Multilingual Writing & World Englishes: Fostering New Approaches & Values

This week’s readings were Rebecca Lorimer Leonard’s “Multilingual Writing as Rhetorical Attunement” and A. Suresh Canagarajah’s “The Place of World Englishes in Composition: Pluralization Continued .”  Both authors work with ESL / TEOFL and multilingual teaching & writing.  Below are some highlights from both the articles and the class discussion.
 
The class discussion centered on fostering strategies and values to teaching multilingual writing and speaking. The general concerns were basically how to serve students to the best of their ability, and how teachers may want to consider different approaches and what do teachers value when it comes to language learning and composition in the classroom.
 
Pluralism and Space
Canagarajah supports a “pluralizing composition” (p.587) or the co-existence of approaches between multilingualism and monolingual standards.  He explains, “they compel us to think of English as a plural language that embodies many norms and standards” (p.589).  Primarily, what new strategies or approaches can teachers provide which students can use in their writing and speaking now (‘pedagogy of space’ as he puts it) rather than over a period of time as proposed by Elbow’s two-pronged approach (p.598)? 
 
 Key Highlights from the Class Discussion

• World Englishes (WE) – rule-governed or establish norms (p. 588) & Metropolitan English (ME) “native” varieties (p. 588).

 

• Strategies teachers should strive for, 1) treating differences of language as a resource; 2) language shuttling or language negotiation is a positive thing.

 

• Awareness that the value of composition tends is tied to a hierarchy or levels of writing. Thus, academic writing tends to have more weight than other types of writing.

 

• There is a tendency to assign value more to race and color than to ability; and we are all novices of each other’s dialects.  Canagarajah’s explains it is “more appropriate to use terms such as expert and novice that don’t invoke the considerations of blood, family, or race to describe proficiency” (p.590).

 

• The practice of language negotiation needs to be explored more.  The need to look at errors from a rhetorical point of view and make a conscious choice by asking the student - “why did you select the words that you used?”

 

• Metalinguistic Awareness, do we negotiate with the student how they want their language assessed?  If the student is a novice, how do we teach rather than assuming how they write and speak? 

 
Rhetorical Attunement & Sensibility
Lorimer Leonard explains “how writing across languages and locations in the world fosters as rhetorical attunement: a literate understanding that assumes multiplicity and invites the negotiation of meaning across difference” (p.228).  She also states, literate repertoires are not static (p.228), and language learning is interactive, engaging and it entails language negotiation.  She further explains, “one way to think about this difference —monolingual writers hear a note; multilingual writers hear a chord” (p.244). 
 
Other Highlights from the Class Discussion

• Language is “messy,” and not fixed. It is fluid and is the embodiment of playing with language (p.233) and must navigating through it.

 

• Breakdown in communication can bring tension.  What does it look like when trying to communicate? It can be frustrating, but you work through it. 

 

• Assessment when working with ESL/TOEFL students involves decisions of 1) what’s vital as to why and what to assess; and 2) regarding writing and translation with the goal to ensure social justice.

 

• Why assessment practices tend to affect people of color negatively? Perhaps, 1) we do not think to ask the question; and 2) hopefully, teachers can start to ask the question and get the answers they need to assess effectiveness and look at assessment as a shared goal.

 
A side note: Although I was a little intimidated in taking this class and since I do not come from an English composition and teaching background, I wanted to give a shout out to the instructor and the classmates for the sharing of their thoughts, and experiences on Rhetoric and Composition.
 
Best wishes to all of you in both your teaching and academic careers.
-MH