The CATESOL Journal

Traditional approaches that prepare students for research writing oft en focus on the mastery of skills such as paraphrasing, citing sources, and creating outlines. While these skills are important, they are oft en practiced at the expense of involving students in a meaningful examination of content. Project work is off ered as an alternative approach that is uniquely suited to the diff erent needs of English as a second language (ESL) students. It allows for a cross-curricular approach in which students can demonstrate what they have learned through art, drama, and music without being encumbered by their still-developing reading and writing skills. A 10-week project on plant life, conducted with 12 ESL students at Northeast Middle School in Kansas City, Missouri, is given as an example of how project work can prepare ESL students with the skills needed to begin research writing.

This study investigates the learning style preferences of Armenian, Hmong, Korean, Mexican, and Vietnamese English learners (ELs) in secondary schools. Measures used include a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and post hoc multiple comparisons of means tests (Scheffé tests) for statistical analyses. A sample of 857 cases collected from 20 high schools in California found significant ethnic group differences as well as achievement level differences in basic learning style preferences. ELs in this study favored a variety of instructional strategies. They exhibited either major or minor preferences for all four basic perceptual learning styles but significant ethnic group differences in preferences for group and individual learning. All students exhibited either major or minor preferences for kinesthetic or tactile learning. Hmong, Mexican, and Vietnamese ELs preferred group learning while Armenian and Korean ELs did not. However, all five ethnic groups (Armenian, Hmong, Korean, Mexican, and Vietnamese) showed either major or minor preferences for visual learning. In addition, middle and high achievers were more visual than low achievers; high and middle achievers preferred individual learning but low achievers did not; and newcomers exhibited much greater preference for individual learning than those who had been longer in the U.S.

Intensive English program (IEP) administrators and faculty are often asked to submit proposals and to design programs for special short-term groups. Some groups have specific requests for certain content whereas others may have no specific requests. Content is an ideal organizing principle for short-term programs regardless of the group’s request. Using two extended examples of short-term programs, this paper systematically outlines the methods of drafting proposals and then describes the design and successful implementation of these programs. Attention is given to factors such as (a) setting up the overall structure and goals of a short-term program, (b) choosing content, (c) designing classroom lessons, (d) evaluating the program, (e) assessing student progress, and (f) dealing with unknown issues. Short-term programs for groups are increasingly important to IEPs today and provide benefits to the IEP, its students, its faculty and administrators, and to the larger institution and local community.

English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers often assume that they deal with the issue of culture simply because many cultures are represented in their classrooms. However, the specifics of how cultures vary and how that variance impacts teaching are rather vague in the current TESOL literature. This article presents a framework for understanding cultural variation and suggests further research applications for the framework.

This article addresses the issue of culture within the field of Teaching English as a Second or Other Language (TESOL), suggesting that it is essential that English as a Second Language (ESL) professionals understand students as both members of cultures and as individuals. It also discusses two dimensions from the field of intercultural communication that impact the ESL classroom: individualism/collectivism and power distance. Each dimension will be defined and illustrated with classroom situations in which intercultural misunderstandings have occurred. The misunderstandings will be explained from the point of view of each culture (the teacher’s and the student’s) and will demonstrate the need for ESL teachers to understand the intercultural dimensions operating in their classrooms.

Russian-speaking English as a second language (ESL) students represent one of the fastest growing language groups in California and form the majority of the community college population in the Sacramento area. Many American ESL teachers find themselves unprepared to deal with this unique group of learners. Based on an ethnographic study, this article examines how cultural differences between the Russian-speaking students and their North American teachers often lead to conflict in the ESL classroom. Russian students are frequently not aware of the extent to which they create classroom conflicts. This article argues that teachers can help mainstream their Russian students into the American classroom culture by adopting a direct, pro-active teaching approach. In conclusion, the author provides practical suggestions to teachers working with Russian-speaking students. The sources of data include classroom observations, a demographic survey, and informal interviews of ESL instructors and their Russian-speaking students.

Current conceptions of intercultural communication competence are extremely Eurocentric. More specifically, they affirm the U.S. American, white, middle class as the center or “ideal order”—the standard by which everyone else is judged and measured, and from which they are declared to deviate. This view of competence remains hegemonic in current research and pedagogy. The purpose of this essay is to create a space for dialogue so that scholars and practitioners can begin to reflect, challenge, and interrogate current conceptions of intercultural communication competence. To do so, I first propose that much of the current field of intercultural communication might be viewed as encounters with the “Other.” Second, I identify, discuss, and illustrate the typical components of intercultural communication competence in the current research literature. Next, I turn to examine critical issues that, in my view, should be included in (re)conceptualizations of intercultural competence. I conclude by exploring potentially non-Eurocentric ways of conceptualizing competence in intercultural settings.

The California Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development (CLAD) teaching credential was mandated by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing in 1995 as a means of preparing classroom teachers to educate the diverse population in the public schools of California. The three skill areas incorporated into this credential are (a) the theory and practice of language development, (b) the development of specially designed verbal and nonverbal communication skills in order to deliver academic content, and (c) the development of an understanding of the pedagogical impact of cultural diversity in the classroom. California specialists in English as a second language played a major role in the design and implementation of this credential. This was the first attempt within California to designate—and mandate—the skills and responsibilities of the intercultural educator. This article reviews the skills addressed by the CLAD credential and compares them to the knowledge base offered by the discipline of intercultural communication in order to suggest possible additions to the CLAD requirements.

Schools with large numbers of bilingual and multicultural students are sites where intercultural communication is the norm. This communication is never neutral with respect to societal power relations. In varying degrees, the interactions between educators and students either reinforce or challenge coercive relations of power in the wider society. These interactions involve a process of negotiating identities that are enmeshed in complex relations of power and status that reflect historical and current realities. In the wake of Proposition 227, a challenge for educators is to minimize the impact that is potentially disempowering and resulting from the “official” rejection of students’ languages and cultures. This is not only a technical issue of how to implement appropriate forms of literacy and content instruction when students have weaker language skills. It is equally or more a question of how to create within the classroom and school an interpersonal space that affirms students’ developing sense of self. The framework presented argues that student success or failure is determined largely in the process of identity negotiation between teacher and student. In order to promote academic success, it is necessary to establish school-based language policies that articulate the ways in which affirmation of identity will be achieved both in the classroom and school as a whole.