Vol 24 3 PDF

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TESOL QUARTERLY Volume 24, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1990
A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

and of Standard English as a Second Dialect
Editor
SANDRA SILBERSTEIN, University of Washington
Review Editor
HEIDI RIGGENBACH, University of Washington
Brief Reports and Summaries Editor
GAIL WEINSTEIN-SHR, University of Massachusetts at Amherst/
Temple University
Assistant Editor
DEBORAH GREEN, University of Washington
Editorial Assistant
MAUREEN P. PHILLIPS, University of Washington
Editorial Advisory Board
Roberta G. Abrabam Miriam Eisenstein
Iowa State University New York University
Margie S. Berns Liz Hamp-Lyons
Purdue University University of Colorado at Denver
Joan Eisterhold Carson Mary McGroarty
Georgia State University Northern Arizona University
Ruth Larimer Cathcart Thomas Ricento
Monterey Institute of International Studies Japan Center for Michigan Universities/
Graham Crookes Central Michigan University
University of Hawaii at Manoa May Shih
San Francisco State University
Catherine Doughty James W. Tollefson
The University of Sydney
University of Washington
Patricia A. Dunkel Vivian Zamel
The Pennsylvania State University
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Additional Readers
William R. Acton, Bradford Arthur, Nathalie Bailey, Lyle F. Bachman, Gregory Barnes, Patricia L. Carrell,
Marianne Celce-Murcia, Carol Chapelle, Christine Clark, James Coady, Ulla Connor, David E. Eskey,
Janet L. Eyring, Christian Faltis, Mary Lee Field, Donald Freeman, Fred Genesee, Christine Uber Grosse,
Mary Hammond, Sharon Hillis, Thom Hudson, Barbara Kroll, Ann M. Johns, Robert B. Kaplan,
Michael K. Legutke, Ilona Leki, Nora E. Lewis, Patsy M. Lightbown, Peter Lowenberg, Peter Master,
Jean McConochie, Sandra Lee McKay, Sharon Myers, Eric S. Nelson, Sonia Nieto, Alastair Pennycook,
Martha C. Pennington, Elizabeth Platt, Patricia A. Porter, Ann Raimes, Joy Reid, Patricia L. Rounds,
Terry Santos, Robin Scarcella, Thomas Scovel, Tony Silva, Marguerite Ann Snow, Margaret S. Steffensen,
Michael Strong, Elaine Tarone, Jean Turner, Carole Urzúa, Evangeline Varonis, Roberta J. Vann,
Elizabeth Whalley, Rita Wong.
Credits
Advertising arranged by Helen Kornblum, TESOL Central Office, Alexandria, Virginia
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TESOL QUARTERLY
CONTENTS
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nos. in parentheses
ARTICLES
Language Minority Education in Great Britain:
A Challenge to Current U.S. Policy 385 (10-30)
Sandra Lee McKay and Sarah Warshauer Freedman
Preparing ESL and Bilingual Teachers for Changing Roles:
Immersion for Teachers of LEP Children 407 (32-51)
Robert D. Milk
The TOEFL Test of Written English: Causes for Concern 427 (52-67)
Ann Raimes
Student Input and Negotiation of Meaning in
ESL Writing Conferences 443 (68-85)
Lynn M. Goldstein and Susan M. Conrad
Teaching the English Articles as a Binary System 461 (86-103)
Peter Master
Attitudes of Native and Nonnative Speakers Toward
Selected Regional Accents of U.S. English 479 (104-120)
Randall L. Alford and Judith B. Strother
REVIEWS
Recent Publications in Sociolinguistics 497
Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition
Dennis Preston
Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL
Nessa Wolfson
Reviewed by Jessica Williams
Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit 501
Preparing for the TOEFL
Daniel B. Kennedy, Dorry Mann Kenyon, and Steven J. Matthiesen
Preparing for the Test of Written English
Liz Hamp-Lyons
Reviewed by Marsha Bensoussan
BOOK NOTICES 507

Making it Happen: Interaction in the Second Language
Classroom, Patricia A. Richard-Amato (Dorothy S. Messerschmitt)
The Foreign Teaching Assistant’s Manual, Patricia Byrd,
Janet C. Constantinides, and Martha C. Pennington (Wanda Fox)
Languages and Children—Making the Match, Helena Anderson Curtain
and Carol Ann Pesola (Noriko Isogawa)
Conversation Gambits: Real English Conversation Practices,
Eric Keller and Sylvia T. Warner (Teresa Granelli)
Volume 24, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1990
Crazy Idioms: A Conversational Idiom Book, Nina Weinstein (Eda Ashby)

Words at Work: Vocabulary Through Reading, Betty Sobel
and Susan Bookman (Elliott L. Judd)
Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar, Marianne Celce-Murcia
and Sharon Hilles (Peter Master)
A Linguistic Study of American Punctuation, Charles F. Meyer
(K. Scott Ferguson)
The Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL, Deborah Phillips
(Terese Thonus)
Doublespeak, William Lutz (Vincent G. Barnes)
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES

Listening Perception Accuracy of ESL Learners as a Variable
Function of Speaker L1 519
George Yule, Susan Wetzel, and Laura Kennedy
Using Brainstorming and Clustering with LEP Writers to Develop
Elaboration Skills 523
Andrea B. Bermudez and Doris L. Prater
THE FORUM
Comments on James W. Tollefson’s
Alien Winds: The Reeducation of America’s Indochinese Refugees
and Elsa Auerbach’s Review 529
Two Readers React . . .
Donald A. Ranard and Douglas F. Gilzow
The Reviewer Responds . . .
Elsa Auerbach
Response to Ranard and Gilzow: The Economics and Ideology
of Overseas Refugee Education
James W. Tollefson
Comments on Martha C. Pennington and Aileen L. Young's
“Approaches to Faculty Evaluation for ESL” 555
A Reader Reacts . . .
Alastair Pennycook
Response to Pennycook: The Political Economy of Information in TESOL
Martha C. Pennington
Information for Contributors 569

Editorial Policy
General Information for Authors
Publications Received 573
Publications Available from the TESOL Central Office 577
TESOL Membership Application 599
TESOL QUARTERLY 379

TESOL QUARTERLY
Editor’s Note
The diversity of interests represented among our readers continues to

stimulate innovations within the format of the TESOL Quarterly. The next
issue (Winter 1990) will inaugurate a new section: Research Issues. In this
forum aspects of qualitative or quantitative research will be addressed,
frequently from somewhat different perspectives by two specialists. I am
fortunate that Graham Crookes (University of Hawaii at Manoa) has
agreed to edit this section. Although contributions will typically be
solicited, readers are encouraged to submit topic suggestions and/or make
known their availability as contributors by writing directly to Graham
Crookes at the following address:
Graham Crookes
Department of ESL
University of Hawaii at Manoa
1980 East-West Road
Honolulu, HI 96822 U.S.A.
With regret I announce that other responsibilities have taken Linda Stolfi
from her post as TESOL Quarterly Assistant Editor. It is impossible to
fully acknowledge her contribution during the journal’s first year at the
University of Washington. The editorial staff warmly thanks her for these
contributions and for her work on Publications Received in this issue.
I am indeed fortunate to introduce an able successor in Assistant Editor,
Deborah Green. Deborah comes to the Quarterly with substantial editorial
experience, having been manuscript editor of diverse publications ranging
from Ramparts magazine to the international neurological journal
Epilepsia.
Finally, we cannot omit mention of the conflict that now engulfs the
Middle East. The TESOL Quarterly staff wishes peace for our readers
throughout the world.
381
In this Issue
Articles in this issue of the TESOL Quarterly challenge traditional

