on language learning? How high on ourpriority list is interaction with native speakers in promotinglinguistic development? Separate language programs minimizethe LM/LEP students’ opportunity to interact with nativespeakers. Are the benefits of separate programs greater thanwhat might occur if planned interaction with native speakerswere to occur in mainstream classrooms?

3. What are our views on the role of language teachers? Do we seeour role as primarily one of developing linguistic competency inorder to promote content learning, or do we see our role as oneof using subject content as a vehicle for developing linguisticcompetency? If we support the latter role, what benefits exist indeveloping language and content learning in separate classroomsrather than in mainstream classrooms in collaboration withsubject teachers?

All of these questions need to be addressed and seriouslyexamined as language teachers evaluate different types of languagedevelopment programs for LM/LEP students. In the end, policymakers may advocate separate language programs for LM/LEpstudents or may, like Britain, find that there are benefits topromoting mainstream programs with carefully crafted systems oflanguage support. If, for example, U.S. teachers were to providelanguage support within the mainstream context, classrooms wouldlikely have to be reorganized to allow for individualized help.Freedman and McLeod (1988) conducted a comparative study ofEnglish teaching in the U.S. and the U.K. Through national surveysand classroom observations in both countries, they found thatBritish teachers of English are more likely to individualizeinstruction while U.S. teachers are more likely to concentrate onwhole-group teaching. Classroom contexts that provide forindividualized teaching make it possible to handle the diversity ofneeds within a mainstream class.

Our goal with this contrastive examination of national languagepolicies is to raise key issues. Given the differences in educationalcontexts and educational histories in the two countries, it is not

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surprising that the approaches vary. What is essential before takinga position either for mainstreaming or for separate programs is toclarify our assumptions and values regarding social integration andlanguage learning so that, as Myrdal suggests, there is a basis forassessing what is or is not being achieved.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to thank the following people for discussing the ideas in the manuscriptand helping us to clarify our ideas: Marilyn Martin-Jones, Alex McLeod, andGuadalupe Valdés. We also wish to thank the anonymous TESOL Quarterlyreviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Part of the research reported here was conducted pursuant to a grant from theOffice of Educational Research and Improvement/U.S. Department of Education(OERI/ED). The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the position orpolicy of the OERI/ED, and no official endorsement by the OERI/ED should beinferred.

THE AUTHORS

Sandra Lee McKay is Professor of English at San Francisco State University. Hermost recent publication, Language Diversity: Problem or Resource?, coauthoredwith Sau-ling Wong (Newbury House, 1988), presents a social and educationalperspective of recent language minority groups in the United States. She recentlyreturned from a teaching exchange at the University of Manchester.

Sarah Warshauer Freedman is Professor of Education at the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, and is Director of the Center for the Study of Writing. Herlatest book is Response to Student Writing (National Council of Teachers ofEnglish, 1987). Her research interests include literacy learning for multiculturalpopulations.

REFERENCES

Cummins, J. (1982). Mother tongue maintenance for minority languagechildren: Some common misconceptions. Toronto: OISE Press.

Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingualism and special education: Issues inassessment and pedagogy. Clevedon, Avon, England: MultilingualMatters.

Department of Education and Science. (1975). A language for life. (TheBullock Report). London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.


Department of Education and Science. (1985). Education for all: Report ofthe Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from EthnicMinority Groups. (The Swann Report). London: Her Majesty’s Station-ery Office.

Department of Education and Science. (1989). English for ages 5 to 16:Proposals of the Secretary of State for Education and Science and theSecretary of State for Wales. (The Kingman Report). London: HerMajesty’s Stationery Office.

Devall, S. (1987). Affirmative action and positive discrimination. InG. Haydon (Ed.), Education for a pluralist society (Bedford Way PaperNo. 30, pp. 85-93). London: University of London, Institute ofEducation.

Edwards, C., Moorhouse, J., & Widlake, S. (1988). Language or English?In M. Jones & A. West (Eds.), Learning me your language: Perspectiveson the teaching of English (pp. 77-95). London: Mary Glasgow.

Freedman, S. W., & McLeod, A. (1988). National surveys of successfulteachers of writing and their students in the U.S. and the U.K. (TechnicalReport No. 14). Berkeley, CA: Center for the Study of Writing.

Hakuta, K. (1986). Mirror of language: The debate on bilingualism. NewYork: Basic Books.

Khan, V. S. (1985). Language education for all? Chapter 7 of the SwannReport. London: University of London Institute of Education, Centrefor Multicultural Education.

Levine, J. (1985). On the “training” of teachers. In C. Brumfit, R. Ellis,& J. Levine, (Eds.), English as a second language in the United Kingdom(pp. 141-148). Oxford: Pergamon press.

Martin-Jones, M. (1989). Language education in the context of linguisticdiversity: Differing orientations in educational policy. In J. H. Esling(Ed.), Multicultural education and policy: ESL in the 1990s (pp. 36-58).Toronto: OISE Press.

Moore, A. (1990). Khasru’s English lesson: Ethnocentricity and response tostudent writing. The Quarterly, 12 (1), 1-3,25-27.

Myrdal, G. (1944). An American dilemma: The Negro problem andmodern democracy. New York: Harper & Row.

National Council for Mother Tongue Teaching. (1985). The SwannReport: Education for all? Journal of Multilingual and MulticulturalDevelopment, 6 (6), 497-508.

Reid, E. (1988). Linguistic minorities and language education—TheEnglish experience. Journal of Multilingual and MulticulturalDevelopment, 9 (l&2), 181-191.

Rex, J. (1988). Equality of opportunity and the ethnic minority child inBritish schools. In S. Modgil, G. Verman, K. Mallick, & C. Modgil(Eds.), Multicultural Education (pp. 205-219). London: Falmer Press.

Riley, S., & Bleach, J. (1985). Three moves in the initiating ofmainstreaming at secondary level. In C. Brumfit, R. Ellis, & J. Levine(Eds.), English as a second language in the United Kingdom (pp. 77-89).Oxford: Pergamon Press.

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Rotberg, I. (1984). Bilingual education policy in the United States.Prospectus, 14 (1), 133-147.

Ruiz, R. (1988). Orientations in language planning. In S. McKay,& S. Wong (Eds.), Language diversity: Problem or resource? (pp. 3-25).New York: Newbury House.

Wong, S. (1988). Educational rights of language minorities. In S. McKay& S. Wong (Eds.), Language diversity: Problem or resource?(pp. 367-386). New York: Newbury House.


TESOL QUARTERLY, VoL 24, No. 3, Autumn 1990

Preparing ESL and BilingualTeachers for Changing Roles:Immersion for Teachers ofLEP Children

ROBERT D. MILKThe University of Texas at San Antonio

With increased emphasis on integration of language and content-area instruction, the roles of bilingual and ESL teachers arebecoming increasingly interrelated—a situation that calls fordevelopment of common training experiences in the preparationof ESL and bilingual personnel. This article describes a teachertraining course designed to meet both the differing languageproficiency needs of bilingual and ESL teachers, as well as thecommon needs of teachers learning to implement content-basedstrategies for teaching language. Specifically, (a) ESL specialistsreceive an immersion experience in Spanish, (b) bilingualspecialists are provided opportunities to enhance their proficiencyin academic Spanish, and (c) both ESL and bilingual specialistsreceive intensive simulated classroom experiences in small-group,content-based instruction following a cooperative learningapproach. A rationale for following an integrated approach in thepreparation of language educators for limited English proficient(LEP) children is presented, and data collected from participantsin the course are discussed in relation to the potential effectivenessof this type of teacher training format as a vehicle for attainingimportant teacher preparation goals.

Classroom teachers have often noted the ironic (if not contra-dictory) mismatch between the kinds of suggestions and directivesthey commonly receive from experts on pedagogy and the mannerin which these suggestions are delivered. Thus, it is not unheard offor elementary school teachers to be lectured on the limitations ofthe lecture method or to receive information in a large group on thewonders of small-group instruction. Within language education,those responsible for the preparation of teachers have, in recentyears, struggled with some of the challenges posed by the need to

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achieve a greater coherence between the kinds of innovationsproposed by methodologists and the means through which theseideas are presented to teachers-in-training.

For language educators involved specifically in the teaching ofESL within bilingual education programs, the need to achieve agreater coherence between evolving trends in classroom practiceand the procedures typically followed in university coursework ismarked. A prominent theme running through much of the recentliterature on effective instructional practices for language minoritypupils stresses the need to achieve fuller integration between thepupils’ language development and content-area instruction.Implementation of this approach is just as heavily the responsibilityof nonbilingual ESL specialists as it is of the bilingual classroomteachers responsible for subject-matter instruction. Widespreadacceptance of this trend has led to altered conceptions of the role ofESL in bilingual education, with greater emphasis on the essentialinterrelatedness between second language development andcontent goals in other areas of the curriculum (Milk, 1985).

A challenge that remains to be met is how to better prepare bothESL and bilingual teachers for this altered role, given a commontendency to conceptualize ESL and bilingual methodology asessentially independent training activities. This article explores theissue from three separate perspectives: First, a rationale is providedfor experientially grounded coursework in the preparation of lan-guage teaching professionals, drawing on reports of teachereducators who have attempted innovations in this area; second,research evidence is summarized suggesting the desirability of anintegrated language development approach in the education of lan-guage minority children; and third, data are presented from aninnovative teacher education course that has attempted simultane-ously to develop Spanish language proficiency for bilingualteachers while providing a Spanish immersion experience fornonbilingual ESL teachers.

EXPERIENTIALLY GROUNDED TEACHER PREPARATIONIN LANGUAGE EDUCATION

An important theme in the recent literature on teacherpreparation within language education, one that may serve to unifycurrent debates on the preparation of language educators, is thenotion that language proficiency is most effectively stimulatedwhen we focus less on language itself and more on its meaningfuluse in realistic contexts. (For one of the earliest discussions of this

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insight in the context of the preparation of bilingual educators, seePolitzer, 1978.)

Enright (1986), in describing the initial learning process of onenovice elementary school teacher, emphasizes the profound impacton the teacher’s development as a language educator when she“began to see classroom language as performing both a languageteaching as well as a subject-matter teaching function” (p. 122). It isthis fundamental realization that has motivated bilingual educatorsto emphasize the tremendous language learning potential for ele-mentary school children of instruction in the content areas.

This principle, of course, can be applied not only to elementa-ry pupils, but just as readily to adults needing to strengthen theirproficiency in a nonprimary language. The efficacy of a task-based approach has been reported by a number of bilingual andsecond language educators who have attempted innovations in thepreparation of teachers. Merino and Faltis (1986) developed acourse for preservice bilingual teachers based on a “task-orientedapproach for second language acquisition” (p. 46), and found thatthis experience, in addition to being very motivating, generated ahigh degree of student-student interaction: “The opportunity touse Spanish in problem-solving activities that are intrinsically in-teresting seems to encourage more students to participate sponta-neously in classroom discourse with each other as well as with theinstructors.” Celce-Murcia (1983) similarly argues that anexperiential, problem-solving approach to training languageteachers allows prospective teachers “to better integrate thecontent courses with the practical component of the curriculum bymaking each course an opportunity for dealing with relevantproblems” (p. 103). In a related vein, Larsen-Freeman (1983)writes that second language teachers need to develop a“heightened awareness of choice” (p. 264) in order to be able todeal with the tremendous variation in contexts that they are likelyto encounter as language teachers. She argues that by preparingpeople to make choices, we are educating them “to be an effectiveteacher in any situation” (p. 264).

Each of these four teacher educators reports success in coursesthat have followed an experiential, problem-solving approach inthe preparation of language teachers. The principle is neither newnor is it unique to language education-teacher educators ingeneral have long sought means through which they could ensuregreater relevance of methodology courses by providing directexperiences within the course that parallel the kinds of classroomsituations that teachers are likely to encounter. (The widespreaduse of microteaching by teacher education programs for many

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 409

years was motivated by this desire.) Although the positive reportspresented above are anecdotal in nature rather than empiricallygrounded, the basic notion of preparing language teachersthrough an experiential problem-solving approach has a strongappeal both on logical as well as intuitive grounds.

RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENTWITHIN BILINGUAL CLASSROOMS

In recent years, classroom-based research has provided practicalinsights into the organization of bilingual instructional settings thatcan facilitate development in both languages (see, for example,Ramirez, 1985; Ovando & Collier, 1985). Research in three specificareas has particular significance for a contemporary considerationof instructional methods for bilingual classrooms: (a) effectivebilingual instructional practices, (b) second language acquisitionwithin classroom settings, and (c) ESL in bilingual education (Milk,1990).

Each of these research areas focuses on a distinctly separate set ofissues, and each follows unique approaches to inquiry that reflectdifferent research traditions. The research on effective instructionalpractices for language minority children draws on a rich tradition ofeducational research on teaching, and employs a combination ofqualitative and quantitative approaches to investigation (see, forexample, Tikunoff, 1983; Garcia, 1987). Particularly relevant todual-language development in classroom settings has been thedocumentation of the significant role played by two languages (i.e.,English and the home language) in mediating learning.

Classroom-based research in the area of second languageacquisition, by contrast, draws from applied linguistics, andexplores the conditions under which acquisition can take placewithin classrooms (see, for example, Long, 1981; Wong Fillmore,1982; Johnson, 1983; Long & Porter, 1985; Rigg & Enright, 1986; vanLier, 1988; Chaudron, 1989). One key lesson derived from many ofthese studies is the critical importance of creating classroomparticipant structures within which negotiation of meaning in aweaker language can take place.

A third area of research, focusing on what constitutes relevantESL instruction within the context of bilingual education, draws ona tradition of research in the area of second/foreign languageteaching that examines which teacher behaviors and what teachingtechniques might most effectively contribute to development of thetarget language (see, for example, Politzer, 1970). Recent work in

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this area emphasizes the need for ESL instruction for limited En-glish proficient (LEP) children to move beyond effective communi-cation as a primary goal toward a focus on “academic competence”(Cummins, 1980); this implies a stronger focus on vocabulary en-richment (Saville-Troike, 1984), as well as on critical thinking skills,social skills, and learning strategies (O’Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Russo, & Küpper, 1985).

Taken together, developments in these three areas have led to astrong focus on learning outcomes and on cognitive processes forLEP students, as well as on meaningful integration of language andcontent goals throughout the curriculum. A number of bilingualprograms in the U.S. have implemented versions of content-basedinstruction for ESL (see, for example, Willets, 1986), a practice thathas found considerable support from advocates of the “shelteredlanguage” (Krashen, 1985, p. 70) approach to second languagedevelopment in bilingual education programs. Another approach(Chamot & O’Malley, 1986) following a similar rationale has beentermed Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach(CALLA), in recognition of a need to stress cognitively demandingtasks drawn from academic content once LEP students advancebeyond beginning levels of English proficiency. This approachprovides for an intermediary bridge between conventional ESLinstruction appropriate for the lowest levels of English proficiency,and the regular mainstream instruction received by students whoare fully proficient in English.

Despite this sharp trend toward more integrated conceptions ofbilingual instruction, teacher preparation programs have adaptedlittle to reflect these changing realities. Following conventionalmodes of dividing up responsibilities for teacher preparation, ESLmethods courses typically deal with established methods andtechniques for teaching ESL, while bilingual methods courses dealwith procedures for teaching content areas in the native language ofthe student (see, for example, Texas State Board of Education,1987). It is often not clear within which existing course(s) to includetheory and practice related to integrated language teaching.

There are, no doubt, institutional factors that may explain thisstate of affairs. Within universities that provide teacher preparationin bilingual education, it is not unusual for courses related to ESLand courses related to bilingual instruction to be housed in separatedepartments (and in some instances, different colleges). Thisseparate identity within the university, which often reflects adifferent discipline base and, in some cases, a different ideologicalperspective, does not encourage the kind of close collaboration on


program development that would be needed in order for innovativeteacher preparation courses to be initiated. Yet, as more and moreresearch on language minority students points to the importance ofan integrated approach to language development and academicachievement, the critical need to reconceptualize the preparation ofteachers for LEP populations is evident.

PREPARATION OF ESL AND BILINGUAL LANGUAGEEDUCATORS

Bilingual and ESL specialists have distinct roles within instruc-tional programs designed for language minority students. In someprograms the bilingual teacher is responsible for all ESL instruction,while in other programs monolingual English teachers work side byside in a complementary fashion with bilingual classroom teachers.(For specific current examples of alternative ways to structurecurriculum and instruction in bilingual programs, see Crawford,1989.) Whenever bilingual and ESL specialists are called on to worktogether in the same program setting, their roles remain distinctthough related. As a consequence, their teacher preparation needsare to some extent distinct.

For bilingual teachers, surveys of practitioners reveal that manyof them feel a need for stronger development of their Spanish lan-guage proficiency (see, for example, Clark & Milk, 1984). For Eng-lish as a second language teachers, the linguistic demands of theirinstructional role do not require full proficiency in the non-Englishlanguage; but there are a number of reasons why ESL teachersworking in strictly bilingual settings (i.e., where there are basicallytwo languages in use in the community) might find it useful to havesome proficiency in the home language of their pupils. As is the casefor ESL teachers who are working in multilingual settings, theexperience of learning a new language and of having to deal withacademic demands in a second language can provide valuableinsights into the world as viewed by an LEP student in an ESLclassroom.

Despite differing classroom roles, then, there are similaritiesin the training needs of ESL and bilingual teachers. A commonknowledge base related to the understanding of language andto cultural issues underlies effective instructional practices for bothESL and bilingual teachers. Moreover, increased emphasis on theintegration of language and content-area instruction has made theroles of bilingual and ESL teachers increasingly interrelated. Thisnewly found interrelatedness, as exemplified by the need for

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collaboration in designing effective content-based instruction,creates a tremendous potential for common training experiences inthe preparation of ESL and bilingual personnel.

A SPANISH IMMERSION COURSE FOR TEACHERSOF LEP CHILDREN

The experimental teacher training course described here isoffered at The University of Texas at San Antonio. The data arefrom the summers of 1987 and 1988. The course was held for 2 hoursdaily during the 5-week summer session. For the first offering(1987), 8 graduate students enrolled, and for the second offering(1988), 9 enrolled. Out of the 17 students, 6 were ESL specialists, 10were bilingual education specialists, and 1 was a bicultural studiesmajor; 10 self-identified as Mexican American, 6 as Anglo, and 1 asAfrican American. With respect to language proficiency, the groupwas relatively heterogeneous. Students’ Spanish proficiency, basedon formal and informal measures, ranged from advanced beginner(2), to intermediate (7), to advanced (8).

The course was specially designed to meet both the differing lan-guage proficiency needs of bilingual and ESL teachers, as well asthe common language pedagogy needs of teachers who would beimplementing content-based instructional strategies for teachinglanguage. Specifically:

1. ESL specialists were provided with an immersion experience inSpanish.

2. Bilingual specialists were provided with opportunities to greatlywiden their lexical range in Spanish for the content areas as wellas to increase their proficiency in academic Spanish.

3. Both ESL and bilingual specialists were provided with intensivesimulated classroom experiences in small-group content-basedinstruction following a cooperative learning approach.

The language goals, therefore, were slightly different for bi-lingual and ESL participants in the course: For bilingual specialists(most of whom were native speakers of Spanish raised in the U.S.and schooled in English only), the language goal was to increasefluency in “academic language” and to increase vocabulary range inthe content areas of the curriculum; on the other hand, for ESLspecialists (most of whom were not native speakers of Spanish,although they may have studied it in high school or college), thegoal was a much more modest one of helping them achievefunctional proficiency in Spanish at a level that would enable themto communicate at a basic level with children and their parents.


Perhaps more important than the language goals, however, werethe pedagogical goals related to integration of language and contentin programs for LEP children. For bilingual teachers, it wasexpected that insights would be gained with respect to the kinds ofingredients that must be present in order for children’s weaker lan-guage to be effectively developed during subject-matter instruc-tion. For ESL teachers, the course was expected to provide an ex-periential basis for demonstrating the potential effectiveness ofcontent-based language instruction.

The research on classroom-based second language acquisition(SLA) cited above suggests that the SLA process is facilitated whenstudents are asked to work within groups that require negotiation ofmeaning in the second language. For this reason, the course stressedhighly interactive small-group learning activities. Given the diverseSpanish language proficiency levels of course participants, it wasdecided that heterogeneous grouping based on differences inSpanish proficiency (i.e., deliberate mixing of high proficiency withlow proficiency students within learning groups) would maximizelearning possibilities for the students. Within this heterogeneousgrouping, students with lower levels of Spanish would benefit fromthe input provided by more proficient classmates, and students withhigher proficiency levels would benefit from the need to explaincognitively demanding tasks in Spanish to their “limited Spanishproficient” classmates.

In order for heterogeneous groups to function effectively, thecourse needed to establish a cooperative learning approach thatcould serve both as a modus operandi for the class as well as amodel for the type of instruction that participants should beimplementing in their own classrooms (McGroarty, 1989). Hence, astep by step process was introduced from the outset through whichcooperative learning procedures (including reinforcement of coop-erative behavior and assignment of clearly defined roles within thegroups) were carefully developed, following the suggestions ofKagan (1986) and Cohen (1986).

In sum, the instructional strategies modeled through the courseincluded: (a) highly interactive learning activities, (b) heterogene-ous groups, (c) cognitively demanding tasks, and (d) cooperativelearning procedures. In order to directly demonstrate theseprinciples, a bilingual curriculum that satisfies these conditions wasselected for use during the initial phase of the course: the FindingOut/Descubrimiento (FO/D) curriculum (DeAvila, Duncan &Navarrete, 1987). During this initial phase, which lasted approxi-mately 15 contact hours, students engaged in small-group sessionsbased on the FO/D curriculum. Following each initial session, the

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instructor guided students through an introspective evaluationprocess that focused on specific aspects of group functioning thatappeared to require further attention. During these evaluations,conducted with full class participation, students became ac-customed to operating under the fundamental rules established forall subsequent learning activities in the course, including predomi-nant use of Spanish in the class, a focus on learning activities drawnfrom the content areas, and strict adherence to cooperative learningprocedures.

During this initial phase of the course, students also completedreadings on the theoretical underpinnings of the course, andreceived minilectures in “sheltered Spanish” on these principles. Inorder to prevent inappropriate generalizations regarding immersioneducation from being drawn, care was taken to stress throughrequired readings and discussion the critical role of LEP children’snative language in achieving academic goals. In particular, studentswere asked to consider why immersion techniques, which might beappropriate for pursuit of second language goals in certain contexts(such as in this course with adults), could be damaging whenpursuing academic goals for language minority children, particu-larly if the likely outcome is eventual replacement of the child’snative language with the dominant language (Hernandez-Chavez,1984),

During the subsequent phase of the course (which lastedapproximately 27 contact hours), students were required to planand design learning activities from the content areas that theywould then facilitate in the class, with their classmates role-playingelementary school students. The guidelines for these small-groupactivities stressed that they were to be highly interactive, cog-nitively demanding, and require cooperation for full completion ofthe task. They were also to be planned and implemented totally inSpanish, with the groups composed of participants possessingvarying levels of proficiency.

Finally, participants were required to keep dialogue journals inorder to encourage development of Spanish writing skills. Studentswere required to make regular entries in their journals, and wereencouraged to use the journal as an interactive device to com-municate with the instructor. Specific instructions for the journalincluded reflecting on emotions students were feeling in connectionwith their language learning experience. In addition to serving as apowerful stimulus for increasing writing fluency, the journalsprovided a rich source of insight into the kinds of challenges thatstudents face when required to deal with cognitively demandingtasks in their weaker language.


EVALUATING THE COURSE

In order to determine whether the course was accomplishing itsgoals, during the 1987 and 1988 summer sessions data were col-lected, designed to answer the following questions:

1. Did participants increase their proficiency in Spanish?2. Did participants increase their confidence in using Spanish for

academic/learning purposes?3. Did participants gain insight into the difficulties experienced by

LEP students when having to deal with the curriculum in theirweaker language?

4. Were insights gained with respect to the integration of languageand content in bilingual classrooms?

5. Were insights gained with respect to the second language acqui-sition process, including strategies commonly used by secondlanguage learners?

The data sources for the study included (a) pre- and postcoursedata on language Proficiency, (b) student evaluations of the course,and (c) entries from dialogue journals.

Language Proficiency Data

Because of the relatively short duration of the course (42 contacthours per summer session), it was not really expected thatmeasurable gains in Spanish language proficiency would be found.Nevertheless, pre- and posttests using four different measures oflanguage proficiency were administered in order to explorepossible gains in Spanish proficiency. The first measure was adictation: in 1987, a 92-word selection taken from a teacher’s manualfor a bilingual reading curriculum; and in 1988, a 108-word selectionfrom a Mexican short story (high school level). In scoring, spellingerrors were ignored. The second measure was a relatively simplecloze passage based on a children’s story. This test contained 24items obtained by deletion of every sixth word, and was scoredfollowing the exact-word method. The third measure was a moredifficult cloze passage based on a teacher’s guide for sciencecurriculum. It contained 25 items obtained by deletion of everyeighth word, and was corrected using appropriate word scoring.The first three measures were administered by the course instructor.

The fourth measure (which was administered during summer1987 by a research assistant, but not administered during summer1988 because of lack of funding) was the Spanish version of the Lan-guage Assessment Scales (LAS) II. The LAS is an oral proficiency

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measure that consists of five sections, each requiring a differenttask: discrimination and production of sounds, vocabularyidentification, oral comprehension, and story retelling. The testgenerates scores that are converted to five proficiency levels,ranging from Level 1 (nonspeaker) to Level 5 (fluent speaker).Students took the pretest for each of the four measures on the firstday of class, prior to any instruction; the posttest was taken on thefinal day of class.

The results obtained by the first three measures of languageproficiency are reported in Table 1. The overall pattern is one of

TABLE 1Dictation and Cloze Test Results (Percentage Correct)

Note. Statistical significance tests reported are paired t-tests. The 2 years have been pooled.For each evaluation measure, summary measures and significance tests are based onall students whose gain scores were available. The significance of these multiple t-testsis further supported by the results of a single multivariate procedure, Hotelling’s T2

test (p < .01), performed for all students who had gain scores available for all threeevaluation measures.


gains, which were substantial in many cases, with only a few losses.For all measures, the average gain scores were statistically significant.

Table 2 records gain scores on the LAS II test, which wasadministered only during the 1987 summer session. Six of the 9students achieved gains of 10 points or more on this measure; nostudents posted losses. The average gain score was significant. It isinteresting to note that 6 out of the 7 students who began the coursewith a LAS II score below Level 4 tested at Level 4 or above at theconclusion of the course 3 weeks later. It might be worthspeculating on the 2 students who began the course at Level 4 orabove (Students 1 and 2), and who posted no gains. There are atleast two possible explanations for this: Either Students 1 and 2failed to gain much proficiency because they were already at afairly high level, or the test was too easy for them and thus did notadequately measure the gains that they may have made in Spanish.The latter explanation is strengthened by the fact that these twostudents achieved substantial gains on the two cloze tests (Table 1).It may be that the LAS II is not sensitive to gains by students whoare already at a fairly high level of Spanish proficiency.

Student Evaluations

At the conclusion of the course, the students were asked tocomplete an evaluation form that focused, in part, on the extent to

TABLE 2Gain Scores on LAS II Test

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which they felt the course had helped them in three specific areas:(a) improving their Spanish proficiency, (b) understanding theoriesrelated to bilingual instruction, and (c) teaching a second language(see Appendix). The form required respondents to select an answeron a 5-point Likert scale with 3 points described: A Great Deal(scored as 5), A Fair Amount (scored as 3), and Not at All (scoredas 1). Efforts were made to encourage frank responses: Studentscompleted the forms anonymously, and forms were collected by astudent. The forms were not returned to the instructor until aftergrades for the course had been turned in.

Summary results from the student evaluations are reported inTable 3. High means (defined as above 4) were obtained for someof the items under the broad category of improving Spanishproficiency, but not for others. Specifically, students felt they hadmade significant improvement in their overall fluency and inacademic language (including vocabulary and the ability tocommunicate concepts from the content areas), but not in gram-matical knowledge or in writing mechanics. These results coincideclosely with course goals, which focused heavily on oral communi-cation related to teaching the bilingual curriculum, with onlysecondary stress on writing skills and grammatical knowledge.

TABLE 3Student Perceptions of Course Effectiveness

Means from Student Self-Report Data (1987, 1988 N = 17)


Under the category that relates to understanding theories ofbilingual instruction, all four items had means above 4. Each ofthese items related to a specific area of the syllabus for whichreadings had been assigned and lectures had been presented:cooperative learning, integration of language and contentinstruction, second language acquisition theory, and the importanceof native language development in bilingual settings. Similarly, highmeans were obtained for the three items related to second languageinstruction. These items corresponded to major course goals such asusing small groups for second language teaching and creating anawareness of the kinds of problems encountered by LEP students inthe classroom. The high means obtained for all the items includedunder these two categories, therefore, seem to suggest that thecourse may have led to important theoretical and practical insightsrelated to effective bilingual and ESL instruction.

Dialogue Journals

Additional insights on effects of the immersion experience oncourse participants were obtained from the dialogue journals. Thestudent entries are so rich as to merit separate treatment elsewhere,but a few insights briefly summarized here make possible a fullerunderstanding of the data presented.

First, the intensity of emotions surrounding the immersionexperience was evident in all the journals. One of the lowerproficiency students wrote (uncorrected version):

This student, who was struggling a bit with her Spanish, was clearlyconcerned that her true personality could not be adequatelyrevealed when she was denied access to English. This first-handexperience and the insight it engendered is extremely significant forteachers of LEP students.

A second area explored in the journals related to the continuingneed to foster cooperation among group members. One studentwrote (uncorrected):

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[Everyone works well and each person helps the others—but there existsa certain tendency by some to avoid a particular group—I don’t know.For me, I prefer to be with the native speakers.]

In a later entry, this student noted that unless there was openencouragement on the part of the instructor and a conscious effortamong participants, there was a tendency for communication totake place along ethnic lines. This tendency, which was noted on anumber of occasions, underscores the necessity for a clear anddeliberate strategy on the part of the instructor to maintainheterogeneity within groups, and to gently nurture full elaborationof each individual’s role within the group.

A third point raised was the effectiveness of dialogue journals foraffective as well as pedagogical reasons. A student wrote (uncor-rected):

Finally, the journals provided anecdotal evidence of students’perceptions that their fluency in Spanish had improved notably.One Anglo student, whose former husband was a native speaker ofSpanish, wrote (uncorrected):

DISCUSSION

The experimental Spanish immersion course described heresought to accomplish a number of goals simultaneously:

1. To meet training needs for bilingual teachers through the


development of academic language proficiency in Spanish,particularly through a broadening of vocabulary range and anincrease in fluency in dealing with the content areas.

2. To meet training needs for ESL teachers by helping them gaindirect insight into the challenges facing an LEP student indealing with subject matter in a weaker language, as well ashelping ESL teachers working with Spanish-speaking popula-tions to obtain a minimal functional proficiency in the home lan-guage of their students.

3. To serve as an experiential model for an alternative approach toESL instruction that simultaneously meets linguistic andcognitive needs of language minority students.

The pre- and posttest data suggest that course participantsincreased their proficiency in Spanish, but we do not know thatthese measurable gains were obtained as a result of the intensiveimmersion experience. Moreover, not all students posted impressivegains. Some participants seemed to improve substantially in theirSpanish proficiency while others did not. In part, these results mayreflect measurement problems that exist in attempting to demon-strate small-scale gains in language proficiency through integrativeinstruments such as the cloze (Madsen, 1983).

What is clearly evident from the participants’ self-evaluations,however, is that the overwhelming majority of participants (15 outof 17), felt that their fluency in Spanish, as well as their vocabularyrange, had substantially improved as a result of their experience.These self-perceived gains translate into greater confidence in theuse of Spanish for instructional purposes by the bilingual teachers;this alone may be as significant as any real gains.

The second objective, which relates to a need for ESL teachers togain both empathy and understanding of the learning process ofLEP students when functioning in their weaker language, appearsto have been convincingly attained, based on both self-evaluationsas well as on subjective comments included in the dialogue journals.In addition to this explicit goal, the dialogue journals reveal thatadditional insights related to interethnic communication in bilingualsettings were apparently obtained by a number of the participants.

Based on data from the course evaluations as well as from thedialogue journals, it appears that the third objective (providing anexperiential pedagogical model) was firmly obtained by the par-ticipants. Without exception, teachers participating in this intensiveimmersion experience, within which they performed problem-solving tasks following a cooperative learning approach in linguis-tically heterogeneous groups, felt that they were now able to better

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achieve the integration of language and content-area instruction intheir classrooms.

Although the number of students participating in this course is toosmall for broad generalizations to be drawn, the possibilities posedby this type of experientially grounded methods course appear tobe promising indeed. One factor that needs to be explored is theextent to which the positive effects reported here are dependentupon a sustained, semi-intensive format such as existed in thissummer school course, meeting daily for 2 hours or more. Thepotential for applications of this type of immersion experience inthe in-service development of bilingual/ESL personnel meritsfurther exploration. New means must be found through whichclassroom teachers may experience, in a direct and dramaticmanner, the tremendous benefits of an instructional approach thatthoroughly integrates language and content-area instruction.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Data from the first year of this study were presented at the National Association forBilingual Education 17th Annual International Bilingual/Bicultural EducationConference in Houston, April 1988. An updated version of the paper was presentedat the 2&d Annual TESOL Conference in San Antonio, March 1989. Funding fromthe Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University ofTexas at San Antonio is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks go to PatriciaRosales and to María Espericueta for their assistance in completing the study, aswell as to anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers for their helpful suggestions.Summary measures and significance tests in Tables 1 and 2 were computed by aTESOL Quarterly reviewer.

THE AUTHOR

Robert D. Milk, Professor and Director of the Division of Bicultural-BilingualStudies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has taught ESL and Spanish atthe secondary level and worked as a teacher educator in Peru at the elementaryschool level. He currently directs two Title VII training projects for bilingualeducation teachers.

REFERENCES

Celce-Murcia, M. (1983). Problem solving: A bridge builder betweentheory and practice. In J. E. Alatis, H. H. Stern, & P. Strevens (Eds.),Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics1983: Applied linguistics and the preparation of second languageteachers (pp. 97-105). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.


Chamot, A. U., & O’Malley, J. M. (1986). A cognitive academic languagelearning approach: An ESL content-based curriculum. Rosslyn, VA:National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education,

Chaudron, C. (1989). Second language classrooms: Research on teachingand learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Clark, E. R., & Milk, R. D. (1984). Training bilingual teachers: A look atthe Title VII graduate in the field. NABE Journal, 8 (l), 41-53.

Cohen, E. (1986). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneousclassroom. New York: Teachers College Press.

Crawford, J. (1989). Bilingual education: History, politics, theory, andpractice. Trenton, NJ: Crane.

Cummins, J. (1980). The entry and exit fallacy in bilingual education.NABE Journal, 4 (3), 25-60.

DeAvila, E., Duncan, S., & Navarrete, C. (1987). Finding Out/Descu-brimiento teacher’s resource guide. Northvale, NJ: Santillana.

Enright, D. S. (1986). “Use everything you have to teach English: Providinguseful input to young language learners. In P. Rigg & D. S. Enright (Eds.),Children and ESL: Integrating perspectives (pp. 113-162). Washington,DC: TESOL.

Garcia, E. (1987). Effective schooling for language minority students.Focus, 1, 1-12. Wheaton, MD: National Clearinghouse for BilingualEducation.

Hernandez-Chavez, E. (1984). The inadequacy of English immersioneducation as an educational approach for language minority students inthe United States. In Studies on Immersion Education (pp. 144-183).Sacramento: California State Department of Education.

Johnson, D. (1983). Natural language learning by design: A classroomexperiment in social interaction and second language acquisition.TESOL Quarterly, 17 (1), 55-68.

Kagan, S. (1986). Cooperative learning and sociocultural factors inschooling. In Beyond language: Social and cultural factors in schoolinglanguage minority students (pp. 231-298). Sacramento: California StateDepartment of Education.

Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. N e wYork: Longman.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (1983). Training teachers or educating a teacher. InJ. E. Alatis, H. H. Stern, & P. Strevens (Eds.), Georgetown UniversityRound Table on Languages and Linguistics 1983: Applied linguistics andthe preparation of second language teachers (pp. 264-274). Washington,DC: Georgetown University Press.

Long, M. (1981). Input, interaction, and second language acquisition. InH. Winitz (Ed.), Native language and foreign language acquisition.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 379, 250-278.

Long, M., & Porter, P. ( 1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and secondlanguage acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (2), 207-228.

Madsen, H. S. (1983). Techniques in testing. New York: Oxford UniversityPress.

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McGroarty, M. (1989). The benefits of cooperative learning arrangementsin second language instruction. NABE Journal, 13 (2), 127-144.

Merino, B., & Faltis, C. (1986). Spanish for special purposes: Communica-tion strategies for teachers in bilingual education. Foreign LanguageAnnals, 19 (1), 43-46.

Milk, R. D. (1985). The changing role of ESL in bilingual education.TESOL Quarterly, 19 (4), 657-672.

Milk, R. D. (1990). Integrating language and content: Implications for lan-guage distribution in bilingual classrooms. In R. Jacobsen & C. Faltis(Eds.), Language distribution issues in bilingual schooling (pp. 32-44).Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters.

O’Malley, J. M., Chamot, A. U., Stewner-Manzanares, G., Russo, R. P.,& Küpper, L. (1985). Learning strategies used by beginning andintermediate ESL students. Language Learning, 35, 21-46.

Ovando, C. J., & Collier, V. P. (1985). Bilingual and ESL classrooms:Teaching in multicultural contexts. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Politzer, R. (1970). Some reflections on “good” and “bad” languageteaching behaviors. Language Learning, 20, 31-43.

Politzer, R. (1978). Some reflections on the role of linguistics in thepreparation of bilingual/cross-cultural teachers. Bilingual EducationPaper Series, 1 (12). (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No.ED 161 274)

Ramirez, A. G. (1985). Bilingualism through schooling: Cross-culturaleducation for minority and majority students. Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York Press.

Rigg, P., & Enright, D. S. (Eds.). (1986). Children and ESL: Integratingperspectives. Washington, DC: TESOL.

