Week 6-ESL writing

Culture, Context and Writing

We again get a different definition of culture in the Hinkel chapter, which reinforces the idea that culture is not a concrete thought it changes and differs from person to person. Hinkel defines culture as “the pattern of meanings embodied in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances, and  meaningful objects of various kinds, by virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their experiences conceptions and beliefs.”  He also says that successful communication depends on sociocultural factors and underlying matters in society and that people “express meaning to realize a social goal.” Language is a way to express goals within a society and personally. I am currently enrolled in English 241, the history of the English language and I am  amazed about how much I did not know about the language I speak every day, the language I depend on to communicate and survive. Learning about how the English language came to be and how it works compared to other languages is really eye opening. I never realized how different languages actually are in means of syntax and the makeup of cultural differences in the language.

Coming up with a definition for culture has been difficult for us to come up with, everyone has a different concept of what culture means and what culture does. With this being said it will be tricky to characterize culture in the second language classroom, especially because there can be various cultures in one classroom. The students who are learning English as a second language are dependent on the teacher to represent culture effectively. Even if the goal of the class is not learning culture these ESL students are going to learn a significant amount about the culture. In the study Hinkel talks about these students changing their identity while learning more about the culture. These students changed everything from their looks to their names to be immersed into the culture, even though they have been in the country for a long time.

When it comes to ESL writing in the classroom as a pre-service teacher I found it disheartening that NES subjects thought that ESL student’s writings were less effective compared to their own writings. Even though this is off-putting it does make sense. These students come from languages that have a completely different syntax than the language they are learning. With planning, writing and revising ESL writers are struggling. This is good information to know as a pre-service ESL teacher although it is not fair to judge an ESL student without reviewing their work or comparing an ESL student to their NES peers.