educational wisdom in several arenas. The lead article examines British
educational policies toward minority language education as a “challenge to
current U.S. policy.” The second article describes an innovative teacher
preparation course that challenges traditional training for ESL and
bilingual teachers. The third article finds “causes for concern” in the
TOEFL Test of Written English. Other articles reexamine claims made for
writing conferences, systems for teaching the English articles, and attitude
studies focusing on regional accents of English. Each article in this issue
suggests approaches to complex issues facing TESOL professionals.
Sandra McKay and Sarah Freedman examine the contrasting
perspectives on language minority education in Great Britain and the
United States. These differing approaches share a common rationale—
the protection of equality of opportunity—but result in different
educational policies. British policies support mainstreaming students.
In the U. S., policies favor separating nonnative speakers from their
native-speaking peers. Acknowledging differences in educational
context and history, the authors suggest that teachers in the U.S.
examine British policies with an eye toward (re)evaluating U.S. policy
for educating minority language speakers.
Robert Milk describes a teacher training course designed to meet the
different yet converging needs of bilingual and ESL teachers. ESL
teachers receive an immersion experience in Spanish; bilingual teachers
are provided an opportunity to enhance their proficiency in academic
Spanish; and all receive an intensive simulated classroom experience in
small-group, content-based instruction. This innovative program is
designed to respond to the changing roles of ESL and bilingual
teachers.
Ann Raimes raises questions about the new TOEFL Test of Written
English (TWE). She describes the institutional and programmatic
contexts of the TWE within the Educational Testing Service and its
TOEFL. Additionally, an historical overview of ETS composition tests
for native speakers suggests a troubling pattern. Raimes presents seven
areas of concern with respect to the TWE. These issues include topic
type and selection, what the test measures, and even the necessity and
utility of the test. She ends with seven recommendations for action by
teachers.
Lynn Goldstein and Susan Conrad investigate claims that writing
conferences ensure student participation. The authors examined
student input and negotiation of meaning in writing conferences
between one teacher and each of three advanced ESL students.
382 TESOL QUARTERLY

Goldstein and Conrad conclude that “there were large differences in
the degree to which students participated in the conferences and
negotiated meaning.” These differences are reflected in subsequent
drafts. When students had negotiated meaning, they made revisions
that improved the text. Even active participation did not result in
improved texts in the absence of negotiation of meaning.
• Peter Master offers a simplified schema for teaching the English article
system. Master argues that English articles can be taught as a binary
division between what he terms classification (a and Ø) and
identification (the). His paper details shortcomings of previous
approaches and outlines a pedagogical approach to this aspect of Eng-
lish grammar, notorious in its difficulty for the nonnative speaker.
• Randall Alford and Judith Strother investigate attitudes towards
specific regional accents of U.S. English. Through the use of a
modification of the matched guise technique, the authors compared
reactions of native and nonnative speakers to male and female speakers
from three U.S. accent groups: southern, northern, and Midwestern.
The results indicated that the nonnative-speaker subjects were able to
perceive differences in regional accents but that their reactions
differed from those of the native-speaker listeners.
Also in this issue:

• Reviews: Jessica Williams reviews recent publications in socio-
linguistics: Dennis Preston’s Sociolinguistics and Second Language
Acquisition and Nessa Wolfson’s Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and
TESOL. Marsha Bensoussan reviews two texts from the Newbury
House TOEFL Preparation Kit: Preparing for the TOEFL by Daniel
Kennedy, Dorry Kenyon, and Steven Matthiesen; and Liz Hamp-
Lyons’ Preparing for the Test of Written English.
• Book Notices
• Brief Reports and summaries: George Yule, Susan Wetzel, and Laura
Kennedy find differences in the ability among different L1 learners to
comprehend English language input from learners with different Lls;
Andrea Bermudez and Doris Prater’s findings suggest that the graphic
presentation of concepts (in this case through clustering) may help
limited English proficient students expand their written discussions of
reading material.
• The Forum: Donald Ranard and Douglas Gilzow’s commentary on
James Tollefson’s book Alien Winds and Elsa Auerbach’s TESOL
Quarterly review is followed by responses from the reviewer and the
author; Martha Pennington responds to comments by Alastair
Pennycook on her recent article with Aileen Young, “Approaches to
Faculty Evaluation for ESL.”
Sandra Silberstein
IN THIS ISSUE 383

TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 24, No. 3, Autumn 1990
Language Minority Education in

Great Britain: A Challenge to
Current U.S. Policy
SANDRA LEE McKAY
San Francisco State University
SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN

University of California, Berkeley
British educational policies advocate placing language minority

students in mainstream classes where their regular teacher receives
ongoing support from a TESOL specialist. By contrast, in the
United States, the policies favor placing nonnative speakers in
separate programs such as ESL pull-out classes, sheltered English,
or bilingual education, where they are taught solely by the TESOL
or bilingual education specialist. The same rationale—protecting
equality of opportunity—is offered for both approaches. This
article compares the events that led to the contrasting solutions
and the institutional structures that support those solutions; it gives
an example of the British mainstream system at work and shows
how the different approaches to educating nonnative speakers
reflect different assumptions about language development and
definitions of equality of opportunity. The article concludes by
asking language teachers three questions about programs for
language minorities that are raised by the contrastive examination:
(a) What are the consequences of social segregation in educational
programs? (b) What are the effects of varied instructional contexts
on language learning? (c) What are the most helpful roles ESL
teachers can play with respect to teaching subject matter and
linguistic competency?
Many parallels exist between the educational issues presented by

language minorities in the United States and Great Britain. During
the 1960s, both countries experienced a tremendous influx of
immigrants with varied countries of origin. In both countries, new
immigrants tended to settle in large industrialized urban areas for
employment purposes. Because of this fact, the language minority
student population in the urban centers increased tremendously.
385
School districts, however, were largely unprepared for this shift in
demographics and had no language program in place for the new
students. Since 1960 both countries have experimented with various
types of educational programs to meet the needs of language
minority students. At the present time the two countries seem to be
moving toward very different conclusions as to the best model for
the education of language minorities; while British policies tend to
support mainstreaming (Department of Education and Science,
1965 [The Swann Report]), U.S. educational policies promote
separate educational programs such as ESL pull-out programs,
sheltered English, or bilingual education (in response to legislative
acts such as Title VII and Supreme Court decisions such as Lau v.
Nichols). What is ironic is that in both countries the same rationale
is being offered for these very different approaches, namely, the
rationale of protecting equality of opportunity for language
minority students.
What follows first is a framework for considering different
language minority policies in both Britain and the United States.
Then British language minority education policies since the 1960s
are described, with the aim of demonstrating how social
assumptions impact the making of educational policy. The British
decision to place nonnative speakers in mainstream classrooms is
discussed in the context of the British educational system, with its
provision of language specialists working side-by-side with the
subject matter teacher. To show how an ethnically and linguistically
integrated classroom works in Britain, we provide a case study of a
student learning in such a setting, illustrating the complexities of
teaching nonnative speakers, who have come into a new cultural as
well as a new linguistic context. We elaborate extensively on British
policies for two reasons: First, British language policies are clearly
articulated in comprehensive government reports; and second, only
by a thorough presentation of British policy can we specify the
challenge that these policies present to the United States. With the
British context firmly in mind, we review the language minority
policies in the United States since the 1960s and discuss the decisions
that have resulted in separate programs for nonnative speakers in
the United States. In conclusion, we provide a challenge to current
U.S. policy as we pose several questions that educators need to
examine before implementing any educational policy for language
minorities.
In this paper, the phrase language minority students will be used
to describe immigrants (i.e., foreign-born children who emigrate
with their parents), refugees (i.e., foreign-born citizens who enter a
country under special conditions), and long-term residents who
386 TESOL QUARTERLY

come from non-English-speaking homes. Language minority
students who lack proficiency in English will be referred to as
language minority/limited English proficient (LM/LEP).
Throughout the paper, we will refer to three social attitudes
toward policy planning for language minority groups (Ruiz, 1988):
language-as-problem, language-as-right, and language-as-resource.
According to Ruiz’s framework, a society with a language-as-
problem perspective views language minority students as having a
linguistic “deficiency” that can best be remedied by replacing the
native language with the dominant language, e.g., English. A society
that adheres to a language-as-right perspective promotes the rights
of language minorities to maintain their native language on legal
grounds. Finally, a society with a language-as-resource perspective
regards the languages spoken by language minorities as a national
resource; and thus, educational policies are designed to maintain
and develop native languages. These social orientations toward
linguistic diversity have been exhibited in various educational
language policies in both Britain and the United States from the
1960s to the present, as will be evident from the historical overview
of changing language policies in both countries.
EVOLVING LANGUAGE POLICIES IN GREAT BRITAIN