Saville-Troike, M. (1984). What really matters in second language learningfor academic achievement? TESOL Quarterly, 18 (2), 199-220.

Texas State Board of Education. (1987). Standards for teacher educationinstitutions. Texas administrative code and statutory citations (Chapter137, Subchapter M, pp. 35-40). Austin: Texas Education Agency.

Tikunoff, W. (1983). Significant bilingual instructional features study. SanFrancisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research andDevelopment.

van Lier, L. (1988). The classroom and the language learner. New York:Longman.

Willets, K. (Ed.). (1986). Integrating language and content instruction. LosAngeles: University of California, Center for Language Education andResearch.

Wong Fillmore, L. (1982). Instructional language as linguistic input:Second-language learning in classrooms. In L. C. Wilkinson (Ed.), Com-municating in the classroom (pp. 283-296). New York: Academic Press.


APPENDIX

Course Evaluation

I. Rate your level of proficiency in Spanish (circle one)

II. To what extent do you feel that the coursehelped you in each of the following areas(circle one):

A. Language proficiency (Spanish)1. Overall fluency2. Ability to communicate ideas and concepts

related to content areas3. Vocabulary4. Awareness of mechanics for writing5. Understanding of Spanish grammar6. Awareness of local & regional Spanish

variety

B. Understanding theories7. Second language acquisition in the classroom8. Cooperative learning9. Integrating language and content

10. Dual language development in bilingualsettings

C. Teaching a second language11. Effective ideas/techniques12. Use of small groups13. Awareness of learner’s problems in dealing

with content in a weaker language

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Low Intermediate

A = A Great DealC = A Fair AmountE = Not at All

High

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The TOEFL Test of Written English:Causes for Concern

ANN RAIMESHunter College, City University of New York

Owned and administered by the Educational Testing Service(ETS), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), takenby approximately 600,000 students a year, influences access to orexclusion from colleges and universities in North America. Thisarticle provides background information about the TOEFL andETS; describes the development of ETS tests of composition fornative speakers of English and of the most recent addition to theTOEFL testing program, the Test of Written English (TWE); andexplores seven areas of concern with respect to the TWE: thecomparability of topic types; the lack of topic choice; the lack ofdistinction between graduate and undergraduate students; thescoring system; the question of what the test measures; thequestion of whether both the TOEFL and the TWE are needed;and the backwash effect of the TWE, including the proliferationof coaching and test-specific instructional materials. The articleurges careful scrutiny of new developments in ETS testing as theyaffect our students, and ends with seven recommendations foraction.

On six Fridays and six Saturdays a year, thousands of people inplaces as far-ranging as Dallas, Texas; Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylva-nia; Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Victoria, British Columbia;Quito, Ecuador; Sydney, Australia; Alexandria, Egypt; Athens,Greece; Lome, Togo; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Kyoto, Japan assemble attest centers to take the TOEFL—the Test of English as a ForeignLanguage. At more than 500 test centers in the U.S. and Canadaalone and 700 centers in 170 other countries, approximately 600,000students a year take the TOEFL, and “as many as 80,000 may testworldwide on one date” (Educational Testing Service, 1989, p. 1).

THE TOEFL AND THE EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE

The TOEFL testing program is owned and run by an organiza-tion that exercises considerable power over education and

427

professional life in the United States: the Educational TestingService (ETS). ETS has an enormous impact on U.S. students’ liveswith its Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Graduate Record Exam(GRE), Law School Admission Test (LSAT), and numerous otherstandardized tests that influence access to higher education and toprofessions. TOEFL’S influence also extends beyond academia,since “many government agencies, school programs, and licensing/certification agencies use TOEFL scores to evaluate Englishproficiency” (Educational Testing Service, 1990a, p. 3). In somestates of the U. S., you can’t get to be a real estate salesperson, afirefighter, a plumbing engineer, a golf pro, or even a barberwithout taking an ETS test (Owen, 1985).

The TOEFL expands not only the influence of ETS but also itsrevenues. Even in 1977, the TOEFL was ETS’s seventh highestsource of revenue, contributing a profit on gross revenues of morethan 10% (Nairn & Associates, 1980). And in 1979, ETS, classified asa tax-exempt, nonprofit institution, grossed $94 million in annualrevenues ( Nairn et al., 1980). Since that time the TOEFL has grownsteadily, showing an average increase of about 41,000 students ayear. Although the scores are used by more than 2,300 colleges inNorth America, the fees for the TOEFL are paid by the individualstudents. Currently fees range from $31 to $41. On the basis ofsimple arithmetic, one may infer that the 566,000 students whoregistered for the TOEFL in 1988-89 (Educational Testing Service,1990a) contributed a great deal to ETS revenues.

An organization with such influential, widespread, and lucrativetesting programs is bound to generate criticism. A Ralph Naderorganization has produced a highly critical report, The Reign ofETS: The Corporation that Makes up Minds (Nairn et al., 1980).This generated a series of critical examinations of ETS andparticularly of the SAT. A no-holds-barred attack on ETS’Sdomination of the testing field appeared in 1985 (Owen), closelyfollowed by several academic research studies. Among these,Crouse and Trusheim (1988) have presented the results of a 6-yearresearch study that shows in particular the adverse effect the SAThas on black and low-income applicants. Rosser (1989) has reportedthat the SAT is biased against women, underpredicting their grades.ETS counters many of the criticisms by referring to its own researchfindings. Two Harvard professors (Slack & Porter, 1980), however,in an attempt to dispute the validity of the SAT, have argued thatETS’s rebuttals of criticism cite research studies in a way that is sohighly selective as to be biased. They also provide evidence thatETS misrepresents data on validity coefficients for the SAT withhigh school records, concluding that “the data that can be tracked down

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and analyzed are often at variance with the numerous summarystatements to be found in ETS’s technical documents andpromotional literature” (p. 169).

To deflect criticism, ETS has tried to involve professional expertsto plan programs and generate policy. It has been the practice ofETS to form and confer with advisory groups, such as the TOEFLPolicy Council. However, the members of the council and of itscommittees are appointed by ETS-governed boards or elected bythe appointed members. If members are unhappy with ETS, theyhave little recourse. The tests belong to ETS. So do the data. Thecontrol over what data are released, what research is carried out andreported, and ultimately what is tested and how, remains theprovince of the ETS staff. ETS does appoint a TOEFL ResearchCommittee composed of prominent experts in our field. Butaccording to the description of current TOEFL research procedurespresented at ETS’s Second TOEFL Invitational Conference(October 1984), research studies are proposed and conducted byETS staff members, not initiated by the committee (Holtzclaw,1986). ETS unilaterally and unequivocally controls the form andcontent of the tests and the data they generate.

Since ETS owns, designs, administers, and evaluates the TOEFL,it is in a position to exercise a great deal of influence over ESL/EFLstudents’ academic careers. That influence is spreading. Even asmore and more students take the TOEFL each year, more tests, arebeing added. In the early 1980s, a separate Test of Spoken English(TSE) was added (with an additional fee for students ranging from$75 to $100). Then, in 1986, the Test of Written English (TWE) wasadded, administered at four of the twelve TOEFL administrations.As of now, students are not chargedan additional fee. The purposeof the TWE, as an ETS booklet rather euphemistically puts it, is notso much to test as to “provide students with an opportunity todemonstrate their ability to write in English” (Educational TestingService, 1990b, p. 3).

This demonstrating of ability, of course, leads to what highereducation institutions in North America have been doing withTOEFL scores for many years: using them to admit or excludestudents. TOEFL tests are also used to structure curricula ofpreparation courses, instruction, and materials. Such a widespreadtesting program has a considerable impact on teachers and on ourconstituency of ESL/EFL students. We need to examine it—andcontinually reexamine it—with the utmost care. Bearing in mindthat “testing is power’” and that “the teaching and testing of Englishare, in a large sense, political acts” (White, 1986, p. 77), we need tolook closely at this new writing test to examine its purpose, itsstructure, and its effects.

THE TOEFL TEST OF WRITTEN ENGLISH 429

ETS TESTS OF COMPOSITION FOR NATIVESPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

First, however, it is instructive to examine ETS practice withrespect to combinations of essay and standardized tests ofcomposition for native speakers of English. The College Board(which later joined forces with ETS for its Admissions TestingProgram) began testing composition with essay tests in 1916(Godshalk, Swineford, & Coffmann, 1966). It was in 1947 that theCollege Board first experimented with testing writing objectively(without an essay). An objective section was included in the EnglishComposition Test (ECT), one of the subject area AchievementTests. When the Board compared the essay with the objectivesection and with course grades and teachers’ ratings, the findingswere that a 60-minute essay would have “markedly less predictivevalue [of teachers’ ratings of ability to write expository prose, andcourse grades in English] than a full length test composed entirelyof objective material” (cited in Davis & Davis, 1953, p. 178).Objective approaches then replaced the essay in the ECT.

However, teachers protested and in 1953 a 2-hour essay exam, theGeneral Composition test (GCT), was instituted for 3 years on anexperimental basis. During this period, the College Board and ETSstudied the results of three of their tests: the verbal portion of themultiple-choice SAT, the multiple-choice ECT, and the new GCT(reported in Hoffmann, 1962, and in Godshalk, Swineford, &Coffmann, 1966). The study compared the results of the three testswith a standard by which “teachers of English composition atselected schools [rated] their students on the basis of many essayseach student had written in school” (Hoffmann, 1962, p. 116). Theall-essay test—the GCT—correlated least well. First and secondwere the verbal SAT and the ECT respectively. Multiple choice hadwon the day as an indicator of real-world writing ability. ETSeliminated the GCT. Yet, even though the study had shown that theSAT was a better indicator of essay writing ability than the ECT,the latter continued to be offered, and students continued to takeand pay for both the SAT and the optional ECT as part of theircollege application process.

Since teachers and administrators continued to insist on the valueof asking students to write, ETS experimented with writingsamples, editing tasks, and more essay tests until in 1977 theyreleased an alternative version of the English Composition Test,with one of the multiple-choice sections replaced by a 20-minuteessay holistically rated by two readers. Native speakers of Englishwho now apply to so-called selective colleges and universities can

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elect either the English Composition Test without essay or the ECTwith essay. Scores on these tests are reported as a single numericalscore on the familiar 200 to 800 scale. An ETS publication (CollegeEntrance Examination Board, 1989) reports that “the correlationcoefficient between the multiple-choice and essay components ofthe English Composition Test is .47” (p. 21), lower even than the .66correlation coefficient reported between verbal and mathematicalscores of the SAT. Owen, who takes ETS to task in his book Noneof the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude (1985),provocatively asks a series of questions about these two alternativecomposition tests and the research findings. The first question toask, he suggests, is whether the ECT with essay is a "better measureof writing skills than the ECT without ." An answer to that questionwould lead to more questions: “If one test is better, why give theother? If the tests are the same, why give both? In an exercise thatis supposed to rank people scientifically on a scale from 200 to 800,how can you offer a choice of tests?” (1985, p. 26). He contends thatthrowing out the multiple-choice version would “imply what ETShas always denied: that an essay test, especially a teeny one, is betterthan a multiple-choice test.” Alternatively, getting rid of the essaywould appear to be confessing that holistic grading is ineffective—or in Owen’s more colorful terms, “a bunch of hooey” (1985, p. 26).Meanwhile, students have to decide which test to take.

THE TOEFL TEST OF WRITTEN ENGLISH

There are clear parallels between the two versions of the ECTand the TOEFL/TWE. Long before the introduction of the TWE,the TOEFL used to have five multiple-choice sections: ListeningComprehension, English Structure, Vocabulary, Reading Compre-hension, and Writing Ability. An ETS study in 1967 by Pitcher andRa (cited in Hale, Stansfield, & Duran, 1984) looked at correlationsbetween writing sample scores on four separate themes and the fivesections of the TOEFL. The highest correlations were .74 for boththe English Structure and the Writing Ability sections. A 1979 ETSstudy of the TOEFL by Pike (cited in Hale, Stansfield, & Duran,1984) examined correlations between sections of the test with anessay test, a cloze test, and a rewriting test. This time strongercorrelations (averaging .85) were found between the essay and theWriting Ability section of the test. Pike’s recommendation after thisresearch was that the TOEFL Writing Ability section should not bereplaced with a writing sample but that the Writing Ability sectionshould be combined with the English Structure section. Once againthe research recommended the multiple-choice format for assessingwriting ability.


According to ETS, it was pressure from faculty to institute anessay test that led to the development of the TWE. ETS officialswriting in the TESOL Newsletter (Stansfield & Webster, 1986)described the preparation for the new test, mentioning “a survey ofacademic writing in 190 departments conducted for the TOEFLprogram by Bridgeman and Carlson” (p. 17). In fact, Bridgemanand Carlson (1983) did not collect actual academic writing samplesfrom those 190 departments. They began by interviewing 30 facultymembers from six universities in engineering, business, and Englishlanguage institutes. Then after “in-depth discussions with advisorycommittee members, research and program staff members at ETSand faculty and administrators at local institutions” (p. 13), theydeveloped a questionnaire, which included 10 possible topic types.Faculty members were to indicate the “degree of acceptability”(Appendix A, p. 7) for each topic and to indicate the topic typesthey considered the most appropriate. In other words, the choice oftopic types came before the questionnaire was sent out, not afterresponses about actual writing assignments were received.

The questionnaires were then sent to faculty in the following 7disciplines: undergraduate English and 6 graduate departments—electrical engineering, civil engineering, computer science,chemistry, psychology, and MBA programs. The same question-naires were sent to graduate and undergraduate faculty. Therespondents were asked to rate not just the topic types but specificexamples of topic types. These, too, were developed by ETS staff.One hundred ninety questionnaires were returned. Again, it isimportant to note that these 190 departments were merelyresponding to categories established by ETS researchers, notcontributing to the development of the categories. Despite thesedrawbacks, the researchers stated broad conclusions withconfidence: “Although some important common elements amongthe different departments were reported, the survey data distinctlyindicate that different disciplines do not uniformly agree on thewriting task demands and on a single preferred mode of discoursefor evaluating entering undergraduate and graduate students”(Bridgeman & Carlson, 1983, p. 56-57).

Notwithstanding findings that questioned the viability of ageneralized writing test, ETS went ahead with the TWE. Fourfeatures were adopted after the preliminary research:

1. Two topic types were selected. In one the student “compares/contrasts two opposing points of view and defends a position infavor of one”; in the other, the student describes and interprets achart or graph (Stansfield & Webster, 1986, p. 17).

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2. Only one topic type appears on each test for a 30-minuteresponse.

3. Scoring of the TWE is on a holistic 6-point scale by two readers.

4. Scores are reported to individual colleges.

These features, and more recent adjustments to the test format,present at least seven major causes for concern.

CAUSES FOR CONCERN

First, we should be concerned about the comparability of thetopic types selected, scrutinizing comparability both between topictypes used for native versus nonnative speakers and between topictypes used on different administrations of the TWE. Nativespeakers of English applying to undergraduate programs in collegesand universities in North America only write an essay on an ETS testif they select the English Composition Test with essay. For this, theywrite on topics such as “People seldom stand up for what they trulybelieve; instead they merely go along with the popular view. Doyou agree or disagree with this statement?” (Essay topic forDecember 4, 1982, cited in Shostak, 1987, p. 11). This relativelystraightforward position paper with one conceptual demand (totake a position on an issue) certainly seems less demanding than thetwo- or three-part task of the TWE: compare, contrast, and take aposition; or describe and interpret a chart or graph.

After Bridgeman and Carlson’s extensive research (1983), twotopic types were selected for the TWE. The official test guideasserts that “further research by Carlson, Bridgeman, Camp, andWaanders (1985) reported that correlations among writing topicswere as high across topic types as within topic types, suggesting thatoverall competency in composition could be adequately assessedusing a variety of composition types” (Educational Testing Service,1989, p. 2). The researchers do indeed support the first statementabout correlations, but their text does not offer the suggestion thatETS implies:

Correlations were as high across topic types as within topic types. Thisresult suggests that (1) the different topics did not elicit qualitativelydifferent writing performance, and/or (2) the readers maintained acomparable scale for evaluating the writing samples, despitefluctuations from topic to topic, These positive results, however, shouldnot be interpreted as evidence that papers written in response to anytopic or type of topic would yield equivalent reliability [italics added].The topics were selected on the basis of previous research indicating


that specific kinds of topics would serve as more appropriate stimuli toreflect the academic writing task demands experienced by students inhigher education in the United States. Carefully controlled conditions ofdesign and pretesting, and of scoring methods that emphasizedfunctional academic English proficiency, would need to be replicated toattain similar results. (Carlson, Bridgeman, Camp, & Waanders, 1985,p. 76-77)

The researchers’ caution is necessary. According to a senior ETSofficial, ETS and its Core Reader Group for the TWE have decidedthat the chart/graph topic raises so many concerns that it should notbe used until more research is carried out (Henning, 1990). And,according to the Director of the TWE, it has been used only once inthe last eight test administrations, when it was included only forresearch purposes as part of a comparability study (C. Taylor,personal communication, December 1990). According to Taylor, somuch language is contained in the charts and graphs themselves thatthere is a concern that students simply reproduce that givenlanguage. However, although the chart/graph topic has beenshelved, it is still listed as a TWE topic type in the official guide(Educational Testing Service, 1989). Interestingly–and confusinglyfor both students and teachers–it appears there not with theoriginally announced “compare, contrast, and defend” topic, butwith two different topic types: “express and support an opinion”and “choose and defend a point of view” (Educational TestingService, 1989, p. 4). And indeed, one of the sample essay questionsin the guide illustrates how far the TWE has moved not only fromthe chart/graph topic but also from the original compare, contrast,and defend topic that the research recommended:

Inventions such as eyeglasses and the sewing machine have had animportant effect on our lives. Choose another invention that you think isimportant. Give specific reasons for your choice. (p. 57)

There was a good deal of literature to explain the decisions abouttopics in the new TWE, but very little to explain the quite radicalchanges that are occurring in the test. The speed of substitution ofnew topics for old does not appear to be the result of the carefullyconducted research appropriate for a large-scale testing programthat affects students’ academic careers. One might question theclaim made by the Assistant Director of the TWE Division at ETSthat “since the introduction of the TWE test, carefully controlleditem development, pretesting, pretest analysis, test administration,and postadministration scoring procedures have helped to maintainthe comparability of TWE topics within and across administrations”

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(Fallon, 1989, p. 7). With swift changes in topic types, comparabil-ity must be difficult to maintain. Meanwhile, students take the testand have scores reported.

Second, we should be concerned that students are presented withonly one topic type, though different types of topics are offered atdifferent test administrations. Greenberg (1986) points out that “thisadministrative decision seems to fly in the face of the TOEFLresearchers’ hypothesis that writing competence is a situationalconstruct and, as such, should be elicited by tasks with differentacademic demands” (p. 537). In fact, the ETS research conductedby Bridgeman and Carlson used a multidimensional scaling analysisto show that the two essay types initially selected for TWE “seem tocall for very different cognitive and linguistic skills” (Greenberg,1986, p. 537). Faculty perceived this without the benefit of researchfindings; Bridgeman and Carlson (1983) report that the chart/graphtopic was seen as “inappropriate by a majority of the Englishfaculty” (p. 56). In addition, the 1985 TOEFL research study byCarlson et al. noted that “one writing sample is not necessarily asufficient sample of writing performance” (p. 81) and recom-mended assessment by means of more than one writing sample.Despite that, only one topic appears at any TWE test administrationand is expected to have predictive validity for graduate andundergraduate students in any discipline.

Third, we should be concerned about the curious blending ofundergraduate and graduate levels that the TWE promotes. Of the7 disciplines surveyed, only 1 (English) was at the undergraduatelevel. The faculty there recommended the compare and contrasttopic, while the graduate disciplines (engineering, business, and thesciences) recommended the chart or graph-neither of which seemto be favored in current test administrations. While ETSdistinguishes between the undergraduate SAT and the graduateGRE for native speakers, nonnative-speaking students applying forundergraduate and graduate schools all receive the same TOEFLand TWE. Yet they will face very different demands.

Fourth, we should be concerned about several aspects of thescoring system. Colleges and universities to which nonnative-speaking students apply receive not the TWE writing sample itselfbut only a score on a 6-point scale. The score can thus only be usefulfor admission (or rejection); the writing sample is not available foran institution’s specific diagnostic purposes.

For students rattled enough by the ETS numbers game, thenumerical score of the TWE can only add confusion and stress.Already they are baffled by the scoring system of the TOEFL, inwhich they receive a scaled score from 200 to 677, with a last digit


of 0, 3, or 7. The 1990-91 Bulletin of Information for TOEFL andTest of Spoken English informs students that scaled scores arereported; then, unrealistically, refers these students to journalliterature on item response theory, and tells them to add the scaledscores for each section and multiply by ten thirds (EducationalTesting Service, 1990a)! If they don’t trust the computer scoring andthe complicated scaling of the TOEFL, they can request restoringby hand–for an additional $20.

The TWE, holistically scored by two readers on a 6-point scale,allows for no restoring. Students know that if TOEFL and TWEscores begin to be formally linked for admissions purposes, studentscan be denied acceptance at a college or university on the strengthof one point on a holistic scale. With such a numbers game, it’s nowonder that students become desperate and test forms are leaked.A recent New York Times article reported that “620 students whotook the TOEFL in five centers around the southern Indian city ofBangalore on October 28 had their test results annulled” becausecopies of the test had been widely sold beforehand (Crossette, 1990,p. A10). And when Qinghua University, wanting to limit thenumber of students entering U.S. schools, did not announce theplace of registration for the TOEFL test, students lined up inrandom places until the final announcement caused a riot and onestudent jumped to his death. He was carrying a “notebook with thewords ‘TOEFL, TOEFL, TOEFL, CONFIDENCE, CONFI-DENCE, CONFIDENCE’ etched on the cover” (Elliott, 1990, p. 23).

Fifth, we should be concerned about establishing clearly what theTWE is or is not testing. ETS personnel frequently assert thatTOEFL is not an aptitude test—and in fact it does not correlatehighly with students’ grade point averages (Light, Xu, & Mossop,1987). ETS testing directors assert that the purpose of the TOEFLis to help “institutions to determine whether a nonnative English-speaking applicant for admission has attained sufficient proficiencyto study in an English-medium instructional environment”(Stansfield & Webster, 1986, p. 17). But if the test is measuringattained proficiency, why does the writing test present tasks that arerepresentative not of the writing the students have done in thepast—the types of tasks the IEA (International Association for theEvaluation of Educational Achievement) Study of Composition hasidentified (Purves, 1988) —but of the type that they will be doing inthe future? Why should international students be expected to havemastered college-level writing as a requirement for admission?Don’t the faculty have a responsibility to teach field-specific formsof academic writing, rather than expect mastery from their enteringstudents, particularly students from other countries?

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Sixth, we should be concerned about whether we need both theTOEFL and the TWE. TOEFL researchers reporting on acorrelation study have found that “the correlation of scores on thewriting sample with the TOEFL total scores and with GRE verbalscores is nearly identical, indicating that the writing sample scoresserve as an indicator of English language skills” (Carlson et al., 1985,p. 79). They justify the use of both TOEFL and TWE by saying thatcorrelations between the holistic essay score and the TOEFL scoreindicate that “the two measures evaluate English proficiency to aconsiderable degree, but that the overlap between the twoinstruments is not perfect. The writing sample contributesadditional [italics added] information regarding English profi-ciency” (Carlson et al., 1985, p. 79). For the recipient, thatadditional information is buried in a holistic, 6-point score. ETSresearchers provide justification for the TWE, saying, “TOEFLprovides evidence of mastery of English language. skills, but not ofhigher order writing skills such as organization and quality of ideas”(Carlson et al., 1985, p. 79). But since ETS rejected scoring on thethree separate features of content organization, and grammardespite faculty members’ recommendations that this would bepreferable to an overall score (Bridgeman & Carlson, 1983), wehave no way of knowing what kind of organization or what qualityof ideas a score reflects.

Even preparation books for the TWE raise questions about theneed for both the TOEFL and the TWE: “The TOEFL Program’sresearch has suggested that if you score around 550 on the TOEFL,you are most likely to score about a 4 on the TWE. If you scorearound 500 on the TOEFL, you are most likely to score about a 3 onthe TWE” (Hamp-Lyons, 1989, p. 2). Recalling the questions thatOwen asked about the two versions of the ECT, one needs to asksimilar questions about TOEFL and TWE: If one testis better, whygive the other? If the tests are the same, why give both? We’ve seenfrom ETS’S handling of the ECT that the tendency is not to replacebut to add on. So TOEFL has been joined by the TSE and theTWE.

Finally, we should be concerned about the special instruction andthe resulting inequalities that the tests generate, as well as the effecton instruction in general. Students from high-income families tendto receive high SAT scores (Admissions Testing Program of theCollege Entrance Examination Board, 1979), and coaching has beenshown to be concentrated in the higher income groups (FederalTrade Commission, 1979), inevitably linking it to class and race.While ETS staff members have consistently denied that coachingcan influence the results of standardized tests like the SAT or GRE


(Pike & Evans, 1972; Jackson, 1980), other data show otherwise(Pallone, 1961; Marron, 1965; Slack & Porter, 1980).

Although not advised by ETS, coaching flourishes for theTOEFL as well as for the SAT. According to a Research Associateat Stanley Kaplan Educational Centers, for example, TOEFLpreparation courses give students 100 hours of audiotape practice ofTOEFL-type questions (L. Earl, personal communication, April,1989). In these courses and in any curriculum leading up to astandardized test, the test itself creates a negative backwash effect.What the multiple-choice format of the TOEFL actually leads to ininstruction is far removed from the communicative classroomadvocated by most TESOL professionals (Savignon, 1986).

TOEFL self-study test materials are as reductive as specialcourses. ETS provides its own TOEFL study materials at a cost of$39. In addition, many commercial publishers, seeing the spread ofthe test, have jumped on the bandwagon. It is not surprising thatwith the new Test of Written English, new TWE preparation booksare also appearing, as indicated by a book review in this issue of theTESOL Quarterly. Teachers who have seen writing as a tool oflearning, as a means of expressing ideas and creating language for avariety of purposes and audiences, will not welcome textbooksrelegating it to repetitive practice of two ETS-generated topics.Also alarming is the fact that the topic types of the TWE seem to bechanging so rapidly that as preparation books appear, they might beout of date. Students and teachers need to know how the test formatis changing before they even consider buying and using specifictest-preparation textbooks. Most important, we need to heed Roy’swords (1987) that we “not allow consciousness of the TWE to fostera narrowly instrumental mode of teaching and a dependent modeof learning” (p. 5).

These seven causes for concern alert us to the fact that the newTest of Written English, as well as the literature surrounding it anddeveloped from it, should be scrutinized with great care. Topreserve symmetry, seven recommendations for action by ESL/EFL teachers are presented.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Individually, by telephone, letter, publication, and in publicforums, we should continue to ask questions, more questions,and more probing questions about the TWE.1 We need to ask

1 One forum for discussion of the TOEFL is the Fair Test Examiner, the newsletter of FairTest (The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, 342 Broadway, Cambridge, MA02139-1802), which works to reduce the overuse and misuse of standardized tests.

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about test question development and content-related validationevidence. We also need to ask about construct-related validationevidence and about reliability. At present, ETS research usesonly another of its tests, the TOEFL, to establish constructvalidity and reliability (Educational Testing Service, 1989). Weneed to know ETS’s plans for the test: So far they haveannounced no plans to make the TWE a separate test with aseparate fee, like the TSE, but will this policy continue oncecolleges have prescribed score cutoffs for admission? Considerhow many students would be excluded from the possibility ofhigher education with the institution of a fee increase.

2. Those of us who teach ESL in postsecondary schools in NorthAmerica need to be informed about the admissions policies ofour own schools. How do they use TOEFL and TWE scores?ESL teachers can’t let subject area faculty, college administra-tors, and ETS personnel make all the crucial decisions aboutwhich international students are admitted to our institutions andwhat skills they need. We are the experts. We need to reassertthat position.

3. We should press for more information about the training of ratersfor the TWE. What factors influence assessment? Vopat (1982)provides a chilling description of “formulaic essay writing andassembly-line grading” (p. 45) for ETS’s Advanced Placementessays. What kind of writing are raters trained to reward? Arethey encouraged to “recognize a wider variety of rhetoricalmodes” than the ethnocentric deductive linear argument, whichLand and Whitley (1989) view as “situated within a particularsociopolitical context” (p. 289)?

4. We should see to it that ESL/EFL students are not treated as onemonolithic group. Tests should reflect the variety of students’educational levels and purposes, distinguishing betweengraduate and undergraduate students.

5. We should avoid recommending and using reductive methods ofinstruction and materials for test preparation. Our studentsshould be spending time learning English, not learning ETS-coping skills.

6. We should examine the TOEFL and TWE in relation to otherproficiency tests such as the oral ACTFL (American Council onthe Teaching of Foreign Languages) proficiency tests. We shouldexamine the TWE also in relation to research such as the IEAstudy of the types of writing students in secondary schoolsactually do (Purves, 1988). Perhaps this data base is the one that


should determine the kind of writing that undergraduateapplicants are asked to produce.

7. Finally, we need to set up mechanisms to keep close watch onETS tests that affect our students. Professional educationalorganizations (e.g., TESOL) might set up their own indepen-dent, active, and vigilant testing committees to review test devel-opment, procedures, scoring, and fees, to carry out research, andto disseminate results and recommendations. We should knowthe effects of tests on our student population in terms ofeconomics, quality of instruction in English, and requirementsfor further study. When students’ inclusion or exclusion fromhigher education is at stake, the stakes are indeed high.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 24th Annual TESOLConvention in San Francisco, March 1990. The author is grateful to colleaguesKaren Greenberg and Kate Parry, and three anonymous TESOL Quarterlyreviewers for their helpful comments. The views expressed here remain those ofthe author. Sandra Silberstein, TESOL Quarterly editor, posed searching,thoughtful questions and offered wise counsel.

THE AUTHOR

Ann Raimes is the author of many articles on writing research, theory, andteaching, and on ESL methodology. Her books include Techniques in TeachingWriting (Oxford University Press, 1983), Exploring Through Writing (St. Martin’sPress, 1987), and How English Works: A Grammar Handbook With Readings (St.Martin’s Press, 1990). She is Chair of the TESOL Publications Committee.

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Admissions Testing Program of the College Entrance Examination Board.(1979). National college bound seniors, 1979. New York: CollegeEntrance Examination Board.

Bridgeman, B., & Carlson, S. B. (1983). Survey of academic writing tasksrequired of graduate and undergraduate foreign students (TOEFLResearch Report No. 15). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Carlson, S. B., Bridgeman, B., Camp, R., & Waanders, J. (1985).Relationship of admission test scores to writing performance of nativeand nonnative speakers of English (TOEFL Research Report No. 19).Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

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College Entrance Examination Board. (1989). ATP guide for high schoolsand colleges, 1989-90. New York: Author.

Crossette, B. (1990, January 2). Vast cheating forces many in India toretake scholastic test. The New York Times, p. Al0.

Crouse, J., & Trusheim, D. (1988). The case against the SAT. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.

Davis, C. D., & Davis, F. B. (1953). CEEB Achievement Test in EnglishComposition. In O. K. Buros (Ed.), Fourth mental measurementyearbook (pp. 177-179). Highland Park, NJ: Gryphon Press.

Educational Testing Service. (1989). TOEFL Test of Written EnglishGuide. Princeton, NJ: Author.

Educational Testing Service. (1990a). 1990-91 bulletin of information forTOEFL and TSE. Princeton, NJ: Author.

Educational Testing Service. (1990b). TOEFL and TSE: 1990-91 testcenter reference list. Princeton, NJ: Author.

Elliott, D. (1990, April 9). The lost generation. The New Republic, p. 23.Fallon, M. A. (1989). The TOEFL Test of Written English: An updated

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Student Input and Negotiationof Meaning in ESLWriting Conferences

LYNN M. GOLDSTEINMonterey Institute of International Studies

SUSAN M. CONRADCentral Washington University

Research and practice in composition pedagogy suggest thatstudent-teacher conferences play an important role in helpingstudents become more effective writers. Many students, teachers,and researchers believe that conferences are valuable because theyallow students to control the interaction, actively participate, andclarify their teachers’ responses. This paper reports the results of astudy that examined the degree to which these characteristics werepresent in conferences between one teacher and each of threestudents enrolled in an advanced ESL composition course. Inaddition, the study looked at the students’ texts to determine howstudents dealt with the revisions discussed in the conferences andthe role negotiation of meaning played in the success of suchrevisions. There were large differences in the degree to whichstudents participated in the conferences and negotiated meaning.In addition, students who negotiated meaning made revisions inthe following draft that improved the text. In contrast, whenstudents did not negotiate meaning, even when they activelyparticipated in the conference, they tended either not to makerevisions or to make mechanical, sentence-level changes that oftenresulted in texts that were not qualitatively better than previousdrafts.

Student-teacher writing conferences are widely recommended incomposition pedagogy and many claims have been made abouttheir role in helping students become more effective writers. Theseclaims, however, remain unverified for second language writersbecause none of the research has examined the discourse that takesplace in conferences or the relationship between this discourse andsubsequent revision for these writers. In fact, most claims for both

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native-speaker and ESL writers are based on the participants’impressions of, or attitudes towards, conferences.

In a study of native speakers, Carnicelli (1980) reviewed students’evaluative comments towards their conferences. On the basis ofthese, he concluded that conferences are a more effective means offeedback than are written comments because conferences allowstudents to express their opinions and needs, and to clarify teachers’comments when they are not understood: “If a teacher’s response isunclear the student can simply ask for an explanation” (p. 108).

Zamel (1985) and Sokmen (1988) reach similar conclusions forconferences with nonnative speakers. Zamel discovered that ESLstudents often found written comments difficult to understand.Thus, she suggests that teachers need to hold conferences withstudents because “dynamic interchange and negotiation is mostlikely to take place when writers and readers work together face-to-face” (p. 97). Sokmen concurs, stating that “responding in confer-ences is more effective than in writing because you, the teacher, caninteract dynamically with the students to understand the intent”(p. 5).

The above claims, however, are based, not on an examination ofdiscourse that actually occurs in conferences, but on students’ andteachers’ evaluations of conferences. The few studies that haveexamined actual discourse have focused on native-speaker confer-ences. Freedman and Katz (1987) analyzed transcripts of severalconferences and found that the discourse within these conferenceshad predictable parts: openings, student-initiated comments andquestions, teacher-initiated comments and questions, reading of thepaper, and closings. Examining one conference in detail, theydiscovered that the teacher and student followed interfactional rulesthat “placed the conference somewhere between” (p. 77) con-versational turn-taking rules described by Sacks, Schegloff, andJefferson (1974) and the rules of classroom turn-taking as describedby Mehan (1979). While the teacher initiated many questions toguide the student, the student supplied the direction and content ofthe conference. Freedman and Katz hypothesized that a student’sinput and control of the discourse accounts for the effectiveness ofconferences in improving student writing. However, they did notactually look at the relationship between these factors andsubsequent revisions or papers to test this.

Walker and Elias (1987) compared the discourse in conferencesrated highly by tutors and students to those rated poorly. Highlyrated conferences were characterized by a focus on the student,with a discussion of criteria for successful writing and with anevaluation of the student’s work. Low-rated conferences were

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dominated by the tutor and contained repeated requests forexplanations, either by the tutor or student or both. Since success inthis study is defined by tutor and student evaluation, there is nodiscussion of whether writing or revisions that occurred after themore “successful” conferences were more effective than those thatoccurred after less successful conferences.

Researchers have also studied the variation among students in thediscourse they produce within conferences. Freedman and Sperling(1985) examined the conferences of 4 native-speaker students: 2high-achieving students and 2 low-achieving students. The high-achieving students elicited more praise from the teachers while low-achieving students tended to nominate topics that “alienated” (p. 128)the teachers. Freedman and Sperling conclude that the interactions inconferences vary and that “these differences in conversationalinteraction signal the possibility of differential instruction” (p. 128).These researchers do not, however, examine the relationship betweensuch “differential instruction” and student success.

The relationship between the discourse created in conferencesand subsequent revision or overall writing improvement has beenstudied by Jacobs and Karliner (1977). They compared the confer-ences of two native-speaker students to determine if the differencesin the roles played by teacher and student corresponded todifferences in the revisions made in subsequent drafts. They foundthat the student who engaged in exploratory talk and who initiatedmore discussion in the conference made revisions that containeddeeper analysis of the subject. In contrast, the student who deferredto the teacher, with the teacher acting as an expert who givessuggestions even before hearing the student’s ideas, made moresurface-level changes and never solved the deeper problems incontent. Jacobs and Karliner conclude that the type of verbalinteraction within the conference does influence the type ofsubsequent revision made.

We must be cautious in extending the conclusions of these studiesto ESL student-teacher conferences. First, there is very little re-search that examines actual conference discourse and/or confer-ence discourse in relation to subsequent revision. Second, we cannotextrapolate from studies where the subjects were native speakers ofEnglish because we cannot assume that nonnative speakers will be-have in conferences in the same ways that native speakers behave.

THE STUDY

In our study we sought to answer the following questions:

STUDENT INPUT IN ESL WRITING CONFERENCES 44.5

1. To what extent do ESL writing conferences ensure student in-put?

2. To what extent is meaning negotiated in ESL writing confer-ences? (See Figure 1 for a definition of negotiation of meaning.)

3. What is the relationship between the discourse in the conferenceand successful revision in the subsequent draft?

The Educational Context

Subjects were selected from 21 students in an advanced ESLcomposition class at a large urban university. The teacher was anexperienced ESL composition instructor who had been using con-ferences as an integral part of her courses for the previous 4 years.The students wrote multiple drafts of expository papers, had ascheduled 20-minute conference every other week to discuss thedraft they were working on, and received written feedback onanother draft in the week between conferences. The teacher didnot read the drafts that were discussed in conference until theactual conference and students were asked to be ready to identifyareas they wanted to discuss when they came to conference.

METHODOLOGYSubjects

Three students were selected from three different culturalbackgrounds. The students had roughly equivalent proficiency, asdetermined by a holistic evaluation of all the papers each hadwritten during the semester. They were in the last course of anESL sequence that leads to Freshman Composition. Eachdemonstrated a working knowledge of academic rhetoric, andevidenced only relatively minor and infrequent sentence-levelproblems.

