Of course ESL students have different cultural backgrounds, education, and language proficiency as Matsuda mentions in his essay. Ignoring these elements of students only increases the difficulty of teaching them English. I was surprised to read that in 1939 I.A. Richards proposed a plan to teach English through picture and word correspondence. The irony clearly cuts through as a similar method of teaching ESL students has made its way into modern classes. Unfortunately, Richards’ plan was rejected and the beginning of Fries’ linguistic approach took precedence. Furthermore, the notion that anyone whose native language was English could teach it seems preposterous by today’s standards; nevertheless, this was commonly believed around 1941. Luckily, Fries didn’t adhere to this belief. Despite this, ESL students need more than training in linguistic studies in order to acquire a new language. According to Matsuda, this need was felt in 1955 when CCCC meetings began discussing the implementation of ESL curriculum, language proficiency tests, and the role of English teachers in the students’ cultural adjustment process. While I do believe linguistics (such as Fries’ methods) can assist in mastering a language, it appears to be common sense that obtaining new knowledge and skills requires a more basic approach. Certainly ESL students possess the intelligence of learning linguistics; however, effectively communicating in a new language (for most anyone) requires a less complex process. Obtaining a second language is like a beginning artist (unless he possesses natural talent) learning to sketch form but eventually painting a masterpiece after years of practice. From my own experience, I can testify to the difficulty of learning a second language (Spanish) through a linguistic method centered on grammar drills. Even after doing well in several courses, I did not obtain the oral, let alone writing, skills to communicate in Spanish. For some of my classmates, they did acquire a good understanding of Spanish, but clearly there will be students who succeed in classes but still lack the ability to speak in a second language. Indeed, my class also incorporated an oral method where language was considered “a set of habits for oral production and reception” as Fries believed. Matsuda also mentions that institutions in the 1950s still did not adjust English classes to meet the needs of ESL students while sending some to “subfreshman courses” and others to “speech clinics where speech therapists treated them as suffering from speech defects”. The latter method reeks of the ethnocentric attitudes towards educating ESL students. Undoubtedly, these institutions did not consider the cultural differences and other factors that made obtaining English more difficult for ESL students. Fortunately, professionalization arrived but with the cost of division between ESL specialists and composition instructors. Hopefully, as Matsuda argues, composition teachers and ESL specialists will cross disciplines to gain a better understanding of ESL students’ needs. Ultimately, teaching ESL students to write, read, and speak in English requires specialized training for teachers of each field. Moreover, mixing mainstream and ESL students can assist second language learners by exposing them to the teaching and learning methods of native speakers. In this way, ESL students will be able to fine-tune their skills through the teaching methods of mainstream students while still having their needs met because the instructor will have received specialized training.