While Britain, like the United States, has a long history of
immigration, it was only beginning in the early 1950s that speakers
of many languages came to settle in Britain in significant numbers
all at the same time. These immigrants were mainly refugees from
Eastern Europe, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, and labor migrants
from Southern and Eastern Europe, and from former British
colonies in South and East Asia and the Caribbean (Martin-Jones,
1989). Since these immigrants tended to settle in large urban
industrialized areas, there has been, since the 1950s, a steady
increase in the number of LM/LEP students in such areas.
For example, while in 1978 the inner London area had only 10%
LM/LEP students, by 1983 these students comprised 23%. In 1983
LM/LEP students represented 172 different languages with only 14
of these languages spoken by more than 100 students (Martin-Jones,
1989). In spite of tendencies in Great Britain toward a nationally
centralized system of education, with a long tradition of national
examinations and now the new national curriculum, British school
districts, called Local Education Authorities (LEAs), have,
according to Martin-Jones (1989), “considerable autonomy in policy
formulation and curriculum development within their area.” Policy
guidelines for LM/LEP students “issued by the central government
LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 387

through the Department of Education and Science (DES) have no
mandatory force, although, increasingly, financial controls are
centrally imposed and these, in turn, have an impact on local
autonomy” (p. 9).
Early policies viewed LM/LEP students as social problems, and
decisions about their education were based on what was perceived
as best for the Anglo majority. During the 1960s, one of the first
programs local school districts established for LM/LEP students
provided separate language centers, termed induction centres, for
LM/LEP students. According to Reid (1988), LM/LEP students
were
separated from their English-speaking peers ostensibly so that they
could be taught English to a level which would allow them to join classes
in ordinary schools, but also, of course, to satisfy majority parents that
their children would not be “held back by the presence of large
numbers of immigrant children in the same classes. (p. 187)
The Department of Education and Science, meanwhile,
advocated a policy of dispersal or busing since parents in areas
where there were large concentrations of LM/LEP pupils were
complaining about the emergence of “ ‘black majority’ schools”
(Martin-Jones, 1989, p. 44). Because of these complaints the
Department of Education and Science issued a set of guidelines in
1965 for what they called the dispersal of minority children. The
guidelines for this policy presented the following rationale:
Experience suggests . . . that, apart from unusual difficulties (such as a
high proportion of non-English speakers), up to a fifth of immigrant
children in any group fit in with reasonable ease, but that, if the
proportion goes over about one third, either in the school as a whole or
in any one class, serious strains arise. It is therefore desirable that the
catchment areas of schools should, wherever possible be arranged to
avoid undue concentrations of immigrant children. Where this proves to
be impracticable simply because the school serves an area which is
occupied largely by immigrants, every effort should be made to
disperse the immigrant children round a number of schools and to meet
such problems of transport as may arise. (Department of Education and
Science, 1965, pp. 4-5, as cited in Martin-Jones, 1989, pp. 44-45)
Of particular significance is the fact that the promotion of this
dispersal policy was made purely on the basis of an untested social
assumption, namely, that if the immigrant population in a particu-
lar school were allowed to exceed one third, “serious strains”
(Department of Education and Science, 1965, as cited in Martin-
Jones, 1989, p. 45) would arise. Determining language policies on
the basis of unchallenged social assumptions is, as we shall see, a
388 TESOL QUARTERLY

common pattern throughout United States and British minority
education history.
Accompanying the view that these children present social
problems is the view that their language, too, is a problem. In 1971,
the Department of Education and Science issued a national policy
document clearly exemplifying a language-as-problem perspective
of minority languages:
If there is any validity in Bernstein’s view that the restricted code of
many culturally deprived children may hinder their ability to develop
certain kinds of thinking, it is certainly applicable to non-English
speaking children who may be suffering, not only from the limitation of
a restricted code in their own language, but from the complication of
trying to learn a second language. Experiencing language difficulties,
they may be suffering handicaps which are not conspicuous because
they concern the very structure of thought. (Department of Education
and Science, 1971, p. 9, as cited in Martin-Jones, 1989, pp. 45-46)
A major and public challenge to the language-as-problem
perspective occurred in 1975 with the publication of what is known
as the Bullock Report. This central government report was
produced by a committee of inquiry whose primary purpose was to
investigate native-speaking children’s language development across
the school years. However, in the chapter on the language needs of
LM/LEP children entitled “Children from Families of Overseas
Origin,” the committee argued that
in a linguistically conscious nation in the modern world, we should see it
[mother tongue] as an asset, as something to be nurtured, and one of the
agencies that should nurture it is the school. Certainly the school should
adopt a positive attitude to its pupils’ bilingualism and whenever
possible should help to maintain and deepen their knowledge of their
mother tongues. (Department of Education and Science, 1975, p. 294)
Ironically, after the publication of the report, few programs were
established to promote native language maintenance even though
the rhetoric of the report suggested that this should be done,
illustrating a discrepancy between policy recommendations and the
implementation of these recommendations.
DECISION FOR MAINSTREAMING

In 1985, a second major educational policy statement regarding
LM/LEP students was issued with the publication of the
Department of Education and Science’s report, Education for All,
commonly known as the Swann Report. This report was prepared
by a national committee whose task was solely to examine

educational policies for language minority students. Whereas the
Bullock Committee considered looking at issues such as main-
streaming outside their scope, they did assert, “Common sense
would suggest that the best arrangement is usually one where the
immigrant children are not cut off from the social and educational
life of a normal school” (Department of Education and Science,
1975, p. 289). The Swann Report went one step further and strongly
endorsed the mainstreaming of LM/LEP students: “We are wholly
in favour of a move away from E2L [English as a second language]
provisions being made on a withdrawal basis, whether in language
centres or separate units within schools” (Department of Education
and Science, 1985, p. 392). The Swann Report argued that
withdrawal classes “establish and confirm social and racial barriers
between groups” and “whilst not originally discriminatory in intent”
were “discriminatory in effect” because they deny children “access
to the full range of educational opportunities available . . . by
requiring them to miss a substantial part of the normal school
curriculum” (p. 389). The report argued strongly that the informal
interaction that occurs in schools is as important for language
development as the formal context of language development and
thus, that it is important for LM/LEP students to be placed in a
context where they could interact with native speakers. Main-
streaming was viewed as “offering an opportunity for all teachers to
consider the language demands of the work they do with all
children in the classroom, whatever the language background”
(Martin-Jones, 1989, p. 52).
The Swann Report did not support bilingual education
“principally on the grounds that to implement it, minority children
would have to be segregated. They feared that this might highlight
differences and have a detrimental effect on race relations”
(Edwards, Moorhouse, & Widlake, 1988, p. 81). While the report
argued that Local Education Authorities should make school
buildings available for native language instruction, the Swann
Committee viewed the maintenance and development of LM/LEP
students’ native language as a responsibility of the ethnic
community itself rather than the school. The committee argued that
by putting LM/LEP children in mainstream classes, schools could
provide a framework for promoting a pluralistic society:
We also see education as having a major role to play in countering the
racism which still persists in Britain today and which we believe
constitutes one of the chief obstacles to the realization of a truly
pluralistic society. We recognize that some people may feel that it is
expecting a great deal of education to take a lead in seeking to remedy
390 TESOL QUARTERLY

