Tina Bell
English 5001
23 April 2009
Commentary Week 9
Paul Kei Matsuda published his article, “Composition Studies and ESL Writing: A Disciplinary Division of Labor,” in 1999, and the topic as to the best methods for teaching English as a Second Language is still greatly debated today. Matsuda says that “the presence of ESL students should be an important consideration for all teachers and scholars of writing because ESL students can be found in many writing courses in the United States” (699). In the year 2009 and in the Central Valley, I would extend Matsuda’s statement to say that one can find ESL students in all courses of elementary and secondary education.
I have taught for seventeen years in the valley and have yet to teach a class which did not include ESL students. Since the “unique difficulties that ESL writers encounter in English composition are not likely to disappear completely after a semester-or even a few years-,” (715) I agree with Lisa’s statement in her commentary. Perhaps the education of ESL students belongs to teachers of all disciplines and not just the English nor the ESL teacher. How much more powerful could the learning be if ESL students received not just one hour but an entire day filled with instruction geared to their needs.
The idea of including ESL instruction in all content areas and the idea that all English classes should include aspects of language acquisition are two theories running through education today. Matsuda, in 1999, does not propose that English composition and ESL courses should be combined. The two common theories mentioned above demonstrate that in 2009, the separation of the two disciplines is still a powerful idea. Rather than combine the two disciplines, today the focus in elementary and secondary education is to add aspects of ESL instruction to all classes.
I have often wondered why ALL the pressure of ESL learning has had to be on English learners. I recently had the pleasure of experiencing one of Dr. Stryker’s HILT lessons in Portuguese. It was a geography lesson in Portuguese. So, it was not really a language class, it was a geography class, but we were learning another language in an active and relative context that seemed to take the pressure off of language learning. Isn’t that one of the main difficulties with ESL students? We make them write these papers and essays that the state requires them to be able to write and they stand apart from the rest of their learning without meaning. What’s the point of that? Don’t we want them to be able to use English across disciplines? I certainly couldn’t teach a geography or math or history class; that’s someone else’s specialty. But, maybe ESL should be a part of every teacher’s specialty?