After being with the students for a number of weeks, I wanted to ask them the question that aroused from a blog topic regarding the contextualization of students in the university--especially those who are considered learners of English. The responses that they had for taking ESL 15 are as followed:
Its easy
I want to improve my speaking and writing
English 15 is much harder
Most of the students in the ESL15 Class went to high schools in the US. Thus, their English proficiency is rather high. One would assume that when they applied to the university, they would have been given the chance to take English 15. In addition, the student do not see themselves inferior to native speakers of English--come to think of it, they do not care if they were consider non-native speakers of English. And if the positioning created by the institution -meaning non-natives take ESL 15 while natives take ENGL15--is negative, then the students would have not been motivated to take this class. If we are including "motivation" in this discussion, is the motivation that ESL 15 is easier than Engl 15? If this was the motivation, then is that a characteristics that we, teacher educators, want to associate with our program? I am not implying that easy is necessarily a negative thing, but when it becomes that one adjectives that students associate with the class, I think that it may be a problem. And does challenge come with easiness? When the students were challenged in the third paper by making an argument, some were furious because they will have to go back and change the structure of the essay. Yet, those who accepted this challenge produced such wonderful essays even though it was the same "easy" class. Although one may argue that the institution position the students-- in this case, it does not because the students had the option of taking ESL 15 or English 15 and, most of the time, they choose ESL 15. this is not to say that those who represent the institution, the teachers, can not position the students. In the another ESL 15 section that I observed, there was a student who started in English 15, and six weeks later, the teacher told her to move to ESL 15. The problem is that the student did well in that class, but the teacher told her to go to ESL 15 after so many weeks past. When I asked the student if she heard of ESL 15 before, she said she did not. How come she did not get the option like the other students? And how does sort of action of having a student switch class in the middle of semester take place?
Its easy
I want to improve my speaking and writing
English 15 is much harder
Most of the students in the ESL15 Class went to high schools in the US. Thus, their English proficiency is rather high. One would assume that when they applied to the university, they would have been given the chance to take English 15. In addition, the student do not see themselves inferior to native speakers of English--come to think of it, they do not care if they were consider non-native speakers of English. And if the positioning created by the institution -meaning non-natives take ESL 15 while natives take ENGL15--is negative, then the students would have not been motivated to take this class. If we are including "motivation" in this discussion, is the motivation that ESL 15 is easier than Engl 15? If this was the motivation, then is that a characteristics that we, teacher educators, want to associate with our program? I am not implying that easy is necessarily a negative thing, but when it becomes that one adjectives that students associate with the class, I think that it may be a problem. And does challenge come with easiness? When the students were challenged in the third paper by making an argument, some were furious because they will have to go back and change the structure of the essay. Yet, those who accepted this challenge produced such wonderful essays even though it was the same "easy" class. Although one may argue that the institution position the students-- in this case, it does not because the students had the option of taking ESL 15 or English 15 and, most of the time, they choose ESL 15. this is not to say that those who represent the institution, the teachers, can not position the students. In the another ESL 15 section that I observed, there was a student who started in English 15, and six weeks later, the teacher told her to move to ESL 15. The problem is that the student did well in that class, but the teacher told her to go to ESL 15 after so many weeks past. When I asked the student if she heard of ESL 15 before, she said she did not. How come she did not get the option like the other students? And how does sort of action of having a student switch class in the middle of semester take place?