what can be seen as a social problem. Nevertheless we believe that the
education system and teachers in particular are uniquely placed to
influence the attitudes of all young people in a positive manner.
(Department of Education and Science, 1985, p. 319)
The Swann Report has sparked substantial debate. The major
criticisms have come from advocates of instruction in the student’s
first language (see, for example, Khan, 1985; National Council for
Mother Tongue Teaching, 1985). First, the critics challenged the
report’s definition of pluralism, arguing that the report, by not
advocating native language instruction in the schools, was
promoting a type of linguistic assimilation in which the ability to
speak English was equated with being British (National Council for
Mother Tongue Teaching, 1985). Advocates of instruction in the
native language lamented the fact that the Swann Report offered no
support for the earlier recommendation of the Bullock Report for
native language instruction in the schools (see, for example, Devall,
1987). In essence, the critics viewed the Swann Report as presenting
a language-as-problem perspective.
The critics further argued that the Swann Report failed to
recognize the important link between first and second language
development. Pointing to bilingual programs in the United States
and Scandinavian countries and to the work of Cummins (1982,
1984), critics argued that the report ignored the important role that
first language maintenance can have in both cognitive development
and in the acquisition of a second language. In addition, proponents
of instruction in the native language viewed the development of
LM/LEP children’s first language as a way of promoting a truly
pluralistic society in which government policies actively promoted
linguistic pluralism.
Finally, proponents of native language instruction criticized the
Swann Report for its failure to see the intimate connection between
language and culture. Critics argued that
in failing to recognise the intrinsic links between language and culture,
the Report does not perceive the centrality of language in culture, in the
development of ethnicity and of the individual’s cultural identity. At the
very outset of the Report, ethnic identity is described by stressing a
physical attribute of race—skin color—rather than the social attribute of
language. (National Council for Mother Tongue Teaching, 1985, p. 501)
More recently, support for the Swann Report’s negative stance
toward bilingual education has come from the Kingman Report
(Department of Education and Science, 1989), authored by the
conservative forces currently controlling education in Great Britain,
who contend that placing language minority students in mainstream

classes benefits all students’ awareness of language. This recent
report, which outlines a national curriculum in English, maintains
that
bilingual children should be considered an advantage in the classroom
rather than a problem. The evidence shows that such children will make
greater progress in English if they know that their knowledge of their
mother tongue is valued, if it is recognised that their experience of
language is likely to be greater than that of their monoglot peers and,
indeed, if their knowledge and experience can be put to good use in the
classroom to the benefit of all pupils to provide examples of the
structure and syntax of different languages, to provide a focus for
discussion about language forms and for contrast and comparison with
the structure of the English language. (p. 10.12)
While the authors of the Swann and Kingman Reports and
advocates of bilingual education disagreed on important issues, all
accepted the idea that ethnic pride and cultural respect should be
central concerns in the formulation of a language policy. All shared
the idea of promoting an ethnically pluralistic society, but for the
Swann and Kingman Committees this pluralism meant promoting
cultural pluralism in mainstream classrooms, while for proponents
of bilingual instruction this pluralism meant developing linguistic
pluralism even if it resulted in cultural segregation. What is
significant, however, is that in all instances a discussion of the
relationship between ethnicity and language programs was consid-
ered necessary to the educational decision-making process.
The Role of the Language Specialist in the

Mainstream Classroom
In his summary of linguistic minorities and language education in
England, Reid (1988) points out that today
“separate” ESL classes and learning materials are becoming increasingly
rare; they are being replaced by “English Support” for Bilingual
Learners, provided in the context of mainstream classes at both primary
and secondary school level; or, very recently, by “collaborative
learning” or team teaching. (p. 189)
When LM/LEP students are placed in mainstream classes, there is
a call for close collaboration between ESL teachers, who are called
support teachers, and the subject specialists. In the British
educational context, language specialists or support teachers of
LM/LEP students play a role unfamiliar in U.S. schools. As
regularly certified teachers who have returned to the university or
to a teacher training college for a postgraduate degree, the support
392 TESOL QUARTERLY

teachers function as resource teachers; however, instead of pulling
students out of the regular classroom, they go into the mainstream
classroom to help the subject-matter specialist teacher teach the
LM/LEP students. The language specialist helps both in language
instruction and in providing LM/LEP students with the support
necessary for meeting the normal demands of subject-matter
instruction. Riley and Bleach (1985) explain the benefits of the
language and subject-matter teachers working together:
The development of co-operative teaching looks to be central. It is more
stimulating and a good learning situation for both teachers and for
children. No matter how gifted the class teachers are, how much
language knowledge they have, or how good their initial training has
been, the full responsibility for the language learning and total education
of developing bilingual pupils should not rest with classroom teachers
unsupported. If responsibility is taken away from them, they can never
begin to develop their classrooms as places where bilingual pupils have
an equal right to learning and being. The same is true of ESL specialists
operating in a separatist structure. Co-operative teaching is not the
sticking together of two pedagogues, but the development of something
new. Co-operative teaching and the taking of responsibility for
developing bilingual pupils by the whole school means that from
reception stage onwards pupils can be supported over much longer
phases of their learning and across all language modes. Literacy can be
developed earlier and more consistently, and the students will then have
this, as well as spoken means, as an impetus for further language
development. (p. 88)
Britain maintains well-established postgraduate programs for
training language support teachers. For readers interested in a
detailed discussion, Levine (1985) describes the program at the
University of London, Institute of Education.
A British Mainstream Classroom at Work

What does the British mainstream classroom look like, and how
do LM/LEP students learn in this context? In his essay, “Khasru’s
English Lesson: Ethnocentricity and Response to Student Writing”
(1990), Alex Moore provides one example. Moore has written
sensitively about Khasru, a Bangladeshi boy learning to write in a
British mainstream classroom. Moore raises issues about Khasru’s
needs that transcend the specifics of the teaching context and shows
how a teacher’s ethnocentricity can cause communication problems
with an LM/LEP student independent of the classroom model.
Khasru has been in England for less than two years. He is in his
fourth year of secondary school, the U.S. equivalent of ninth grade,

and the first of two years during which British students prepare for
the national examinations that they must pass in order to graduate
from secondary school. His teacher has read the class a love story
and has asked the students to write their own love stories for their
examination folders. Khasru’s first draft begins:
once aponar time I fund a grill and I ask har exquiseme wher you going
she said?
I went to go some way wher you ask me for.’ I said No I-s Just Ask you
you going I am sory about that have you dont mind she said thats OK
and anther I fund har on the buse and is was set on the Front and she
was set on the back about 4 Five Minuts ago two bay was come And ther
Khasru continues by describing going over to the girl who then asks
for his help. They get off the bus together, but she is too afraid to
walk home alone, so Khasru agrees to help her. During their walk
home she declares her love for him, and he says that he loves her
too. They then discuss their siblings at some length, and Khasru
concludes, “Now we go every day. ” Moore explains:
There is a support teacher in Khasru’s class, who sits with Khasru to work
with him on this preliminary draft. This support teacher’s corrections are
of two kinds. First, there is a concentration on the production of
acceptable Standard English sentences, spellings, punctuation, and
paragraphing; on presenting the story so that it makes immediate sense
to any reader; and on helping Khasru with obvious confusions. . . . The
second set of corrections, made simultaneously with the first, relate to
Khasru’s storytelling style . . . [e.g.,] “Let’s get rid of some of these
‘ands’.” (p. 2)
After three sessions with the support teacher, Khasru’s second
draft shows dramatic improvements in the acceptability and
accessibility of the language and in sentence-level grammar:
Once upon a time I saw a girl and I asked her, “Where are you going?”
She said “I’m just going somewhere. What are you asking for? Do you
want to know for any special reason?”
I said “No. I was just asking where you were going. I’m sorry. I hope you
don’t mind.”
She said “That’s okay.”
Afterwards, I saw her on the bus. I was sitting at the front and she was
at the back. After about five minutes, two boys got on. They sat at the
back near the girl and one of them said to her “Hello. Where are you
going?”
394 TESOL QUARTERLY

