Reference no: EM133319459

Read through Kim's essay and answer the following questions:

KIM'S ESSAY:

Some nouns in English are perhaps in the process of shifting from uncountable to countable....Further, research is an uncountable noun for the vast majority of native speakers; however, it is not at all inconceivable that it may someday become countable-perhaps as a result of pressure from nonnative speakers.

(Swales & Feak, 2004. P. 292)

Wrapping up the class discussion for the day, I read aloud this excerpt from the textbook, somewhat triumphantly adding, "See? No need to be discouraged. You have a lot of power in academe!" I watched, smiling as ripples of giggles and laughter spread throughout the classroom and on my students' faces-some bashful and reserved, others more elated.

It was reassuring to see those smiles, because the energy level had been somewhat low that day in the ESL academic writing class I taught. We had been working on the proper usage of articles and nouns, and my class of twenty bright international graduate students seemed to be discouraged at the conclusion they drew that ultimately what they needed was large doses of input to gradually acquire native-like intuition, and further, style. Having received English education in EFL contexts starting from a very early age, this precept was nothing new to them. It was not that these L2 writers expected to acquire native-like accuracy and fluency with the wave of a wand, but that the painfully sluggish process that they needed to go through often left them exhausted and even in despair before they could get to the level of proficiency they strived to reach.

It may be surprising that these promising scholars, actively publishing and contributing to their field, seemed more concerned about sounding like a native-speaking writer rather than advancing their ideas, but as an L2 writer myself, I could relate to their worries and anxieties. Although I was exposed to English at an early age, I first started English academic writing as an international graduate student-writing course papers, projects, and presentations. I not only had to work on adjusting my writing so that is resembled what is thought to be more American rhetorical style, but I also had to continuously monitor my English expressions by consulting phrase books and familiarizing myself with vocabulary and collocations. Not any different from my ESL students, I too, have been through disheartening situations when all these efforts see to be of no use: when I would get a native speaker commenting that my work was "so not English," or even worse, simply "awk."

Strangely enough, I, the troubled L2 writer, also take on the role of facilitator, informant, and representative of the target language, English, as an ESL writing teacher. My students look to me for answers to questions about American rhetorical patterns in writing and American culture. I find my different identities alternating between themselves when teaching in the classroom and even when I write comments on my students' drafts. I see myself using both we and they when describing concepts traditionally identified with American rhetoric. It would either be one identity saying, "You know, in the United States we say...," or the other commenting, "When writing, Americans say..."

I used to share a joke about this "identity crisis" with a colleague when I first started teaching at my institution. I would half-jokingly mention that I was burning both ends of the candle, with my split identities burning each end. The graduate student and second language learner in me constantly has to work to adjust to the American academic discourse community that I had become part of on entering graduate school, and at the same time, the second language teacher in me spent endless nights trying to create new classroom activities and helpful explanations that would make ESL writing instruction more effective. I found myself to be full of inconsistencies and contradictions. My dual identities would surface here and there at unexpected moments, and sometimes even clash between themselves, causing insecurities and doubt.

Ironically, I began to find ways to negotiate my dual identities as a writer, as I started developing yet another identity-that of a writing consultant at my institution's writing center. The role I played there was not so much that of an instructor or director, but more of a consultant. To the writers that came for consulting sessions, I would be another member of the academic discourse community and a peer who listens, collaborates, and helps discover. I was surprised to find that in many cases, writers, regardless of their being L1 or L2 writers, showed a sense of ownership regarding their work and saw me as their potential audience, a fellow academic. They would ask if their work mad sense and would leave the session expressing thanks for my listening, asking questions, and giving suggestions.

Working as a writing consultant has unchained me from the thought that I should relate to one, and only one, identity as a writer. Whether and L2 writer, and ESL writing teacher, or someone going back and forth in between, I see myself as a member of a larger and more dynamic discourse community as elucidated by Matsuda (1997/2001). His model of L2 writing provides a framework for writers in academe to view writing as something dynamic that constantly changes as both L1 and L2 academics affect and are affected by one another. Within this framework, I feel I am able to contribute to my discourse community with all of my different identities as a writer, as I believe is the same with any international scholar.

Amid the emerging discussions about the value and role of voice in L2 writing (e.g., Elbow, 1999; Hyland 2001; Prior, 2001; Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999; Ramanathan & Kaplan, 1996), there are also concerns regarding the lack of attention being given to instruction on the effective expression of ideas. However, I can say as a teacher working with L2 writers in the classroom every day, and also as an L2 writer myself, that L2 writers are not writers without identities and distinctive voices, simply trying to mimic English. This does not mean that we have to break away from teaching L2 writers the linguistic means to effectively communicate ideas, but that we could take a different approach in doing so. Students seem to respond favorably to learning the five-paragraph essay when they feel that they are not simply memorizing the five-paragraph essay template, but rather gaining a sense of audience and an awareness of the context in which they are writing. What is called for is increasingly incorporating individual writing conferences into writing classes, and adopting practices in which teachers help student writers actively get involved in the process of co-constructing their voices as participants of their discourse communities.

I remember a colleague once asking me if I thought of myself as a fluent writer. Not really stopping to think if the question was about writing in my first or second language, my answer was, "No, but I'm a constant reviser." Regardless of what language I write in, I have always enjoyed writing, but more, the process of writing. In enjoy putting my thoughts into words, taking time to reflect on them, and then distilling them into words I need to express my ideas. Although this may be one quality I can say that characterizes me as a writer regardless of the various contexts in which I write-as a student, as a teacher, and even when writing emails to friends and family-if anyone asked me the same question again, my answer would be , "It depends." Paradoxically, this ambiguous answer to the question about my identity as a writer seems to be the one that is closest to the truth. While my multiple identities may share some common traits, they constantly change and are negotiated over and across different contexts.

The very experience of discovering and negotiating my multiple identities as a writer is what helps me relate to my students' ardent desires to be able to write without a marked "written accent," but at the same time what also makes me concerned. Only when educators, L1 and L2 writers and readers, and all members of each discourse community are fully sensitized to these issues will be able to benefit from every writer's full participation in the community as competent rhetors of English. Who knows? There may indeed come a day when all researchers will happily go about doing their...researches.

Question: How does this apply to the film Spanglish? What connections do you make between the article and the film? How could this be used to interpret a film scene in Spanglish? Is there a particular film scene that you have in mind? If so, why?