Week 6 - Cultural Writing

I found the readings of Hinkel, Kubota, and Silvia to be very eye opening and filled with useful information as pre-service ESL teachers. I believe that writing is such a crucial part of the learning process and it can really demonstrate the students' understanding of certain content or their ability to formulate their own ideas. Since this is such an important aspect of literacy, I think it may be a frightening and overwhelming process for ESL students. With the help of these articles, such as Silvia's, I have been able to collect some ideas on how to teach appropriate writing skills and ones that are culturally representative. It seemed a little disheartening that ESL writing skills are significantly lower than NES abilities, but I think that is due to the language barrier. America has such a structured process for composing writing, but what makes this the correct form? For example, Silvia explained the tendency for Japanese-speaking students to form persuasive essays by incorporating mixed arguments (arguing for and against) and argument alterations (between arguing for and against.) If an American student were to use this structure while trying to form an argument, they would probably be given a low grade because you are taught to only pick one side and then stick with it completely. I really thought this was interesting because it is up to the ESL teacher to instruct how to compose culturally appropriate writing and I'm sure this would be a very difficult habit for anyone to break. I almost feel uncomfortable teaching these types of strategies because maybe it could cause the ESL students to feel unworthy and it does not seem very open to cultural differences.

With that said, I can relate to the difficulty that ESL students may faced when they are given the task to write. Throughout college, I have written numerous lengthy essays in Spanish, but each time I feel as though I can not reach my peak performance level. I am able to say everything I want to say, but sometimes I feel like the sentence structure is limited or I have to talk around what I am not able to articulate. Sometimes I feel like this is hard enough and now I have to write it in a foreign language! I hope to remember this feeling so I can relate to my students and encourage them to do their best, no matter how difficult it may seem.

These readings helped me to realize that we need to be aware of how culture is represented in writing, whether it be through content or actual structure. Chapter 6 by Hinkel demonstrated how sometimes ESL teachers can enforce their students to take on cultural stereotypes, so writing prompts need to be selected carefully. I will work to think of ways that this can be done, possibly by giving total freedom to the students to write about their own definition of culture and identity, instead of enforcing the "we" versus "you" thought process.