She was scared, and the boys tried to do something bad to her. (p. 2)
The rest of the story continues in this vein. At this point in Khasru’s
process, Moore concludes:
The omens at this stage are good. Khasru is clearly pleased about his
work so far, and his showing it to other Bangladeshi boys in the class
seems to have had the effect of encouraging them to take their own
stories more seriously. Khasru is fortunate, too, to have one teacher who
can work with him on a one-to-one basis, apparently for as long as is
necessary to complete each stage of the project: not just any teacher,
either, but one committed to a multicultural approach to teaching that,
to use his words “condemns the Eurocentrism that has afflicted
compulsory education in this country since its inception.” (p. 25)
Moore quotes the support teacher who explains why he thinks
bilingual students should be “in ‘mainstream’ classes in ‘mainstream’
schools” (p. 25):
Of course they need to be in the mainstream classes: they need to read,
listen to, and join in with the languages and behaviors of their English
peers—and they need that sort of audience and feedback for their work.
They need to know, and deserve to know, that we’re taking them
seriously: seriously enough to listen to what they’ve got to say, and to
give them the sort of space and opportunities we give to every other kid
in the school. (p. 25)
Khasru’s draft again goes to the support teacher who again sits
beside him to discuss further possible improvements before Khasru
moves on to revise again. Problems surface, however, when the
support teacher, in discussing this second draft, questions Khasru’s
content, asking about the suddenness of the declaration of love and
about the talk about siblings. When the support teacher suggests “all
this stuff about relations . . . This isn’t really necessary, is it . . . For
the reader . . . What do you think?” he is met with silence from
Khasru (pp. 25-26). The support teacher then asks Khasru if people
would really talk this way: “Do people talk that way? In real life?
Do they talk about how old their brothers and sisters are?” Khasru
replies, “Yes, Sir.” Then the support teacher responds, “DO you
think so? I’m not so . . .“ (p. 26).
At the end of this session the support teacher instructs Khasru:
“Well, take it home with you, Khasru, think about what we’ve said,
and see if you can make Chapter 1 any better” (p. 27). Khasru
becomes confused. He has been asked to write a story that is true to
life, but when he does so, he is told that what he writes is not really
true to life. Khasru stops working on the story and never completes
it.

Moore concludes that the support teacher, at this point, albeit
unintentionally, is imposing his reality on Khasru’s writing. Further,
the support teacher assumes
there is a way or set of ways of talking to one another and a way or set
of ways of telling a story—in both cases, traditional English ways. . . .
This leaves no room for the possibility of linguistic diversity in the
broadest sense, that embraces genre, perception, and form, and that is
suggested by the whole-school policy—which on one level the teacher
supports. (p. 26)
Moore warns:
There is a very real danger that such children [as Khasru] will grow up
not thinking “Yes, they do and see things differently here,” but “Yes,
they do and see things properly here’’—and that consequently, school-
learning will always be that much harder for them: for it is surely easier
to learn new ways that are set into a framework where they can coexist
with existing ways than it is to learn new ways that must simply replace
old ones; psychologically, the problem is very different. . . . schools
must clearly work hard to develop and to adopt new styles of pedagogy:
styles that will encourage the development of required expertise without
promoting the corresponding, and all too prevalent, loss of faith. (p. 27)
Khasru’s experience shows how a piece of writing evolved in a
British mainstream context, with the support teacher helping the
students in a regular class achieve regular curricular goals, in this
case preparing for the national examination. It also serves as a cau-
tionary tale about the potential effects of unintended ethnocentric
response to student writing by teachers of LM/LEP students,
whether these students are in a mainstream or a separate classroom
context.
CHANGING LANGUAGE POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES

DIFFERENT DECISIONS
In the United States, educational and government leaders who
favor programs that take LM/LEP students out of regular classes
argue that these programs are necessary to support students’
language development. Unlike their British counterparts, they
rarely address the potential social effects of these programs’ cultural
isolation, segregation, and racism. In order to understand the
different emphases that underlie United States and British
education policies for LM/LEP students, we turn now to the United
States language minority policies since the 1960s.
Like Britain, the United States experienced a large increase in
immigrants during the 1960s, largely due to the change in
396 TESOL QUARTERLY

immigration laws of 1965, which abandoned the national origins
quota system and gave preference instead to family reunification
and occupational skills. As in Britain, these recent immigrants
tended to come from varied countries of origin and to settle in large
industrialized urban centers. In the sixties, urban schools in the
United States, as in Britain, were faced with a large influx of
nonnative speakers of English with very diverse language
backgrounds. As in Britain, local school districts in the United States
have a great deal of autonomy. State and local governments have
the primary responsibility for funding and developing policies for
public elementary and secondary schools. According to Rotberg
(1984), the limited educational funding that comes from the federal
government is “intended to increase equality of educational
opportunity by providing additional resources for areas of the
country and for population groups with special needs” (p. 134).
The United States has little comparable to the Bullock, Swann or
Kingman Reports, which set forth national language policies for
LM/LEP students. Rather United States policies develop from
constitutional, statutory, or judicial sources. As Wong (1988) points
out, most LM/LEP programs have arisen from legal issues
regarding the entitlement of LM/LEP students to language
education services. The primary constitutional basis for LM/LEP
services is the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which
states that “No state shall . . . deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The major statutory
bases for LM/LEP language education services are Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Equal Educational Opportunities Act
of 1974, and Title VII of the 1968 Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (also known as Title VII or the Bilingual Education
Act). The Civil Rights Act (Section 601), as cited in Wong (1988),
states:
No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or
national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits
of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity
receiving Federal financial assistance. (p. 372)
The Equal Educational Opportunities Act (Section 170 (f)) states:
No state shall deny equal educational opportunity to an individual on
account of his race, color, sex, or national origin, by. . . the failure of an
educational agency to take appropriate action to overcome language
barriers that impede equal participation by its students in its
instructional programs. (p. 372)
These two acts, along with the Fourteenth Amendment, are used to

argue for language education programs for LM/LEP students on
the basis of equal protection under the law. As we shall see, the issue
that has been argued in applying these rights to LM/LEP students is
whether equality is to be interpreted as equality of access or
equality of outcome.
The third significant statutory basis for language programs for
LM/LEP students is Title VII. As Hakuta (1986) notes,
[Title VII] heralded the official coming of age of the federal role in the
education of persons with limited English-speaking ability. Seven and a
half million dollars were appropriated for the 1969-1970 fiscal year, to
support experimental programs responsive to the “special educational
needs of children of limited English-speaking ability in schools having a
high concentration of such children from families . . . with income
below $3,000 per year” (Bilingual Education Act, 1968). (p. 198)
Rotberg (1984) cites the language of the Title VII Program to note
that the original purpose was to encourage the “use of bilingual
educational practices, techniques and methods” (p. 134). However,
in 1983, Secretary of Education Terrell Bell proposed amendments
that were designed to give school districts greater flexibility in their
choice of instructional approaches, so that instruction in LM/LEP
students’ native language would no longer be required for Title VII
funds (Rotberg, 1984, p. 135). From the beginning, the majority of
programs funded under this piece of legislation have been
transitional in nature, with LM/LEP students’ native languages
regarded as a problem rather than a resource. As Ruiz (1988) points
out,
the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) of 1968 and the state statutes which
have followed start with the assumption that non-English language
groups have a handicap to overcome; the BEA, after all, was concerned
and formulated in conjunction with the War on Poverty. Resolution of
this problem—teaching English, even at the expense of the first
language—became the objective of the school programs now generally
referred to as transitional bilingual education. (p. 7)
The major judicial foundation for LM/LEP language education
programs is the 1974 Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court decision. In this
case, the parents of 12 LM/LEP Chinese American students filed a
class action suit against the San Francisco Unified School District
arguing that they had been denied an education because of a lack of
language classes with bilingual teachers. Two of the main legal
issues dealt with in the case were equality of access versus equality
of outcome and discriminatory intent versus discriminatory impact
(Wong, 1988).
Although in previous Supreme Court decisions regarding equal
398 TESOL QUARTERLY

educational opportunity, such as in the 1954 Brown v. Board of
Education Case, the Court “found a denial of equal protection only
where the state has made different provisions for similarly situated
citizens without adequate justification” (Grubb, 1974, as cited in
Wong, 1988, p. 374), in Lau v. Nichols the Court ruled that, although
the LM/LEP students had been given equality of access to the
regular classroom, they had been denied equality of outcome
because they did not have the necessary language background to
benefit from the program. As quoted in Wong (1988), the Court
decided:
There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the
same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum; for students who do
not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful
education.
Basic English skills are at the very core of what these public schools
teach. Imposition of a requirement that, before a child can effectively
participate in the educational program, he must already have acquired
those basic skills is to make a mockery of public education. We know
that those who do not understand English are certain to find their
classroom experiences wholly incomprehensible and in no way
meaningful. (p. 378)
The second issue addressed in the case was the issue of
discriminatory intent versus discriminatory impact. The Court
argued that placing non-English-speaking students in the regular
classroom was discriminatory in effect while not discriminatory in
intent because LM/LEP students did not have the basic skills
needed to function in the regular classroom. The Court argued that
some program must be devised for LM/LEP students other than to
leave them in the regular classrooms, but it left the implementation
of the remedy to the local school boards (Wong, 1988). According
to the decision: “No specific remedy is urged upon us. Teaching
English to the students of Chinese ancestry who do not speak the
language is one choice. Giving instructions to this group in Chinese
is another. There may be others. Petitioners ask only that the Board
of Education be directed to apply its expertise to the problem and
rectify the situation” (Teitelbaum & Hiller, 1977, as cited in Hakuta,
1986, p. 201).
United States educational policy has tended to interpret this
directive to mean that some type of language development must
occur before an LM/LEP student is placed in the regular classroom.
In fact, according to the decision, the placing of LM/LEP students
in regular classrooms without support services would be a violation
of fundamental rights (Wong, 1988). In Britain, however, the