Two women and one man, all in their 20s, participated in thestudy. All three were full-time matriculated students in their junioryear majoring in a science. All had been in the United States for 6years and were fluent speakers of English who evidenced nodifficulty in understanding or participating in spoken discourse.Two of the subjects, Tranh (from Vietnam) and Zohre (from Iran),had attended high school in their native countries; Marigrace (fromthe Philippines) had attended public high school in the UnitedStates.

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Data Collection

With the students’ permission, the teacher taped all the confer-ences and collected copies of each draft of every paper. Oral dataconsisted of tapes of ten 20-minute conferences, 3 each for Zohreand Marigrace, and 4 for Tranh. Written data consisted of 2 draftseach of 10 papers (3 papers each for Zohre and Marigrace, and 4 forTranh). One draft of each paper was written before the conferenceand was discussed in the conference, and the other draft of thepaper was written after the conference.

Conference Data Analysis

The 10 tapes of the conferences were transcribed orthographi-cally. Our first attempts to apply established discourse analysissystems to the data did not account for elements that appearedimportant in the conferences. As has been the case for otherresearchers (Walker & Elias, 1987; Freedman & Sperling, 1985; vanLier, 1988), it became obvious that our data should suggest thecategories, rather than be made to fit imposed categories.Consequently, we looked for recurring patterns and variationsacross students that suggested to us how the discourse wasstructured and what the roles of each participant were in thediscourse. As new patterns and variations emerged, we went backand coded them in conferences that we had already analyzed.Through this iterative process, we identified seven features (seeFigure 1) for coding. After we had finished analyzing all the confer-ences once, we went through them two more times (independentlyand then together) to ensure that our analysis was consistent acrossall conferences.

After the features were identified and coded on the transcripts,we obtained frequency counts per conference for types of discoursestructures, topic nominations, invited nominations, turns per epi-sode, questions, and negotiations. We then calculated meanfrequencies per category for each student’s conferences.

Analysis of Revision and Negotiation

One of the goals of this research was to look at the relationshipbetween what was discussed in conference and what was revised inthe subsequent draft. We recognize that many other revisions mayhave occurred that were not discussed in conference and that manyother rhetorical problems may have remained in the drafts.However, we decided to limit ourselves in this study to an examina-tion of only those revisions that were discussed in the conference.Our overall goal was to determine what elements (if any) in the

STUDENT INPUT IN ESL WRITING CONFERENCES 447

FIGURE 1Discourse Features

Episodes: These are subunits of conferences, with a conference made up of a series ofepisodes. Each episode has a unique combination of topic and purpose such that a change ineither or both signifies a new episode. Episodes could be interrupted by others, continuing atthe end of the interruption.Discourse Structure: Each episode was characterized by a particular discourse structure. Sixtypes of structures emerged from the data.

1. Teacher talks and student backchannels1

2. Teacher questions and student answers.3. Teacher talks and student talks.4. Student talks and teacher backchannels.5. Student questions and teacher answers.6. A combination of the above.

Topic Nomination: The participant who introduced either a new topic and/or new purpose,effectively changing to a new episode, was said to have nominated the topic of the newepisode.Invited Nomination: An invited nomination occurs when the participant nominates the topicin response to a question such as, “What would you like to discuss?”Turns: A change of speaker signified a new turn, with the exception of backchannels. Thereare many theoretical positions on whether or not backchannels are turns (see van Lier, 1988,for example). However, these positions vary with the data being analyzed. Thus, we do notcount backchannels as turns because, while they showed the listener was attending, in ourdata they do not expand, comment on, agree or disagree with, or ask for clarification of whatthe speaker was saying.Questions: We counted the number of questions asked both by student and teacher. Thiscategory contains only those questions not used for negotiation (see below).Negotiation: Two types of negotiation were identified Negotiation of meaning, identified inmany second language acquisition studies (see, for example, Long, 1983) refers toconfirmation checks, comprehension checks, and clarification requests.

Negotiation of revision took place not when meaning needed to be clarified, but whenrevision strategies needed to be clarified. These consisted of (a) the student confirming theteacher’s suggestion of a need for revision or the use of a revision strategy (for example,saying, “So you are suggesting that I should change the order of these”); (b) either the teacherchecking to see if the student had understood a discussion of revision options or a studentchecking (for example, the teacher saying, “So what strategies can you use to revise this?”);(c) the student checking, while the need for revision was being discussed, to see if it wouldbe appropriate to revise in a certain way (for example, the student saying “What do you thinkif I added this example here?”); (d) the student stating that he or she did not understand eitherwhy a revision would be necessary or how to revise.

1 Backchannefs are verbal devices such as um-hum, yeah, and um that indicate that a listeneris attending to a speaker.

conference discourse concerning revision appeared to influencewhether and how the students revised those areas.

After we had analyzed the conference transcripts, we looked atthe student papers. We compared the conference draft to thatwritten subsequently, examining those places in the papers that hadbeen identified in the conferences as needing revision. Through this

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process, a pattern began to emerge: Revisions seemed to occurwhen they had been negotiated in the conference. Working withthis hypothesis, we went back to the transcripts and identified allthe discussions of revision and categorized them on the basis ofwhether negotiation had taken place. We again compared the draftbeing conference with the one written after the conference, thistime to discover which revisions had been made and how successfulthese had been. In the determination of successful revision, each ofthe researchers analyzed the written data individually, thencompared and discussed categorizations, reaching consensus onwhat was successful or not, and why. Next, we comparednegotiated discussions of revision to nonnegotiated ones to see thedegree to which each resulted in successful, unsuccessful, or norevision.

We defined successful revisions as those we judged had solved orimproved upon a rhetorical problem discussed in the conferencewhile being consistent with the writer’s purpose, main point, andaudience. This also allowed us to credit as successful those revisionsthat solved the rhetorical problem under discussion even if, when astrategy had been discussed in conference, the student chose to usea different one.

To illustrate, Tranh wrote a first draft about discrimination inwhich he had confused types of discrimination with causes ofdiscrimination and in which he had arrived at a superficialdiscussion. In the conference, the teacher elicited the fact thatTranh’s purpose was to examine the causes of discrimination so thatpeople could arrive at solutions to it. The teacher and Tranh thenwent on to examine whether or not his purpose had been achieved,discovering that it had not been and that Tranh was confused aboutthe difference between cause and type of discrimination. As theconference unfolded, they jointly generated possible causes ofdiscrimination and discussed how to focus on and develop onlythose parts of his paper related to his purpose.

After the conference, Tranh rewrote his introduction making it fithis purpose; he kept in causes he had discussed in the previous draftwhile he eliminated any discussion from the previous draft on typesof discrimination; he expanded his discussion of causes by addingones he had not mentioned in his previous draft; he providedconcrete illustrations for some of the causes he was writing about;he completely rewrote his conclusion to be consistent with hispurpose. These revisions were judged successful since they solvedrhetorical problems of the previous draft. Importantly, he was ableto decide on his own which parts of the text fit his purpose andshould remain and which didn’t and should be removed. Also, he


was able to generate causes that were not in his previous draft andthat had not been discussed in conference.

It is important to note that our definition of success is “local”: Wewere examining only the relationship between revisions discussed inthe conference and the revisions that appeared in the subsequentdraft. We recognize that future research needs to address rhetoricalissues not discussed in the conference, as well as the long-termeffects of conferencing on writing quality and revision.

RESULTSConference Data

The mean scores for each discourse feature and discoursestructure are displayed in Tables 1 and 2. These scores demonstratethat there was much variation across the students in the amount ofinterfactional work they did in their conferences. Frequencies forindividual conferences are not reported because there was little orno variation across each student’s conferences.

TABLE 1Comparison of Student input Discourse Features

The three students differed greatly in the amount of input theycontributed. First, the degree to which each set the agenda can beseen in the percent of nominations (see Table 1). While Zohre andTranh contributed roughly half of the topic nominations, Marigracecontributed only one fifth. Second, these three students differed inhow much interfactional work they did building the discourse (seeTable 2). Tranh consistently did more work than Zohre, who in turnconsistently did more than Marigrace. Although Zohre and Tranhmade about the same percent of topic nominations (Table 1), twice

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as many of Zohre’s nominations were invited nominations (41% forZohre vs. 20% for Tranh). Marigrace’s nominations, in addition tobeing relatively infrequent (19.50%), were often invited (42.88% ofher nominations were invited). Marigrace was also more ofteninvited to contribute input to the conference in other ways. Forexample, the teacher frequently used questions (14 times per con-ference) with Marigrace; in contrast, she asked far fewer questionsof Zohre and Tranh (6 and 6.75 per conference respectively) whomore often voluntarily contributed to the conferences.

The students also differed in the degree to which they clarifiedmeaning (Table 1). Marigrace was responsible for only 33.20% of themeaning negotiations (mean per conference = 1.66); Zohre wasresponsible for 55.75% (mean per conference = 6.30) and Tranh for60.78% (mean per conference = 7.75). This is another measuredemonstrating that Tranh did the most conversational work in theconferences, Zohre the next, and Marigrace considerably less thaneither of the other two.

The amount of work that the students did is also reflected in thedegree to which they used each type of discourse structure (seeTable 2). Those episodes where the student did less work than the

TABLE 2Comparison of Student Input: Discourse Structure (%)

teacher (teacher questions/student answers, and teacher talks/student backchannels) occurred most frequently with Marigrace(60.60%), the next most frequently for Zohre (50.00%), and


considerably less frequently for Tranh (14.28%). In contrast,episodes where the student did more of the work (student ques-tions/teacher answers, and student talks/teacher backchannels)never occurred in Marigrace’s conferences, occurred 8.33% of thetime in Zohre’s conferences, and 14.28% of the time in Tranh’s.Episodes in which student and teacher shared the work occurredleast frequently for Marigrace (21.21%), more frequently for Zohre(36.11%) and most frequently for Tranh (53.57%).

The Relationship Between Revision and Negotiation

Table 3 presents the results of the analysis of the relationshipbetween the revision of the written drafts and negotiation ofrevisions. These results support our hypothesis that there is apositive relationship between negotiation and successful revision.

TABLE 3Negotiations of Revisions (%)

When teacher and student negotiated revisions, the ensuingrevisions were almost always successful (see Table 3). In thefollowing excerpt from one of Zohre’s conferences, for example,the teacher and Zohre discuss the need to include more concretedetails in a paper written as a letter to convince a friend to come fora visit. In lines 9-10 Zohre negotiates by asking if a certain revisionstrategy would be appropriate, and in lines 27-29 she checks herunderstanding of the number of examples needed:

T: Um:: (teacher reading from Zohre’s text) “In addition there aremany cheap ethnic restaurants in which can satisfy the taste ofan adventurist person.” Here’s another place where I think that

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someone could get a real sense of the place um by describing alittle bit the kind of food you might get in one particular restauranta Thai restaurant or something like thatUmthe sensations the taste what the food looks like (.)like ok in different restaurants like I say what kind of food theyhaveUmhum, um: you know if I were if I were gonna write to someoneand I was gonna say um you can find many cheap ethnicrestaurants you can sa-satisfy the taste of an adventurist person thatmeans a taste I’ve never tasted before urn if I’m an adventurousperson I’m gonna try something new. So I’d try to think ofsomething exotic you know for example you could try Thai foodand you can taste the hot and sweet flavors in combination witheach other with coconut milk urnummake their mouths wateryayou know in a sense. You don’t have to the purpose of the paperisn’t to describe the restaurant so you don’t have to go into anygreat detail but if you could just have one line the dominant flavorsof a particular cuisine I think would make it very vivido.k. just one exampleyawould be enoughya

In the subsequent draft of the paper Zohre adds details that give thereader a more vivid picture of one of the restaurants:

there are many cheap restaurants in which can satisfy the taste of anadventurist person. For example, there is a Moroccan restaurant whichserves you with a spicy lentil based soup, platters of Arabic bread anddifferent entrees, most of which are chicken or lamb stewed withvarious combinations of fruits and vegetables. In this restaurant you eatwith your fingers like North African tradition.

These details were of Zohre’s own making, not a copy of thosegiven as an illustration by the teacher. She extracted the principleand applied it to her own writing.

Table 3 shows that all three students, not only Zohre, had a higherpercentage of successful revisions when negotiation had takenplace. Every time Marigrace and Zohre negotiated, their sub-sequent revisions were successful. When Tranh negotiated, 91.66%(11/12) of his revisions were successful. None of Tranh’s wereunsuccessful, but there is one instance where he did not revise

STUDENT INPUT lN ESL WRITING CONFERENCES 453

despite negotiation. This lack of revision, however, may be due toa discussion between the teacher and Tranh in which this revisionwas determined to be of relatively minor importance.

In contrast, when the students did not negotiate (i.e., when theteacher made revision suggestions and the student backchanneled),the subsequent revisions were often either unsuccessful or notattempted at all (Table 3). For example, in the same conferencereferred to above, Zohre did not negotiate when the teacher sug-gested using more specific details in another part of the paper.Zohre only backchanneled while the teacher spoke

T: . . . where I fel– I felt you needed the detail and (teacher readingZohre’s text) “it has really nice and big campus” this

Z: uhuhT: word “nice” means nothingZ: ohT: O.K. what does nice meanZ: O.K. like I knowT: um you might want to describe the campus brieflyZ: o.k.T: here it’s set on a hill lots of green and the architecture you knowZ: ya

The only change Zohre made in her next draft is from “it has reallynice and big campus” to “It has a nice and big campus.” She did notaddress the need for specific details.

We can also contrast this excerpt to the previous one While Zohredid not do a lot of conversational work in either excerpt, in theprevious one she did negotiate the revision suggestion, and sheacted on that suggestion successfully. She did not act on thenonnegotiated suggestion even though both suggestions addressedthe need for more detail.

The relationship between lack of negotiation and unsuccessful/unattempted revision holds for all three students (Table 3). Whenrevisions had not been negotiated, Zohre either revised unsuccess-fully (40%) or did not attempt revision at all (60%). While Tranh hadsome successful revisions (20%) when he didn’t negotiate, themajority were unsuccessful (60%) or not attempted (20%). AlthoughMarigrace had the highest number of successful revisions innonnegotiated instances (33.33%), she still produced a greaternumber of unsuccessful revisions (66.67%). In three out of the fourcases of nonnegotiated successful revision (both of Marigrace’s andone of Tranhs), the discussion included specific instructions forvery mechanical revisions, such as the switching of the order of two

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sentences. And, in these cases, the instructions were restated. Thesimplicity of these revisions and the restatements may explain why,even without negotiation, these revisions were successful.

DISCUSSION

Our results do not support some of the claims that have beenmade for conferences. Much of the literature suggests that the veryact of conferencing (see, for example, Carnicelli, 1980; Zamel, 1985)leads students to contribute input setting the agenda, making theirneeds known, expressing their ideas and opinions, and askingquestions and clarifying meaning. However, we have not found thisto be the case for all the students in this study. Like Jacobs andKarliner (1977) and Freedman and Sperling (1985), we have foundvariation across students in the way they interact with the teacher ina conference. Marigrace’s conferences were characterized by theteacher generating most of the input and doing most of theconversational work: The teacher nominated the topics, the teacherdid most of the talking, and the teacher used questions to engageMarigrace in the interaction. Marigrace primarily backchanneled.Tranhs conferences contrasted sharply with those of Marigrace. Hiswere characterized by student and teacher equally contributingtopic nominations, questions and talk, and backchannels; theyshared in the building of the discourse. Zohre’s conferences fellbetween these extremes. Thus, while a student may contribute inputto the conference, may set the agenda, and may negotiate meaning,these are not guaranteed—even in conferences with the same teacher.

Each student who participates in a conference brings to that con-ference a unique personality that may affect the ways in which thatstudent behaves in the conference. For example, the teacher’simpression, before the study began, was that Tranh was the mostassertive, Zohre the next, and Marigrace the least. If this is the casethis might be one explanation of why Tranh contributed the mostinput, Zohre somewhat less, and Marigrace the least.

The teacher’s role in producing variation in the conferencediscourse needs to be considered. One possibility is that the teachermay have adjusted to the student’s individual discourse style, thusreinforcing it, whether or not this resulted in the student activelyparticipating in the conference. For instance, the greater amount ofconversational work done by the teacher in Marigrace’s confer-ences, asking many questions for example, may be an adjustment toMarigrace’s lack of voluntary input and may have encouraged herto continue to rely on the teacher to do most of the interfactionalwork in the conference.


However, it is also possible that the teacher gave differentialtreatment to students for reasons other than the teacher adjusting tothe students’ own discourse styles, as Freedman and Sperling (1985)suggested in their study. In our study, once students’ behaviors inconference and in class had been observed, the teacher may havesubconsciously behaved in ways consistent with her expectations ofthe students. The teacher may have accepted less participation fromMarigrace in the conference because she evaluated her as a lesscapable student on the basis of her initial conferences and revisions.On the other hand, the teacher may have been more encouraging ofdiscussion with students such as Tranh and Zohre who moreactively participated in conferences and who revised their papersmore successfully.

In addition, as members of diverse cultures, ESL students comewith rules of speaking that may conflict with those of U.S.classrooms and with those teachers might like to see operate in con-ferences. These rules of speaking may also play a role in thestudents’ perceptions of theirs and their teachers’ roles in a confer-ence. As Phillips (1972) has demonstrated, for example, studentsoften bring to the classroom rules of speaking from their owncultures that work differently from those of the new culture. In ourstudy, it is possible that the variation we have seen across the threestudents may result, at least in part, from these students usingculturally diverse rules for how much teachers and students controlthe discourse when interacting with each other.

Students may have also acquired rules of speaking from typicalU.S. classrooms that may also conflict with those of the conference.For example, in many U.S. classrooms it is the teacher who typicallyinitiates and questions, the student who responds, and the teacherwho evaluates (see, for example, Mehan, 1979). Again, this mayresult in some students contributing more input than others. In ourstudy, it is possible that Marigrace had been influenced by her highschool education in the United States and was consequently follow-ing that discourse structure.

In the end, however, regardless of why variation across studentsexisted, the results show that conferences do not necessarily dowhat the literature claims they do—they do not necessarily result instudent input. In sum, instructional events such as conferences aredynamic, lending themselves to the myriad influences andinterpretations of their participants.

Conferences also do not necessarily result in revision, and whenrevision occurs after a conference, it is not always successful. Ourdata suggest that negotiation of meaning does play a role insubsequent revision and we need to ask why negotiation would lead

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to more successful revisions. First, just as negotiation clarifiesmeanings in ordinary conversations, negotiation in the conferencemay clarify the need for revision and the strategies to undertake therevision. Students, therefore, may understand more clearly what torevise, how to revise, and why they need to do so. In addition,negotiation may lead to better retention of what has been discussed.Negotiation requires the student to be more actively involved in thediscussion either by asking questions or answering them, which maylead to better retention (see, for example, Stevick 1976). Finally, itis also possible that students negotiate points where they mostclearly see the need for revision; they may already be predisposedto revising in the area being negotiated and may be more interestedin discussing how to do so. For example, in Zohre’s case, there areseveral instances where she shows very little interest in the revisionthe teacher has nominated for discussion, and in fact she does notmake these revisions in subsequent drafts.

Although we do not know all the characteristics of discourse thatmight lead to successful revision, this study suggests that negotiationplays an important role. The student who was conversationallyactive (Tranh) and the student who was more dependent on teacherinput and direction (Marigrace) both demonstrated more successfulrevisions when negotiation occurred. However, we have seen thatdespite the claims made, conferences do not ensure that negotiationwill take place any more than they necessarily result in a great dealof student input and control.

IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

We cannot expect that students will come to writing conferencesunderstanding the purposes of such conferences, the rules ofspeaking, and the respective roles of the participants. Since thequality of their conferences and revisions can be affected byparticipant expectations, we must teach students the purposes con-ferences can serve, and stress that the discourse and the teacher-student relationship can vary greatly between a conference andclassroom. In a sense, we need to give students permission to breakthe rules they may have learned previously and we need to teachthem new rules for a new speech event.

This can be accomplished in several ways. Teachers can havestudents discuss the rules of speaking the students feel governclassroom behavior, making these rules explicit. The teacher canthen discuss conferencing with students in terms of the goals of con-ferences, the roles of participants, and the rules of speaking. Con-ferences and classrooms can be compared and contrasted so that


students understand the differences and gain permission to behavedifferently in conferences.

Furthermore, our results suggest that students might benefit fromexplicit instruction concerning the importance of their conversa-tional input and of the negotiation of meaning; in addition, studentsneed to be taught concrete ways to achieve these goals. We haveexperimented with bringing the transcripts of the students in thisstudy into our ESL writing classes and having our students analyzethem. From this, the students have seen the differences among theconferences, and they have learned specific techniques forcontributing input and negotiating meaning and revisions.

As teachers, we need to examine our own behaviors as well. Onemeans of doing so is to tape our conferences (with permission fromour students) and then examine them with particular questions inmind. For example, we can ask if we control the discourse, therebydiscouraging our students from participating in the conference. Bycoding how and the degree to which the teacher and studentnominate topics, and the relative amounts of teacher and studenttalk, we can begin to answer this question. We can also compare thetreatment we give to different students, seeing if all are given equalopportunities to contribute input and negotiate meaning. Inaddition, we can examine the degree to which we negotiatemeaning when we want to clarify for ourselves or for the students.There are many questions to be asked, and taping and analyzing thediscourse in our conferences is one means of answering thesequestions.

In composition research we must move beyond an assessment ofthe effectiveness of conferences based primarily on student andteacher evaluations. While it is important to know the participants’attitudes towards conferences, and the criteria by which studentsand teachers judge the effectiveness of conferences, we need tounderstand how discourse is jointly built by the participants, andwhat characteristics of the discourse influence “success,” defined aseither improvements in subsequent revisions or in terms of morepositive student attitudes. We also need studies that compare thesuccess of revisions made after conferences with those made afterwritten comments so that we can examine the relative effectivenessof these different forms of feedback.

Finally, ESL composition teachers are indebted to those whoteach native speakers and who have conducted research withnative-speaker writers. They have taught us much about compos-ing, and over time we have discovered that their findings are oftenapplicable to ESL students. However, while the results of this studyare similar to those of Jacobs and Karliner’s (1977) study of native

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speakers, we should keep in mind that ESL students bring withthem diverse cultures and languages. This fact argues for moreresearch conducted with an ESL population. There may be, forexample, many student characteristics, such as culture, thatpotentially affect how students conference or how their teachersrespond to them. For that matter, teachers may differ greatly fromeach other in how they interact with their students in conferences(see, for example, Katz, 1988). These factors, among many others,need to be systematically studied since writing conferences are notstable entities but rather, dynamic events affected by context andparticipants.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper is a revised version of presentations made at the 22nd Annual TESOLConvention in Chicago, March 1988; the Second Language Acquisition Forum inHonolulu, March 1988; and the 1989 Conference on College Composition andCommunication in Seattle, March 1989. We would like to thank the students whoparticipated in this study and Anne Katz, Joanne Cavallero, Kathi Bailey, TimHacker, and two anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers for their valuablesuggestions on the paper.

THE AUTHORS

Lynn M. Goldstein is Associate Professor of TESOL/applied linguistics and thecoordinator of campus-wide writing courses at the Monterey Institute ofInternational Studies. She has published articles on second language acquisitionand on dialogue journals, and is the 1987 recipient of the TESOL/Newbury Housedistinguished research award.

Susan M. Conrad teaches ESL at Central Washington University. She has alsotaught ESL and composition in California, New York City, and Korea, and as aPeace Corps volunteer in Lesotho. She has published on dialogue journals, andhas made presentations on discourse analysis and composition.

REFERENCES

Carnicelli, T. A. (1980). The writing conference A one-to-one conversa-tion. In T. R. Donovan & B. W. McClelland (Eds.), Eight approaches toteaching composition (pp. 101-131). Urbana, IL: NCTE.


Freedman, S., & Katz, A. (1987). Pedagogical interaction during thecomposing process: The writing conference. In A. Matsuhasi (Ed.),Writing in real time: Modeling production processes (pp. 58-80). NewYork: Academic Press.

Freedman, S., & Sperling, M. (1985). Written language acquisition: Therole of response and the writing conference. In S. Freedman (Ed.),Acquisition of written language: Response and revision (pp. 106-130).Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Jacobs, S., & Karliner, A. (1977). Helping writers to think: The effect ofspeech roles in individual conferences on the quality of thought instudent writing. College English, 38, 489-505.

Katz, A. (1988). Responding to student writers: The writing conferences ofsecond language learners. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, StanfordUniversity, Palo Alto.

Long, M. H. (1983). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation andthe negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4, 126-141.

Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Philips, S. U. (1972). Participant structure and communicative compe-tence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. InC. Cazden, V. Johns, & D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of language in theclassroom (pp. 370-394). New York: Teachers College Press.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematic forthe organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 694-735.

Sinclair, J. McH., & Coulthard, R. M. (1975). Towards an analysis ofdiscourse. London: Longman.

Sokmen, A. A. (1988). Taking advantage of conference-centered writing.TESOL Newsletter, 22 (l), 1,5.

Stevick, E. W. (1976). Memory, meaning, and method. Rowley, MA:Newbury House.

van Lier, L. (1988). The classroom and the language learner. London:Longman.

Walker, C. P., & Elias, D. (1987). Writing conference talk: Factorsassociated with high- and low-rated writing conferences. Research in theTeaching of English, 21, 266-285.

Zamel,7V. (1985). Responding to student writing. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (1),79-97.

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Teaching the English Articlesas a Binary System

PETER MASTERCalifornia State University, Fresno

The English article system can be taught as a binary divisionbetween classification (a and Ø) and identification (the). All theother elements of article usage can be understood within thisframework, allowing a one form/one function correspondence fora and the. Furthermore, the notions of classification and identifi-cation can be introduced as distinct concepts before the variousrules for article usage are taught. This simplified schema ispresented as a pedagogical tool for selecting the appropriatearticle, a universally acknowledged difficulty for nonnativespeakers of English.

The English article system is one of the most difficult aspects ofEnglish grammar for nonnative speakers and one of the latest to befully acquired. It appears deceptively easy to most native speakers,who usually have difficulty articulating the rules for article usagemuch beyond “It sounds right.” And since the articles are eitherunstressed (a(n) and the) or invisible (the zero article [Ø]), it isdifficult for students to gain sufficient input from native speakers toacquire the system. Furthermore, the articles, like the other late-acquired elements rarely cause misunderstanding when misused inspoken language. It is usually only when ESL/EFL students have towrite that they become aware that they lack the basic conceptsnecessary to guide them in choosing the correct article.

There are comparatively few attempts in the literature to providea coherent grammar for teaching the articles as a system. Whitman(1974) bases his pedagogical sequence on the assumption that En-glish article structure is “a sequence of quantification anddetermination rather than a choice between specified andunspecified (p. 253). He delineates six steps for teaching thesystem:

1. Quantity (Singular and plural count nouns)John has a book versus John has [Ø] four books.

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2. Generic pluralAll apples are red versus [Ø] Apples are red.

3. Noncount nouns. (Noncount vs. count and a lot of vs. muchand many)John drank a lot of water versus John bought a lot of books.Do we have much water? versus Do we have many books?

4. Determiners (which- NP questions and first/subsequent men-tion)Which books are red? The red books are on the table.I read a book. The book was called Dracula.

5. Quantity and determinerOne of the books on that table is blue.

6. Generic articlesElephants never forget.An elephant never forgets.The elephant never forgets.

Whitman maintains that generic usages of a/n and the “are not thatcommonly found” and are “probably best delayed considerably” inteaching the article system (p. 261).

McEldowney (1977) takes a form/content approach to theteaching of the articles. She says that four types of meaning arecommunicated by the presence or absence of a, the, or -s in variouscombinations in noun phrases: (a) general or particular, (b) any orspecial, (c) countable or uncountable, and (d) singular or plural. Shethen cites three universal types of error which she claims occurirrespective of Ll: (a) omission of a/the/-s, (b) wrong insertion ofa/the/-s, and (c) confusion of a/the/-s. With these taxonomies inview, McEldowney proposes the following “stages of learning”(p. 110):

1. Classificationa + N (any one) versus the + N (the special one).Choose a bag. versus Take the red bag.N + s (plural classification)These are bags.

2. Pluralitysome + N + s (any ones)Choose some bags from the collection.the + N + s (the special ones)Take the red bags.

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3. Mass or substanceN (the substance in general)Mud is found at the bottom of rivers.some + N (any substance)Some mud is grey; some mud is black.the + N (the special substance)Point to the black mud.

4. Numbered specific; genericnumeral N + s (any numbered ones)Choose six pens from the collection.a + N/the + N (ones in general)/the + N + sAn elephant never forgets.The elephant never forgets.The elephants never forget.

McEldowney’s sequence links the English articles to threeconcepts: any (a) to mark choice, special (the) to mark specifica-tion, and general (-s and later a and the) to mark generalization. Herdecision to resort to the -s plural in order to avoid referring to thezero article, however, results in the neglect of the relatively frequentØ + noncount noun category (e.g., This battery needs water).

Pica (1983) argues not for a new pedagogical sequence but for theinclusion of discourse-related rules in the presentation of the Englisharticle system. She based her research on a perusal of the kinds ofarticle rules typically presented in ESL/EFL grammar texts andcompares them with the article use of native speakers in requestingand giving directions and ordering food at restaurants. Sheconcludes that “article use may have more to do with communica-tion and communicative competence than with grammar and lin-guistic competence” (p. 231) and makes the following recommen-dations for instruction:

1. Since articles are often not necessary in immediate environ-ments, activities like ordering food should be practiced first“as a nonfrustrating lesson for beginning students” (p. 232).

2. First mention a and subsequent mention the are easy to teachfrom a pedagogical point of view but are not used asfrequently as preforms (i.e., possessive pronouns) in naturalspeech.

3. Since assessing the knowledge of the hearer is often no simplematter, students should be encouraged to always use the witha qualifying description rather than just a bare noun (e. g., thenearest post office vs. the post office; the university bookstorevs. the bookstore).

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4. Dialogues should be used to provide students with relevantexamples of article use and the effect of using an incorrectarticle should be discussed with the class to increase awarenessof native usage.

5. Students should be engaged in experiences outside theclassroom to foster natural acquisition.

Pica’s points are generally well taken, especially if spoken com-municative competence is the goal and especially for students atlower levels of proficiency. With more advanced students,especially if the goal is written competence (where article errorsreally stand out), Pica’s suggestions would need to be supplementedwith more detailed aspects of the article system.

Master (1983) presented a detailed schema for teaching the Eng-lish article system, which was subsequently refined in otherpublications (Master 1986a, 1986b, 1988a, 1988b). This systempresented a hierarchical sequence of six questions which must beasked about each noun in a piece of discourse:

1. Is the noun countable (singular or plural) or uncountable (singular)?2. Is the noun indefinite or definite?3. Is the noun postmodified or not?4. Is the noun specific or generic?5. Is the noun common or proper?6. Is the noun nonidiomatic or idiomatic (e.g., a set phrase, a title or

label reduction)? (Master, 1986b, p. 204)

A controlled study (Master, 1986c) in which this 6-point schema wasused in the experimental group versus no systematic treatment ofthe article system in the control group found significant im-provement on a fairly reliable article test (r = .79) between pre- andpostadministrations. The treatment, consisting of 6 hours of instruc-tion spread over a period of 9 weeks, provided the intermediateuniversity-level experimental group with a systematic approach tothe article system in which the six steps were presented one at atime, each building on the former in a hierarchical fashion. Thecontrol group received no explicit, systematic approach to thearticle system, although articles were corrected on writtencompositions.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE BINARY SCHEMA

Although the schemas described above cover the majority ofsituations in which articles occur, they are somewhat unwieldy for

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students to use. Lisovsky (personal communication, 1987) createdan exercise in which he asked his students to identify whether anoun was [± count], [± definite], [± postmodified], or [± generic]before they selected the correct article. He found little correlationbetween the students’ ability to classify the noun and their choice ofthe correct article. Thus, despite considerable time spent onteaching these distinctions, students appeared not to be able to usethis knowledge in choosing the article in an exercise. It would thusseem that the significant improvement on the article test describedin Master (1986c) arose from the focusing of students’ attention onthe need for articles in English rather than from any explicit methodfor choosing the article correctly.

What is needed is a description of the articles that would conformto Bolinger’s (1977) notion that “the natural condition of a languageis to preserve one form for one meaning, and one meaning for oneform” (p. x), i.e., a generalized function of a and a generalizedfunction of the. Both students and teachers would welcome astraightforward rule of thumb that accounts for article usage in thegreatest number of cases.

A one form/one function correspondence can be approximatedwhen Ø is used to classify a noun and the to identify it (as a isderived from the word one and therefore only applies to singularcountable nouns, it is considered a variant form of Ø rather than aseparate category of articles). This binary division results from arejuggling of various descriptions of the English articles in order tosimplify their pedagogical presentation. The term classification, orvariations of it, has been used before in describing the articlesystem. Kruisinga (1932) used the term classifying (p. 242) todescribe the secondary or generic function of the definite articlewhose function was to make a class noun into “a synonym for thewhole group” (p. 245). He thus used the term for a binary division,but only to separate specific from generic usage. McEldowney(1977) used the word classify (p. 110) in describing plural countablenouns that do not require an article (i. e., take the zero article). As foridentification, Grannis (1972) spoke of a “conspiracy of uniqueness”(p. 275) in which he sought to give a single meaning to the varioususes of the; this exactly parallels the aim of the present study. He didnot, however, apply the same notion to a and Ø.

In formal linguistic terms, determining the correct article in Eng-lish requires the simultaneous consideration of four features:definiteness [± definite], specificity [±specific], countabil ity[±count], and number [±singular]. Number really only applies to [±count] nouns and should therefore only be considered a featureof that subset. The four possibilities that result from combining the


features [±definite] and [±specific] are shown in the followingexamples:

la. [–definite] [+specific] A tick entered my ear.b. [–definite][–specific] A tick carries disease.c. [+definite] [+specific] The computer is down today.d. [+definite][–specific] The computer is changing our lives.

The new approach that the binary schema proposes is the collapsingof the features [±definite] and [±specific] into a single feature[±identified]. The feature [identified], or identification, thusincludes the features [+definite] [+specific] whereas [–identified],or classification, includes the features [–definite] [–specific]. Thebinary [ + identified] schema is essentially an argument for theprimacy of Examples lb and lC over la and 1d. In other words, itsuggests emphasizing the feature [ + definite ] and subsuming thefeature [ + specific ] for pedagogical purposes. The feature[ + identified] thus comes close to the traditional feature [ + definite ].

A justification for this attempt to simplify the article system is setforth in Stern’s (1983) description of pedagogical grammars: “Apedagogical grammar is an interpretation and selection for lan-guage teaching purposes of the description of a language, based notonly on linguistics but also on psychological and educationalcriteria” (p. 186). The justification for the new terminology is thatthe terms identified and classified embrace a larger concept thandefiniteness, and, while they reduce the descriptive adequacyrequired in formal linguistics, they allow a better description andexplanation of the article system for educational and psychologicalpurposes.

The Effect of Ignoring Specificity in Indefinite Nouns

Ignoring the feature [±specific] in indefinite nouns is equivalentto saying that [–definite] embraces [–specific] or that all uses of a(and Ø) are essentially generic. The specific/generic distinctionindicates when a noun phrase is a “real” or actual noun as opposedto when it is the idea or concept of a noun. In the sentence A tickentered my ear, a tick is specific because an actual tick entered myear. On the other hand, in the sentence A tick can carry disease, atick is generic because it does not refer to an actual tick but ratherto anything that can fit into the class of things called “ticks.” This isobviously a very subtle distinction. Burton-Roberts (1976), forexample, argues that a scientist in John is a scientist is specificwhereas a scientist in A physicist is a scientist is generic. Generic

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NPs are difficult to identify because they are based entirely oncontext, i.e., they can only be determined from discourseconsiderations and/or the nature of the sentence. This led someresearchers (e.g., Chafe 1969) to conclude that it was really the verbthat determined genericness and not the noun phrase. Celce-Murciaand Larsen-Freeman (1983) speak of the potential ambiguity of theindefinite article in a sentence such as I needed a book, whichallows both the specific interpretation but I didn’t have it and thegeneric interpretation but I didn’t have one.

The binary schema thus seeks to diminish the importance of thedifference between Examples la and lb. The argument is thatwhether or not we mean a specific, actual tick in Example la or ageneric one in Example lb, we still classify that tick when we usethe article a. These sentences could be paraphrased in the followingway:

2a. Something that can be classified as a tick entered my ear.b. Something that can be classified as a tick carries disease.

The major consequence of the feature [–specific] (or [+generic])is that subsequent mention constraints do not apply to the genericnoun phrase, generic noun phrases do not allow the unstresseddeterminer some, and generic a cannot occur with nonrestrictiverelative clauses. However, spending class time on a distinction thatrequires the same article (a in this case, although the same applies tothe zero article) seems unnecessary in all but the most advancedlevels of ESL/EFL instruction. This is especially true when the[ + specific] status of a noun phrase is ambiguous, as shown in thefollowing passage from Newsweek (“Lost Signals,” 1989):

Husbands and wives [–spec] tend to bring their own scripts [–spec] toa relationship [–spec] and assume, mistakenly, that their spouse[+spec?] can read their emotional signals [+spec?] loud and clear. Theresult [+spec] of this unwitting breakdown [+spec] in communication[–spec] is often a vicious cycle [–spec] of attack and retaliation[–spec]. Now, through adaptation [–spec] of a technique [–spec]called “cognitive therapy” [—spec], counselors [—spec?] are helping topatch up troubled marriages [–spec?] by teaching couples [–spec?] tobecome better senders and receivers [–spec?] of emotional messages[–spec?]. (p. 3)

The problem in this passage is that the author shifts from a clearlygeneric introduction into an example, and it is hard to say (and notparticularly important, in my view) whether the example refers toactual [+specific] or to representative [–specific] spouses orsituations,


The Effect of Ignoring Specificity in Definite Nouns

Ignoring the feature [±specific] in definite nouns is equivalent tosaying that [+definite] embraces [+specific] or that all uses of theare essentially specific. As already noted, the specific versus genericdistinction shows when a noun phrase is the idea or concept of anoun versus when it is a “real” or actual noun. The same distinctionis also apparent in the sentences The computer is changing our livesversus The computer is down today. Although this is a moresubstantial difference and one that must be recognized, generic theis a comparatively infrequent usage.

