I found this article interesting and valid for several reasons: first, it offers a detailed history of the two fields of ESL and compositional studies that offers much needed insight into the schism and division of these disciplines, and second, it directly addresses some of the concerns I have as a future teacher, problems that will undoubtedly appear in my classroom and impact me and my students directly. Although I have no teaching experience, I am no stranger to the challenges faced by ESL students and composition instructors on the writing front. Paul Matsuda claims, “the lack of second-language elements in the history of composition studies…continues to reinscribe that the sole responsibility of teaching writing to ESL students falls upon professionals in another intellectual formation” (700). In the freshman and sophomore composition courses I took, in spite of required ESL courses, there was often a notable difference between the work and accomplishments of ESL students and native speakers, and the frustration born from these differences were noticeable for both the students and the teachers. Students feel frustrated because they are often not given adequate preparation for English writing, regardless of how well they have mastered communicating in the language and mastering grammatical rules, and professors are frustrated because these students are arriving in their classrooms unprepared, and the teachers, themselves, lack the time and instruction to remedy the situation.

Considering the relatively short time line of the development of TESL and compositional professionalism, it really is no wonder that the needs of ESL students are not being fully met. Matsuda writes that by 1967, the “Language Learning” journal could no longer ignore concerns like: bilingualism, translation, linguistic statistics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics (706). As I was reading over this list of concerns–ones that not only affected professionals forty years ago but still plague them today–I found myself intimidated and struck with something closely resembling anxiety; while I have no experience or instruction in TESL or ESL methods or concerns, I have no doubt that these will still enter my literature or composition classrooms. Moreover, with the exception of bilingualism (I have no second language skills) and translation (I possess no skills here either), I have absolutely no knowledge of these concepts on the issue list, including simple definitions. How, then, am I, a future professional, supposed to step foot in the classroom when I will barely have enough tools and information to begin a career of instruction in the fields for which I have been trained let alone possess the tools necessary for instructing  second-language or international students?

In my experience, it seems that too often composition courses are treated equally as part-composition and part-creative writing where a considerable amount of attention is paid to the developing of argumentation, opinion, feeling, and thought. I think this falls directly in line with how English, as a language, is viewed: a means of conveying the individual’s worth and meaning, but I can’t help but wonder how an ESL student can be expected to succeed in a composition course that incorporates American culture just as much as it does grammar and writing skills.