current educational policy of mainstreaming assumes that the
development of language skills of LM/LEP students can best occur
while they are in regular classes, if some type of language support
service is provided. Indeed, the Swann Report argued that any
solution that would require withdrawing the students from the
regular classroom was discriminatory in effect if not discriminatory
in intent.
CONFLICTING ASSUMPTIONS
What is the basis for such differing perspectives between the two
countries? At issue is a definition of what type of equality of
opportunity is being considered. In Lau v. Nichols, the issue was the
question of equality of opportunity in reference to language skills.
Linguistic equality, the Court seemed to suggest, was the primary
issue since LM/LEP students would not experience equality of
outcome unless they acquired those basic skills referred to in the
decision. The fact that special programs dealing with linguistic
inequality can result in racial segregation has not been raised as a
challenge in the courts even though the basis for the Lau decision
was Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. By focusing on equality in
terms of linguistic opportunities, the Supreme Court argued that
“Chinese-American, non-English-speaking students were denied
equal educational opportunity under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
when instructed in English, a language they did not understand”
(Rotberg, 1984, p. 135).
One of the few expressions of concern about the matter of racial
segregation in LM/LEP language programs came from the 1974
American Institutes for Research evaluation report for Title VII
programs. It found that often students were assigned to Title VII
Spanish-English classes not on the basis of their proficiency in
English, but rather on their ethnic background (Rotberg, 1984). To
avert the segregation that could arise from assigning students to
classes on the basis of ethnic background, the 1978 Title VII
Amendments dealt with the issue in the following manner:
In order to prevent the segregation of children on the basis of national
origin in programs assisted under this title, and in order to broaden the
understanding of children about languages and cultural heritages other
than their own, a program of bilingual instruction may include the
participation of children whose language is English, but in no event shall
the percentage of such children exceed 40 per centum. (U.S. Congress,
1978, as cited in Rotberg, 1984, p. 141)
However, striving to minimize segregation by placing students
400 TESOL QUARTERLY

whose native language is English in bilingual classes is quite
different from the philosophy underlying the Swann Report. It
recommended that racial integration be maintained at all costs in all
classrooms even if it results in a lack of support for bilingual
maintenance programs. While the Title VII Amendments express
concern about the problem of possible segregation caused by
special language programs, there are no documents in the United
States comparable to the Swann Report, which argues that only
language programs adhering to racial integration are acceptable.
The contrasting language policies of the United States and Britain
rest on very different pedagogical and social assumptions. In the
United States, the current policy of removing LM/LEP students
from regular classes rests on a definition of equality of opportunity
as linguistic opportunity in which the development of English
language skills is taken to be primary, even if the language
programs result in racial segregation. This view often results in
language programs in which LM/LEP students learn English in
classes without a large number of native speakers present. In
Britain, on the other hand, advocates of the Swann Report equate
educational opportunity with the idea of social equality and racial
integration, even if this integration results in a lack of support for
the native language. Language programs for LM/LEP students are
to be undertaken in the mainstream classroom where there are a
large number of native speakers.
The different definitions of equality of opportunity evident in
U.S. and British language minority programs provide a framework
for re-examining the social and linguistic assumptions language
teachers wish to make regarding language programs for LM/LEP
students. The authors support, as does Rex (1988), the idea that the
first step in designing any social or educational program is to make
“value standpoints clear and explicit” in order to demonstrate “what
the system is achieving and failing to achieve” (Rex, 1988, p. 219). In
his review of British language minority programs, Rex begins by
citing the work of Gunnar Myrdal (1944) and his classic study of
U.S. race relations. He points out that when Myrdal was asked to
undertake a study of race relations in the United States, he argued
that social scientists need to state the goals they wish to achieve so
that they can then determine what practices are “conducive to the
attainment of those goals” (p. 205).
In the tradition of Myrdal, the authors suggest that, as language
teachers, we state our goals and value standpoints on language
minority programs clearly before we make any recommendations
regarding particular programs for LM/LEP students. We urge a
careful examination of the following questions:

1. What are our views on social segregation in educational
programs? How does social segregation rank in our order of
priorities in determining language policies for LM/LEP
students? Programs that separate LM/LEP students from
mainstream classes often result in social segregation. Are the
benefits of separate programs greater than any potential
negative effects of social segregation?
2. What are our views on language learning? How high on our
priority list is interaction with native speakers in promoting
linguistic development? Separate language programs minimize
the LM/LEP students’ opportunity to interact with native
speakers. Are the benefits of separate programs greater than
what might occur if planned interaction with native speakers
were to occur in mainstream classrooms?
3. What are our views on the role of language teachers? Do we see
our role as primarily one of developing linguistic competency in
order to promote content learning, or do we see our role as one
of using subject content as a vehicle for developing linguistic
competency? If we support the latter role, what benefits exist in
developing language and content learning in separate classrooms
rather than in mainstream classrooms in collaboration with
subject teachers?
All of these questions need to be addressed and seriously

examined as language teachers evaluate different types of language
development programs for LM/LEP students. In the end, policy
makers may advocate separate language programs for LM/LEp
students or may, like Britain, find that there are benefits to
promoting mainstream programs with carefully crafted systems of
language support. If, for example, U.S. teachers were to provide
language support within the mainstream context, classrooms would
likely have to be reorganized to allow for individualized help.
Freedman and McLeod (1988) conducted a comparative study of
English teaching in the U.S. and the U.K. Through national surveys
and classroom observations in both countries, they found that
British teachers of English are more likely to individualize
instruction while U.S. teachers are more likely to concentrate on
whole-group teaching. Classroom contexts that provide for
individualized teaching make it possible to handle the diversity of
needs within a mainstream class.
Our goal with this contrastive examination of national language
policies is to raise key issues. Given the differences in educational
contexts and educational histories in the two countries, it is not
402 TESOL QUARTERLY

surprising that the approaches vary. What is essential before taking
a position either for mainstreaming or for separate programs is to
clarify our assumptions and values regarding social integration and
language learning so that, as Myrdal suggests, there is a basis for
assessing what is or is not being achieved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank the following people for discussing the ideas in the manuscript
and helping us to clarify our ideas: Marilyn Martin-Jones, Alex McLeod, and
Guadalupe Valdés. We also wish to thank the anonymous TESOL Quarterly
reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
Part of the research reported here was conducted pursuant to a grant from the
Office of Educational Research and Improvement/U.S. Department of Education
(OERI/ED). The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the position or
policy of the OERI/ED, and no official endorsement by the OERI/ED should be
inferred.
THE AUTHORS
Sandra Lee McKay is Professor of English at San Francisco State University. Her
most recent publication, Language Diversity: Problem or Resource?, coauthored
with Sau-ling Wong (Newbury House, 1988), presents a social and educational
perspective of recent language minority groups in the United States. She recently
returned from a teaching exchange at the University of Manchester.
Sarah Warshauer Freedman is Professor of Education at the University of
California, Berkeley, and is Director of the Center for the Study of Writing. Her
latest book is Response to Student Writing (National Council of Teachers of
English, 1987). Her research interests include literacy learning for multicultural
populations.
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TESOL QUARTERLY, VoL 24, No. 3, Autumn 1990
Preparing ESL and Bilingual