In the proposed binary schema, generic the would count as[+identified] and not as classified, thus posing a potential problemfor the schema. There are some who believe, however, that genericthe is not so very different from specific the. Burton-Roberts (1976)states:

Generic NP’s mention individuals (ones that happen to be classes) just asmy brother and the sun mention individuals. Such NPs then arefundamentally distinct from NPs determined by generic a, which do notmention individuals. . . . definite NPs appearing . . . in sentences which. . . mention individuals can be acceptably interpreted as generic (forthe simple reason that they are themselves individuals, and have thesame distribution as other NP’s mentioning individuals). (p. 435)

Burton-Roberts implies that the identified quality of even ageneric NP like the computer is retained. That is, we do notimmediately summon up the classifying notion “one of a group” forthis NP until we have decoded the sentence in which it occurs. Andeven when we understand that the NP requires a genericinterpretation, we seem to interpret the class through the individual.For this reason, generic the is described as “the identification of aclass” in the binary schema and is considered to be [+identified].This is further justified by the fact that generic the has certainqualities (e.g., it is often preferred when the noun is an agent ofchange) which distinguish it from generic a and Ø (see Master, 1987,who found generic the to occur comparatively infrequently, withjust under 350 instances in 50,000 words of text from ScientificAmerican, a genre in which one would expect considerable genericusage).

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS

It was suggested earlier that one of the pedagogical advantages ofthe binary schema is that classification and identification can bepresented to students as concepts before the linkage to articles is

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explained. After this dichotomy has been explained, the countabil-ity of the noun must also be considered.

Classification can be introduced by having students sort a pile ofobjects into categories: These are books/These are pencils/This ispaper. Or a teacher can go around the classroom asking, “What’sthis?” (It’s a blackboard/It’s a light switch/It’s chalk.) For moreadvanced students, one could set classifying situations, e.g., “Howwould you classify or describe the school/this student/the filmyou’ve been watching?” (It’s a language school/She’s an Italian/It’sa comedy.) Or, since definitions always require classification, onecould ask how a student would define a thermometer/a calculator/a paragraph. All responses to the questions presented above requireØ or a in the answer, the distinction entirely dependent on thenumber and countability of the noun. Students will sometimesspontaneously recognize this on their own. If not, it must be pointedout to them.

Identification can be introduced by having students identifyspecific members within each category: This is the blue book/These are the red books. The questions “Which one is this?/Whichones are these?” force an identifying response. Although theclassifying question “What’s this?” could also elicit an identifyingresponse in the real world (e.g., It’s the key you accused me ofstealing/it’s the remains of the steak you’ve been broiling for the lasthalf hour), the use of the question words what for classification andwhich for identification is recommended in order to keep thepedagogical distinction clear.

Ultimately, the student should be able to understand thedifference between the two. For example, the teacher could say,pointing to a student:

3a. How would you classify this person? (She’s a student.)b. How would you identify this person? (She’s the student with the red

hat./it’s Joan.)

Names (proper nouns) identify, as do possessive determiners (e.g.,my, his, their), possessive -’s (e. g., John’s, the girl’s), demonstratives(e.g., this, that), and certain other determiners (e.g., either/neither,each, and every). The articles Ø and a classify, as do the determinerssome/any, no and one.

Countability and NumberThe purpose of the binary schema is to simplify article choice by

reducing the number of features required to correctly determinethe article from four to three. We turn now to the features of


countability and number, which the schema cannot dispense with.Countability must be considered only when the noun is classified

([–identified) because identified nouns require the whether thenoun is countable or not. The primary article occurring withuncountable and countable nouns is Ø. In a tally of all the articlesused with common nouns in an issue of Newsweek (1989) (N =5004), 46% of the nouns took Ø, 35% took the, and 19% took a. If a andØ are combined, the function of articles, at least in this genre, is toclassify (65%), nearly twice as often as it is to identify (35%). The tallyalso underscores the importance of the zero article, which has oftenbeen neglected in article studies because it is difficult to count (e.g.,Brown, 1973; Lamotte, Pearson-Joseph, and Zupko, 1982). One ofthe reasons Ø occurs more often is that it applies to both noncountnouns and to plural count nouns, not to mention the numerous casesin which Ø occurs with a singular count noun (e.g., at school, onedge, the smell of onion, hunting fox). Thus, nouns are typicallyclassified with Ø, and only with a discrete, singular count noun is arequired. In other words, a fully separate feature indicating[± singular] is really not justified given the comparative infrequencyof a. This reduces the number of “features” governing the articlesfrom three to two: [ ±identified] and [±count ].

The best way to assign the articles, as other writers have pointedout (e.g., Huckin & Olsen, 1983), is through a flow chart in whichthe classification/identification dichotomy is invoked first,followed by the count/noncount dichotomy and finally by singular/plural considerations, as shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 1Chart for Determining the English Articles

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Teaching the Details of Article Usage Within the Binary Framework

After the concepts of classification and identification have beenpresented and practiced, a chart (see Figure 2) can be drawn on theblackboard—the left side for classification, the right for identifica-tion—to show how the details of article usage can be interpreted ina binary manner. The count/noncount distinction is then discussedas a subset of classification as this distinction is not necessary whenthe is present.

FIGURE 2Summarized Aspects of Classification and ldentification

First and subsequent mention. The next step is to teach the notion offirst and subsequent mention. First mention, which requires Ø or a,is simply a form of classification in the binary schema. The first timewe are introduced to a new noun, it is simply a member of a class.The classifying article can be paraphrased with the words noparticular or one we haven’t seen before. So we might say: "A man[no particular man] is walking down a road [no particular road]with some wood [no particular wood] ." The subsequent mention ofthat noun of course requires the: The man is old, the road is long,and the wood is heavy. But the reason the is required is that thenouns are now identified. To use the questions described earlier, wecould ask of the first mention picture, “What’s that?” (It’s a man/It’sa road/it’s wood.) However, in the subsequent mention picture wecould ask, “Which man/road/wood is that?” (It’s the old man whois carrying some wood/it’s the road that the old man is walking


along/It’s the wood that the old man is carrying.) Notice that if wehad asked the which question of the first mention picture, a logicalresponse would have been “How should I know?” or, imagining anidentifying response, “I suppose it’s the one the speaker/writer istalking about.” On our chart (Figure 2), we would put “firstmention” on the classification side and “subsequent mention” on theidentification side, and then provide students lots of practice inwhich they can apply just this principle.

Ranking adjectives and shared knowledge. Ranking adjectives andshared knowledge automatically identify nouns, so they alwaysrequire the. They both belong under the identification column ofthe chart. A typical way to paraphrase the in English is to say “theonly one.” Thus, when we say “the most beautiful/the next/the onlycity,” for example, representing the three kinds of rankingadjectives (superlative, sequential, unique), we know that there isonly one city that can be meant. Similarly, with shared knowledge,when we say “the moon/the school/the window,” representing thetwo most common kinds of shared knowledge (universal andregional/local), we know that only one is being referred to. It musttherefore be identified.

Postmodification. In teaching the effect of postmodification onarticle use, an amorphous shape can be drawn on the blackboard torepresent a noncount noun and the word water written (using Ø andthereby classifying it) inside that shape. The word salt/spring/lakeis then written in front of that word and students are asked what thearticle should now be. Invariably, they will say “the.” This responsecan be used as a jumping off point to introduce the notion ofpostmodification because it is only when an uncountable noun ispostmodified that the is required. This is introduced by drawing abroken line to isolate a small part of the amorphous shape, to limitthe quantity. In this way, a sentence like Water is necessary for lifecan be contrasted with The water in this glass is dirty. In terms ofclassification/identification, when we speak of water or salt/spring/lake water, we are speaking of no particular water but rathera type of water, which naturally comes under classification. Whenwe postmodify water, essentially limiting it, then we have identifiedthat water. So “limiting postmodification” is placed under theidentification column because one of the ways to identifysomething is to postmodify it.

After students have had a chance to practice moving from aclassified to an identified noncount or plural count noun by meansof postmodification, another example is introduced: A thermometeris an instrument that measures temperature. This is an example

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where postmodification does not require identification, which isalways the case in definitions or, for that matter, in any postmodify-ing phrase whose function is to classify or define rather than toidentify. The distinction is shown in the following example:

4a. Houdini was the man who could open any lock. [identification]b. Houdini was a man who could open any lock. [classification]

In the first sentence, we single out Houdini (i.e., identify him) asbeing the one who was perhaps the best at this particular skill. In thesecond, we place Houdini in a group of like others (i.e., we classifyhim). “Defining postmodification” is therefore placed under theclassification heading opposite “limiting postmodification.”

Descriptive versus partitive. A slightly more complicated version ofthis technique applies to postmodification with of-phrases. If the of-phrase serves to describe the headnoun (e.g., the diameter of acircle, the length of a room), then it limits that noun, which servesto identify it because there is usually only one. Furthermore, suchphrases can be inverted into possessive structures (a circle’sdiameter, a room’s length) and we have already seen that possessivedeterminers always serve to identify nouns. If, on the other hand,the headnoun of the of-phrase represents a portion, part (hence theterm partition), or measure of the object of the preposition of (e.g.,a cup of coffee, a length of eight feet), then it presents one of manypossible divisions of that object (we could have a pound/bag/teaspoon of coffee or a height/diumeter/thickness of eight feet),which serves to classify it. Partitive phrases cannot be inverted intopossessive structures (*coffee’s cup, *eight feet’s length). Thus,“descriptive of-phrases” is placed under the identification columnof the chart and “partitive of-phrases”’ under the classificationcolumn.

Intentional vagueness. One special use of descriptive of- phrases withØ rather than the occurs frequently in scientific prose. A phrase likethe replication of cells, a typical descriptive of-phrase, whichusually takes the, is sometimes rendered with the zero article,replication of cells. Christophersen (1939) noted that “whencontinuate-words [i.e., noncount nouns] and plurals are used inzero-form [i.e., with the zero article]. . . . only the commonproperties of the object denoted are thought of, not special features,and as for quantity, the limits are imagined as vague and indefi-nite” (p. 66). This usage is commonly referred to as “intentionalvagueness.” Replication of cells represents a less focused notion andhence more a type of classification than the replication of cells,


which represents a focused, identified activity. Thus, “intentionalvagueness” is also placed in the classification column.

Other classifying conditions. One of the more important classifyingconditions is the description of general characteristics, often withthe verb have:

5a. A zebra has [Ø] stripes.b. Jupiter has a red spot.c. San Francisco has a population of 800,000.

Another is the use of classifying noun phrases after existential thereand it:

6a. There is a book on the table.b. There are [Ø] holes in your sweaterc. There is [Ø] paint in your hair.d. It’s a boy.e. It’s [Ø] sugar.

This category subsumes the whole notion of generic noun phrases,that is, abstract representatives of a class rather than actualrepresentatives, because an abstract representative is a classifica-tion.

Proper nouns. One thing that the classification/identification dichot-omy cannot simplify or explain is the use of the and Ø with propernouns. It seems entirely arbitrary, for example, that rivers requirethe (the Amazon, the Mississippi) whereas parks require Ø(Yosemite Park, Yellowstone National Park). For this reasonHuebner (1983) and others count articles with proper nouns as anentirely separate class. Those proper nouns that take Ø, however,can be both classified and identified, as in the following examples:

7a. There’s a Mr. Smith to see you, sir.b. This was not the London I knew.

One observation concerning proper nouns, although it does not fitthe generalization that the identifies and Ø classifies may, however,be useful to ESL/EFL teachers. The names of political divisions(China, California, Chicago) typically take Ø whereas the titles ofpolitical divisions (the People’s Republic of China, the state ofCalifornia, the city of Chicago) take the. Similarly, the names ofindividual people, mountains, and islands (John Smith, Mt. Everest,Wake Island) take Ø whereas the names of families, mountainranges, or groups of islands (the Smiths, the Himalayas, theHawaiian Islands) take the.

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Idiomatic phrases. Another aspect that the classification/identifica-tion dichotomy cannot really explain is article use in idiomaticphrases. The use of Ø with formal names of diseases (typhoid,cancer, meningitis) as opposed to the with less formal names (theflu, the bends, the plague), the fact that we can use Ø with half (halfa loaf) but must use a with other fractions (an eighth of a loaf), theuse of Ø with few and little to indicate a negative context (fewpeople [=not many] remember him) in contrast to the use of a withthe same words to signify a positive or neutral context (a few people[=a small group] came to the hospital) —all these, not to mentionthe numerous set phrases (e.g., hand in hand, go by the board, atsea, all in a dither), are the arbitrary phrases that characterizeidiomatic usage. Idiomatic usage remains, for the student, in therealm of things which must be learned and memorized and forwhich there is rarely a productive rule. There are some cases,however, where the difference between the adverbial and thenominal usage of an idiomatic phrase reflects the classification/identification dichotomy (e.g., with in case of, in fact, and at last)although the phrase only retains its true idiomatic sense as anadverbial:

Adverbial Usage (classified) Nominal Usage (identified)

In case of fire, break the glass. In the case of fire, the insurancewon’t cover it.

In fact the earth is a minor planet. He lied in the fact that he didn’t tellthe whole truth.

The plane arrived at last. At the last, he admitted his greatest—crime.

Student Errors with Classification and Identification

The most important justification of a pedagogical methodology isthat it truly meets a student need. Do students actually make errorswith classification and identification? The following are examplesof confusion over the dichotomy from student writers whose firstlanguages do not contain an article system:

1. Used classification (a); required identification (the)The hull is a lower part of the ship.Net sales represents a total amount of activity of a merchandisingfirm.The computer is a control unit of the robot.


2. Used classification(Ø); required identification (the)An income statement . . . shows relationship between two importantparts of the firm’s actiuity.The manager can decide on a profitable plan for next period basedon the income statement.

3. Used identification (the, possessive determiner); required classifica-tion (a)The worst of forecasters occasionally produce the very good forecast.How does one open oneself to Zen and get the clear mind?It [the end affecter] functions like our human hand.

4. Used identification (the); required classification (Ø)1 think this exercise needs the discussion because each student mighthave a different answer.The line has the variations such as its length, bending, and thickness.Selecting the familiar topics for the students is important for im-proving their motivatwn.

Such errors will no doubt be familiar to ESL/EFL compositionteachers. They show that students do indeed commonly makeerrors in deciding whether to classify or to identify a noun phrase.

CONCLUSION

Many examples of article usage have been discussed that can beunderstood in terms of a binary classification/identificationdichotomy. The greatest advantage of the dichotomy is that itprovides a framework in which a/ Ø has one clear role and theanother. Another advantage is that there is no need to present thegeneric/specific distinction. And a third is that the notion ofintentional vagueness takes on a more principled application. Theweakness of the dichotomy is that proper nouns and idiomaticphrases still need to be covered separately. However, even withthese, some principles of classification/identification apply.

Little has been said in this discussion regarding articles anddiscourse. Rutherford (1987) summarizes the need to recognizearticle usage as a discourse phenomenon with its own binaryconstraints: “given” and “theme” require the whereas “new” and“rheme” require a/ Ø (p. 77). The contrast is shown in the followingexamples from Rutherford:

8a. On stage appeared a man and a child. The child [given/theme] sanga song.

b. Last on the programme were a song and a piano piece. The songwas sung by a child [new/rheme]. (p. 167)

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In the classification/identification dichotomy, if a noun phrase isgiven (i.e., thematic), it is identified; if it is new (i.e., rhematic), it isclassified. Discourse considerations clearly play a decisive role inarticle selection in first and subsequent mention environments,including some regional/local aspects of shared knowledge and thesubsequent mention aspects of postmodification. However, inselecting the article with ranking adjectives (e.g., the tallestmountain), with world shared knowledge (e.g., the sun), withdescriptive versus partitive of-phrases (e.g., the diameter of a circle,a pound of onions), with intentional vagueness (e.g., replication of)cells), and with proper nouns and idiomatic phrases, there is noneed to go beyond sentential boundaries unless first/subsequentmention is a factor (e. g., I loved London, but this was not theLondon I knew). Thus, discourse is an important factor but not theonly one required for article choice. The classification/identifica-tion dichotomy, on the other hand, can be applied whether or notdiscourse is the controlling factor.

In conclusion, it has been my purpose not to undermine thecareful theoretical linguistic descriptions that have refined ourunderstanding of the article system but rather to provide anunderstandable pedagogical tool by means of which nonnativespeakers of English might better hope to grasp this elusive aspect ofEnglish grammar.

THE AUTHOR

Peter Master is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at CaliforniaState University, Fresno. He is the author of Science, Medicine, and Technology:English Grammar and Technical Writing (Prentice Hall, 1986) and is interested inthe acquisition and teaching of the English article system.

REFERENCES

Bolinger, D. (1977). Meaning and form. London: Longman.Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press,Burton-Roberts, N. (1976). On the generic indefinite article. Language,

52 (2), 427-448.Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1983). The grammar book.

Cambridge, MA: Newbury House.


Chafe, W. (1969). English noun inflection and related matters from agenerative semantic point of view (POLA Report No. 2-6). Berkeley:University of California.

Christopherson, P. (1939). The articles: A study of their theory and use inEnglish. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

Grannis, O. (1972). The definite article conspiracy in English. LanguageLearning, 22 (2), 275-289.

Huckin, T., & Olsen, L. (1983). English for science and technology. NewYork: McGraw-Hill.

Huebner, T. (1983). A longitudinal analysis of the acquisition of English.Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma.

Kruisinga, E. (1932). A handbook of present day English (Vol. 2).Groningen, The Netherlands: Noordhoff.

Lamotte, J., Pearson-Joseph, D., & Zupko, K. (1982). A cross-linguisticstudy of the relationship between negation stages and the acquisition ofnoun phrase morphology. Unpublished manuscript, University ofPennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Lost signals of marriage. (1989, January 9). Newsweek, p. 3.Master, P. (1983, March). Teaching the art of the article. Paper presented

at the 17th Annual TESOL Convention, Toronto, Canada.Master, P. (1986a). Science, medicine, and technology: English grammar

and technical writing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Master, P. (1986b). Teaching the English article system to foreign technical

writing students. The Technical Writing Teacher, 13 (3), 203-210.Master, P. (1986c). Measuring the effect of systematic instruction in the

English article system. Unpublished manuscript, University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles.

Master, P. (1987). Generic the in Scientific American, ESP Journal, 6 (3),165-186.

Master, P. (1988a). Teaching the English article system (Part 1), EnglishTeaching Forum, 26 (2), 2-7.

Master, P. (1988b). Teaching the English article system (Part 2), EnglishTeaching Forum, 26 (3), 18-25.

McEldowney, P. L. (1977). A teaching grammar of the English articlesystem. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 15 (2), 95-112.

Newsweek. (1989, January 9).Pica, T. (1983). The article in American English: What the textbooks don’t

tell us. In N. Wolfson & E. Judd (Eds.). Sociolinguistics and languageacquisition (pp. 222-233). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Rutherford, W. E. (1987). Second language grammar: Learning andteaching. London: Longman.

Stern, H. H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Whitman, R. L. (1974). Teaching the article in English. TESOL Quarterly,8 (3), 253-262.

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Attitudes of Native and NonnativeSpeakers Toward SelectedRegional Accents of U.S. English

RANDALL L. ALFORD and JUDITH B. STROTHERFlorida Institute of Technology

Although some research has been done on the attitudes of nativespeakers of English toward various regional varieties of U.S. En-glish, few studies have been done on nonnative speakers’ reactionstoward regional accents. This empirical investigation sought todetermine the attitudes of both L1 and L2 listeners toward specificregional accents of U.S. English and to compare and/or contrastthose attitudes. The subjects were 97 university students fromFlorida Institute of Technology, half of whom were L2 listeners(advanced ESL students) and half of whom were L1 listeners.Through the use of a modification of the matched guise technique,the students listened to tapes of the same passage read by a maleand female native speaker from each of the following accentgroups: (a) southern (South Carolina), (b) northern (New York),and (c) Midwestern (Illinois). Respondents then recorded theirattitudes about each of the readers using a Likert scale. The resultsindicated that the judgments of L2 subjects differed from those ofL1 subjects and that L2 subjects were able to perceive differencesin regional accents of U.S. English.

Dialects are varieties of a language, usually mutually compre-hensible by a particular group of people. Although this seems to bea fairly standard definition, there are debates among authors aboutprecise definitions of and differentiations among such terms asdialect, variety, and accent. Chaika (1982) has included thefollowing as characteristics of dialects: the way words arepronounced, syntax, and word choice between speakers, in additionto differences in timbre, tempo, and paralinguistic features.Wolfson (1989) states:

From the point of view of sociolinguistic description, a dialect is bestregarded as a regional variant. That is, the dialect or variety of a lan-guage used by particular speakers is determined in large part by where

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they come from. Pronunciation is one of the most obvious differencesseparating regional dialects, but syntactic and semantic patterns alsodiffer, as do some sociolinguistic rules. (p. 3)

When the focus narrows to strictly pronunciation (phonologicalor phonetic distinctions), the term accent is used (Fromkin &Rodman, 1983; Peñalosa, 1981). Pronunciation differences areprobably the major factor in U.S. English regional varieties, withvowel differences being the most crucial distinguishing feature.Rather than being recognized as having various pronunciation rules,regional accents are often characterized by popular labels such asdrawl, twang, nasal, and flat (Christian & Wolfram, 1979).

Although dialectologists have carefully analyzed regional dialectsfor such features as lexical or phonological variations (e.g., Carver,1987), and some research has been done to record attitudes of nativespeakers of English toward selected accents of U.S. English, there isa paucity of research dealing with perceptions of L2 speakerstoward various regional accents of U.S. English.

However, if the media is any indication, popular stereotypesabound, available to native and nonnative speakers. It is notuncommon to find references to various regional dialectal groups inthe popular press, especially for humorous, condescending, orderogatory purposes. In an article on southern stereotypes ontelevision, Blount (1988) complained that “the stronger a character’sSouthern accent, the dumber and/or less honest the character. . . .The license to assume that Southerners are morons still holds on TVtoday” (p. 28). Derogatory images are certainly not confined tosoutherners. For example, New Yorkese is considered by some tobe both crude and loud (Hunt, 1986). U.S culture is saturated withcaricatures of various ethnic and regional peoples (e.g., Lil’ Abner,Snuffy Smith, the Dukes of Hazzard, Roseanne, Archie Bunker, andthe Honeymooners). These generalized impressions become stereo-types of the group they are purported to represent and in manycases such stereotypes become part of one’s cultural background—one’s frame of reference.

According to Gallois and Callan (1981), studies of how peopleform impressions have consistently shown the readiness ofindividuals to use language as a cue to classify others into groups.When people know little about an individual, they tend to attributeto that person various traits that they associate with the group(s) towhich they assume the person belongs (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Insuch situations, virtually any cue to group membership may serve asthe basis for ascribing a stereotype. Therefore, a key part of stere-otype formation is the value judgment a person makes aboutdifferent languages or dialects (Sledd, 1969). This is clearly

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demonstrated in Golden’s study (1964, cited in Sledd, 1969) showingthat southern speech elicited negative reactions among employers inDetroit.

Stereotypes may sometimes be formed by individuals as a resultof direct experience with members of the stereotyped groups. Forthe most part, however, such impressions are learned by word ofmouth or from books and films (Karlins, Coffman, & Walters,1969). The mass media are probably the most common source forinternational students, who, even before coming to the UnitedStates, may have formed their entire impressions of the stereotypi-cal “American” from movies, television, and the press.

These impressions may not include perceptions of regionalvariation in speech patterns; no research exists on the question ofwhether or not exposure to movies and television results innonnative listeners’ recognizing differences in varieties of English.Such research might ask the following types of questions: (a) Arenonnative listeners able to perceive the phonological variations inspeech by speakers of different varieties of U.S. English? (b) If theydo detect differences, do they attach value judgments to thosedifferences? and (c) What factors enter into these value judgments?

Some studies have dealt with how L1 speakers perceive groupswho speak different varieties of English. For example, Labov(1969), who studied black English vernacular in New York,confirms that “many features of pronunciation, grammar, andlexicon are closely associated with black speakers—so closely as toidentify the great majority of black people in the northern cities bytheir speech alone.” He goes on to point out that while many whitenortherners, particularly those living in close proximity to blackcommunities, share some of these speech characteristics and someblack northerners have none, or almost none, of these features,

we are dealing with a stereotype that provides correct identification inthe great majority of cases, and therefore with a firm base in socialreality. Such stereotypes are the social basis of language perception; thisis merely one of many cases where listeners generalize from the variabledata to categorical perception in absolute terms. (p. 242)

Labov points out that a speaker who uses a stigmatized form20%-30% of the time will be assumed to be using this form all thetime. Labov played tapes with sizable extracts from the speech of14 individuals. He asked his subjects to identify the family back-grounds of each and found that no one even came close to a correctidentification of black and white speakers. Labov concluded that

this result does not contradict the statement that there exists a sociallybased black speech pattern; it supports everything that I have said on

ATTITUDES TOWARD U.S. REGIONAL ACCENTS 481

this point. The voices heard on the test are the exceptional cases: blacksraised without any black friends in solidly white areas; whites raised inareas dominated by black cultural values; white southerners raised inpredominantly black areas. . . . The speech of these individuals does notidentify them as black or white because they do not use the speechpatterns that are characteristically black or white for northern listeners.The identifications made by these listeners, often in violation of actualethnic membership categories, show that they respond to black speechpatterns as a social reality. (p. 243)

In a study (Alford & Strother, in press) of southerners’ opinions ofselected regional accents, southerners’ reactions were found to behighly sensitive to differences between northern and southernspeakers and between northern and Midwestern speakers; however,they did not register significant differences between southern andMidwestern speakers. This might suggest that southerners reactmore positively to a Midwestern accent because they perceive it asbeing more standard, more acceptable, and more similar to theirown. Since southerners rate northerners as significantly differentfrom both themselves and from midwesterners, it could be assumedthat this judgment is based on strong stereotypes.

Gallois and Callan (1981) examined the reactions of native-bornAustralian subjects to Australian, British, and some nonnativeaccents using sex of subject, nationality of speaker, and sex ofspeaker as independent variables. They found a significant maineffect for sex of speaker (p < .01), indicating that males wereperceived more negatively than females, and a significantinteraction (p < .01) between nationality and sex of speaker. Forthese subjects, for example, Italian male voices were rated morenegatively than any other group; Italian females as positive as anyother group and more positively than speakers with nativeAustralian accents, and male British speakers were rated quitefavorably. This is in direct contrast to the findings of the currentstudy in which males were almost always rated more positively thanfemales from the same dialectal regions.

Anisfeld, Bogo, and Lambert (1962) found that when the samespeakers used Jewish-accented English, they were rated much lesspositively on personality characteristics and were labeled“immigrants” on the basis of accent alone. Tucker and Lambert(1969) used three groups” of college students as subjects (onenorthern white, one southern white, and one southern black). Thesesubjects used adjective checklists to evaluate recorded readings bysix U.S. English dialect groups: network (the speech of televisionnewscasters on the major networks), educated white southern,

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educated black southern, Mississippi peer, Howard University, andNew York alumni. They found that both northern white andsouthern black judges rated the network speakers most favorablyand the educated black southerners next. The network speaker,followed by the educated white southerner, received the mostfavorable ratings by the southern white subjects. Both groups ofwhite subjects rated the Mississippi peer least favorably while theblack subjects ranked the educated white southerner the leastfavorably.

In a study on bidialectal differences between French-speakingand English-speaking Canadians speaking English, Lambert (1967)made the following generalization:

A technique [matched guise] has been developed that rather effectivelycalls out the stereotyped impressions that members of one ethnic-linguis-tic group hold of another contrasting group. The type and strength ofimpression depends on characteristics of the speakers—their sex, age,the dialect they use, and very likely the social class background as this isrevealed in speech style. The impression also seems to depend oncharacteristics of the audience of judges—their age, sex, socio-economicbackground, their bilinguality and their own speech style. (p. 100)

While these studies have focused on L1 subjects’ reactions toaccented speech, relatively little has been done to discover how L2learners react to various U.S. English speech varieties. Eisensteinand Verdi (1985) used three varieties of English—standard, NewYorkese (New York nonstandard English), and black English—toinvestigate the ability of L2 working class subjects to discriminateamong varieties. They found that learners are able to discriminateamong the different varieties in the early stages of languageacquisition, but that the attitudes and stereotypes for these speakersdid not develop until learner proficiency in English increased(Wolfson, 1989).

Few studies have measured L2 responses to regional accents instandard U.S. speech. A study by Strother and Alford (1988)examined the relationship between the quality of an L2 speaker’spronunciation and his/her ability to perceive differences in L1speakers’ accents. No significant correlation was found betweenscores on a pronunciation test and the ability to detect differences inaccent, a finding that may be explained in part by the fact that theL2 subjects did rate the various accents as significantly different.

The purpose of the study reported in this article was to comparethe reactions of L1 and L2 subjects to selected standard U.S. Englishaccents.


METHODSubjects

The subjects, all of whom were students at Florida Institute ofTechnology, included 31 L1 and 66 L2 speakers of English. Allstudents were tested in their linguistics, foreign language, or ESLclasses.

Of the L1 group, 16 were from the North, 9 from the South, and6 from the Midwest. The average age of the group was 23, and 61%was male. The L2 subjects came from 24 different countries andrepresented 15 languages; Arabic (36%) and Chinese (27%) were thelargest groups. The average age of the predominantly male (84%) L2group was 23.2 years; L2 subjects had spent an average of 6.37months in the United States at the time of testing. The L1 subjectswere undergraduates, while the L2 subjects included both under-graduate and graduate students.

Materials and Procedure

The matched guise technique, which was developed at McGillUniversity by Lambert, Hodgeson, Gardner, and Fillenbaum(1960), is a subjective reaction test used to reveal how people feelabout characteristics of others based solely on tape-recorded speechof individuals who are bilingual or bidialectal (Anisfeld, Bogo, &Lambert, 1962; Webster & Kramer, 1968). Subjects indicate twice(once to each guise) how they react to each trait for each speaker bymarking a scale divided into any odd number of segments.Numbers are assigned to each fine distinction on a continuum andaverages of each trait are calculated.

However, a modification of the matched guise technique—whichhas also been used by Anisfeld, Bogo, and Lambert (1962); Markel,Eisler, and Reese (1967); Tucker and Lambert (1969); Carranza andRyan (1975); Ryan and Carranza (1975); Williams, Hewett, Miller,Naremore, and Whitehead (1976)—was employed in this study.This modification uses several speakers from each accent group, allof whom speak with their normal accents. This technique utilizesnatural rather than “counterfeit” accents, which may only representactual stereotypes of the speakers. This also prevents speakers fromvarying their voice quality and style in an attempt to distinguishamong the various accents.

All subjects listened to a taped text, which dealt with theculturally neutral topic of what to do in case of an earthquake(Morley, 1979), read by a male and a female native English speakerfrom each of the following regional accent groups: North (NewYork), South (South Carolina), and Midwest (Illinois). These

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middle class, white speakers were college educated and had beenscreened to control for variations in style, voice quality, and age.Therefore, syntax, word choice, and voice quality variables werecontrolled for, leaving accent—pronunciation and intonation—asthe variables under consideration in this study. The recording wasproduced in a professional studio to control volume, clarity, andoverall sound quality. The same text was read twice by eachspeaker in random order, taking from 1.25 to 1.50 minutes to read.This was done to ensure that subjects were consistent when rating aparticular speaker both times they heard that speaker. Selection inthe order of speakers was randomized by having them drawnumbers (1-12) from a hat.

A bipolar rating scale was constructed by using adjectives whichcould be clearly understood by L2 as well as L1 raters followingTucker and Lambert’s (1969) suggestion that “to be most useful, therating scales provided listeners for evaluating speakers should bedeveloped specifically for the sample of subjects to be examined(p. 404). The following 24 positive and negative traits were paired:very intelligent/not very intelligent good family training/poorfamily training; well educated/poorly educated; ambitious/lazy;self-confident/not self-confident; professional/nonprofessional;trustworthy/untrustworthy; sincere/insincere; friendly/unfriendly;patient/impatient; gentle/harsh; and extrovert/introvert. Afterlistening to each speaker, the subjects were asked to evaluatepersonality characteristics of that speaker, using speech style andvoice characteristics as cues, by marking their responses on a 7-point Likert scale.

Each subject’s reactions to each speaker were recorded in theform of a numerical index for each region. This index was obtainedby summing the ratings for each trait for each speaker.

In the ranking, a score of 1 was the most negative, and 7 was themost positive. It should be noted that a rating of 7 for each of thecharacteristics on the Likert scale may not represent the mostpositive evaluation for all subjects. Whereas most L1 subjects wouldvalue such traits as extroversion or ambition, this may not be thecase for all L2 subjects. However, since differences are beingexamined, the data are still valuable.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The results of this study should not be overgeneralized because(a) there was a relatively small sample size, especially for L1subjects, and (b) both L1 and L2 subjects had geographicallydiverse backgrounds.


While a modification of a true matched guise avoids “a feignedaccent” and while every effort was made to control for style, voicequality, age, and educational background, every voice has its own“personality cue value” (Webster & Kramer, 1968, p. 239) inaddition to the words or accents being used.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To determine subjects’ reactions to the six speakers, severalstatistical analyses were completed. To test for intrarater reliability,a two-tailed Pearson Product-Moment Correlation was calculated(averaged using the Fisher z transformation) to determine thedegree of correlation in the way subjects rated each speaker the twotimes that the speaker read (r= .455).

The hypothesis that differences exist between reactions of L1 andL2 subjects toward specific U.S. English accents—northern male,northern female, southern male, southern female, Midwesternmale, and Midwestern female—was tested using an analysis of vari-ance with repeated measures. The hypothesis was supported(p< .0001). There was a significant difference (p< .0001) amongthe regional accents as perceived by all subjects. There was also astrong interaction between the native-speaker status (Ll vs. L2) ofthe subjects and their reactions to the accents (p < .0016).

The data confirm the hypothesis that L2 subjects, as well as L1subjects, are able to perceive differences among the regionalaccents and that the perceptions of L2 subjects differ from theperceptions of L1 subjects.

One might speculate that U.S. English speakers would provideuniform responses on a Likert chart for regional dialect groupswithout even listening to a tape. This would be because of strongcultural biases based on both personal experience and impressionsfrom stereotypes given in the media for each group of peoplerepresented by a regional accent.

Katz and Braly (1933) conducted a pioneer study of verbal stere-otypes, looking at the five primary traits used by 100 Princetonundergraduates to characterize 10 different racial and nationalgroups. There was an impressively high level of agreement of theseverbal descriptions, which yielded a distinctive set of populationlabels for each of the 10 groups. In reviewing this study, Karlins,Coffman, and Walters (1969) noted that “since most students had nocontact with members of the stereotyped groups, it was obviousthat they had simply absorbed the prevalent images of their day andculture” (p. 1). The results of the Katz and Braly study wereconfirmed at the University of California, Los Angeles, by Centers

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(1951) and by Reed (1971) with white southern college students assubjects.

International students, for the most part, do not have the samecultural framework as native students. It is important to note thatthe L2 subjects had only been in the United States for slightly morethan 6 months, barely enough time to form surface-level valuejudgments about the area in which they were living (in this case,Florida), much less to form complex opinions about the individualcharacteristics of and the interrelationships among various parts ofthe country. Their reactions to the various speakers in our study areall the more interesting in this light. It can be assumed that, asidefrom television and movies, a large part of their value judgmentstoward the various dialects was different from the cultural biasesnative speakers have. However, some of the subjects’ own culturesno doubt are influencing factors. Perhaps the strongest evidence ofthis is seen in the differences in rating male/female speakers,independent of accent, for some characteristics.

In addition to regional accent, voice qualities of “maleness” or“femaleness” may have an important effect on listener perceptions.O’Leary’s (1977) literature review on the stereotyping of male andfemale personality characteristics shows that, as in Gallois andCallen’s (1981) study described earlier, male and female subjectsdid not differ in their impressions of male and female speakers. Menand women tend to share sex-role stereotypes, indicating that bothsexes share expectations about the characteristics of a typical maleand typical female.

Key (1975) has summarized a number of studies which link thesestereotypes to the voices and speech styles of males and females. Onthe other hand, as Gallois and Callan (1981) have pointed out, aspeaker’s sex has not been considered in studies dealing with lan-guage and accent-based stereotypes. There is certainly a strongpossibility that these two variables—sex and accent-based stereo-types—interact in determining what perceptions people have ofaccented language.

While it is beyond the scope of this study to analyze in detail therationale behind each L1 and L2 rater’s decisions about male andfemale speakers, it is an area of study that should be pursued. Dueto the variety of cultures within the L2 group (representing 24counties), an analysis of the relevant cultural factors is not feasiblefor this study.

Table 1, a descriptive presentation of L1 subjects’ ratings ofcharacteristics of. regional accents, indicates some interestingpatterns. In each category, the highest rating is italicized, with arating of 7 being highest and therefore the most positive. Most


TABLE 1L1 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of Regional Accents

(n =31)

people in the U.S. consider network standard to be the mostacceptable accent since it is considered both regionally and sociallyneutral (Marckwardt, 1980). Many native speakers of U.S. Englishconsider the Midwestern accent to be closest to this network model,a finding supported by a recent survey conducted by Strother andAlford (1989). However, the results of the current study indicatesome differences. The summary figures at the bottom of the tableshow that this group of 31 native speakers accorded the southernmale the highest overall rating (5.3). The second highest rankingwas assigned to the Midwestern female (5.1), with the Midwesternmale and the southern female tying for third place at 5.0. It isespecially surprising that, with 52% of the L1 subjects coming fromthe North, they ranked both the northern male and the female quitelow (4.5 and 3.8).

In individual characteristic ratings, the Midwestern male receivedmore high rankings than the other speakers. The Midwestern femalereceived the highest ranking for good family training and forpatience. It is also worth noting that together the Midwestern maleand female were highest on 8 of the 12 categories. The other 4characteristics on which they were rated lower—trustworthiness,sincerity, friendliness, and gentleness—are of an interpersonalnature. In contrast, the southern male was rated highest in

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trustworthiness and sincerity, and the southern female in friendli-ness and gentleness.

