Readingand Writingin Esl By Annie

Slide 1: Reading and Writing in Academic ESL How it got to be such a drag…

Slide 2: …and what to do about it now.

Slide 3: In the beginning (about 1955, to be exact)

Slide 4: There was the audiolingual approach: “…I plan to to study geography… (want) “…I want to study geography…” (math) “…I want to study math…” (we) “…We want to study math…” (?) “Do we want to study math?”

Slide 5: Oral language was the important thing. Reading and writing in the new language would just fall into place somehow.

Slide 6: But often they didn’t.

Slide 7: By the time people noticed the problem, a new approach was in vogue…

Slide 8: English for Special Purposes ESP

Slide 9: Waiters need ESL for waiters.

Slide 10: Office workers need ESL for office workers

Slide 11: Students need ESL for students.

Slide 12: What do students need to do? *Read textbooks. *Write papers.

Slide 13: So in ESL classes we will *Read passages from textbooks. *Write expository essays.

Slide 14: And since ESL students don’t usually become English majors, forget about fiction and poetry.

Slide 15: The ESL students worked very hard.

Slide 16: But the results were still disappointing.

Slide 17: But about 1985, some new ideas began to filter through from L1 pedagogy…

Slide 18: Literature teaches students to “formulate their own ideas, and to look closely at a text for evidence to support generalizations—teaches them to think critically.” Ruth Spack, 1986

Slide 19: “At the heart of understanding reading and writing connections one must begin to view reading and writing as essentially similar processes of meaning construction. Both are acts of composing.” Tierney and Pearson (1983), quoted in Hirvela(1998)

Slide 20: “Because reading to write requires reader/writers to product a text of their own, they must a) transform information to their own purposes in reading and b) synthesize their own knowledge with that of another text in writing. This transformation and synthesis of knowledge is the ultimate goal of critical literacy.” Carson 1998

Slide 21: So with ups and downs, things are starting to look a bit better.