Teachers for Changing Roles:
Immersion for Teachers of
LEP Children
ROBERT D. MILK
The University of Texas at San Antonio
With increased emphasis on integration of language and content-

area instruction, the roles of bilingual and ESL teachers are
becoming increasingly interrelated—a situation that calls for
development of common training experiences in the preparation
of ESL and bilingual personnel. This article describes a teacher
training course designed to meet both the differing language
proficiency needs of bilingual and ESL teachers, as well as the
common needs of teachers learning to implement content-based
strategies for teaching language. Specifically, (a) ESL specialists
receive an immersion experience in Spanish, (b) bilingual
specialists are provided opportunities to enhance their proficiency
in academic Spanish, and (c) both ESL and bilingual specialists
receive intensive simulated classroom experiences in small-group,
content-based instruction following a cooperative learning
approach. A rationale for following an integrated approach in the
preparation of language educators for limited English proficient
(LEP) children is presented, and data collected from participants
in the course are discussed in relation to the potential effectiveness
of this type of teacher training format as a vehicle for attaining
important teacher preparation goals.
Classroom teachers have often noted the ironic (if not contra-
dictory) mismatch between the kinds of suggestions and directives
they commonly receive from experts on pedagogy and the manner
in which these suggestions are delivered. Thus, it is not unheard of
for elementary school teachers to be lectured on the limitations of
the lecture method or to receive information in a large group on the
wonders of small-group instruction. Within language education,
those responsible for the preparation of teachers have, in recent
years, struggled with some of the challenges posed by the need to
407
achieve a greater coherence between the kinds of innovations
proposed by methodologists and the means through which these
ideas are presented to teachers-in-training.
For language educators involved specifically in the teaching of
ESL within bilingual education programs, the need to achieve a
greater coherence between evolving trends in classroom practice
and the procedures typically followed in university coursework is
marked. A prominent theme running through much of the recent
literature on effective instructional practices for language minority
pupils stresses the need to achieve fuller integration between the
pupils’ language development and content-area instruction.
Implementation of this approach is just as heavily the responsibility
of nonbilingual ESL specialists as it is of the bilingual classroom
teachers responsible for subject-matter instruction. Widespread
acceptance of this trend has led to altered conceptions of the role of
ESL in bilingual education, with greater emphasis on the essential
interrelatedness between second language development and
content goals in other areas of the curriculum (Milk, 1985).
A challenge that remains to be met is how to better prepare both
ESL and bilingual teachers for this altered role, given a common
tendency to conceptualize ESL and bilingual methodology as
essentially independent training activities. This article explores the
issue from three separate perspectives: First, a rationale is provided
for experientially grounded coursework in the preparation of lan-
guage teaching professionals, drawing on reports of teacher
educators who have attempted innovations in this area; second,
research evidence is summarized suggesting the desirability of an
integrated language development approach in the education of lan-
guage minority children; and third, data are presented from an
innovative teacher education course that has attempted simultane-
ously to develop Spanish language proficiency for bilingual
teachers while providing a Spanish immersion experience for
nonbilingual ESL teachers.
EXPERIENTIALLY GROUNDED TEACHER PREPARATION

IN LANGUAGE EDUCATION
An important theme in the recent literature on teacher
preparation within language education, one that may serve to unify
current debates on the preparation of language educators, is the
notion that language proficiency is most effectively stimulated
when we focus less on language itself and more on its meaningful
use in realistic contexts. (For one of the earliest discussions of this
408 TESOL QUARTERLY

insight in the context of the preparation of bilingual educators, see
Politzer, 1978.)
Enright (1986), in describing the initial learning process of one
novice elementary school teacher, emphasizes the profound impact
on the teacher’s development as a language educator when she
“began to see classroom language as performing both a language
teaching as well as a subject-matter teaching function” (p. 122). It is
this fundamental realization that has motivated bilingual educators
to emphasize the tremendous language learning potential for ele-
mentary school children of instruction in the content areas.
This principle, of course, can be applied not only to elementa-
ry pupils, but just as readily to adults needing to strengthen their
proficiency in a nonprimary language. The efficacy of a task-
based approach has been reported by a number of bilingual and
second language educators who have attempted innovations in the
preparation of teachers. Merino and Faltis (1986) developed a
course for preservice bilingual teachers based on a “task-oriented
approach for second language acquisition” (p. 46), and found that
this experience, in addition to being very motivating, generated a
high degree of student-student interaction: “The opportunity to
use Spanish in problem-solving activities that are intrinsically in-
teresting seems to encourage more students to participate sponta-
neously in classroom discourse with each other as well as with the
instructors.” Celce-Murcia (1983) similarly argues that an
experiential, problem-solving approach to training language
teachers allows prospective teachers “to better integrate the
content courses with the practical component of the curriculum by
making each course an opportunity for dealing with relevant
problems” (p. 103). In a related vein, Larsen-Freeman (1983)
writes that second language teachers need to develop a
“heightened awareness of choice” (p. 264) in order to be able to
deal with the tremendous variation in contexts that they are likely
to encounter as language teachers. She argues that by preparing
people to make choices, we are educating them “to be an effective
teacher in any situation” (p. 264).
Each of these four teacher educators reports success in courses
that have followed an experiential, problem-solving approach in
the preparation of language teachers. The principle is neither new
nor is it unique to language education-teacher educators in
general have long sought means through which they could ensure
greater relevance of methodology courses by providing direct
experiences within the course that parallel the kinds of classroom
situations that teachers are likely to encounter. (The widespread
use of microteaching by teacher education programs for many
PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 409

years was motivated by this desire.) Although the positive reports
presented above are anecdotal in nature rather than empirically
grounded, the basic notion of preparing language teachers
through an experiential problem-solving approach has a strong
appeal both on logical as well as intuitive grounds.
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

WITHIN BILINGUAL CLASSROOMS
In recent years, classroom-based research has provided practical
insights into the organization of bilingual instructional settings that
can facilitate development in both languages (see, for example,
Ramirez, 1985; Ovando & Collier, 1985). Research in three specific
areas has particular significance for a contemporary consideration
of instructional methods for bilingual classrooms: (a) effective
bilingual instructional practices, (b) second language acquisition
within classroom settings, and (c) ESL in bilingual education (Milk,
1990).
Each of these research areas focuses on a distinctly separate set of
issues, and each follows unique approaches to inquiry that reflect
different research traditions. The research on effective instructional
practices for language minority children draws on a rich tradition of
educational research on teaching, and employs a combination of
qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigation (see, for
example, Tikunoff, 1983; Garcia, 1987). Particularly relevant to
dual-language development in classroom settings has been the
documentation of the significant role played by two languages (i.e.,
English and the home language) in mediating learning.
Classroom-based research in the area of second language
acquisition, by contrast, draws from applied linguistics, and
explores the conditions under which acquisition can take place
within classrooms (see, for example, Long, 1981; Wong Fillmore,
1982; Johnson, 1983; Long & Porter, 1985; Rigg & Enright, 1986; van
Lier, 1988; Chaudron, 1989). One key lesson derived from many of
these studies is the critical importance of creating classroom
participant structures within which negotiation of meaning in a
weaker language can take place.
A third area of research, focusing on what constitutes relevant
ESL instruction within the context of bilingual education, draws on
a tradition of research in the area of second/foreign language
teaching that examines which teacher behaviors and what teaching
techniques might most effectively contribute to development of the
target language (see, for example, Politzer, 1970). Recent work in
410 TESOL QUARTERLY