Table 2, a descriptive presentation of L2 subjects’ ratings ofcharacteristics of regional accents, shows that this group of 66 L2subjects accorded both the midwestern male and the southern malean equally high rating (5.5). In all characteristics except one, eitherthe southern male or the midwestem male received the highestrating or tied for it. The one exception was the characteristic offriendliness in which the southern female was rated highest.

TABLE 2L2 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of Regional Accents

(n= 66)

Characteristics Speakers

Just as in the L1 data, both the southern and Midwestern femalesreceived higher overall ratings than either the northern male or thenorthern female. The lowest ratings are also noteworthy. Again thenorthern female received the lowest overall rating. Severalindividual ratings were unusually low. For example, the northernmale got a 3.5 rating in patience. Both the northern and southernfemales (3.7 and 3.6) were rated very low in extroversion. Althoughdetermining the reason for this was not a part of this research, astudy could be developed to uncover the rationale behind thesejudgments.

The bar graphs clearly show differences in the summary ratingsby L1 and L2 respondents. Figure 1 presents L1 subjects’ ratings of


regional accents and Figure 2 shows the ratings by L2 subjects. Asan example of a single characteristic, the ratings for professional/nonprofessional have been graphed in Figure 3 for L1 subjects andin Figure 4 for L2 subjects.

FIGURE 1L1 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of Regional Accents

North South Midwest

Male Female

FIGURE 2L2 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of Regional Accents

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FIGURE 3L1 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of a Single Characteristic Professional/Nonprofessional

7 “

7 - ”

When L1 subjects react to U.S. English accents, we assume thatvarious cultural and dialectal stereotypes, including male/femaledifferences, are part of their frame of reference. Future research


needs to ascertain the reasons for the development of L2 subjects’strong opinions of U.S. accents. It can be assumed that their stere-otypes of male and female characteristics in their countries aredeeply ingrained in their cultures and may be transferred to theseratings. Especially within some of the individual characteristics,strong male/female differences become more pronounced.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The statistical analyses show that L2 speakers of English are ableto detect regional accent differences in U.S. English. The subjectiveratings of characteristics of each of the regional groups also showthat L2 speakers are able to rate their perceptions of a speaker’sfavorableness (characteristic by characteristic) based primarily onpronunciation variations separate from native speakers’ regionalcultural biases. The exception to this may be differences in ratingmale versus female speakers where the subjects’ own cultures—nottheir perception of a region of the United States—may dictate theirratings. There are several important implications that can be drawnfrom the conclusions.

It would seem beneficial for students learning English to know asmuch as possible about the distinctions that exist within the lan-guage they are learning since information regarding languagediversity is an excellent introduction to the social and cultural back-ground of that group (Wolfson, 1989). Wolfram and Christian(1989) suggest that “the key to attitudinal changes lies in developingrespect for the diverse varieties of English” (p. 22). Knowing howpeople react to language features on the basis of what is consideredmost crucial or stigmatizing to students gives teachers an insight thatthey can apply in the classroom situation (Shuy, 1969). The type ofsociolinguistic research represented by this study provides avaluable tool in making all of us aware of the stereotyped attitudeswe have toward other groups. This knowledge should, therefore, beused to counteract such beliefs for both the native and nonnativealike.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

In a current project, this study is being replicated in the specificregions represented (North, South, Midwest). The same materialsand empirical procedures are being used with both L1 and L2subjects in New York, South Carolina, and Illinois, the regionsrepresented by the accents of the speakers on the tape. The resultsof this comprehensive collection of data will be compared to the

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results of the current study to determine (a) whether L1 subjectsreact more or less favorably to their own accent than do subjectsoutside the region, and (b) whether the region in which L2 subjectsare living affects their ratings of the various regional accents.

A number of valuable research studies would add to this attemptto measure L2 speakers’ reactions to variations in regional accents ofU.S. English. In addition to the suggestions for further researchdiscussed throughout this paper, this study should be replicatedwith other speakers from the same regions in order to confirm thesefindings. With confirmation, the results would be more accuratelygeneralizable.

THE AUTHORS

Randall L. Alford, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Foreign Lan-guage, is the Chair of the Florida Institute of Technology Division of Languagesand Linguistics and Director of its Language Institute. He is a former President ofGulf Area TESOL.

Judith B. Strother, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at Florida Institute ofTechnology, does research in English for special purposes/English for science andtechnology. She has authored Kaleidoscope (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1988) andSyntax in the ST Register: Effect on Writers’ Choices and Readers’ Comprehension(Wibro, 1990), and contributed to Research in Reading in English as a Second Lan-guage (TESOL, 1988).

REFERENCES

Anisfeld, M., Bogo, N., Lambert, W. E. (1962). Evaluational reaction toaccented English speech. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,65, 223-231.

Alford, R. L., & Strother, J. B. (in press). A southern opinion of regionaldialects. Perspectives on the American South. New York: Gordon andBreach.

Blount, R. (1988, July 2). My, how they kiss and talk. T.V. Guide, pp. 26-29.Carranza, M. A., & Ryan, E. B. (1975). Evaluative reactions of bilingual

Anglo and Mexican American adolescents towards speakers of Englishand Spanish. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 6,8-104.

Carver, C. M. (1987). American regional dialects: A word geography. AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press.


Centers, R. (1951). An effective classroom demonstration of stereotypes.Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 41-46.

Chaika, E. (1982). Language: The social mirror. Rowley, MA: NewburyHouse.

Christian, D., & Wolfram, W. (1979). Dialects and educational equity—Exploring dialects. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Eisenstein, M., & Verdi, G. (1985). The intelligibility of social dialects forworking-class adult learners of English. Language Learning, 35 (2),287-298.

Fromkin, V., & Rodman, R. (1983). An introduction to language (3rd ed.).New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Gallois, C., & CalIan, V. J. (1981). Personality impressions edited byaccented English speech. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 12 (3),347-359.

Hunt, G. W. (1986). On many things. America, 155 (16),2.Karlins, M., Coffman, T. L., & Walters, G. (1969). On the fading of social

stereotypes: Studies in three generations of college students. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 39, 1-16.

Katz, D., & Braly, K. (1933). Racial stereotypes of one hundred collegestudents. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 280-290.

Key, M. R. (1975). Male/female language. Mehuen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.Labov, W. (1969). The logic of nonstandard English. (Georgetown

Monographs in Languages and Linguistics No. 22). Washington, DC:Georgetown University, Center for Applied Linguistics.

Lambert, W. E. (1967). A social psychology of bilingualism. Journal ofSocial Issues, 23 (2), 91-109.

Lambert, W. E., Hodgeson, R. C., Gardner, R. C., & Fillenbaum, S.(1960). Evaluational reactions to spoken languages. Journal of Abnormaland Social Psychology, 60 (1), 44-51.

Marckwardt, A. H. (1980). American English (2nd ed.). NY: OxfordUniversity Press.

Markel, N. N., Eisler, R. M., & Reese, H. W. (1967). Judging personalityfrom dialect. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6, 33-35.

Morley, J. (1979). Improving spoken English. Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press.

O’Leary, V. (1977). Toward understanding women. Monterey, CA:Brooks/Cole.

Peñalosa, F. (1981). Introduction to the sociology of language. Rowley,MA: Newbury House.

Reed, J. S. (1971). The enduring south: Subcultural persistence in masssociety. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath Lexington Books.

Ryan, E. B., & Carranza, M. A. (1975). Evaluative reactions of adolescentstoward speakers of standard English and Mexican accented English.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 855-863.

Shuy, R. (1969). The relevance of sociolinguistics for language teaching.TESOL Quarterly, 3 (l), 13-22.

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Sledd, J. (1969). Bi-dialectalism: The linguistics of white supremacy. En-glish Journal, 58 (9), 1307-1329.

Strother, J. B., & Alford, R. L. (1988, March). The relationship between L2speakers’ pronunciation and their ability to detect variations in dialectsof American English. Paper presented at the 22nd Annual TESOLConvention, Chicago.

Strother, J. B., & Alford, R. L. (1989). [Survey of attitudes of regionaldialects]. Unpublished raw data, Florida Institute of Technology,Division of Languages and Linguistics, Melbourne.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroupconflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology ofintergroup relations (pp. 33-48). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Tucker, G. R., & Lambert, W. E. (1969). White and Negro listeners’reactions to various American-English dialects. Social Forces, 47,463-468.

Webster, W. G., & Kramer, E. (1968). Attitudes and evaluational reactionsto accented English speech. Journal of Social Psychology, 75, 231-240.

Williams, F., Hewett, N., Miller, M., Naremore, R. C., & Whitehead, J. L.(1976). Explorations of the linguistic attitudes of teachers. Rowley, MA:Newbury House.

Wolfson, N. (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York:Newbury House/Harper& Row.

Wolfram, W., & Christian, D. (1989). Dialects and education: Issues andanswers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.


REVIEWSThe TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant toTESOL professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, theseinclude computer and video software, testing instruments, and other forms ofnonprint materials.

Edited by HEIDI RIGGENBACHUniversity of Washington

Recent Publications in Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics and Second Language AcquisitionDennis Preston. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Pp. xv + 326.

Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOLNessa Wolfson. Cambridge: Newbury House, 1989. Pp. xvi + 319.

Second language acquisition (SLA) research is now proceeding intwo general directions: First is the investigation of learner internalissues, that is, the representation of the internal grammars of the L1and L2; second is the investigation of external variables. DennisPreston’s Sociolinguisties and Second Language Acquisition andNessa Wolfson’s Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL makesignificant contributions to the field in the second area. Preston’sbook, in particular, provides a wealth of background to both SLAand sociolinguistics and successfully shows how the two fields cancontribute to each other. However, the two volumes differconsiderably in what they take to be the important contributions ofsociolinguistic methods and findings to SLA and TESOL.

Preston’s book begins with a brief review of sociolinguisticresearch that demonstrates the importance of a variety ofinterfactional factors and learner characteristics. The section onindividual characteristics provides a detailed description ofparticipants; the discussion of interfactional factors expands Hymes’s(1972), SPEAKING taxonomy. Preston then looks at research inwhich these variables have been investigated in both first andsecond language sociolinguistics.

Most of the book comprises reviews of major variationist theoriesof SLA. The discussion begins with Krashen’s Monitor Model(1981), in which variation is attributed entirely to the use of themonitor. Preston points to Krashen’s conflation of the sociolinguisticconcept of attention to form and the psycholinguistic concept of

497

monitoring as a major weakness in this approach to variation. Inreviewing Tarone’s (1983) continuous competence model, Prestoncriticizes the construct attention to form as too primitive to capturethe complexity of the factors that may differ across what Taronecalls “tasks” (p. 59). Last, Preston reviews Ellis’s variable compe-tence model which, he maintains, adds some psycholinguistic depthto Tarone’s capability continuum. This is an especially importantsection since, for many, Ellis’s Understanding Second LanguageAcquisition (1985) is their first exposure to SLA research andperhaps even to sociolinguistic research. Preston does point toserious problems, however, in Ellis’s presentation of basic conceptsin the work of both Bickerton and Labov.

In contrast, much of Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL(Perspectives), focuses on native-speaker behavior as part of thefield the author calls microsociolinguistics. The late Nessa Wolfsonwas a tireless champion of the systematic examination of the rules ofspeaking across speech communities. In particular, she argued forthe use of authentic, spontaneous data as the best way of accuratelydocumenting what constitutes communicative competence in agiven speech community. This perspective dominates much of herbook. Although the title suggests the same integration of the fieldsof sociolinguistics and TESOL that is achieved for sociolinguisticsand SLA in Preston’s book, the topics covered (such as rules ofspeaking, sociolinguistic methodology, cross-cultural speech actresearch, and male/female language) demonstrate the dominanceof sociolinguistic concerns in this volume. In fact, very little isoffered in Perspectives in the way of teaching applications. This,Wolfson maintains, is because we know so little about the speech con-ventions in our own community and therefore are not yet in a positionto provide instruction on such matters to nonnative speakers.

For Preston, the goal of sociolinguistics is the investigation ofvariation. He maintains, in contrast to Wolfson’s position, that thereis no need to wait for the continued investigation of native-speakerbehavior and that the insights from sociolinguistic methodology canbe used to inform SLA research in two basic ways. First, as innative-speaker research, it is crucial that analyses of second lan-guage learner data take into account a wide range of variables:ascribed and acquired, individual characteristics as well asinterfactional factors. These are the kinds of factors that sociolinguis-tics and ethnographers, Hymes in particular, have suggested areimportant in describing and analyzing variation in language use.Preston goes beyond this, however, to his second claim that thequantitative/sociolinguistic methodologies that have been used toanalyze variation in language use in a single speech community (for

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example, by Labov) “due to their sensitivity to the variability ofgrammar, are excellent means of capturing synchronic anddiachronic aspects of interlanguage systems, no matter what thesource of variation [italics added]” (p. 198). However, the study ofsecond language variation cannot completely parallel native-speak-er sociolinguistic research because there is no speech community.Preston does not emphasize sufficiently the important distinctionbetween first and second language research. While methods ofanalysis may remain useful in investigating SLA, the assumptions onwhich they rest are very different.

However, Preston’s thesis that sociolinguistic methods are ap-propriate and necessary for SLA data analysis allows him to providean excellent introduction to Labovian quantitative methods used tostudy sociolinguistic variation. He examines first how an analysis ofall of the factors in his taxonomy might help to explain code-switching in data from Fishman (1972). He then discusses a study inwhich quantitative methods were used to determine the factorsinfluencing the use of plural marking by second language learners(Young, 1989). It is particularly important to stress that this secondstudy must be viewed simply as the application of a procedure fordata analysis. Although both Young and Preston claim that they areworking within the framework set forth originally by Hymes (1972),this is misleading. Hymes never intended that his SPEAKINGframework be used for componential analysis; rather, that theimportance of each of the components be explored and understoodwithin the context of the speech community.

Perspectives explores a number of other sociolinguistic traditions,focusing more on qualitative approaches than does Preston’svolume. Wolfson particularly stresses the work of Hymes; her bookis more in keeping with the spirit of Hymes’s SPEAKING taxonomyand his analysis of speech events than is Preston’s. Wolfson alsobriefly explores philosophical and ethnomethodological traditions,as well as Brown and Levinson’s (1978) pragmatic work onpoliteness and face. Much of her book, however, is devoted toWolfson’s concern for how sociolinguistic data are gathered andinterpreted. Several chapters are devoted to Wolfson’s work, as wellas that of others, on rules of speaking and cross-cultural investiga-tions into speech act production and interpretation. Such speechacts include compliments, apologies, greetings, refusals, andrequests. It is Wolfson’s contention that when a nonnative speakermakes pragmatic errors, such as in the misuse or misinterpretationof these speech acts, native speakers are less forgiving than whenthe errors are grammatical or lexical. Often such behavior isinterpreted as rudeness, obtuseness, and so on. For this reason,

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Wolfson argues, it is essential that such concerns become funda-mental to the field of language teaching. In order to do this,however, native-speaker teachers and researchers need to develop abetter understanding of their own behavior.

The remainder of Perspectives addresses other topics in sociolin-guistics, but their treatment is somewhat cursory. These include lan-guage and gender, variation across social classes, multilingualism,and bilingual education. The strength of this volume clearly lies inWolfson’s discussions of research methods and findings in micro-sociolinguistics and their potential contribution to the field ofTESOL. Her death will leave a void in this area of the field that willindeed be difficult to fill.

Although these two books clearly take very different approachesto how sociolinguistics, TESOL, and SLA are related, the twovolumes are complementary and together would make an excellentintroduction to important issues in these fields. While other booksmay be preferred for broader perspectives on such issues as thehistory of nonstandard dialects in the United States, immigrant lan-guages, and approaches to multicultural education, these twoshould be required reading for anyone interested in the socialcontext of SLA and language teaching, which arguably shouldinclude every researcher in our field.

REFERENCES

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politenessphenomena. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies insocial interaction (pp. 56-289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ellis, R. (1985). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Fishman, J. (1972). The sociology of language. Rowley, MA: NewburyHouse.

Hymes, D. (1972). Foundations in sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press.

Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition and second languagelearning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Tarone, E. (1983). On the variability of interlanguage systems. AppliedLinguistics 4 (l), 42-63.

Young, R. (1989). Ends and means: Methods for the study of interlanguagevariation. In S. Gass, C. Madden, D. Preston, & L. Selinker (Eds.),Variation in second language acquisition: Psycholinguistic issues(pp. 63-90). Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters.

JESSICA WILLIAMSUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

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Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit: Preparing forthe TOEFLDaniel B. Kennedy, Dorry Mann Kenyon, and Steven J. Matthiesen.New York: Newbury House/Harper& Row, 1989. Pp. xi + 262.

Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit: Preparing forthe Test of Written EnglishLiz Hamp-Lyons. New York: Newbury House/Harper & Row,1989. Pp. vi + 134.

Why must I take the TOEFL?Does the TOEFL cost the same in each country?Should I guess if I’m not sure about an answer?If I need to guess, what strategy should I use?Are there any general test taking strategies 1 should use?

Detailed answers to these and 38 other questions are found inPreparing for the TOEFL, one of two books in the Newbury HouseTOEFL Preparation Kit. The book contains everything you’vealways wanted to know about the TOEFL, but never had a chanceto ask. Written clearly and simply, it contains careful explanationsabout every part of the TOEFL.

An entrance requirement at 2500 colleges and universities in theU. S., Canada, and other parts of the world, the TOEFL is one of themost widely used language proficiency tests in the world. In orderto make maximum use of the available test time, students must beprepared for the kinds of questions that will be asked and need todevelop good test-taking strategies.

For this reason, the number of TOEFL preparation books on themarket has proliferated despite the publication by the EducationalTesting Service of the practice tests contained in UnderstandingTOEFL, published in 1980, and Reading for TOEFL, published in1987. The public’s demand for more preparatory materials indicatesthe importance of passing the test.

The Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit consists of twobooks, one with accompanying materials. Preparing for the TOEFLincludes three practice tests with answer sheets; accompanying thebook are two tapes for practicing the Listening Comprehensionsection of the TOEFL, and a pamphlet containing a typescript andanswers for the three practice tests in the book. The second book isPreparing for the Test of Written English. (All components can alsobe purchased separately.)

Preparing for the TOEFL begins with a basic description of the

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TOEFL examination, including sample questions. The next part“provides detailed answers to over forty questions commonly askedabout the TOEFL program and its policies” (p. iv). The nextchapters describe the seven major types of questions within thesections on Listening Comprehension, Structure and WrittenExpression, and Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. Theauthors aim to help students recognize the different types ofquestions to expect so that they will be better able to answer eachquestion correctly.

Although other study materials with which I am familiar containa review of English grammar, none is as specifically tailored to theTOEFL items as is this guide. Each grammar point is defined insimple language and followed by seven sample questionsillustrating how the feature is tested on the TOEFL. No extraneousmaterial is introduced to confuse students.

The authors provide sensible, practical suggestions concerningthe Vocabulary portion of the TOEFL. They have observed thattwo criteria for the appearance of a word in the Vocabulary sectionare (a) whether it can be found in a variety of contexts in university-level reading, and (b) whether it can easily be given a synonym.Test developers have no choice but to select such words if the testis to be valid. This means the student need not study most technicalwords, idioms, or phrases; nor need one study types of birds, fishand other animals, foods, clouds, minerals, etc.

Since the Vocabulary section of the TOEFL is essentially a test ofsynonyms, the authors of Preparing for the TOEFL tell students notto waste time reading the whole sentence but to look only at theunderlined word and choose its synonym. To illustrate that thecontext doesn’t help, the authors give sentences in which they blankout the key word being tested, but include the four responsechoices. Any of the four choices would be possible in the sentence.

Preparing for the TOEFL deals straightforwardly with elusiveissues concerning the content of reading comprehension passages. Itis explained that “unhappy” (p. 1) subjects, such as divorce and war,will not be included on the TOEFL. One should expect materialswith women in positive roles and ones describing the contributionsof U.S. ethnic minorities, Written texts will be academic in nature,coming from encyclopedias and textbooks but not from scientific orliterary journals. However, the authors explain that knowledge ofthe subject is not very important. “Do not worry if you are notfamiliar with the topic being discussed. You will be tested on yourcomprehension of the English language, not your generalknowledge” (p. 2).

The TOEFL is geared toward students who will be living and

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studying in the U.S. or Canada, and thus it contains references toNorth American events and figures. In their discussion of inferencequestions in the Listening section, the authors suggest how thereader may prepare for this fact. “To answer these questions, youshould try to become familiar with the kinds of settings students inNorth America may find themselves in” (p. 42).

Two appendices are provided. One contains a list of the TOEFLscores required by 100 U.S. colleges and universities having thelargest international student enrollments. Students can use this list tocompare their TOEFL scores with the entrance requirements of theinstitutions they plan to enter. The second appendix providesinstructions and score conversion tables for translating raw scoreson the practice tests given in the book to scaled scores. Afterderiving the scaled scores, students can compare their individualscores with the scores of others who have taken the TOEFL byreferring to a table of norms for TOEFL test takers.

One of the strengths of Preparing for the TOEFL is the care anddetail of the explanations. Each question is discussed in terms of lin-guistics on the microlevel (vocabulary and syntax of the sentence)and the macrolevel (sociolinguistic considerations of the logic of asituation, the tone of the speaker), as well as in terms of testdevelopment logic and test-taking strategies. Fine details about thetest are also provided: “Note again that the numbers in this set ofoptions are listed in ascending order, as always on the TOEFL(p. 53).

Most TOEFL preparation kits help students recognize the formatof each subtest, how to follow directions, and how to recordanswers. They familiarize the students with the appearance of theTOEFL. They do not analyze question functions. This is the firstpreparatory guide to explain the linguistic and sociolinguisticrationale as well as the testing function of each item type.

The authors do not mislead the student about the value of theirTOEFL preparation materials. They warn students that merelyreading study materials will not guarantee a high score. Students aretold that if, after they work through the book, their practice testscores do not improve, their problem is a lack of English languageproficiency, and they are advised to enroll in an English languagecourse while continuing to review the kit. Should students needfurther practice, the authors advise them to order the ETS TOEFLTest Kits.

The extent to which the writers of Preparing for the TOEFL tookpains to produce questions as authentic as possible is impressive. Asexplained in the introduction, the book is based on an examinationof thousands of TOEFL test questions, the TOEFL Test and Score

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Manual, and the TOEFL Research Reports. Based on this analysis,the authors identified and described subcategories of the sevenTOEFL question types, wrote similar questions, and developedthree practice tests. What is unique is that these questionsunderwent pretesting and retesting, just like the TOEFL itemsthemselves. The practice tests were administered to internationalstudents studying at universities in the U.S. and elsewhere, anditems were statistically analyzed and reworded when necessary.This procedure yielded questions that not only “look like TOEFLquestions, but also function like TOEFL questions. The finalversion of the three practice tests was administered with a realTOEFL” (p. iii) to students at several U.S. universities; scores on thepractice tests and the TOEFL were correlated, yielding a scoreconversion table. Preparing for the TOEFL is the only TOEFLpreparation program I have seen that has been developed in such aprofessional way.

The second book, Preparing for the Test of Written English byLiz Hamp-Lyons, is for those who wish to take this optional partof the TOEFL. The half-hour test is offered four times a year withthe TOEFL, and, in almost all cases, is administered before theTOEFL. The TWE requires one essay, to be written in 30 minutes.There is only one question, no choice of topics.

Who should take this test? In the prefix, the author states that “thebook assumes that [the reader] already [has] an English proficiencylevel of 450 or higher on the TOEFL” (p. iii) and directs the readerto a page in the book with suggestions for determining whether oneis ready to take the TWE.

Hamp-Lyons defines academic writing as the kind of writing thatstudents and teachers do at universities and colleges. She discussessuccessful academic writing, gives examples of real essays writtenby students on topics and questions like those on the official TWE,discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these essays, and justifiesthe scores given them by TOEFL-trained essay scorers. The bookalso includes practice writing tasks and a section that teachesstudents how to score their own practice essays. The book has beendesigned to enable students to work through it with or without thehelp of a teacher, in groups or individually.

The discussion of the structure and organization of academicwriting is very clear, although the instructions would be moresuitable for a teacher than for the student. A student who is able toread this book is well on the way to being able to write acomposition. (The language proficiency assumed for readers of thisbook is somewhat higher than for Preparing for the TOEFL.)

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In her introductory remarks to the student, the author states,“Writing is like driving a car—you can only learn by actually doingit, not by reading about how to do it!” (p. iii). She implements thisapproach through the book. Her purpose is to teach specific skillsthat prepare the student for the TWE or any other academic writingtest. In fact, the book contains comparisons with two otheracademic writing tests, the British Council’s English LanguageTesting Service (ELTS) writing component M2 and the Universityof Michigan’s English Language Assessment Battery (MELAB).Although these comparisons are not meant to be exact, theirinclusion helps the reader assess his or her writing level on varioustests and supports the idea that tests of academic writing are similarand can be valid and reliable.

This book also contains a 45-page chapter called “Self-ScoringPractice.” It explains that the TWE is a criterion-referenced testbased on an absolute standard of what good academic writing is. Itexplains and elaborates on the 6-level scale (6 = competence,1 = incompetence) developed by ETS for the TWE. For example,ETS describes an essay receiving a score of 6 as one that “clearlydemonstrates competence on both the rhetorical and syntacticlevels, though it may have occasional errors” (p. 76). Hamp-Lyonsfurther describes each level in terms of organization, use ofsupporting detail, coherence, and appropriateness. She givesexamples of students’ handwritten essays with a scorer’s commentstyped in the margins, and essays in which the student has maderevisions during the test itself. Thus students using the book areprovided many examples with which to compare their own writing.The inclusion of students’ handwritten essays provides additionalauthenticity. Each handwritten essay is also found in printed formelsewhere in the book. Including 20 TWE-like prompts, the bookprovides ample opportunity for practice in writing.

Hamp-Lyons describes the structure of typical academic tasks:The student is given the “situation” and the “problem,” and mustsuggest a “solution” and make an “evaluation” (SPSE) (p. 8). Shethen discusses academic organization and invention strategies, suchas mind-mapping, a technique for showing pictorially how majorideas are related.

The two books are excellent preparatory guides for the TOEFLand the TWE. The authors are sensitive about the dangers ofstudying for tests. They warn students about the need to developEnglish language skills and make suggestions on how to do this.Hamp-Lyons focuses on teaching academic writing skills.

In addition to the value of these books as guides for the tests,

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because the authors have carefully identified and implementedrules underlying the development of language testing, the kit wouldalso be useful for those interested in standardized language testing.Teacher training programs may also wish to include this kit incourses on second and foreign language test development.

MARSHA BENSOUSSANHaifa University

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BOOK NOTICESThe TESOL Quarterly welcomes short evaluative reviews of print and nonprintpublications relevant to TESOL professionals. Book notices may not exceed 500words and must contain some discussion of the significance of the work in thecontext of current theory and practice in TESOL.

Making it Happen: Interaction in the Second Language Classroom.Patricia A. Richard-Amato. New York: Longman, 1988. Pp. xviii + 426.

This is an excellent textbook for a basic graduate class in TESL methods.The text covers the theory and practice of TESL as well as the latestthinking in international language instruction and bilingual education.Although ambitious in scope, the book provides good depth of material.

Part I provides a theoretical perspective, including a brief history ofsecond language teaching methodologies and a careful examination of thetheoretical work of Krashen and Vygotsky. The underlying philosophicalframework of this section is that a second language classroom should be an“interfactional one in which communication is emphasized” (p. xiii).

Part II, “Exploring Methods and Activities,” could be a separate book. Itprovides excellent, detailed, practical teaching activities designed to helpthe new instructor develop a genuinely interfactional classroom. Thesuggested activities provide for a variety of options, including music,drama, storytelling, and games.

Part III, “Some Practical Issues,” covers such practical topics asclassroom management, testing, computers, and textbooks. Each chapterin the first three sections of the book is followed by an annotated list ofsuggested readings and by questions for reflection and discussion.

Part IV, “Programs in Action,” shows the numerous settings in whichESL instruction can take place. This is one of the most valuable sections ofthe book. Teachers-in-training often think of only one type or level of ESLinstruction without realizing the tremendous variety of opportunitiesavailable. For example, although a teacher may plan to work in a college-level intensive institute, a more attractive position in an elementary schoolmay arise. In presenting interesting examples of diverse professionaloptions, this book performs a service to the profession.

Part V, the last quarter of the book, comprises a series of relatedsupplemental readings by scholars in the field including Noarn Chomsky,Stephen Krashen, Lev Vygotsky, John Oller, and Jim Cummins. Theserelated readings are frequently referred to in the preceding text. Theirpresentation here invites productive supplemental assignments since thereader can conveniently examine the primary sources on which the text isbased.

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Making it Happen is a comprehensive methods text. It can probably bestbe utilized in a two-semester sequence although, with carefully selectedassignments, it would also be excellent in a one-semester course.

DOROTHY S. MESSERSCHMITTUniversity of San Francisco

The Foreign Teaching Assistant’s Manual. Patricia Byrd, Janet C.Constantinides, and Martha C. Pennington. New York: Collier Macmillan,1989. Pp. xii + 193.

The Foreign Teaching Assistant’s Manual is a resource book to be usedin international teaching assistant (ITA) training programs. The targetaudience, those currently teaching or preparing to teach U.S. undergradu-ates, is assumed to have an advanced level of skills in English.

The 25 chapters of this activity-oriented manual are arranged in fiveparts. Part One, “Preparatory Activities,” provides questionnaires thatguide ITAs in collecting information on U.S. culture and educationalstyles. Part Two, “Background to Teaching,” introduces a variety ofteaching responsibilities, such as organizing a course, presenting in class,using audiovisual aids, leading a discussion, and record keeping. PartThree, “Hearing and Pronouncing American English,” deals withpronunciation of individual sounds, stress patterns, fluency, intonation,and voice quality, Part Four, “Practice for Teaching,” includesexplanations, guidelines, and evaluation forms for a variety ofpresentations to be videotaped in class. Part Five, “Observation,” providesseveral open-ended worksheets to guide ITAs’ observation of undergrad-uate classrooms.

Printed on 8½” by 11” punched and perforated pages, this book isdesigned for integrated rather than sequential use. Each chapter beginswith an overview section with a persuasive rationale, chapter objectives,and introductory content. Chapters are subdivided into nearlyautonomous sections that typically provide basic information, descriptionsof student activities, and accompanying worksheets.

Throughout the book, the authors communicate directly with the readerusing the second person. The overall tone is respectful of other cultures yetfirm in its recommendation that ITAs adjust to “American” English andU.S. educational styles. While it is acknowledged that “U.S. undergradu-ates are not always culturally sensitive or patient with outsiders” (p. ix), thefocus is on the ITAs’ skills and cultural adjustment for success in the U.S.classroom.

The segmented design and individualized approach are this manual’sdominant characteristics. These allow great flexibility for use with studentsat different levels, for various curricula, and for courses ranging from afew days to a full semester. Although the introduction states that the whole

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book could be covered in a one-semester course, selective use of materialsand/or allowing two semesters would be a more feasible approach. Whilesuggestions for selecting and coordinating the materials are given in a one-page appendix, teachers using this book will need to carefully analyze thematerials to coordinate them for their particular setting. They will alsoneed to plan and prepare thoroughly before using the materials in class,since teacher-provided resources, such as videotapes of undergraduateclasses, are frequently required.

This book provides sound recommendations, multiple activities, andmany worksheets. For teachers who have or can develop their ownsyllabus, it supplies excellent resource materials for a variety of ITAtraining programs.

WANDA FOXPurdue University

Languages and Children—Making the Match. Helena Anderson Curtainand Carol Ann Pesola. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1988. Pp. xv + 352.

This is an up-to-date and comprehensive book on the field of elementaryschool foreign language instruction. It is designed “by practitionersprimarily for practitioners” (p. xi) and is intended as a methods text and asa practical guide for teaching language to children. The text is an excellentresource not only for new teachers or teachers-in-training but also forschool administrators who are beginning implementation of a K-8 foreignlanguage program.

Languages and Children—Making the Match focuses on “communica-tion” as the highest priority in teaching a language class. In an informativeintroduction, the fundamental principles of the communicative approachon which this book is based are summarized in 12 “Key Concepts forElementary and Middle School Foreign Languages” (pp. xiv-xv). Theseinclude: "Successful language learning occurs in a meaningful communica-tive context, " “Successful language learning activities for childrenincorporate opportunities for movement and physical activity,” “Suc-cessful language learning activities are organized according to a communi-cative syllabus rather than according to a grammatical syllabus,” and“Successful language learning activities establish the language as a realmeans of communication.”

The first four chapters deal with elementary school foreign languageprograms, including their history, the selection of an appropriate programmodel, and program planning. Chapter 5 provides a comprehensiveoverview of recent theories of second language acquisition that serve as afoundation of effective programs. Chapter 6 provides an overview ofimmersion programs—what they are, what makes them work, what aretheir results. Chapter 7 describes useful techniques of content-basedinstruction used in immersion programs, such as thematic webbing and

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semantic mapping. The success of these programs demonstrates that com-municative competence can be developed-as students are provided withsituations that require language use in real communication.

The most readable part of the volume is Chapters 8, 9, and 10, whichdemonstrate “meaningful communication in the context of a holisticapproach to learning” (p. 117). These three chapters illustrate the widerange of the holistic approaches—for example, how to create an environ-ment for communication, how to give children experiences with theculture, and how to plan a communicative classroom day-to-day. In otherchapters, different dimensions of a holistic approach are discussed:evaluation, materials, classroom activities, and teacher preparation.

Unfortunately, compared to the clear presentation of the languageexperience approach, the very brief presentation on the topic of evaluationis not entirely satisfactory—only 14 pages are devoted to it. Some readersmight wish this chapter were more detailed.

However, an introduction to language instruction based on meaningfulcommunication is successfully made by this book owing to the multi-dimensional practical examples of teaching strategies. There are excellentquestions for discussion in each chapter. This book is highly recommendedfor foreign language teachers and also for teachers working with limitedEnglish proficient (LEP) students.

NORIKO ISOGAWAPurdue University

Conversation Gambits: Real English Conversation Practices. Eric Kellerand Sylvia T. Warner. Hove, England: Language Teaching Publications,1988. pp. 96.

“What I’m trying to say is”; “Sorry, I don’t follow you”; “I don’tunderstand, can you explain?” These are examples of conversationgambits. A gambit is a conversational strategy that promotes discussion. Intheir introduction to the student, the authors say: “We use gambits tointroduce a topic of conversation; to link what we have to say to whatsomeone has just said; to agree or disagree; to respond to what we haveheard” (p. 4). While gambits have little content, they have much meaning:“They show our attitude to the person we are speaking to and to what (s)heis saying” (p. 4). The authors state that using gambits will make students’English sound more natural, will make it easier to converse and beunderstood. “If we never use gambits in our conversation, other peoplemay think we are very direct, abrupt, and even rude—they will get awrong picture of us as people” (p. 4).

Useful in a secondary school or an adult ESL program for intermediate-advanced students, Conversation Gambits is an excellent supplement toother conversation or written activities. This well-structured text doeswhat other ESL materials often fail to do: It teaches students native-like

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conversational phrases to enhance their English skills and at the same timeoffers insight into cultural expectations by explaining the common andproper usage of particular phrases or idiomatic expressions. For example,the book suggests that “l wonder if” is a way of giving an open opinionwhile inviting others to comment too (p. 23).

There are 63 lessons divided into three sections: (1) Opening Gambits(e.g., “Excuse me for interrupting, but,” “Could you tell me”); (2) LinkingGambits (e.g., “How about,” “In addition,” “What’s more”); and (3)Responding Gambits (e.g., “That’s a good idea, but,” “You’re absolutelyright,” “Exactly!” and “I’ll have to think about that”).

Each one-page lesson focuses on a single topic, e.g., “Changing theSubject,” "Generalizing," “Getting to Know Someone.” A list of gambits isclearly printed on the side of the page. Classroom activities for pairs orsmall groups are suggested. Interspersed through the text are pictures,charts, graphs, games, and stories about life situations.

The last lesson, longer than the others, is called “Mini-Conversations.” Itprovides many suggestions for practice of conversation gambits, e.g., “Tellyour partner a problem” (p. 85). These suggestions offer goodconversation starters that can easily be adapted to incorporate contentfrom students’ own lives. (They also could be used as starting points forwriting assignments.) Timely topics for conversation are given at the endof this section—e.g., living in the city, politics, healthy eating, smoking,teenage drug abuse.

This text fosters a natural conversational approach in the ESL classroomand may also prove useful in English composition classes for monolin-gual English students. While it is in no way a complete curriculum,Conversation Gambits provides the ESL teacher with a good resource forteaching some of the subtle language messages we often fail to convey inour classes.

TERESA GRANELLIHofstra University

Crazy Idioms: A Conversational Idiom Book. Nina Weinstein. New York:Collier Macmillan, 1990. Pp. vii + 62.

Designed to enrich the ESL curriculum, this book focuses on avocabulary of 45 common cultural idioms that often are not treated in theclassroom. The presentation and exercises are simple enough to be usedwith high-beginners, and the book’s cartoon illustrations of each idiomappeal to students of widely varied ages.

Each of the nine units introduces five idioms from a single category,such as animal names, foods, colors, body references, or double meanings.Idioms are introduced with an intuitive, discovery learning approach,giving students generous exposure to the idioms before providing

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definitions. The exercises lead the students to apply the idioms repeatedlyat increasingly complex levels.

Each unit begins by asking students to guess the meaning of five idioms.This effective reading preparation exercise can be handled in classdiscussion. A simple, situation-based dialogue then presents the idioms ina context that allows students to infer their meaning. In the third activity,students match each of five context-based cartoon illustrations with theproper idiom. Next, the text briefly defines each idiom; and students, inpairs or as a class, compare each expression’s idiomatic meaning with itsmeaning in the students’ own cultures. The final activity provides fordirected conversation, requiring each student to find a member of the classwho fits each idiom in some specific way.

At the end of the book is a review of all 45 idioms, again requiring eachstudent to find someone in the class to whom the idiom applies in aparticular way. An answer key for the picture-matching exercises is alsoprovided, along with an index of expressions with the page number onwhich each idiom was introduced. The introduction states that the bookcomes with an audio cassette.

Published in paperback, with glued binding, the thin book is printed onheavy 7½” by 9½” paper and should wear well. Although spaces areprovided in the book for student answers, the book could easily be reusedif students write answers on other paper.

The book’s use of reading, writing, and speaking skills to repeat thematerial on progressively complex levels is effective; however, a few otheraspects of the book’s presentation should be considered. For instance, theidioms presented are common in everyday speech but are rarely used informal English. At times it is difficult to match the pictures with the correctidiom. In addition, the short definitions at times miss some of the idiomaticmeaning and its logical connection with the literal meaning, and thedouble-meaning idiom section does not discuss the suggested “dangerous”meanings.

Even with these considerations, the material is presented in a light-hearted way, which in itself will enhance students’ learning. Anenterprising teacher could apply the effective format to other idioms aswell. Crazy Idioms can provide effective enrichment for an ESLcurriculum.

EDA ASHBYBrigham Young University

Words at Work: Vocabulary Building Through Reading. Betty Sobel andSusan Bookman. New York: Collier Macmillan, 1989. Pp. xiv + 122.

This text is written for young adults and adults at the high-beginner andlow-intermediate level. It is designed “to cultivate a comfortable, posi-tive, fearless attitude toward reading” (p. ix) by emphasizing lexical

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development in using “high-interest readings and practice exercises thatallow students to work alone, with partners, and in groups” (p. xi). The 10chapters constitute self-contained lessons.

Each chapter follows the same format. It begins with preview questionson the reading topic that follows. Next, there is a short reading followed bya true-false comprehension exercise. The topics for the reading are eitheron life in the United States (i.e., surrogate parenting, or television andchildren) or on personal development (i.e., shyness, or money and credit).Students are asked to fill in sentences with words selected from the readingand then proceed to definition exercises in which they first define wordsand then fit them into sentences that form a dialogue. Next there is practicewith derived forms. The lesson continues with a new paragraph thatsummarizes the original reading using the new vocabulary. Each lessonends with a “Wrap-Up Activity” promoting student interaction.

Is this text successful? On the positive side, students are provided manyopportunities to manipulate the highlighted lexical items. The exercisesdeveloped for such work are generally well executed, although in somefill-in activities students would be able to figure out correct responses onthe basis of grammatical, not lexical, knowledge. The items selected forpractice are appropriate for students at the targeted ESL/EFL level. Thus,one hopes students’ reading abilities will increase as a result of theirexpanded vocabulary.

However, the text fails on other accounts. Effective reading requiresmore than good lexical knowledge; good readers can deduce meaningfrom context. Words at Work provides no practice in such skill develop-ment.

Another problem is the claim that each article “is written in natural En-glish, similar to the style of magazine articles” (p. ix). Since the readingpassages are not credited, the claim for natural language is undocumented.The articles appear to have been adapted, which may perhaps disappointthose instructors who, on the basis of the introduction, expect authentictexts.

In a similar vein, the claim that the text is an “interactive reader” (p. xi)apparently means that students engage in some activities with partners orgroups, not that the students interact with the text along the lines suggestedby current reading research. In short, those seeking authentic texts andnatural language or an interactive approach to reading instruction willneed to search elsewhere.

Finally, the topics chosen and some of the activities related to them seemculturally biased. For example, shyness is portrayed as a liability thatshould be overcome (Lesson 1). For some readers, the topics may be eitheroffensive or irrelevant. Students are expected to debate a case of surrogateparenting (Lesson 10) and to devise a will (Lesson 5). Are these topicsappropriate for all cultures within and outside of the United States? Isthere a subtle U. S., middle-class bias involved in these readings?

In summary, while Words at Work probably can deliver on its promiseof building vocabulary, as a general reading text that would build other

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reading skills and appeal to ESL/EFL students, it is deficient in several keyareas. For those considering using this text I would advise caution.

ELLIOT L. JUDDUniversity of Illinois at Chicago

Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar. Marianne Celce-Murciaand Sharon Hilles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 189.

In their introduction the authors present a carefully constructed case forthe necessity of teaching grammar to certain second language learners.The first chapter counters the current antigrammar stance by citing theprofile of students who show a pattern of high vocabulary but fossilizedinaccurate grammar arrived at through “street learning or through ‘com-munication first’ programs” and who are “unsuccessful at increasing theirlinguistic ability” (Higgs & Clifford, 1982, cited in Celce-Murcia & Hilles,p. 3). The authors proceed to outline a framework for teaching grammarbased on three aspects of language: social roles and communicativefunctions (e.g., politeness), semantic notions expressed throughgrammatical structures (e.g., prepositions), and discourse factors (e.g.,word order and topic continuity). To these aspects they link the teachingtechniques of dramatizing, responding to realia, and manipulating texts.

The teacher new to ESL will find a wealth of concrete ideas for teachinggrammar. However, while the practicality of the text is beyond question,there is an overly structuralist tone in many of the chapters despite theinterweaving of communicative classroom techniques. The primaryjustification given for this is that “we are more often obliged to teachdistrict- or school-prescribed syllabuses, which usually are structurallybased” (p. 23). This is a disappointing caveat for those who believe thatgrammar must play an integral part in the communicative classroom. Itwould have been preferable for the authors to have derived thegrammatical syllabus from actual student errors, and to have described theteaching of grammar in the context of teaching the other ESL skills,particularly reading and writing.

Interwoven with the teaching examples are numerous commentsconcerning classroom management, such as the benefits of cooperativelearning and the strict use of English in the classroom. One problem is thatno mention is made of the differences that might arise in an EFL situationwhere, for example, the practicality of using the students’ native languagemay at times be justified. A weakness of the book is the unstatedassumption that the readers will be teaching ESL classes in an adult schoolsetting.

Despite these problems, the text serves well as an introduction to theteaching of grammar. It provides many examples of simple, practicaltechniques that make use of everyday materials, from classroom furnitureto pop songs to magazine pictures. The authors emphasize the fact that

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their ideas are only suggestions to encourage the teacher to find innovativeways to contextualized grammar instruction. Through example, the bookdemonstrates how a teacher’s creative approaches can help ESL studentsgain maximum benefit from instruction in grammar.

PETER MASTERCalifornia State University, Fresno

A Linguistic Study of American Punctuation. Charles F. Meyer. NewYork: Peter Lang, 1987. Pp. xv + 159.

Meyer’s purpose with this book is to set forth a comprehensive treatmentof contemporary U.S. (termed Modern American) punctuation based onlinguistic principles. Specifically, his focus is on those punctuation markswhose uses have not been rigidly conventionalized: that is “periods,question marks, exclamation marks, commas, dashes, semicolons, colons,and parentheses” (p. xiii).

Chapter 1 overviews the history of U.S. punctuation and its linguisticbasis. Chapters 2 through 4 outline the syntactic, semantic, and prosodicbases of punctuation norms. Chapter 5 specifies the pragmatic bases foroverriding these norms. Chapter 6 details the close correspondencebetween actual practice and the prescriptive rules given in style manuals.Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the rules and general principles of punctu-ation. Several appendixes conclude the book.

Meyer’s thesis is that punctuation should be viewed as a systemconsisting of a small set of general principles. For example, in consideringcoordinate constructions, Meyer discusses a punctuation hierarchy and onegeneral principle. The hierarchy ranks the period, the semicolon, and thecomma in descending order. Meyer’s principle states that “the lengthier ormore complex a coordinated construction . . ., the greater the need topunctuate it with a mark higher on the punctuation hierarchy” (p. 119). Ina sentence like My mother went to the bank (punctuation mark) and myfather went to the store, each clause is short and simple. Hence a comma(lowest on the hierarchy) is appropriate.

This view of punctuation as a system of general principles has straight-forward implications for the teaching of U.S. English. For example,suppose that in a choppy, hard-to-read essay, a student uses a period toseparate the following clauses: My mother went to the bank. And myfather went to the store. Using Meyer’s system, the instructor can presentthe punctuation hierarchy and principle, pointing out that the clauses areshort, simple, and structurally parallel, thereby arguing for a mark loweron the punctuation hierarchy. Once the students master the principle, theycan apply the same criteria to a huge class of coordinated constructions.Without Meyer’s system of general principles, the instructor is restricted toidiosyncratic correction (e.g., “use comma here”) or reference to a specificrule in a style manual.

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Meyer’s approach also has implications for nonnative speakers learningU.S. punctuation. Since different languages utilize different linguisticstructures in different ways, one question researchers might ask is how aperson’s native linguistic competence affects or interferes with theacquisition of the punctuation of U.S. English.

With over 250 examples and 35 different tables, Meyer’s book shouldalso serve as a valuable summary of the data and principles of punctuation.Moreover, Appendix 1 details how 13 different style manuals treat 53different punctuation usages (e.g., the acceptability of the “dash foremphasis” as in The man—an incredible fool—should be fired).

In sum, Meyer’s view of punctuation as a system of principles and hisextensive surveys of punctuation data should prove especially useful toTESOL specialists and others engaged in either teaching or analyzingwritten U.S. English.

K. SCOTT FERGUSONHarvard University

Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL. Deborah Phillips. NewYork: Longman, 1989. Pp. vi + 282.

The Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL comes close tomeeting its back cover claims of giving “students the skills, strategies,practice, and confidence they need to increase their scores on thisimportant exam.” Although the book does not touch on the Test of SpokenEnglish and deals with the Test of Written English very superficially, thematerials and exam practice given for the three main sections of the testare exemplary. The book claims to be all things to all people: a core textfor TOEFL preparation, a self-study tool for students preparing for thetest, and a supplementary text in a more general ESL course. The latter usewould seem inadvisable, as the text deals as much with test-takingstrategies as it does with language and skills content.

Additional materials are available to supplement the materials in thisvolume. A separate typescript and answer key are needed to-work fullywith the text. The complete Longman program for the TOEFL includesanother book, Longman Practice Tests for the TOEFL, with its owntypescripts and answer keys included. Cassettes (two in each set) go witheach book.

The practical, frankly “beat-the-test” orientation shows up in suchinstructions as choose the answer “that sounds different” (p. 18) or listen“to the second line of the conversation” (p. 50), both in the section onListening Comprehension; and “do not spend a lot of time looking forcontextual clues to the meanings of the words” (p. 208) in the section onVocabulary and Reading Comprehension. Strategies for each questiontype in the three main sections of the TOEFL are described and theteacher is reminded to do the practice exercises in class as “it is important

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to keep the students under time pressure” (p. 5) while they do theexercises.

Unlike most TOEFL preparation courses, Phillips’ work provides littlereal TOEFL practice; the text begins with a pretest and ends with aposttest, as does each section dealing with each of the three sections of theTOEFL. These tests seem to have greater motivational than instructionalimport; students are instructed in converting their scores to a 200-700TOEFL-like scale and then “chart their progress” (p. 270). Many exercisesin the book adopt the TOEFL format but deal only with a specific skill orlanguage item in focus.

The real strength of the text lies in predicting areas in which students areprobably going to have difficulty (based on errors actually made on theTOEFL) and then systematically dealing with these areas, mostsuccessfully in the Structure/Written Expression section. Here suchcommon errors as subject-verb agreement are dealt with through briefexplanatory notes, exercises, and finally TOEFL-like practice. A problem-solving approach follows the current trend in learner accountability:Teachers are a resource and their job is to “assist the students in finding thevarious ways that the sentences can be corrected” (p. 5). Material based onspecific problems permits teachers to omit certain sections of the text ifthey don’t like the way the problem is addressed or if the language pointdoes not present a problem for their students.

The Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL has a pleasingappearance, contains realistic testing material and answer sheets, andprovides adequate remedial work and test-taking strategies for the threemain sections of the exam. This is what it was written to do and the author,publisher, and those who adopt it should not expect it to do any more—orany less.

TERESE THONUSCultura lnglesa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Doublespeak, William Lutz. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.Pp. xiii + 290.

Although we are language professionals, ESL teachers may not fullyappreciate the degree to which the manipulative language of advertisers,bureaucrats, and politicians has come to pervade the public discourse. Inan effort to draw attention to the trend, William Lutz has compiled intobook form examples of doublespeak, which he defines as language thatcan “mislead, distort, deceive, inflate, circumvent, obfuscate” (p. 2). “At itsleast offensive, doublespeak is inflated language” (p. 9).

Consisting mostly of material previously published in the QuarterlyReview of Doublespeak, a publication of the National Council of Teachersof English edited by Lutz, this catalogue of examples from across thespectrum of public discourse is a sobering—and entertaining—account ofthe phenomenon of doublespeak.

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The term doublespeak was inspired by the work of George Orwell. Inhis book 1984, Newspeak is the official state language; doublethink isexemplified by the slogan “War is Peace.” Lutz quotes Orwell’s 1946 essay,"Politics and the English Language "“ “The great enemy of clear languageis insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and declared aims,one turns as it were instinctively to long words” (p. 8). Lutz notes that theproblem is with the intent of the speaker or writer, not with the languagebut with those who use it. Doublespeak is not simply another inoffensivemanifestation of the change all living languages are subject to. Theexistence of doublespeak is by design, not by natural evolution. In toomany cases, its manifesto is manipulation and its primary goal is todissemble.

Teachers might use Lutz’ book to raise awareness of doublespeak andsome of its subtleties. They could develop lessons in critical thinking,especially for reading courses where objectives include inferencing,distinguishing fact from opinion, and identifying tone and bias. Double-speak is a rich resource to use in the classroom. One familiar phrase thatLutz dissects yields not only to grammatical and lexical, but also topragmatic analysis: “Twice as much of the pain reliever doctorsrecommend most” (p. 95). Twice as much as what? he wonders. And justwhat is the pain reliever doctors recommend most, anyway? According toLutz, it’s plain aspirin; the hollowness and pretension of the phrase beginto emerge. Teachers can help students wade through other odious lan-guage, such as this response to a request for a raise: “Because of thefluctuational disposition of your position’s productive capacity asjuxtaposed to government standards, it would be monetarily injudicious toadvocate an increment” (p. 215).

Most of the examples in Doublespeak are drawn from the publishedequivocations of politicians and bureaucrats. For example, there is thehelicopter that, as the National Transportation Safety Board oncereported, failed “to maintain clearance from the ground” (p. 214). Andwho is trying to hide what behind an expression like, “predawn verticalinsertion” (p. 7)? (Remember Granada?)

Ironically, teachers are partly to blame for the proliferation of double-speak. In a lengthy section on education doublespeak, Lutz finds thateducational journals and reports are replete with the stuff. Even Englishteachers have fallen for it. Lutz cites a study in which English teachers arefound to prefer convoluted passages like those above to passages that saythe same thing in simpler prose. Lutz encourages teachers to be aware ofdoublespeak: “They should be leading the fight against doublespeak byteaching their students how to spot it, how to defend themselves against it,and how to eliminate it in their own writing and speaking” (p. 63).

VINCENT G. BARNESUniversity of Washington

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BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIESThe TESOL Quarterly invites readers to submit short reports and updates on theirwork. These summaries may address any areas of interest to Quarterly readers.Authors’ addresses are printed with these reports to enable interested readers tocontact the authors for more details.

Edited by GAIL WEINSTEIN-SHRUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst/Temple University

Listening Perception Accuracy of ESL Learnersas a Variable Function of Speaker L1

GEORGE YULE, SUSAN WETZEL, and LAURA KENNEDYLouisiana State University

As we incorporate into our ESL speaking classes a greater number ofinteractive tasks involving nonnative-speaker/nonnative-speaker (NNS/NNS) dyads or groups, trying to create the optimum conditions forlearners to benefit from negotiated input (Long, 1983; Doughty & Pica,1986), we have tended to move away from exercises that focus on linguis-tic form, particularly in terms of the pronunciation and perception of En-glish sound contrasts at the syllable or word level. This would seem to bejustified if we could be sure that, as an inevitable part of receivingnegotiated input, learners were in fact developing sufficient accuracy inthe production and perception of those features of spoken English thatplay a crucial part in comprehension. According to Long and Porter(1985), accuracy does not suffer when learners take part in interactive pairwork with other NNSs. However, this claim was primarily based on theuse of grammatical structures and seems, in our experience, to be lesstenable when we think of some learners whose accuracy in spokenproduction does seem to be subject to some variation.

We do not know of any studies focusing specifically on level ofpronunciation and perception accuracy in NNS/NNS pair work, but wehave observed that learners seem to get by with fairly inaccuratepronunciations (in terms of the target) when their NNS partner is veryfamiliar with their speech, particularly in the EFL context whereinterlocutors share the same L1 (Kenworthy, 1987). We wondered if ESLlearners actually found it easier to identify English words when these werespoken by other learners than when they were spoken by English nativespeakers. In an attempt to answer this question, we designed a listeningperception exercise to investigate whether learners became more or lessaccurate in their identification of English words as a function of the L1 ofthe speaker.

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THE STUDY

A group of 25 students of high-intermediate to low-advanced ability,enrolled in sections of a Spoken English class at Louisiana State University,voluntarily took part in our study. There were 13 Spanish first language(SL1) speakers, 6 Vietnamese (VL1) speakers and 6 Chinese (CL1)speakers. They were individually recorded reading two different sets of 40sentences. Every sentence came in two versions, to provide a minimal paircontrast. For example, when one set contained Everyone was present, theother set contained Everyone was pleasant. We also had a U.S. Englishspeaker (EL1) record both sets. From these recordings we created, foreach individual learner, cassette tapes with sets of sentences such that eachlearner had to listen to an English NS, a same L1 NNS, a different L1 NNSand him/herself. Sample sentences for each listener were randomlyselected from each input source, with the result that there was no controlover which particular minimal pair contrasts were represented on eachlistener’s cassette.

When the learners listened to their cassette tapes, they had to decidewhich word had been spoken in each sentence. For example, the learnerwould hear a spoken version of Put these in the bag, and have to indicateon an answer sheet which member of a pair of words had been spoken: Putthese in the (bag/back). (For a more detailed description of the technique,see Yule, Hoffman, & Damico, 1987). We thereby collected perceptionaccuracy scores for our three L1 groups listening to four different Englishinput sources: NS, same Ll, different Ll, and self. The accuracy results,expressed as mean percentages for each L1 group along with the results ofthe analysis of variance (ANOVA) by group are presented in Table 1.

TABLE 1Mean Perception Accuracy (%) and ANOVAs by Listener Group

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Considering all the learners in our study as a single ESL population, wefind that there is a substantially higher level of accuracy when the

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individual learners try to identify what they themselves have said, with

between self and each of the others.1 This should not be surprising sinceindividuals speaking a second language must, via the self-monitoringprocess, become their own most common personal input providers, andinevitably the most familiar (Gass & Varonis, 1984).

The same pattern as for the overall group (mean perception accuracyfor self differing significantly from each of the other speaker conditions,but no real differences between any of those other conditions) is repeated

group, only the difference between listening to self and listening to same

SL1 groups, the relatively minor differences observed between theirperception accuracy scores when trying to identify what was said by anEnglish NS and a NNS (either with same or different Ll) would tend tooffer support to those who claim that the source of L2 input need not bea native speaker.

However, the results for the Chinese L1 group present a quite differentpicture. For this group, there is no difference in accuracy between listeningto self and to others with the same L1. Here the critical difference in mean

difference in listening to self versus an English native speaker and listeningto a same L1 speaker versus an English native speaker. That is, in markedcontrast to the SL1 and VL1 groups, the Chinese L1 group had significantlygreater accuracy in identifying English words when spoken by anotherChinese L1 speaker than when spoken by a native English speaker.

What might account for this difference in L2 perception accuracyaccording to the L1 of the input provider among these groups? When weconducted our investigation of listening accuracy, we had also gatheredinformation on a number of other factors. In analyzing the relationshipbetween these factors and the various listening accuracy scores, we couldfind no connection between listening scores and self-reported factors suchas amount of time using English outside class, number of same L1 friends,number of different L1 friends, or number of English L1 friends. Despitetheir generally having the lowest accuracy scores, the CL1 group reporteda greater average number of years studying English (8.29) than the SL1group (7.34) and the VL1 group (5.13). However, no significant correlationwas found between years studying English and any listening accuracycondition. Nor was there any significant correlation between any listeningaccuracy condition and reported years living in the United States: CL1(2.17), SL1 (1.66), VL1 (4.58). What did provide a possible clue was theapparent difference in the type of English language experience that theCL1 and VL1 groups had had.

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 521

If we compare the figures for time spent studying English and timespent in the U. S., we might infer that these account for differences in L2perception accuracy. The general English language learning experience ofthe Vietnamese group had been in an ESL context (about 90%), but not sofor the Chinese group (about 25%). While the VL1 group had learned Eng-lish in classes with learners from other L1 backgrounds, with English NSteachers, and surrounded by the English language, the CL1 groupconfirmed that they had had a traditional EFL experience, with verylimited English speaking or listening components. Whatever listeningexperience they had been provided with involved Chinese L1 learners andteachers speaking English. This scenario may provide some insight into thefact that the CL1 group had achieved their highest accuracy scores whenlistening to other CL1 speakers.

This explanation, however, does not seem as strong when we examinethe time spent by the SL1 group studying English in the ESL versus theEFL context. These SL1 students had, on average, no more ESLexperience than the CL1 group (about 22%), yet had coped better with theEnglish NS input. We might point out, however, that these SL1 learners,from South and Central America, had generally had much greaterexposure to spoken U.S. English, both in and out of their EFL classes, priorto arriving in the U.S. Their general familiarity with U.S. culturalreferences, for example, was observed in class to be much greater than thatof the CL1 students.

CONCLUSION

It is impossible, in this type of study, to measure the effect of previousEFL instruction on performance within the ESL situation of a U.S.university. We should, however, try to remember that the individuallearners in our ESL classes may have had qualitatively quite different EFLlearning experiences and developed quite different levels of ability inspecific skill areas. When we advocate NNS/NNS pairings in spokeninteraction tasks in the language classroom, we should be sensitive to thepotential differences in ability among different L1 learners to cope withEnglish language input from learners with different Lls. While the presentstudy has been limited to simple perception accuracy in isolation and notwithin an ongoing interaction, it does provide some grounds for suspectingthat what might count as comprehensible input from a Chinese L1 speakerto a Spanish L1 speaker may not count as such in the opposite direction.

Finally, it must be clear from our results that claims from research withone specific L1 group of learners may not be accurate with regard toanother L1 group even, as in this case, when those groups are currentlysharing the same classroom experience. Consequently, when makingclaims about, for example, the performance of a small group of Spanish L1ESL learners on some task, in a particular setting, we should be extremelycautious about turning those claims into powerful and unqualifiedstatements about what all learners do.

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REFERENCES

Doughty, C., & Pica, T. (1986). “Information gap” tasks: Do they facilitate secondlanguage acquisition? TESOL Quarterly, 20 (2), 305-325.

Gass, S., & Varonis, E. M. (1984). The effect of familiarity on the compre-hensibility of nonnative speech. Language Learning, 34, 65-89.

Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English pronunciation. Harlow, England: Long-man.

Long, M. H. (1983). Linguistic and conversational adjustments to non-nativespeakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5, 177-193.

Long, M. H., & Porter, P. A. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and secondlanguage acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (2), 207-228.

Yule, G., Hoffman, P., & Damico, J. (1987). Paying attention to pronunciation: Therole of self-monitoring in perception. TESOL Quarterly, 21 (4), 765-768.

Authors’ Address: Linguistics Program, 136 Coates Hall, Louisiana State University,Baton Rouge, LA 70803.

Using Brainstorming and Clusteringwith LEP Writing to DevelopElaboration Skills

ANDREA B. BERMUDEZ and DORIS L. PRATERUniversity of Houston-Clear Lake

The need to develop intervention and prevention programs for at-riskpopulations has clearly become a national educational priority as dropoutlevels continue to escalate (United States General Accounting Office,1987). To date, most educational models used with minority students,particularly the limited English proficient (LEP), have approachedinstruction from the standpoint of students’ deficits rather than theirstrengths. This focus has resulted in temporary and costly solutions to theproblem (Fernandez, Bermudez, & Fradd, in press). The development ofwriting skills in LEP and at-risk students has been largely ignored byeducators in the field. In addition, these writers face several challenges indeveloping composing skills: (a) lack of awareness of critical cognitiveprocesses inherent to good writing, e.g., clustering related ideas and self-directed memory searching (Englert & Raphael, 1988); (b) inability totransform conversational patterns into writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia,1982); (c) lack of ability to regulate their own and others’ comprehensionof text and to organize ideas for writing (Englert & Raphael, 1988); (d)dependence on external criteria and resources (Englert & Raphael, 1988);and (e) conception of language as a set of discrete and mutuallyindependent skills (Padron & Bermudez, 1988).

In addition, recent studies of LEP writers suggest that these studentsfocus on form to the detriment of content or ideas (Padron & Bermudez,


1988; Widdowson, 1978; Zamel, 1982, 1983). LEP writers are notsystematically using strong metacognitive strategies such as planning,brainstorming, and considering the audience; instead, they are focusing ongrammatical features and punctuation (Bermudez & Padron, 1988;Raimes, 1980). Furthermore, being able to plan, draft, and revise requiresthe ability to use recursive processes that tend to overwhelm the LEPwriter. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1986) report that lack of sufficient meta-cognitive awareness necessary for successful writing would jeopardize thequality of the written product. Consequently, developing metacognitiveawareness of the writing process is a good starting point for these learners.Additionally, strategy instruction seems to be a promising writingmethodology for the LEP student (Chamot & O’Malley, 1987). Teachingcognitive strategies has also shown to be effective in helping students makethe transition from oral to written language (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982;Chamot & O'Malley, 1987).

Mapping strategies, for example, have been found to help studentsestablish priorities and focus their writing (Miccinati, 1988). This strategyhas been defined in the research literature as a technique for externalizingthe individual’s cognitive structure by diagraming his/her knowledgebase of concepts and the relationships among concepts (Novak & Gowin,1984). Similarly this type of strategy improves comprehension of text fromelementary school to adult levels (Prater & Terry, 1988; Singer & Bean,1984; Slater, Graves, & Piche, 1985) and retention of information(Miccinati, 1988). In addition, mapping assists in developing morecohesive (Ruddel & Boyle, 1984; Miccinati, 1988) and longer essays(Ruddel & Boyle, 1984). However, the impact of these strategies on ESLwriting has not been examined. As a result of the pressing need foradditional research in this area, the researchers conducted the presentstudy to investigate the effects of brainstorming and clustering on thedevelopment of written language fluency and the elaboration of ideas inLEP students.

METHODSubjects

The sample consisted of two groups of 16 third- and fourth-gradeSpanish-speaking LEP students from a low-income urban school in Texas.

Procedure

Students were matched according to their Individualized Developmen-tal English Activities (IDEA) language proficiency scores. One studentfrom each pair was randomly assigned to a treatment group, one to acontrol group. The same teacher worked with both groups for 45 minutesper day for 6 days. Three reading selections from the basal reader that wasthe class text were used (Arnold, Smith, Blood, & Lapp, 1987). The

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selections were factual/informative reading passages. Two days werespent on each of three selections.

The treatment group brainstormed ideas about the topic of the storyusing the title of the selection and illustrations as a stimulus for theirthinking. The teacher served as scribe, placing the ideas on a transparency.The students read the selection silently for the remainder of the classperiod. The next day the teacher led the group in brainstorming otherideas that they had gathered from their reading. Then, with the assistanceof the teacher, the students clustered the ideas by circling like topics in thesame color ink pen. Next, the treatment group wrote a paragraph aboutthe story. A 6-item comprehension measure was given to the students at theend of the 2 days spent on each respective selection. One week later aretention measure made up of the three comprehension measures wasgiven.

With the control group, the teacher introduced the selections usingpreliminary questions provided in the basal reader. Then, the studentsread the selection silently. The next day the teacher led a class discussionbased on questions provided in the basal reader and the student wrote aparagraph about the selection. The same comprehension and retentionmeasures were given to the control group.

Evaluation Measures

Comprehension measure. Three 6-item tests based on the respectivestories were developed by the researchers. Items were written at bothliteral/factual and inferential/interpretive levels. For each student, thethree test scores were summed to yield a single comprehension score(range 0-18).Retention measure. The 18 items were administered 1 week after the lastclass session as a comprehensive retention measure.Writing measures. The essays were analyzed for fluency (number ofwords, number of idea units, number of main ideas); for elaboration(number of ideas beyond text material); and for organization (number ofclusters).

Idea units are defined by Gere & Abbott (1985) as a single clause,independent or dependent.

The number of main ideas in the reading selections was determined byhaving two graduate students read each selection and list the main ideas.In most cases these main ideas were topic sentences within eachparagraph, stated or implied. The final selection of main ideas was agreedupon by both readers. Student essays were then scored against this list.

The number of ideas beyond the text material was determined by twoindependent readings of the essays. New material added to the essay thatwas not present in the text was counted.

The number of clusters was determined by counting the number ofoccasions in which two or more sentences with related ideas wereexpressed consecutively within the essay.


RESULTS

The means, standard deviations, and t-values for each of the dependentmeasures are shown in Table 1. Elaboration was significantly higher forthe treatment group. No significant differences between the two groupswere found on measures of fluency, organization, comprehension, orretention. Note, however, that the use of multiple t-tests calls into questionthe significance of the elaboration measure. Thus, conclusions reportedhere should be interpreted as suggestive only; further research is needed inthis area.

TABLE 1Comparison of Experimental and Control Groups on Each

of the Evaluation Measures

Discussion

It may be that the graphic representation of concepts enables the LEPwriters to expand their discussion of materials presented in the basalreader. The mapping activities and exchange of related ideas may activateprior knowledge and facilitate linkages with new knowledge. The originalideas presented beyond those contained in the text suggest that the learneris actively involved in the process.

While not statistically significant, the finding that the treatment groupessays were better organized than the control group’s is also suggestive.The clustering activities may provide the necessary mechanism forfostering the grouping of related ideas in written products. The maps mayfacilitate visualization of conceptual relationships among parts andbetween parts and the whole. These learners may need more practice overan extended period of time.

Educational Implications

If future research finds these effects to be significant, several

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implications follow. In both brainstorming and clustering procedures, thegoal of the classroom teacher should be to move the student toindependent use of such techniques. The comprehension of factual/informative texts is essential to handling reading in content areas. LEPwriters need to be provided a variety of tools to help them cope withdemands made upon them in content classes. The’ use of cognitivestrategies to enhance the development of composing skills may well beeffective with LEP learners. Strategy-oriented writing instructionenhances the opportunities for the LEP student to use writing as a learningtool as well as a skill to develop other language and thinking skills.

REFERENCES

Arnold, V. A., Smith, C. B., Blood, J., & Lapp, D. (1987). Connections: Level 3.2.Observing. New York: Macmillan.

Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1982). From conversation to composition: Therole of instruction in a developmental process. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances ininstructional psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 1-64). Hillsdale, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bermudez, A. B., & Padron, Y. N. (1988). Teachers’ perceptions of errors in secondlanguage learning and acquisition. In L. M. Malave (Ed.), NABE ’87. TheoryResearch and Applications: Selected Papers (pp. 112-124). Fall River, MA:National Dissemination Center.

Chamot, A. U., & O’Malley, J. M. (1987). The cognitive academic languagelearning approach: A bridge to the mainstream. TESOL Quarterly, 21 (2),227-249.

Englert, C. S., & Raphael, T. E. (1988). Constructing well-formed prose: Process,structure and metacognition in the instruction of expository writing. ExceptionalChildren, 54 (6), 513-520.

Fernandez, M. R., Bermudez, A. B., & Fradd, S. L. (in press). The Hispanicdropout cycle: A proposal for change. Southwest Journal of EducationalResearch Into Practice.

Gere, A. R., & Abbott, R. D. (1985). Talking about writing: The language ofwriting groups. Research in the Teaching of English, 19, 362-379.

Miccinati, J. (1988). Mapping the terrain: Connecting reading with academicwriting. Journal of Reading, 31, 542-552.

Novak, J. D., & Gowin, D. B. (1984). Learning how to learn. New York:Cambridge University Press.

Padron, Y. N., & Bermudez, A. B. (1988, Spring). Promoting effective writingstrategies for ESL students. Southwest Journal of Research Into Practice 2, 19-27.

Prater, D. L., & Terry, C. A. (1988). Effects of mapping strategies on readingcomprehension and writing performance. Reading Psychology, 9 (2), 101-120.

Raimes, A. (1980). Composition: Controlled by the teacher, free for the student. InK. Croft (Ed.), Readings on English as a second language: For teachers andteacher trainees (pp. 386-398). Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.

Ruddell, R., & Boyle, O. (1984). A study of the effects of cognitive mapping onreading comprehension and written protocols. (Technical Report No. 7).Berkeley: University of California Press.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1986). Research on written composition. In M.Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed, pp. 778-803). NewYork: Macmillan.


Singer, H., & Bean, T. (Eds.). (1984). Learning from texts: Selection of friendlytext. Proceedings of the Lake Arrowhead Conference on Learning from text.(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 251 512).

Slater, W., Granes, M., & Piche, G. (1985). Effects of structural organizers on ninthgrade students’ comprehension and recall of four patterns of expository text.Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 189-202.

United States General Accounting Office. (1987). School dropouts: The extent andnature of the problem. (GAO/HRD Report No. 86-106BR). Washington, DC:Author.

Widdowson, H. (1978). Teaching language as communication. London: OxfordUniversity Press.

Zamel, V. (1982). Writing: The process of discovering meaning. TESOL Quarterly,16 (2), 195-209.

Zamel, V. (1983). The composing processes of advanced ESL students: Six casestudies. TESOL Quarterly, 17 (2), 165-187.

Authors’ Address: University of Houston-Clear Lake, 2700 Bay Area Blvd.,Houston, TX 77058.

528 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE FORUMThe TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in theTESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles orremarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

Comments on James W. Tollefson’sAlien Winds: The Reeducation ofAmerica’s Indochinese Refugeesand Elsa Auerbach’s Review

Two Readers React. . .

DONALD A. RANARD and DOUGLAS F. GILZOWCenter for Applied Linguistics

In her recent review of James Tollefson’s Alien Winds (1989),Elsa Auerbach (Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring, 1990) finds little to criticizeand much to praise, recommending the book as “required readingfor all ESL educators.” It is not surprising that the review wasfavorable, since Auerbach is singled out for special thanks in theacknowledgments section of Alien Winds, and her own worksuggests a sympathy for Tollefson’s point of view. It was disturbing,however, that there was apparently no attempt to verify Tollefson’scharges against the Overseas Refugee Training Program (ORTP).In fact, Auerbach highlights some of the more sensationalisticaccusations, describing raw sewage flowing through refugees’ livingquarters and teachers extorting sexual favors and bribes fromstudents. Had the reviewer taken steps to check the facts, she wouldhave discovered dozens of inaccuracies and distortions in the book.It is for this reason that we wish to provide an alternative view ofthe book and the program it attacks.

Originally planned as a temporary response to the “refugee crisis”in Southeast Asia, the Overseas Refugee Training Program hasevolved into a sophisticated educational program that hascontinued for over a decade. It has operated under uniqueconstraints, employing Thai and Filipino educators to preparerefugees for the U.S. in camps 10,000 miles away.

529

Alien Winds makes serious charges against the Overseas RefugeeTraining Program and the living conditions at one of the sites. Ourcomments focus on the educational program since space does notpermit a full discussion of both issues, and because education is thearea most relevant to readers of the TESOL Quarterly. However,two points should be noted about the processing centers. First, theyare not “American run,” as Tollefson asserts (p. 16); they areoperated by the host country governments and the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees. Second, conditions in theprocessing centers are superior to those in any first-asylum camp inSoutheast Asia, in terms of housing, sanitation, and security—andthose conditions have steadily improved over time. In a recentreport (Pihl, 1990), a consultant to Lutheran Immigration andRefugee Service characterizes the Philippine Refugee ProcessingCenter as a “country club” (p. 8), in comparison to first-asylumcamps in the region.

According to Tollefson, for the past ten years the U.S. govern-ment has spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars providing English as asecond language instruction and cultural orientation to Indochineserefugees as part of a systematic effort to divest these people of theircultures, inculcate them with new values of subservience, and thentrack them into dead-end menial jobs required by the U.S economicsystem. This attempt, he maintains, shares the same fundamentalpurpose as efforts by turn-of-the-century educators to “American-ize” immigrants, and has led the overseas program into shoddypedagogy and an alarming number of abuses against the refugees.If Tollefson is correct, he has uncovered an educational conspiracyof unprecedented magnitude, involving thousands of U. S., Thai,Indonesian, and Filipino educators, and organizations such as theExperiment in International Living, Save the Children Federation,World Education, International Catholic Migration Commission(ICMC), World Relief Corporation, and the Center for AppliedLinguistics.

In his single-minded attachment to his point of view, Tollefsonnot only ignores contrary evidence but also shapes the facts to fit histhesis. We find half-truths, inaccuracies, misleading examples, andsimplistic generalizations throughout Alien Winds in criticisms ofthe staff, the curriculum, the infrastructure, and other aspects of theOverseas Refugee Training program in Thailand and particularly inthe Philippine Refugee Processing Center. Furthermore, the authorfails to take into account changes that have taken place in theprogram since he left it in 1986.

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EMPLOYMENT

In Alien Winds, Tollefson argues that the Overseas RefugeeTraining Program focuses almost exclusively on employment andthat it trains refugees for dead-end, minimum-wage jobs byteaching them the language and behavior of subservience andobedience. This view is a serious misrepresentation of the programand, in our view, reflects a skewed understanding of the realitiesthat refugees face in the U.S.

The program does not, as is charged, define successful resettle-ment solely in terms of employment. While employment is animportant topic in the program classes, other topics, such as health,transportation, shopping, directions, and personal information, faroutnumber employment-related areas in both the ESL and CulturalOrientation curricula. Interestingly, in the mid-1980s, at a time whenalmost all federally funded training for refugees in the U.S. hadbecome employment-related, thus restricting eligibility to onlyemployable refugees, the overseas program was committing itsresources to better meet the needs of children, adolescents, andhomebound mothers. Tollefson does not report these and similardevelopments that do not support his thesis. (The specialcurriculum for homebound women is mentioned, but surprisingly isused as proof of the program’s failure to force these women intominimum-wage employment.)

In Alien Winds, not only is the amount of attention paid to employ-ment exaggerated, but the quality and content of employment-related instruction is also misrepresented. Tollefson’s charge that theORTP willfully disregards the employment backgrounds of students,many of whom (he suggests) are well-educated professionals,misrepresents who the refugees are and what the program does. Infact, since the ORTP was established, only a minority of the refugeeshave been well-educated professionals. In contrast to the Indochineserefugees who arrived in 1975, many since then have had ruralbackgrounds, little formal education, and no previous contact withpeople from the U.S. or other Westerners (Caplan, Whitmore, & Bui,1985; Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1983; Rumbaut, 1985). Forexample, the average number of years of education for the 1988arrivals was 4.2, compared to 9.5 years for those arriving in 1975(Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1983, 1989).

While it is true that the Work Orientation component hasconcentrated its resources on less educated refugees, it is also truethat in recent years the component has taken into account thevarying backgrounds of refugees. Students in these classes are

THE FORUM 531

grouped according to their previous work experience and levels ofeducation. Furthermore, many of the better educated refugees arenot students in the program at all, but rather serve as resources inCultural Orientation classes and in programs for elementary school-aged children and adolescents. These English-proficient refugeesare offered additional classes in TOEFL preparation, advancedEnglish, and career exploration.

Tollefson’s claim that the program teaches refugees the languageand behavior of subservience and obedience likewise is based on aselective use of the facts. Contrary to Tollefson’s allegations,refugee students practice giving as well as following orders. AtLevel C, students learn to give one-step instructions, and at Level E,they practice explaining a technique or procedure (Center forApplied Linguistics, 1985). Nor does Alien Winds mention thatWork Orientation devotes several hours to identifying legal rightsand responsibilities in the workplace. In these lessons, refugeeslearn how to spot errors in paychecks, discuss different types ofdiscrimination from which workers are protected, describe thepurpose of unions, and list typical worker benefits (InternationalCatholic Migration Commission, 1987).

Because of the educational backgrounds of most of the studentsin the program, Work Orientation does tend to focus on thelanguage and skills needed for entry-level employment. At the sametime, the component has always spent considerable time on thestrategies needed to move up on the job or to find a job elsewhere.In a series of lessons, refugee students complete skills inventoriesand interest and preference checklists, and then examine variousoccupational options before developing a plan for “jobs they can donow, jobs they would like to have in the future, and skills theywould have to develop through future education and/or training”(International Catholic Migration Commission, 1987, p. 6). Theselessons are followed by others that explore educational options.Alien Winds, however, does not give serious attention to this aspectof the curriculum; the author apparently believes that the program’streatment of upward mobility not only betrays an unrealisticallyrosy picture of economic realities in the U. S., but that it is apurposeful part of the program’s intent: to lure refugees intoaccepting entry-level jobs.

If the program expresses a positive attitude towards upwardmobility, such an attitude is partly because job mobility is anunfamiliar concept to many Indochinese refugees: In theircountries, the first job was often the job one kept for life. In theORTP, refugees learn that, unlike the situation in their owncountries, U.S. workers change jobs frequently and seek additional

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training in order to improve their lot. (The students get the badnews as well. While refugees learn that it is possible to move up theeconomic ladder, they also learn that it is possible to move down—and to fall off it completely. This is also an unfamiliar notion tomany refugees from Southeast Asia, where a personal relationshipof responsibility between employer and employee makes layoffsand firings much less frequent than in the U. S.)

Tollefson ridicules the program’s treatment of upward mobilityas naive, arguing that for most refugees upward mobility is moremyth than reality. He cites studies showing that several years aftertheir arrival in the U.S. many refugees, even those with jobs, are stillliving at levels of poverty. Thus, by encouraging refugees to takeentry-level jobs, Tollefson argues, we are dooming them to povertyand helping to create an underclass.

As elsewhere, we find a selective use of the data. The mainevidence for the claim that refugees are suffering “a permanenteconomic crisis” and “long-term poverty” (p. 124) is drawn from a1985 Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)-commissioned studythat examines the economic achievements of post-1978 arrivals(Caplan, Whitmore, & Bui, 1985). While the study found high ratesof unemployment and poverty in the early period of resettlement, italso found a gradual ascent out of poverty over time. After fouryears in the U.S., 70% of the refugee sample was above the povertyline, a rate that is not very different from rates for other U.S.minorities (Caplan, Whitmore, & Bui, 1985). In a more recent lookat the data, the authors predicted “the likelihood of continuedeconomic independence and improvement in economic status” andcalled the refugees’ climb out of poverty “a major accomplish-ment,” particularly considering that it occurred at a time ofeconomic recession, when the percentage of households above thepoverty line fell for the U.S. population in general, and for otherminority groups in particular (Caplan, Whitmore, & Choy, 1989,p. 65).

At the same time, it was found that individual incomes did notimprove very much over the four- year period. After a year ofemployment, refugees were earning an average of $5.20 per hour;after two or more years of employment, they earned an average of$5.35 an hour. (Note, however, that both figures are substantiallyabove minimum wage, Throughout his book, Tollefson mislead-ingly uses the terms entry-level employment and minimum-wageemployment interchangeably.)

Economic improvements were made less through individualadvancements, the study found, than by increases in the number ofpeople working in households. Another study (Baker & North,

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1984), however, shows significant increases in individual incomeamong 1975 arrivals. Baker and North found that among youngmale refugees, the median income rose steadily, approaching paritywith U.S. workers in 1979, while the median earnings of femalerefugees actually surpassed those of U.S. female workers.

It is unlikely, given the backgrounds of post-1979 arrivals, thatthese refugees will achieve the same level of success as the better-educated 1975 arrivals. Still, there is reason for some optimism. In arecent Wall Street Journal article, one of the authors of the 1985ORR study says that the “economic and educational attainments [ofpost-1979 arrivals] are stunning. To a surprising degree the boatpeople have achieved a high level of control over their own destiny”(Caplan, 1990, A14).

While the sensational successes of individual refugees reported inthe media are hardly typical, evidence does not support whatTollefson calls the “bleak picture of resettlement” (p. 122). Thetruth is somewhere in between, and it is this truth that the OverseasRefugee Training Program tries to convey.

ESL AND PROFESSIONALISM

When the program was first launched in 1980, there was moreconcern for the refugees’ immediate survival needs than for theirlong-term language development. There was good reason for thisconcern. The ORTP was established after President Carter’sdecision to accept for resettlement 14,000 Indochinese a month,more in two months than had been resettled in the two previousyears combined (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1981). Havingshifted at jetspeed from their familiar rural Southeast Asiansurroundings to cities and suburbs across the U. S., these refugeesfrequently found themselves in linguistic and cross-culturalconfusion. There were stories of Hmong hilltribe people from Laoshosing down the living room floor in their Seattle apartments, thenindustriously sweeping the water down the heat registers; othersattempted to cook a whole chicken in an electric toaster (Levine,1982). A number of stories were more alarming. Sponsors and caseworkers in resettlement agencies were concerned that manyrefugees were unable to understand or follow instructions fromdoctors, could not read warning and danger signs, and had no ideawhat to do in case of a household emergency except “call thesponsor. ” There were reports of widespread and serious mentalhealth problems, particularly depression, among refugees (Cohon,1980; United Community Planning Corporation, 1982; Wester-meyer, 1985). In one widely reported incident, a refugee man,

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unable to understand what was happening to him and fearing thathe had failed his family, organized the attempted mass suicide of hisentire family (Trillin, 1980).

Thus, the overseas program began with a specific but criticalpurpose: to ease the initial shock of entry into an unfamiliar culture.Over time, as the numbers of refugees decreased and the sense ofcrisis diminished, the program expanded its scope of purpose to paymore attention to refugees’ longer range needs—in particular, theirgeneral language development and strategies for cross-culturalcoping. Tollefson is apparently unaware of these developments, orhas chosen to ignore them.

For example, in his recommendations, Tollefson urges theoverseas program to “reconsider the competency-based approachto ESL” (p. 155) because in his view it limits the education studentsreceive. In fact, in 1985 overseas program staff were concerned thatthere was not enough attention given to general English languageskills, particularly literacy skills (Kharde & Corey, 1986). Theirsolution was not to throw out the competency-based model, but toreduce the number of required competencies, thus allowingteachers and students more time for other areas. Since 1986, ESLclasses in the ORTP have devoted more time to developingstudents’ reading and writing skills. For example, students in upper-level classes read authentic essays and newspaper texts and debatecurrent U.S. social issues. In lower-level classes in the Philippines,many instructors employ a whole language approach, in whichstudents and teachers collaboratively choose the topics for study. Inthese classes, survival competencies are still “covered,” however.They come up naturally, teachers report, because they reflect areasof basic concern to refugee adults on their way to the U.S. (Snyder,1990).

The program has changed in many other ways over the years,partly in response to constructive criticism from its own staff, aswell as from outside the program. For example, in a 1985 TESOLQuarterly article, Tollefson made a number of suggestions:grouping students by gender and age for specific lessons, mixingstudents of various ethnic backgrounds for ESL instruction,increasing the number of former refugees on the staff, andincreasing the focus on communicative language teaching methods.In fact, very similar measures were already being implemented bythe time the article was published.

Given the program’s commitment to constructive change, it isespecially distressing to find in Alien Winds the contention thatweaknesses in the program’s instruction are intentional. Tollefson,who was once a part of that process of change, now asserts that the

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Overseas Refugee Training Program is rigid and backward in itsESL instruction, purposely maintaining a U.S. staff that isineffective and less than competent. Such a staff, he says, is anecessity to the program’s ill-intentioned administration, which iscommitted to restricting refugees’ access to better jobs.

This conspiracy theory of poor instruction is as absurd as it isgroundless. Tollefson admits that “hiring has recently improved”(p. 99) but does not mention that since 1985, the coordinators of theESL components in the Philippines have had PhDs in relevantfields. In fact, nearly all the U.S. ESL supervisors in the programhave master’s degrees and relevant overseas experience. The typicalESL supervisor is one who has spent several years overseas as aPeace Corps volunteer, returned to the U.S. for a master’s degree inTESL, and after some work with U.S. programs (often refugee-related), accepts a position with the overseas refugee program. It issimply unfair of Tollefson to characterize these professionals ashaving “virtually no previous experience” (p. 99) and to imply thatthey are motivated by greed.

The ORTP has a demonstrated commitment to recruiting andmaintaining a professionally qualified staff, emphasizing profes-sional development for all instructors and supervisors: Thais andFilipinos, as well as U.S. staff. For 16 months, Tollefson himself waspart of a large training department in the Philippine program siteoffering sessions on ESL techniques, second language acquisitiontheory, and dozens of other related topics. His own training sessionson Krashen and Terrell’s natural approach were documented in anarticle in the ORTP publication Passage: A Journal of RefugeeEducation (Wachman, 1985). Since 1986, a regular schedule ofuniversity courses has been offered in the Philippines RefugeeProcessing Center. These courses have been of particular benefit toteachers wishing to pursue master’s degrees in linguistics andlanguage teaching. In addition, there are excellent, large collectionsof professional materials in libraries at training sites in bothThailand and the Philippines. These would be rather peculiarendeavors for a program dedicated to poor ESL instruction.

From the beginning of instruction in the ORTP in 1981 untilbudget cuts took their toll in 1988, the program collected teachingideas from its staff and published them, first in the form of resourcemanuals and later in the magazine, Passage. The purpose of thesecollections was to document the instruction in the program and toshare expertise among the training sites and with practitioners in theU.S. In Alien Winds, individual lessons and activities in the resourcemanuals are quoted as if they were mandated procedures that everyteacher is compelled to follow. And Passage articles written by

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teachers and other staff members are cited as though the authorswere articulating policy decisions from the State Department.(Similarly, Tollefson cites curricula or activities intended for onlybeginning-level students and states or implies that the activities arerequired of “all of the refugees, regardless of their previouseducation or work experience” [p. 79]. ) In this way, Tollefson givesthe impression that the ORTP has a central, rigid, lesson-by-lessonsyllabus that every teacher must follow. In fact, a reader lookingover the resource manuals and issues of Passage would beimpressed by the diversity of professional viewpoints encouragedwithin the instruction in the Overseas Refugee Training Program.Whole language approaches for literacy instruction, cooperativelearning, peer teacher coaching, problem posing, and the naturalapproach, as well as more conventional methods, all have theiradvocates within the program—reflecting the lively diversity ofopinions in our field in general.

Attempting to show the lack of professionalism in the ESLprogram, Tollefson states that the Overseas Refugee TrainingProgram is negligent for not having involved more members ofTESOL’S Executive and Editorial Boards. This kind of involvementis not the function of those groups, and the suggestion can misleadthe non-ESL professional who might believe that any large ESLprogram would normally seek the services of board members.

Alien Winds fails to document the ORTP’S use of highly respectedprofessionals in the field as consultants. Although their consultancieshave necessarily been brief (most for 2 or 3 weeks), many of theirtraining sessions have been videotaped so that staff even years latercan benefit from taped lectures, discussions, and demonstrationclasses. Among the consultants to the processing center programshave been John R. Boyd, Mary Ann Boyd, John L. D. Clark, JoAnnCrandall, Carolyn Graham, Else Hamayan, Wayne Haverson,Michael H. Long, Rebecca L. Oxford, K. Lynn Savage, Lydia Stack,Carole Urzúa, and Nina Wallerstein. If the goal of the overseasprogram is to keep the staff uninformed and the ESL classessubstandard, as is claimed, it has chosen counterproductive meansof doing so.

CULTURAL ORIENTATION

Although involving students in determining course content is afairly recent development in ESL classes, this participatoryapproach has always been a part of Cultural Orientation classes. Ina 1985 handbook for teacher trainers in the overseas program(Resnich, 1985), the section dealing with Cultural Orientation

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strongly encourages teachers to find out from their own studentswhat they want and need to learn. The handbook states that such aneeds assessment “will generally produce a remarkably clear andinsightful statement of what [the students] want to learn about. Italso serves as an early indication to them that their participation isencouraged and that their interests and opinions are valued”(p. 349). In “Needs Assessment and Learner-developed Objectivesin Cultural Orientation,” an article in Passage, Vernon (1985)describes how teachers can implement this approach.

Tollefson fails to recognize the learner-centered aspect ofCultural Orientation, claiming that the program not only ignoresrefugees’ interests and opinions, but actually seeks to replace theirown beliefs with new ones. According to Alien Winds, one of themany similarities between turn-of-the-century Americanizationprograms and the ORTP is the shared assumption that “refugeesmust give up their cultural traditions” (p. 76) as part of the processof becoming “American.”

Those who are familiar with both the Americanization movementand the ORTP, however, are much more likely to be struck by thedifferences between the two than their similarities. In the ORTP,native language and culture are regarded as sources of strength andbridges to the new language and culture, rather than as impedi-ments. Staff know that resettled refugees who maintain aconnection to their own cultures in the U.S. tend to do better inschool and at work, and have fewer mental health problems thanthose who attempt to sever ties with their past (Rumbaut & Ima,1987; Caplan, Whitmore, & Choy, 1989).

Indeed, the generalization that refugees must maintain (ratherthan give up) their cultural traditions would be closer to the aims ofthe ORTP. In teacher training, teacher resources, and instructionalpractices in numerous Cultural Orientation (CO) lessons on “pre-serving your culture,” and in native language literacy classes fornonliterate adult refugees, the ORTP treats the refugees’ native lan-guages and cultures as sources of strength.

The program has made a notably strong effort in this area withyounger refugees, who are often the first to reject their own culturesand languages, particularly since many have spent years in refugeecamps and lack education about their own heritage. Since 1986, theprogram for 12- to 16-year-old refugees has included a surveycourse on the cultures of Indochina, using a curriculum developedby a group of concerned refugees (Lambrecht, 1987).

In Cultural Orientation classes, not only the content of instructionbut the process itself shows a respect for cultural heritage. A guidingprinciple in ESL as well as CO instruction has always been that

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lessons should progress from the familiar to the unfamiliar (Centerfor Applied Linguistics, 1982). In Cultural Orientation classes, thismeans that teachers generally address a given topic by askingstudents about their own cultures. It is only after the refugees’ owncultural viewpoint has been affirmed that U.S. viewpoints arepresented as a comparison and contrast.

At the same time that the program encourages refugees topreserve their native languages and cultures, it also recognizes thatpressures to conform are real. Refugees learn that although there isan ideal of celebrating cultural diversity in the U. S., this ideal is notembraced by all. (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982; Hixon,1987). Thus, many Cultural Orientation lessons are similar to thosethat new Peace Corps volunteers receive to help them understandhow their behavior is likely to be understood in a new culture, whatthe consequences of that behavior may be, and how they candevelop strategies to deal with cross-cultural conflicts.

What the program hopes will be the final outcome of this processis a bicultural sophistication, an ideal described in a 1986 Passagearticle:

Traditional beliefs and values are preserved, while new values andpractices necessary to function in the new society are acquired. With abicultural approach, the individual is able to function either in Americansociety or within his or her own ethnic group. This type of adjustment isconsidered quite compatible with a pluralistic society like the U.S.(Corey, 1986, p. 42)

Remarkably, Tollefson cites this article as proof of the program’sattempts to divest refugees of their cultures.

CONCLUSION

The unique constraints under which the Overseas RefugeeTraining Program operates, together with developments in thefields of ESL and cross-cultural training, the changes in back-grounds among various refugee groups, and a range of political,social, and economic forces—domestic and international—have allaffected this training program. A scholarly analysis of their impactwould make for a thought-provoking, informative study. In fact, ananalysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the training programcould be a positive contribution to the program’s evolution as wellas to the field of refugee education. It is disappointing that AlienWinds proves to be a one-sided polemic rather than a balancedassessment.

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REFERENCES

Baker, R. P., & North, D. S. (1984). The 1975 refugees: Their first fiveyears in America. Washington, DC: New TransCentury Foundation.

Caplan, N. (1990). Boat people prove their worth. The Wall Street Journal,August 1, 1990. p. A14.

Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Bui, Q. L. (1985). Southeast Asian self-sufficiency study (Contract No. HHS-100-81-0064). Washington, DC:U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of RefugeeResettlement.

Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Choy, M. H. (1989). The boat people andachievement in America: A study of family life, hard work, and culturalvalues. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Center for Applied Linguistics. (1982). Cultural orientation resourcemanual (Vol. 1). Manila, Philippines: Author.

Center for Applied Linguistics. (1985). English as a second language,revised competencies. Washington, DC: Author.

Cohon, J. D. (1980, March). Can TESOL teachers address the mentalhealth concerns of the Indochinese refugees? Paper presented at the 14thAnnual TESOL Convention, San Francisco, CA.

Corey, K. (1986). The cultural assimilation of Indochinese refugees.Passage: A ]ournal of Refugee Education, 2 (3), 41-43.

Hixon, A. (1987). Examining attitudes and stereotypes through video.Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, 3 (l), 16-18.

International Catholic Migration Commission. (1987). Work orientation(level CDE) curriculum. Morong, Bataan, The Philippines: Author.

Kharde, L. S., & Corey, K. (1986). Competencies revisited: Revising theoverseas ESL curriculum. Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education,2 (2), 43-49.

Lambrecht, R. (1987). Developing a survey course in Indochinese culturefor PASS students. Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, 3 (l), 23-26.

Levine, K. (1982). Becoming American [Videotape]. Seattle, WA: IrisFilms and Video.

Office of Refugee Resettlement. (1981). Report to the Congress: Refugeeresettlement program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health andHuman Services.



Pihl, C. (1990). Report on Southeast Asian refugee camps. For yourinformation, No. 93, 5-10 [Newsletter]. New York: Lutheran Immigra-tion and Refugee Service.

Reznich, C. (1985). Teaching teachers: An introduction to supervision andteacher training. Brattleboro, VT: The Experiment in InternationalLiving.

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Rumbaut, R. G. (1985). Mental health and the refugee experience: Acomparative study of Southeast Asian refugees. In T. C. Owan (Ed.),Southeast Asian mental health: Treatment, prevention, services, training,and research (pp. 433-486). Washington, DC: National Institute ofMental Health.

Rumbaut, R. G., & Ima, K. (1987). The adaptation of Southeast Asianrefugee youth: Comparative study. Washington, DC: GovernmentPrinting Office.

Snyder, S. (1990, March). ESL literacy: What’s working, why and how. InM. Adkins (Chair), Refugee concerns interest section academic session.Colloquium presented at the 24th Annual TESOL Convention, SanFrancisco, CA.

Tollefson, J. W. (1985, December). Research on refugee resettlement:Implications for instructional programs. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (4),753-764.

Tollefson, J. W. (1989). Alien winds: The reeducation of America’sIndochinese refugees. New York: Praeger.

Trillin, C. (1980, March 24). U.S. journal: Fairfield, Iowa. The NewYorker, 56, 83-100.

United Community Planning Corporation. (1982). Needs assessment ofSoutheast Asian refugee population in Massachusetts. Boston: Author.

Vernon, A. (1985). Needs assessment and learner-developed objectives inCultural Orientation. Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, 1 (2),60-62.

Wachman, R. (1985). A quiet revolution in language teaching at Bataan.Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, l (l), 57-59.

Westermeyer, J. (1985). Mental health of Southeast Asian refugees:Observations over two decades from Laos and the United States. InT. C. Owan (Ed.), Southeast Asian mental health: Treatment,prevention, services, training, and research (pp. 433-486). Washington,DC: National Institute of Mental Health.

The Reader Responds. . .

ELSA AUERBACHUniversity of Massachusetts at Boston

Although Ranard and Gilzow’s response is primarily directedtoward Tollefson’s book rather than my review, I would like tomake a few remarks.

Regarding the issue of verification of documentation: While thetask of the reviewer is to evaluate documentation rather than checkfacts, I did in fact consult a number of experts about the accuracyof Tollefson’s claims. These included refugees themselves (studentswho had lived in the camps), and Southeast Asia scholars (colleagues

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at the University of Massachusetts Joiner Center for the Study ofWar and its Social Consequences, as well as Chuong Hoang Chung,perhaps the leading Vietnamese researcher on issues of languageuse and language education for Southeast Asians in the U.S.). Ineach case, the response was overwhelmingly supportive of claimsmade in Alien Winds. From the refugees’ perspectives, the accountsof life in the camps were accurate; the scholars were satisfied notonly with the documentation, but with the analysis. My sense is thatRanard and Gilzow’s real concern is not with documentation (ifanything Alien Winds is overdocumented), but with the analysis.

Regarding the issue of bias: I readily acknowledge that myreview was sympathetic, although not wholly uncritical (in fact,Tollefson thanks me because of my critical reading of an earlierversion of his book at the request of a publisher); one responsibilityof reviewers is to call attention to work they feel makes acontribution to the field. Moreover, as I argued in the review, we allbring our own ideological biases to our work and this is notnegative. The only dishonesty comes when we fail to make theseperspectives explicit or when we promote a particular perspectiveunder the guise of objectivity. The tone of Ranard and Gilzow’sresponse is testimony to the force of their own bias, indicating thatthey manifest the same subjectivity of which they accuse Tollefson.In fact, showing that education is a terrain of contestation fordifferent ideologies is precisely one of the contributions of AlienWinds. The kind of critique and countercritique of which thisexchange is an example underlies the shifts in paradigm that movethe field forward.

Finally, I want to address informal feedback I have received tothe effect that Alien Winds and my review have caused pain amongthose who have dedicated years of their lives to improving refugeeeducation. I do not believe it was the aim of the book and it wascertainly not the aim of the review to condemn or discreditindividual efforts and contributions. Perhaps neither the book northe review went far enough in exploring the relationship betweenindividual acts and their aggregate impact, between intentions andoutcomes, and I certainly regret any pain this may have caused. Atthe same time, I feel that one message of the book is that aseducators we need to examine how our work fits into andcontributes to a larger picture. To the extent that Alien Winds hascaused this kind of critical self-examination, it has made acontribution.

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Response to Ranard and Gilzow. . .

The Economics and Ideology of Overseas Refugee Education

JAMES W. TOLLEFSONUniversity of Washington

In her review of my book about the United States overseasrefugee processing centers, Alien Winds: The Reeducation ofAmerica’s Indochinese Refugees, Auerbach concluded that it“should be required reading for all ESL educators.” In response tothis review, Ranard and Gilzow, two staff members of the Centerfor Applied Linguistics who have held posts in the refugee programsince the early 1980s, outline their criticisms of the book.

Ranard and Gilzow’s decision to limit their comments to theeducational component of the Overseas Refugee Training Program(ORTP) indicates the wide gap between their perspective andmine. The fundamental aim of Alien Winds is to analyze the ORTPwithin its social and political context. Separating pedagogicalmatters from political and economic issues or from the circumstan-ces of refugees’ daily lives in the overseas centers presents anincomplete picture of the ORTP and of the analysis presented inAlien Winds.

The two major issues that Ranard and Gilzow ignore are (1) thecauses of refugee migration, and (2) the ideology of the ORTP. Iwill argue that the failure to address these issues fundamentallyundermines Ranard and Gilzow’s position that current U.S. refugeepolicy should be supported; then I will turn to some of their specificcriticisms of my book.

REFUGEE MIGRATION

In the twentieth century, the migration of people for political andeconomic reasons has become a permanent feature of the globalpolitical economy, with structural roots that encourage, evenrequire migration. Immediately after the Second World War,migration to North America, Australia, and Europe had two mainfunctions (see Sassen-Koob, 1988; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). Onewas to provide a large, cheap pool of labor for the many new jobsbeing created by the rapid industrial expansion and accumulation ofcapital. The second function of migration was to provide labor forthe most difficult and unpleasant industrial and service jobs, which

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were no longer being filled by native-born workers (with theexception of certain ethnic minorities such as African Americans inthe U.S. and Aboriginal people in Australia). In the view of policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere, immigrants who did not speakEnglish or other dominant languages were particularly suitable forthese purposes because the language barrier that separated themfrom native-born workers made it difficult for them to gain politicalrights and to benefit from improving economic conditions enjoyedby the rest of the population (Muller & Espenshade, 1985;Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981).

During the 1970s, immigration began to have a new function inNorth America, Western Europe, and Australia (Jiobu, 1988;Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). Industrial expansion based on theimportation of labor had slowed considerably, and jobs werebeginning to be exported from industrial countries to the “ThirdWorld.” This process of economic restructuring increased theprobability of “boom and bust” swings in local economies, whichthreatened the prosperity of the working and middle classes.Therefore a buffer was needed—a group that would absorbperiodic increases in unemployment and other consequences ofeconomic restructuring. Immigrants were perfectly suited for thispurpose. As a largely disenfranchised and politically weak group,their dissatisfaction could not easily be translated into politicalaction, and therefore, unlike working class and middle class people,they would not threaten the dominant power structure.

In order for immigrants to continue to fulfill these functions,they must remain politically and economically marginalized. AlienWinds argues that the ORTP contributes to the labor policyobjective of marginalizing migrants in order to maintain theimportant functions they serve in the changing economy—ascheap labor for new industries and as an economic buffer for po-litically more powerful groups. This goal is expressed in federallanguage policies declaring the official purpose of refugeeeducation to be the teaching of survival English for entry-levelemployment (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1984; also seeHaines, 1988), which means English that is sufficient only formarginal employment in the peripheral economy (i. e., intemporary and part-time jobs, which have few benefits and littleopportunity for advancement, and which are the first to beeliminated in slow economic times).

It is not sufficient to argue, as do Ranard and Gilzow, that entry-level employment is “appropriate” for refugees with limited skills.It would be entirely possible to offer, for instance, extended ESL

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and employment training for refugees. This is not done, however,because refugees with additional skills are not needed in the neweconomy. For the same reason, those refugees who have technicalskills do not receive special education and assistance to help themgain jobs in which they may use their skills. Alien Winds does notargue, as Ranard and Gilzow claim, that a great many refugees arehighly skilled, but rather that those who have skills are tracked intothe same educational program in the overseas centers as those withlittle or no previous education, due to the dictates of U.S.migration and labor policy. Similarly, some federal and stateagencies have made it difficult for professional refugees to berecertified. As noted in Refugee Reports, medical professionals inparticular face an array of bureaucratic barriers to their efforts towork in their professions (Staff, 1988). These practices reflect theoverall policy of preparing refugees only for limited occupationalcategories. This policy is also one reason why domestic ESLprograms for refugees are chronically underfunded; restrictedfunding means that programs can offer only a narrow range ofcurricular options for relatively short periods. In claiming that Ihold staff members in the overseas centers responsible for thissituation, Ranard and Gilzow inaccurately summarize AlienWinds. The book consistently argues that policy makers use large-scale migration and poorly funded educational programs asmechanisms for achieving labor policy objectives. Teachers arenot responsible for these policies.

Nevertheless, it is crucial that those of us who are ESLprofessionals examine the function of ESL programs within apolitical-economic system that creates and sustains massivemigration of Southeast Asian refugees and other groups. The factthat Ranard and Gilzow, as well as other supporters of currentrefugee policies, do not confront the reasons for migration and forcurrent low funding levels for educational programs, perpetuatescontemporary ideologies concerning refugees. This is the secondfundamental issue addressed in Alien Winds.

IDEOLOGY IN THE ORTP

ldeology refers to (often unconscious) assumptions about theworld that come to be seen as “common sense,” and thus aretypically not the focus of critical discussion and debate. (For a moredetailed discussion of ideology, see Giddens, 1987; Tollefson, 1991).Assumptions that become widely accepted as common sense tendto sustain existing power relationships. As ideologies becomeinstitutionalized, they tend to reinforce privilege and grant that

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privilege legitimacy as a “natural” condition of society. Forinstance, the policy of requiring everyone to learn a singledominant language is widely seen as a commonsense solution tolinguistic inequality. The argument is simple: If refugees and otherlinguistic minorities learn English, they will not suffer economi-cally and politically. This view grants privilege to those who speakEnglish, it ignores the economic and political forces that denyadequate language education to refugees and immigrants, and itexcludes language from the list of structural categories (such asrace and gender) that are protected by legislation againstdiscrimination.

Similarly, the argument that entry-level jobs are appropriate forrefugees precludes increased funding for educational programs,ignores U.S. responsibility for creating and sustaining refugeemovements, and provides a rationale for blaming refugees for theirplight: When they “fail” to acquire English despite refugee languageprograms, or when they “fail” to get better jobs despite learning thelanguage to a degree defined as satisfactory by policy makers, thenthey can be held responsible for their own economic circumstances.Thus Alien Winds examines numerous examples of policy makersblaming refugees and the voluntary agencies that assist them fortheir high rates of unemployment and use of public assistance. Thisperspective was successfully used during the Reagan administrationas a rationale for reducing funding for refugee education and publicassistance.

Alien Winds argues that the ORTP takes an ideological stance thathelps to sustain existing economic inequalities by insisting that itoffers refugees a mechanism for “upward mobility” (despiteevidence to the contrary, discussed below). The effect of Ranardand Gilzow’s claim that refugees who complete the program are“climb[ing] out of poverty” is to support this ideology. Theircommentary perpetuates this ideology in other ways as well. Forinstance, they repeat the official claim that the purpose of theORTP is to “meet the needs” of refugees rather than of the U.S.economy. They support efforts in the ORTP to teach refugees themeaning and value of “job mobility,” which is often a euphemismfor the pattern of employment and unemployment experienced byindividuals in the peripheral economy. And they depict the ORTPas a benevolent system designed to help refugees, rather than aspart of a larger political-economic system that displaces them fromtheir homes and then provides education suitable only for long-termperipheral employment.

Because they do not examine the social and political context ofthe educational program, Ranard and Gilzow fail to address the

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central issue in Alien Winds, which is not a “conspiracy,” but ratherthe relationship of the educational program to migration and laborpolicy. In order to understand this relationship, we must ask: Whyare there refugees? Whose interests encourage refugee movementsin Southeast Asia and refugee resettlement in the U. S.? How doesthe educational program serve those interests? What is the publicimage of the program and how is that image created andmaintained? What ideological assumptions underlie the content ofthe educational program? These are the questions Alien Windsseeks to answer. In doing so, the book argues that it is misleadingand pedagogically ineffective to ignore the political and economicroots of refugee movements and to seek educational solutions toproblems that are fundamentally economic and political.

Thus Alien Winds shows that the ORTP is driven by a U.S.foreign policy that creates and sustains large-scale refugeemovements in Southeast Asia, and by a labor/migration policy thatchannels refugees and immigrants into poorly paid jobs in theperipheral economy. Nowhere does Alien Winds suggest aconspiracy of officials in the educational program. In fact, AlienWinds argues exactly the opposite—that the policies and programsadopted for refugees result from institutional structures andideologies rather than from the preferences of people employed inthe ORTP or the interests of refugees.

A full analysis of the ideology of the ORTP, presented in AlienWinds, is beyond the scope of this forum. However, an example ofits impact on the language used to describe resettlement may beuseful. Ranard and Gilzow correctly note that Alien Winds does notalways clearly distinguish “entry-level” from “minimum-wage”jobs. Yet they ignore the more fundamental issue: Entry level is anideological term implying upward mobility through the image of aneconomic system which, once “entered,” will steadily lead toimproved economic circumstances. But in fact certain minorities inthe U. S., including many refugees, permanently hold low-paid jobs.For them, entry level is a euphemism for poorly paid.

The question of whether entry-level jobs provide an initial steptoward improving refugees’ economic circumstances is the first ofseveral specific disagreements with Alien Winds that Ranard andGilzow outline. Due to space limitations, I will only deal with theirfour major criticisms of Alien Winds Ranard and Gilzow claim thatthe book inaccurately portrays refugees’ economic circumstances inthe U. S.; misleadingly depicts U.S. control and conditions in theoverseas camps; misstates the purpose of the ORTP; and unfairlydescribes the professional role of ORTP staff.

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ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES OF SOUTHEAST ASIANREFUGEES IN THE U.S.

Ranard and Gilzow dispute the bleak picture of resettlement inwhich many refugee households suffer long-term economic crisisbecause members are trapped in dead-end jobs in the peripheraleconomy. As evidence that refugees are climbing out of poverty inimpressive numbers, Ranard and Gilzow cite Caplan, Whitmore,and Choy (1989). This study does indeed report that refugees’poverty rate gradually decreases over time. But the study, basedupon interviews and questionnaires given to 1,384 refugeehouseholds at five locations in the U.S. in 1981 and 1984, also reportsother key findings:

1. Most households with incomes above the poverty line ($800 permonth for a family of four at the time of the study) reached thislevel through a combination of wages from two or more adultsand cash assistance and other forms of public assistancepayments. Over 50% of the adults lived in groups of extendedfamilies and unrelated individuals who pooled resources tosurvive. Only 25% of the households received no form of publicassistance.

2. Over 42% of the employable adult refugees were unemployed.3. Those who were employed improved their average salary by a

total of less than 3% over the 4-year period of the study. AsCaplan, Whitmore, and Choy point out, “In such a limited jobmarket as the refugees found themselves, individual initiative toadvance could not move the household ahead economically, ineither a comparative or an absolute sense” (p. 55).

4. Employed refugees were overwhelmingly in low-paying jobs inthe peripheral economy that offered very little opportunity foreconomic improvement. Caplan, Whitmore, and Choy conclude:

As defined by SEI [Socio-Economic Index] scores, the overwhelmingmajority (71 percent) of those refugees in the labor force held low-statusjobs. Slightly more than one-half (55 percent) were also employed in theperiphery of the economy rather than in the core economic sector (45percent). Thus in the main, the refugees tended to hold low-level, low-paying, dead-end jobs. (pp. 55-56)

Alien Winds cites 13 other studies of refugee resettlement thatsupport similar conclusions about refugees’ economic circumstan-ces in the U.S.

Ranard and Gilzow’s argument that refugees are “clirnb[ing] outof poverty,” as well as their optimistic view of Caplan, Whitmore,

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and Choy’s research, is an example of an unstated ideology. Asevidence of refugees’ economic progress, Ranard and Gilzow statethat the 30% rate of poverty among refugees in the U.S. more thanfour years (found by Caplan, Whitmore, and Bui [1985]) “is notvery different from rates for other U.S. minorities.” In fact, Caplan,Whitmore, and Bui noted that a 30% poverty rate is roughly equalnot to minorities generally, but specifically to the rate for AfricanAmericans and Latinos, two groups who have served for manyyears as cheap labor and as economic buffers for politically morepowerful groups (see Jaynes and Williams, 1989; Jiobu, 1988).Ranard and Gilzow’s argument is that a comparison of SoutheastAsian and African American/Latino poverty rates is appropriate,and that an equivalent poverty rate for these groups is an indicationof moderately successful refugee resettlement. The belief thatrefugees are doing well when they live in large groups with multiplewage earners and others who share public assistance payments doesnot apply to members of dominant groups in the U.S. This isprecisely the point of Alien Winds: Policy and ideology underlyingthe ORTP ensure that refugees serve the same economic functionsas African Americans and Latinos.

U.S. CONTROL AND CONDITIONS IN THE OVERSEAS CENTERSControl of the Overseas Centers

Ranard and Gilzow state that the processing centers are operatedby host country governments (the Philippines and Thailand) andthe United Nations, rather than by the U.S. Indeed, theorganizational charts for the centers list UN and local officials asoperational directors, a system established when the centers werefirst created in 1979-80 as international holding centers for refugeesawaiting resettlement in many countries. Since that time, however,the main Philippine center has become overwhelmingly a U.S.operation, with tiny programs for a few refugees to be resettledelsewhere vastly outnumbered by the program serving up to 20,000refugees bound for the U.S. As a result of their overwhelmingdominance in financial and staffing matters, U.S. agencies andofficials have come to control camp policy. The fiction that thecenters are not U.S. run is maintained, however, in part because ithelps to obscure funding sources and to provide a mechanism forU.S. officials to deny responsibility for what happens in them. In a1989 report to Congress on its visit to the Philippine center, theVietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) pointed out that“the cost of running the PRPC [Philippine Refugee ProcessingCenter] is obscured through the fiction that the camp is an

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international camp” (p. vii). The VVAF called for a Congressionalinvestigation into the funding of the Philippine center and whetherU.S. officials are using the requirement that refugees spend 6months in the center as a mechanism for keeping refugeeadmissions below Congressionally authorized levels.

Conditions in the Overseas Centers

Apparently believing that conditions in the U.S. centers aresatisfactory, Ranard and Gilzow quote a visitor who called them“country-clubs” compared to first-asylum camps. And certainly theconditions in the U.S. centers are better than those in the HongKong prisons and the Thai-Cambodian border camps, whererefugees denied resettlement are subject to particularly brutaltreatment. All supporters of human rights should express outrageover the mistreatment and denial of basic standards of humandecency, which are institutionalized in those locations (see AmnestyInternational, 1990; Bui, 1990; U.S. Committee for Refugees, 1985,1986, 1987).

Yet the brutal treatment accorded refugees elsewhere does notabsolve U.S. officials of responsibility for providing humaneconditions in the U.S. processing centers. Although Ranard andGilzow claim that Alien Winds does not take into account recentchanges, current analyses confirm that conditions remainunacceptable. In the report on its 1989 visit to the Philippine center,the VVAF pointed out that refugees “live in atrocious conditions,where there is insufficient food and water, where they are crowdedinto billets constructed of asbestos, with people unrelated or[un]known to them, and where their daily lives are regulated bycoercion and fear” (Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,1989, p. vi). Macdonald (1990) contrasts the relatively good livingconditions for staff with those for refugees, and describes poorsanitation, shortages of water and food, overcrowding and lack ofprivacy in refugees’ living areas.

In her description of the process of coercion to which refugeesare subject in the Philippine camp, Mortland (1987) points out thatadministrators believe refugees fortunate to be there rather than inthe first-asylum camps, and that they should therefore followprecisely the detailed rules and procedures prescribed for them.Ranard and Gilzow’s commentary participates in the (recreation ofthis ideology, and does not address the unsanitary and unsafeconditions, the atmosphere of coercion and fear in which refugeesmust live, the pervasive denial of human rights, and the failure ofcamp officials to rectify these conditions.

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THE PURPOSE OF REFUGEE EDUCATION

Ranard and Gilzow criticize my claim that the ORTP seeks totransform refugees’ identities. However, this is the explicit goalrepeated to refugees in program materials and by program officials.For instance, the administration building in the Philippine centerincludes a display board that states:

Refugee transformation, the primary goal of the PRPC operations, isachieved through a psycho-social recuperative process involving thecritical phases of adaptation, capability building, and disengagementwhich result in changing a displaced person into an individual well-equipped for life in his country of final destination.

Based upon her anthropological study of the Philippine ORTP,Mortland (1987) concluded that “the central myth at the[Philippine] processing center is that when refugees finish theirstay, they have been transformed—that they will go to the newcountry and ‘become Americans’—that the transformation processwill allow them to be successful in the promised land” (p. 400).Similarly, the VVAF report concluded that “the pervasivephilosophy of the PRPC [Philippine Refugee Processing Center] isclear: Indochinese refugees need to be transformed in order tosurvive in America” (Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,1989, p. 20; also see Knudsen, 1983).

In its claim that the ORTP seeks to transform refugees, AlienWinds is not controversial. The important issue is the impact ofRanard and Gilzow’s denial of what is obvious to observers and torefugees. The acknowledgment of the ideology of Americanizationthat underlies the ORTP is the first step toward public discussionand debate of this ideology. Is the current approach to refugeeeducation the most effective, given refugees’ long-term economicproblems in the U. S.? Does the ORTP serve refugees’ interests?What other approaches might be considered, besides “transform-ing” refugees? In addressing these questions, Alien Winds arguesthat the ORTP ideology of Americanization does not serve refugees’long-term economic, cultural, or political interests.

THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONALS IN THEOVERSEAS CENTERS

Ranard and Gilzow claim that Alien Winds presents a “conspiracytheory of poor instruction.” Nowhere does Alien Winds presentsuch a view. Rather, its critique of the ORTP staff focuses on theideology of camp life among the expatriate U.S. administration.

In an analysis of the role of expatriate administrators in refugee

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assistance programs, Cromwell (1988) examines the hierarchy ofrefugee camps, where expatriates are in charge of host countrystaff, who themselves are in charge of refugees. By virtue of theirhigh status within the camp, expatriates develop an intense loyaltynot to the host country or to the refugees, but instead to theexpatriate administration and to an “expatriate peer groupideology” (p. 299), which views host country nationals and refugeesalike as inefficient, backward, ignorant, and corrupt. Cromwellargues that this implicit and unstated ideology blocks initiative andcritical analysis by expatriate staff.

Alien Winds describes U.S. refugee camps as “company towns” inwhich staff members are isolated far from home in an atmosphereof conformity and, for those who may disagree with currentpractices, the constant threat of isolation. This atmosphere issustained in part by a rhetoric of “diversity,” which claims thatprofessional debate is welcomed. Indeed, this is the picture thatRanard and Gilzow present of professional life in the camps. Yet, asMcDonald has pointed out in her analysis of the PASS (Preparationfor American Secondary Schools) program in the Philippine center:

Staff with the confidence to ask questions, or to question policy aregenerally labeled as trouble makers, in the best bureaucratic tradition,and suffer from intense pressure to conform. The rigid hierarchicalstructure is a particularly effective device for preventing change frombelow. (p. 15)

Analyses of the ORTP simply do not support Ranard and Gilzow’sclaim that the ORTP has been flexible, innovative, and effective inits educational administration, curriculum, and prescribed teachingpractices.

CONCLUSION

Ranard and Gilzow depict Alien Winds as a distorted view of theORTP, a “one-sided polemic” rather than a scholarly analysis. Apartfrom a federally funded study (RMC Research Corporation, 1984),which found no evidence that the ORTP improves refugees’employability in the U. S., there are four other independent analysesof the overseas centers: Knudsen (1983), Mortland (1987), VietnamVeterans of America Foundation (1989), and Macdonald (1990).Within the context of these analyses, all of which document seriousproblems in the ORTP, Alien Winds presents mainstream views (fora review of related studies, see Tollefson, 1989).

Ranard and Gilzow’s comments provide no evidence justifyingcontinued support of current policies, which create and sustain

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refugee movements and lead to long-term economic crisis forhundreds of thousands of refugee households in the U.S. In itsfailure to examine the full context and impact of the ORTP, Ranardand Gilzow’s commentary ignores virtually all of Alien Winds,including: its historical analysis of refugee movements and U.S.refugee policy in Southeast Asia since 1954; its detailed examinationof the ideology of refugee education; its analysis of U.S. immigranteducation since 1880; its examination of the political interests ofagencies responsible for refugee resettlement and education; itsdescription of human rights violations in the. U.S. centers, such asarrest and imprisonment of refugees without the right to confronttheir accusers or to be presumed innocent until proven guilty; andits account of serious health and safety problems, including thecontinued use of asbestos for walls and roofs in refugee housing andclassrooms.

Approximately 20,000 refugees remain at the U.S. centers inThailand and the Philippines. They continue to live in deplorableconditions and to attend an educational program whose purpose isdetermined by labor/migration policies requiring that refugees bechanneled into low-paying jobs in the peripheral economy. Thesestatements do not deny the remarkable individual efforts of staffmembers in the camps who seek to provide effective instructionwithin an educational administration that blocks most professionaldiscussion and debate. The solution to the continuing economic,social, and personal challenges refugees face in the U.S. dependsupon major shifts in U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia, changesin labor and migration policy in the U. S., and increased support forprograms that provide refugees and other migrants with thelanguage, education, and employment skills they need. The politicaleffort to change U.S. refugee education policy continues. Thefoundation for this effort must be a clear-sighted analysis of thecauses and consequences of current policies for the lives of nearly 1million resettled Indochinese living in the United States today.

REFERENCES

Amnesty International. (1990). Memorandum to the Governments of HongKong and the United Kingdom regarding the protection of Vietnameseasylum seekers in Hong Kong. New York: Author.

Bui, D. D. (1990). Hong Kong—the other story: The situation ofVietnamese women and children in Hong Kong’s detention centres.Washington, DC: Indochina Resource Action Center.

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Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Bui, Q. L. (1985). Southeast Asian refugeeself-sufficiency study (Report prepared by the Institute for SocialResearch, University of Michigan). Washington, DC: U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Choy, M. H. (1989). The boat people andachievement in America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Cromwell, G. (1988). Note on the role of expatriate administration inagency-assisted refugee programmed. Journal of Refugee Studies, 1,297-307.

Giddens, A. (1987). Social theory and modern sociology. Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press.

Haines, D. W. (1988). The pursuit of English and self-sufficiency:Dilemmas in assessing refugee programme effects. Journal of RefugeeStudies, 1, 195-213.

Jaynes, G. D., & Williams, R. M. (Eds.). (1989). A common destiny: Blacksand American society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Jiobu, R. M. (1988). Ethnicity and assimilation. Albany: State University ofNew York Press.

Knudsen, J. C. (1983). Boat people in transit: Vietnamese in refugee campsin the Philippines, Hongkong and Japan (Occasional Paper No. 31,Migration Studies Project). Bergen, Norway: University of Bergen.

Macdonald, J. (1990). Almost freedom, almost American: An ethnographicstudy of the Philippine Refugee Processing Center. U n p u b l i s h e ddoctoral dissertation, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, NewYork.

Mortland, C. A. (1987). Transforming refugees in refugee camps. UrbanAnthropology, 16, 375-404.

Muller, T., & Espenshade, T. J. (1985). The fourth wave: California’snewest immigrants. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

Office of Refugee Resettlement. (1984). Statement of program goals,priorities and standards for state administered refugee resettlementprograms. Kansas City, MO: Author.

RMC Research Corporation. (1984). The effects of pre-entry training onthe resettlement of Indochinese refugees (Report prepared for the U.S.Department of State, Bureau for Refugee Programs). Hampton, NH:Author.

Sassen-Koob, S. (1988). The new labour demand: Conditions for theabsorption of immigrant workers in the United States. In C. Stahl (Ed.),International migration today, (Vol. 2, pp. 81-104). Paris: UNESCO.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education ofminorities. Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters.

Staff. (1988, January 22). Hurdles bar path to continuing medical practicefor refugee physicians. Refugee Reports, pp. 1-7.

Tollefson, J. W. (1989). Educating for employment in programs forSoutheast Asian refugees: A review of research. TESOL Quarterly,23 (2), 337-343.

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Tollefson, J. W. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Languagepolicy in the community. London: Longman.

U.S. Committee for Refugees. (1985). Cambodians in Thailand: People onthe edge. Washington, DC: American Council for Nationalities Service.

U.S. Committee for Refugees. (1986). Refugees from Laos: In harm’s way.Washington, DC: American Council for Nationalities Service.

U.S. Committee for Refugees. (1987). Uncertain harbors: The plight ofVietnamese boat people. Washington, DC: American Council forNationalities Service.

Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. (1989). Report on theAmerasian issue. Washington, DC: Author.

Comments on Martha C. Benningtonand Aileen L. Young’s“Approacbes to Faculty Evaluation for ESL”

A Reader Reacts. . .

ALASTAIR PENNYCOOKOntario Institute for Studies in Education

I have just received a letter informing me that my employers “willbe doing an evaluation of [my] class on . . . the second to last classmeeting.” Someone (whom I do not know) will, I am told, “come to[my] class within the first 15 minutes of the start time. He or she willhand out the evaluation slips to [my] students, wait until they arecompleted, collect the slips and then return them to our office.”Fortunately, I am assured that I will “receive a report of the evalu-ation in due course,” although I have so far heard nothing from lastsemester’s evaluation. I have been given no curriculum, no setmaterials, nothing beyond some advice on books I might want touse and the time and location of the classes, and yet I gather theoutcome of this evaluation will play a major role in decidingwhether I will be rehired next semester. This, I suggest, will ring afamiliar bell with many other practicing ESL teachers.

The most important question that I wish to raise here is whether,in light of my current situation, I should welcome the recent articleby Martha Pennington and Aileen Young (Vol. .23, No. 4, December1989) with its numerous suggestions for improving ESL facultyevaluation. Despite the fact that the wider range of options thatthese researchers offer might improve the type of evaluation to

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which I am to be subjected, I feel that I must ultimately takeexception to their article. While they commendably draw on abroader educational literature than is usually the case for ESLresearch, they nevertheless fail to explore still broader but moresignificant questions concerning the politics of education and eval-uation.

In this brief response to their article, then, I would like to broadenthe discussion of teacher evaluation to include issues that arecrucially absent from their article. I would also like to try to locatethis discussion in a yet broader context. Editors, operating withindifficult constraints, work in mysterious ways—by juxtaposition.Stephen Gaies’ placement of Peirce’s (1989) article close to Davies’(1989), and Sandra Silberstein’s placement of my own (Pennycook,1989) next to Pennington and Young’s point to an important divisionwithin applied linguistics, which I think needs emphasis.

First, however, Pennington and Young’s article. Most disconcert-ing is the lack of discussion of why we are being evaluated, and whois evaluating whom. The overall concern of the authors appears tobe to describe “methods for teacher evaluation” (p. 619) in order to“further the goals of the profession” (p. 643). To the extent that theauthors leave unexamined questions concerning the development ofyet more “methods” (in this instance for evaluation), the powerrelationship between evaluator and evaluated, the unspecified“goals” of evaluation, and the implications of an appeal to thenotion of “the profession,” this description of methods for evalua-tion runs the risk of becoming reactionary. As I argued in my ownarticle, there has been a growing incursion of technical rationalityinto all domains of human investigation, an incursion that not onlylimits the possibilities of other modes of thought, but also hasserious implications in terms of social control and regulation.Foucault (1979) has greatly helped our understanding hereof how,in evaluation, modes of societal surveillance combine thetechniques of an observing hierarchy and those of normalizingjudgment. The belief that improvement can be brought about bythe correct application of rational organization is what Marcuse(1964) came to criticize as “one dimensional.” It is a view thatdisregards all notions of the political in social life.

While my own discussion centred on the implications of theconstruction and prescription of a concept of Method, my argumentthat we have witnessed a deskilling of teachers and greaterinstitutional control over classroom practice may be more pertinentto the question of teacher evaluation. It is essential that we explorethe cultural politics of teacher education, for, as Popkewitz (1987)puts it, “the behaviors, patterns of language, and actions used in

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teacher education contain codes of culture that have implicationsfor fundamental issues of power in American society” (p. 26).Historical analyses of teaching (e.g., Apple, 1986) have clearlyshown that, as teaching moved from a predominantly male to apredominantly female occupation, and as teacher educationbecame ensconsed in universities and colleges, an ever greaterdegree of control came to be exerted over the growing body ofwomen teachers. Evaluation has started to play an increasinglyimportant role in that control, especially within the context of theconservative cries for standardized curricula, accountability, andmore educational responsiveness to “market forces.” Popkewitz(1984) argues that unless we place evaluation “within an adequatepolitical theory of context, evaluation remains solely a symboliccanopy that legitimates occupational and institutional authority andcontrol” (p. 179).

Pennington and Young’s reliance on a normative concept of “thegoals of the profession” (p. 643) also requires comment. It isimportant to see the concept of “professionalism” within both theoverall context of the increasing specialization and fragmentation ofmodern, industrial life, and the conservative call for accountability.The “ideology of professionalism” in teaching constitutes a meansof masking the structural basis of class, race, gender, and otherinequalities in our society (Ginsberg, 1987). As Densmore (1987)argues, we must challenge any teacher education that encouragesthe ideology of professionalism. I am not arguing against all teacherevaluation, though I would like to see a greater emphasis on teacherautonomy and greater encouragement of teachers’ own explorationsof the cultural politics of their classrooms and schools. But I think itis dangerous to move towards developing more and “better”methods of teacher evaluation without exploring the implications. Ithink Zeichner (1983) has expressed this most usefully:

It is hoped that future debate in teacher education will be moreconcerned with the question of which educational, moral and politicalcommitments ought to guide our work in the field rather than with thepractice of merely dwelling on which procedures and organizationalarrangements will most effectively help us realize tacit and oftenunexamined ends. Only after we have begun to resolve some of thesenecessarily prior questions related to ends should we concentrate on theresolution of more instrumental issues related to effectively accomplish-ing our goals. (p. 8)Finally I would like to suggest the connections I see between, on

the one hand, Davies (1989) and Pennington and Young, and, on theother, Peirce (1989) and my own work (Pennycook, 1989). I do notintend to enter the structuralist/poststructuralist debate because I

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feel Peirce’s (1990) own reply to Dubois’ challenge in the TESOLQuarterly Forum Section has more than adequately covered thisground. Rather, I would like to suggest that what Davies’ andPennington and Young’s work shares is an apparent acceptance ofsociety as it is. Neither article problematizes its area of study insocial or political terms. One leaves us with methods to maketeacher evaluation more effective without questioning the goals andpolitics of evaluation; the other compares English as an internationallanguage with interlanguage (why?) without raising a vast range ofcultural and political issues in the global spread of English.Furthermore, both articles operate with many of the standardassumptions of modernism: the stress on evaluation and efficiency,and the dichotomies between language and culture, universality andrelativism, and society and the psychological/individual. Theyseem reluctant to admit to constraints on the rational unity of theindividual, implying that we can all make free choices uncloudedby societal, political, cultural, or ideological conditions.

To suggest that such assumptions are no longer acceptable mayseem harsh since the predominant positivist paradigm of appliedlinguistics has allowed no space for such issues. What Peirce and Ihave been trying to do, however, through our use of post-structuralist and postmodernist views of language, discourse, andknowledge, is to show the reactionary implications of concepts suchas communicative competence and methods, and to find new waysof exploring questions around language teaching that allow us todevelop ethical and political stances in our work that reflect ourviews on an inequitably structured world.

REFERENCES

Apple, M. (1986). Teachers and texts: A political economy of class andgender relations in education. New York Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Davies, A. (1989). Is international English an interlanguage? TESOLQuarterly, 23 (3), 447-467.

Densmore, K. (1987). Professionalism, proletarianization and teacherwork. In T. S. Popkewitz (Ed.), Critical studies in teacher education: Itsfolklore, theory and practice (pp. 130-160). London: The Falmer Press.

Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. NewYork: Vintage.

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Ginsburg, M. (1987). Reproduction, contradiction and conceptions ofprofessionalism: The case of pre-service teachers. In T. S. Popkewitz(Ed.), Critical studies in teacher education: Its folklore, theory andpractice (pp. 86-129). London: The Falmer Press.

Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man. Boston: Beacon Press.Peirce, B. N. (1989). Toward a pedagogy of possibility in the teaching of

English internationally. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (3), 401-420.Peirce, B. N. (1990). Comments on “Toward a pedagogy of possibility in

the teaching of English internationally: Peoples English in South Africa”:The author responds. TESOL Quarterly, 24 (l), 105-111.

Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, andthe politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (4), 589-618.

Popkewitz, T. S. (1984). Paradigm and ideology in educational research.London: The Falmer Press.

Popkewitz, T. S. (1987). Ideology and social formation in teachereducation. In T. S. Popkewitz (Ed.), Critical studies in teachereducation: Its folklore, theory and practice (pp. 2-33). London: TheFalmer Press.

Zeichner, K. (1983). Alternative paradigms of teacher education. Journalof Teacher Education, 34 (l), 3-9.

Response to Pennycook. . .

The Political Economy of Information in TESOL

MARTHA C. PENNINGTONUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

In The Political Economy of Information, Schiller (1988) arguesthat the value of information derives not “from its inherentattributes as a resource,” but rather “stems uniquely from itstransformation into a commodity—a resource socially revalued andredefined through progressive historical application of wage laborand the market to its production and exchange” (p. 41). Throughthis capitalizing process, not only English, but also discourse aboutEnglish, about the teaching of English, and about a variety ofattendant matters involving teachers and learners have becomesalable commodities whose value is determined by economic forcessuch as the law of supply and demand. As in the case of othercommodities; scarcity or inaccessibility of information to theaverage consumer drives up its value and, by projection, the valueof anyone who possesses it. Moreover, as all those who work on

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Madison Avenue are aware, one’s stock can also be enhanced bytrading in a well-promoted commodity that accrues a certainglamour value as a result of its perception as chic or stylish.

According to this economic line of reasoning, one can assume thatPennycook’s fashionably postmodern response to Pennington andYoung will be accorded a “reasonable” market value by all thosescholars who perceive his ideas to be new or unique. However attrac-tive or important those ideas may be, Pennycook errs in assumingthat he is in possession of all of the valid information and the only(politically correct) point of view on matters that he addresses. Theseassumptions cause him to draw unwarranted conclusions and to statehis case quite boldly: In his response, he employs the worddangerously in connection with the Pennington and Young article onevaluation, implying that our work could be damaging to the field ofTESOL. Considering this highly negative implication of Pennycook’sresponse, I feel that it is imperative for me to clarify our intentionsand to respond to his charges point by point.

I take exception to Pennycook’s inference that Aileen Young andI are on the wrong side of “an important division within applied lin-guistics,” that we accept “many of the standard assumptions ofmodernism: the stress on evaluation and efficiency, and thedichotomies between language and culture, universality andrelativism, and society and the psychological/individual,” and are“reluctant to admit to restraints on the rational unity of theindividual, on the ability of the individual to make free choicesunclouded by societal, political, cultural or ideological conditions.”I do not think that Pennycook can infer our acceptance of certainassumptions of modernism or our reluctance to admit the restraintsplaced on individuals based on our text. Though these concepts andissues were not in fact the terms of the discussion in the originalTESOL Quarterly article, I welcome the chance to expound uponthem as the terms of Pennycook’s response.

First, it seems that Pennycook takes a much narrower view ofevaluation than we have taken in our article, conceptualizingevaluation as a form of “top-down” social control of teachers byoutside authorities. While this is a common view of what the termevaluation means in an educational context—and indeed, the viewthat we expected many readers of our article to have at the outset—we clearly were trying to broaden this perspective to one thatincorporates peer review and self-evaluation and in which evalua-tion is seen as an essentially formative and long-term process ofdeveloping the potentials of individual teachers. We are strongadvocates of reflective practice and, as we stated in our article,

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believe that “training in self-evaluation should be considered anessential component of professional education that will help toensure the long-term career development of confident andresponsible faculty members who are able and willing to (a)evaluate input on their professional skills and behavior, and (b)expand competencies and alter teaching approach as circumstancesdictate” (p. 640; for further elaboration, see Pennington, 1990a).

Secondly, it is not accurate to claim that there is a “lack of discus-sion of why we are being evaluated, and who is evaluating whom. ”The general purposes of faculty evaluation are addressed at the be-ginning and the end of the article, and the specific purposes of eachform of evaluation reviewed are explicitly addressed. There is, more-over, considerable discussion of who is, and in our view ought to be,evaluating whom. To clarify this point, we strongly advocate an eval-uation system for every language program in which teachers arethemselves centrally involved in developing and implementing thestandards, the criteria, and the mechanisms by which evaluation isconducted. Indeed, I would myself claim, on the basis of my ownexperience and the related experience described by Sashkin (1986),that teacher participation in all aspects of the management of a lan-guage program is essential not only to the health of the program, butalso, quite literally, to the psychological and physical health of theteachers themselves. I would therefore go beyond a recommendationof teacher participation to an insistence on such participation,following Sashkin (1986), as an ethical imperative.

At the same time, in my view it must be recognized that thefaculty, though central to the functioning of a language program, isnot the only constituency whose values must be considered inassessing a program’s degree of success in achieving its goals:

In evaluating the worth or success of a language program, value must bedefined relative to the needs and desires of all of the groups who makeup or interact with the program. These groups include the administra-tion of the school or other body in which the program is housed; theprogram’s own administration; its faculty its students; and the parents,sponsors, and external agencies which are concerned with the success ofthe program and its students. (Brown & Pennington, in press)

Where a successful evaluation system is defined as one that effectspositive change, “the degree of involvement in the evaluationprocess of parties affected by it will in large measure determine thesuccess of the evaluation system” (Brown & Pennington, in press).As noted by Darling-Hammond, Wise, and Pease (1983): “Effectivechange requires a process of mutual adaptation in which [par-ticipants] at all levels can shape policies to meet their needs—one in

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which both the participants and the policy are transformed by theconvergence of internal and external reference points” (p. 17).

In his paper on method, Pennycook (1989) argues that there is nosuch thing as “disinterested” information and that education isalways situated in a social and political context. As argued bySchiller (1988, p. 41), “information itself is conditioned andstructured by the social institutions and relations in which it isembedded.” Moreover, as noted by Schaef and Fassel (1988):

Full personal participation results in a totally different kind ofknowledge and information from that which is gathered abstractly andobjectively by someone else. This kind of information in turn affects theorganization differently from the information of nonparticipatorymanagement. (p. 16)

For these reasons, I have long been of the opinion that it is criticalfor teachers to take active responsibility for the development of theinformation, and the social institutions and relations within which itis embedded, that underlie all aspects of the educational process—from designing curriculum and materials to deciding the terms ofevaluation of students, of language programs, and of the teacherswho work in them (see Pennington, 1989a, 1989b; Brown &Pennington, in press). Thus, Pennycook and I are in completeagreement with Giroux’s vision of teachers as “transformativeintellectuals,” that is, as Pennycook (1989, p. 613) quotes Giroux andMcLaren (1989, p. xxiii):

as professionals who are able and willing to reflect upon the ideologicalprinciples that inform [our] practice, who connect pedagogical theoryand practice to wider social issues, and who work together to shareideas, exercise power over the conditions of [our] labor, and embody in[our] teaching a vision of a better and more humane life.

Contrary to Pennycooks implication, the Pennington and Youngarticle did not in fact stress evaluation and efficiency; nowhere didwe state or imply that the purpose of faculty evaluation was orshould be tied to efficiency. In fact, I personally believe thatefficiency is overemphasized by many ESL administrators, whofocus too much on completing paperwork and not enough on themuch more important but “inefficient” interpersonal side of theirjob (Pennington, 1985). For example, Reasor (1981) found that mostESL administrators assessed their own style as separated—aninappropriately isolative orientation that I believe stems frominsecurity and lack of knowledge about how to function as aprogram director. Unfortunately, some ESL administrators assumea bureaucratic rather than a facilitative role for themselves: ratherthan focusing on the welfare of their employees, they focus on

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getting the job done; rather than focusing on building anorganization, they focus on the “bottom line.” Disturbingly, whenformer teachers become program directors, the learner-centeredorientation for managing a classroom does not always transfer to anemployee-centered orientation for managing a program.

The suggestion by Pennycook of TESOL as a field dominated bymale administrators controlling female instructors may be less thecase than it was in the past, at least in the United States. Whileover two thirds of the respondents to two recent surveys of ESLteachers—in which 80% of the responses came from U.S. pro-grams—were female (Pennington & Riley, in press-a, in press-b),another recent survey of ESL program directors in the U.S.(Pennington & Xiao, 1990) derives a profile of the typical ESLprogram director as likely to be female (58%), relatively young andinexperienced in administration, as compared with a group ofuniversity department chairs and non-ESL program directors.

As to the other dichotomies that Pennycook mentions in hissecond-to-last paragraph, assuming that he meant these to apply tothe Pennington and Young article and not to the Davies (1989)article, which he lumps together with ours on philosophicalgrounds, I believe, as a matter of fact, that much too much has beenmade in linguistics of the false dichotomization of universal andrelativistic principles, and that second language theorizing hasgotten a lot of “air play” out of faddish dichotomies such as learningversus acquisition or transfer versus development—terms that are atbest unclear and at worst conceptually vacuous (for a discussion,see Pennington, 1988). Moreover, I do not at all believe indichotomizing language and culture, or language and society; infact, it seems to me entirely unremarkable to say that language is asociocultural phenomenon and indeed cannot be defined except inthose terms (Pennington, 1990b). Finally, far from believing in anydichotomy between society and the individual, or the social and thepsychological, I share the view that whatever is reflected on theindividual level in the way of functional or dysfunctional behavioris reflected in the society, and vice versa (Schaef, 1987), and thatpsychological theories of personality and of the behavior ofindividuals can be applied quite directly to cultures and to thebehavior of groups (Kets de Vries & Miller, 1984), fromdepartments or institutions to much larger social groups. For thisreason, I believe strongly in the importance of individual action asthe impetus for social change and in freedom of choice as a basicprinciple.

However, I do not agree that anyone can do anything in aclassroom and that I must accept it as “ESL teaching. ” I believe that

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there are certain approaches to instruction that achieve more validresults in a given context than others and that there are certainbackground characteristics that qualify one to be a member of theESL teaching profession. Moreover, as Pennycook would pre-sumably agree, the students have a right to a voice in what happensin the classroom. In other words, the students have rights and claimson information that may not be consistent with what the personcharged with teaching them makes available, and they also have theright to exercise freedom of choice and individual action to effectchange to satisfy their own perceived needs.

Pennycook has maintained-and this is not at all a new idea—thatthe construct of language teaching method is essentially incoherent.At the same time, it seems clear that we do not yet have recognizedmethods for teacher preparation or evaluation in ESL. This is not tosay that we should not keep trying to develop such methods. Allrecognized academic pursuits are based on method; withoutmethod, all research and practice within education is reduced to“muddling through.” Pennycook, working within a deconstruction-ist framework, argues that the very concept of method is“reactionary” and outmoded, ignoring the fact that deconstruction-ism is itself a highly disciplined method, as it must be to have gainedthe credibility that it has within academia.

While Aileen Young and I may agree with Pennycook about theneed to empower ESL teachers, we may not agree with him thatprofessionalism. is basically a dirty word (though in fact Pennycookis somewhat inconsistent here, in that he allows the term pro-fessional to occur in a positive, “empowering” sense in the Girouxand McLaren quotation above). While some denounce professional-ism as promoting the informational sterility of groupthink and thewithholding of privileged information from the public (Ginsberg,1988), the attribution of professional also “carries implications ofservice, and of practitioner self-regulation” (Crookes, 1989, p. 45).One of the biggest problems in our field—and one of the reasonsthat TESOL still cannot command competitive salaries—is that it isnot in fact perceived as a coherent field or profession, with acoherent set of practices and standards for those practices. AsBlaber and Tobash (1989) remark in connection with the TESOLCommittee on Professional Standards employment concernssurvey:

The consensus is that 1) until the field of TESOL is viewed as aprofession with unique characteristics, and 2) until TESOL professionalsare viewed as having comparable worth to peers and colleagues, it willbe difficult to resolve or even address many salary, security, and benefitissues. (p. 4)

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I submit that TESOL has a very long way to go towards beingrecognized as a viable field rather than as an auxiliary service orstop-gap form of employment. TESOL is still very much plaguedby the problem of untrained or minimally trained nonprofessionalsbilling themselves as “ESL teachers”: there are still college studentsgoing overseas and “teaching ESL” to help support themselves; stillcommunity volunteers offering “ESL instruction” for free. On theother side, there are still many people with PhDs and even MBAsbilling themselves as “ESL program directors” who know little ifanything about TESOL or about directing programs. As long as weare willing to accept large numbers of such unqualified people inthe field, we will continue to have problems being respected andrewarded for the specialized information we possess.

One of the areas of widespread dissatisfaction among teacherswithin TESOL is low pay (Day, 1984; Blaber & Tobash, 1989;Pennington & Riley, in press-a, in press-b). Three other oftenmentioned areas of dissatisfaction are (a) lack of professionalrecognition (Blaber & Tobash, 1989), (b) lack of opportunities foradvancement, and (c) dissatisfaction with administration in theareas of supervision and implementation of organizational policiesand practices (Pennington & Riley, in press-a, in press-b). Theseareas of dissatisfaction confirm the perception of ESL teaching ashaving relatively low status within academia and even within theTESOL field itself. The low status of ESL teaching is possibly oneof the reasons for the “rationalization” of the field that Pennycook(1989) decries. It is also one of the reasons that Aileen Young and Idecided to do the faculty evaluation article. Our purpose was toraise the level of awareness among TESOL administrators andteachers of the formal and informal pitfalls inherent in the evalua-tion of faculty, with the anticipated result that teachers andadministrators in functioning ESL programs would initiate anexamination and revision of the policies and procedures that affectthe lives and livelihood of teachers.

In publishing our article in the TESOL Quarterly, Aileen Youngand I hoped that the information it contained would empower thosein the field of TESOL to take more responsibility for faculty eval-uation in their own individual contexts, to improve the account-ability and the ethics of the profession on a local, program-specificlevel. Since it does not appear to be a realistic option to dispensewith faculty evaluation in ESL, I believe that every ESL practitionermust (a) learn about faculty evaluation; (b) contribute to ensuringthat the faculty evaluation process in their own context is conductedin a professional manner, that is, competently and fairly; and (c) beaccountable for the results—as teachers in their classrooms, and as

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administrators in their evaluations of teachers. Hawkins (1990)contends that accountability to students and to curricular goals is acentral aspect of responsible teaching, while Fox (in press)maintains that accountability, while rare in TESOL, is the hallmarkof responsible administrative behavior.

In closing this response to Pennycook, I would make a generalpoint about information and its power to effect change. One way toconfront the problems in TESOL is to attempt a radicalreconstruction of its constructs by examining it from a newperspective, applying new concepts and styles of argumentation,which, because of the nature of the enterprise, are likely to beunfamiliar to those inside the field. While such an approach canprovide a valuable new perspective for identification anddescription of problems, its potential impact—and especially itsutility in actually effecting change—within the field is limited whenthe writer opts for “correct” ideology over clarity of message andfor abstraction over pragmatism, offering no immediate alterna-tives to the repudiated practices, or solutions to the pressingproblems that practitioners are facing. A different and moremoderate approach is to offer an informed perspective on practicesin the attempt to work to improve those practices from within andto develop solutions to existing problems. In the latter way ofproceeding, which is the one adopted in the Pennington and Youngarticle, one attempts to open up the field to scrutiny, to demystifyit, and to share with practitioners knowledge that was formerlyreserved for academics.

I submit that this latter way of operating, far from being a dangerto TESOL, produces more direct effects and, particularly, moreimmediate improvements, to the field than the former approach,which is informationally opaque or irrelevant to the majority ofpractitioners. In attempting to clarify the nature of faculty evalua-tion and to detail its inherent problems, Aileen Young and I hopethat we have succeeded in opening up dialogue with the TESOLmembership towards improved practices in TESOL, therebydemonstrating the power and the value of the commodity of sharedinformation for building our profession.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This response was written by me and then read by Aileen Young, who providedhelpful editorial feedback and who is in complete agreement with all points. Ms.Young’s affiliation was incorrectly identified in our original article. Aileen Young’saffiliation should have been listed as the Hawaiian Mission Academy.

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REFERENCES

Blaber, M., & Tobash, L. (1989). Report of employment concerns survey.TESOL Newsletter, 23 (2), 4-5.

Brown, J. D., & Pennington, M. C. (in press). Developing effective evalu-ation systems for language programs. In M. C. Pennington, Buildingbetter language programs: Perspectives on evaluation in ESL.Washington, DC: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs.

Crookes, G. (1989). Grassroots action to improve ESL programs.University of Hawaii Working Papers in ESL, 8 (2), 45-61.

Darling-Hammond, L., Wise, A. E., & Pease, S. R. (1983). Teacher evalu-ation in the organizational context: A review of the literature. Review ofEducational Research, 53, 285-328.

Day, R. R. (1984). Career aspects of graduate training in ESL. TESOLQuarterly, 18 (1), 109-127.

Davies, A. (1989). Is international English an interlanguage? TESOLQuarterly, 23 (3), 447-467.

Fox, R. P. (in press). Evaluating the ESL program director. InM. C. Pennington, Building better language programs: Evaluation inESL. Washington, DC: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs.

Ginsberg, M. (1988). Contradictions in teacher education and society: Acritical analysis. London: The Falmer Press.

Giroux, H. A., & McLaren, P. (1989). Introduction to H. A. Giroux& P. McLaren (Eds.), Critical pedagogy, the state, and cultural struggle(pp. xi-xxxv). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Hawkins, B. W. (1990, March). Lesson planning as hypothesis formulation,teaching as hypothesis testing. Paper presented at the 24th AnnualConference of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. SanFrancisco, CA.

Kets de Vries, M. F. R., & Miller, D. (1984). The neurotic organization.San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Pennington, M. C. (1985). Effective administration of an ESL program. InP. Larson, E. L. Judd, & D. S. Messerschmitt, (Eds.), On TESOL ’84(pp. 301-316). Washington, DC: Teachers of English to Speakers ofOther Languages.

Pennington, M. C. (1988). In search of explanations for interlanguagephenomena. University of Hawai’i Working Papers in English as aSecond Language, 7 (2), 41-74.

Pennington, M. C. (1989a). Directions for faculty evaluation in languageeducation. Language Culture and Curriculum, 2 (3), 167-193.

Pennington, M. C. (1989b). Faculty development for language programs.In R. K. Johnson (Ed.), The second language curriculum (pp. 91-110).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pennington, M. C. (1990a). A professional development focus for the lan-guage teaching practicum. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds. ), Secondlanguage teacher education (pp. 132-151). Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

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Pennington, M. C. (1990b). American English phonology: A course for lan-guage teachers. Unpublished manuscript. University of Hawaii atManoa, Department of English as a Second Language, Honolulu.

Pennington, M. C., & Riley, P. V. (in press-a). Measuring job satisfactionin ESL using the Job Descriptive Index. Perspectives: Working Papers ofthe Department of English, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong.

Pennington, M. C., & Riley, P. V. (in press-b). A survey of job satisfactionin ESL: TESOL members respond to the Minnesota Satisfaction Ques-tionnaire. University of Hawaii Working Paper in English as a SecondLanguage.

Pennington, M. C., & Xiao, Y. (1990). Defining the job of the ESL programdirector: Results of a national survey. Unpublished manuscript.University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of English as a Second Lan-guage, Honolulu.

Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, andthe politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (4), 589-618.

Reasor, A. (1981). Administrative styles of English-as-second-languageadministrators. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. American University,Washington, DC.

Sashkin, M. (1986, Spring). Participative management remains an ethicalimperative. Organizational Dynamics, pp. 62-75.

Schaef, A. W. (1987). When society becomes an addict. San Francisco:Harper & Row.

Schaef, A. W., & Fassel, D. (1988). The addictive organization. S a nFrancisco: Harper & Row.

Schiller, D. (1988). How to think about information. In V. Mosco& J. Wasko (Eds.), The political economy of information. Madison, WI:University of Wisconsin Press.

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