this area emphasizes the need for ESL instruction for limited En-
glish proficient (LEP) children to move beyond effective communi-
cation as a primary goal toward a focus on “academic competence”
(Cummins, 1980); this implies a stronger focus on vocabulary en-
richment (Saville-Troike, 1984), as well as on critical thinking skills,
social skills, and learning strategies (O’Malley, Chamot, Stewner-
Manzanares, Russo, & Küpper, 1985).
Taken together, developments in these three areas have led to a
strong focus on learning outcomes and on cognitive processes for
LEP students, as well as on meaningful integration of language and
content goals throughout the curriculum. A number of bilingual
programs in the U.S. have implemented versions of content-based
instruction for ESL (see, for example, Willets, 1986), a practice that
has found considerable support from advocates of the “sheltered
language” (Krashen, 1985, p. 70) approach to second language
development in bilingual education programs. Another approach
(Chamot & O’Malley, 1986) following a similar rationale has been
termed Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach
(CALLA), in recognition of a need to stress cognitively demanding
tasks drawn from academic content once LEP students advance
beyond beginning levels of English proficiency. This approach
provides for an intermediary bridge between conventional ESL
instruction appropriate for the lowest levels of English proficiency,
and the regular mainstream instruction received by students who
are fully proficient in English.
Despite this sharp trend toward more integrated conceptions of
bilingual instruction, teacher preparation programs have adapted
little to reflect these changing realities. Following conventional
modes of dividing up responsibilities for teacher preparation, ESL
methods courses typically deal with established methods and
techniques for teaching ESL, while bilingual methods courses deal
with procedures for teaching content areas in the native language of
the student (see, for example, Texas State Board of Education,
1987). It is often not clear within which existing course(s) to include
theory and practice related to integrated language teaching.
There are, no doubt, institutional factors that may explain this
state of affairs. Within universities that provide teacher preparation
in bilingual education, it is not unusual for courses related to ESL
and courses related to bilingual instruction to be housed in separate
departments (and in some instances, different colleges). This
separate identity within the university, which often reflects a
different discipline base and, in some cases, a different ideological
perspective, does not encourage the kind of close collaboration on

program development that would be needed in order for innovative
teacher preparation courses to be initiated. Yet, as more and more
research on language minority students points to the importance of
an integrated approach to language development and academic
achievement, the critical need to reconceptualize the preparation of
teachers for LEP populations is evident.
PREPARATION OF ESL AND BILINGUAL LANGUAGE

EDUCATORS
Bilingual and ESL specialists have distinct roles within instruc-
tional programs designed for language minority students. In some
programs the bilingual teacher is responsible for all ESL instruction,
while in other programs monolingual English teachers work side by
side in a complementary fashion with bilingual classroom teachers.
(For specific current examples of alternative ways to structure
curriculum and instruction in bilingual programs, see Crawford,
1989.) Whenever bilingual and ESL specialists are called on to work
together in the same program setting, their roles remain distinct
though related. As a consequence, their teacher preparation needs
are to some extent distinct.
For bilingual teachers, surveys of practitioners reveal that many
of them feel a need for stronger development of their Spanish lan-
guage proficiency (see, for example, Clark & Milk, 1984). For Eng-
lish as a second language teachers, the linguistic demands of their
instructional role do not require full proficiency in the non-English
language; but there are a number of reasons why ESL teachers
working in strictly bilingual settings (i.e., where there are basically
two languages in use in the community) might find it useful to have
some proficiency in the home language of their pupils. As is the case
for ESL teachers who are working in multilingual settings, the
experience of learning a new language and of having to deal with
academic demands in a second language can provide valuable
insights into the world as viewed by an LEP student in an ESL
classroom.
Despite differing classroom roles, then, there are similarities
in the training needs of ESL and bilingual teachers. A common
knowledge base related to the understanding of language and
to cultural issues underlies effective instructional practices for both
ESL and bilingual teachers. Moreover, increased emphasis on the
integration of language and content-area instruction has made the
roles of bilingual and ESL teachers increasingly interrelated. This
newly found interrelatedness, as exemplified by the need for
412 TESOL QUARTERLY

collaboration in designing effective content-based instruction,
creates a tremendous potential for common training experiences in
the preparation of ESL and bilingual personnel.
A SPANISH IMMERSION COURSE FOR TEACHERS

OF LEP CHILDREN
The experimental teacher training course described here is
offered at The University of Texas at San Antonio. The data are
from the summers of 1987 and 1988. The course was held for 2 hours
daily during the 5-week summer session. For the first offering
(1987), 8 graduate students enrolled, and for the second offering
(1988), 9 enrolled. Out of the 17 students, 6 were ESL specialists, 10
were bilingual education specialists, and 1 was a bicultural studies
major; 10 self-identified as Mexican American, 6 as Anglo, and 1 as
African American. With respect to language proficiency, the group
was relatively heterogeneous. Students’ Spanish proficiency, based
on formal and informal measures, ranged from advanced beginner
(2), to intermediate (7), to advanced (8).
The course was specially designed to meet both the differing lan-
guage proficiency needs of bilingual and ESL teachers, as well as
the common language pedagogy needs of teachers who would be
implementing content-based instructional strategies for teaching
language. Specifically:
1. ESL specialists were provided with an immersion experience in
Spanish.
2. Bilingual specialists were provided with opportunities to greatly
widen their lexical range in Spanish for the content areas as well
as to increase their proficiency in academic Spanish.
3. Both ESL and bilingual specialists were provided with intensive
simulated classroom experiences in small-group content-based
instruction following a cooperative learning approach.
The language goals, therefore, were slightly different for bi-
lingual and ESL participants in the course: For bilingual specialists
(most of whom were native speakers of Spanish raised in the U.S.
and schooled in English only), the language goal was to increase
fluency in “academic language” and to increase vocabulary range in
the content areas of the curriculum; on the other hand, for ESL
specialists (most of whom were not native speakers of Spanish,
although they may have studied it in high school or college), the
goal was a much more modest one of helping them achieve
functional proficiency in Spanish at a level that would enable them
to communicate at a basic level with children and their parents.

Perhaps more important than the language goals, however, were
the pedagogical goals related to integration of language and content
in programs for LEP children. For bilingual teachers, it was
expected that insights would be gained with respect to the kinds of
ingredients that must be present in order for children’s weaker lan-
guage to be effectively developed during subject-matter instruc-
tion. For ESL teachers, the course was expected to provide an ex-
periential basis for demonstrating the potential effectiveness of
content-based language instruction.
The research on classroom-based second language acquisition
(SLA) cited above suggests that the SLA process is facilitated when
students are asked to work within groups that require negotiation of
meaning in the second language. For this reason, the course stressed
highly interactive small-group learning activities. Given the diverse
Spanish language proficiency levels of course participants, it was
decided that heterogeneous grouping based on differences in
Spanish proficiency (i.e., deliberate mixing of high proficiency with
low proficiency students within learning groups) would maximize
learning possibilities for the students. Within this heterogeneous
grouping, students with lower levels of Spanish would benefit from
the input provided by more proficient classmates, and students with
higher proficiency levels would benefit from the need to explain
cognitively demanding tasks in Spanish to their “limited Spanish
proficient” classmates.
In order for heterogeneous groups to function effectively, the
course needed to establish a cooperative learning approach that
could serve both as a modus operandi for the class as well as a
model for the type of instruction that participants should be
implementing in their own classrooms (McGroarty, 1989). Hence, a
step by step process was introduced from the outset through which
cooperative learning procedures (including reinforcement of coop-
erative behavior and assignment of clearly defined roles within the
groups) were carefully developed, following the suggestions of
Kagan (1986) and Cohen (1986).
In sum, the instructional strategies modeled through the course
included: (a) highly interactive learning activities, (b) heterogene-
ous groups, (c) cognitively demanding tasks, and (d) cooperative
learning procedures. In order to directly demonstrate these
principles, a bilingual curriculum that satisfies these conditions was
selected for use during the initial phase of the course: the Finding
Out/Descubrimiento (FO/D) curriculum (DeAvila, Duncan &
Navarrete, 1987). During this initial phase, which lasted approxi-
mately 15 contact hours, students engaged in small-group sessions
based on the FO/D curriculum. Following each initial session, the
414 TESOL QUARTERLY

instructor guided students through an introspective evaluation
process that focused on specific aspects of group functioning that
appeared to require further attention. During these evaluations,
conducted with full class participation, students became ac-
customed to operating under the fundamental rules established for
all subsequent learning activities in the course, including predomi-
nant use of Spanish in the class, a focus on learning activities drawn
from the content areas, and strict adherence to cooperative learning
procedures.
During this initial phase of the course, students also completed
readings on the theoretical underpinnings of the course, and
received minilectures in “sheltered Spanish” on these principles. In
order to prevent inappropriate generalizations regarding immersion
education from being drawn, care was taken to stress through
required readings and discussion the critical role of LEP children’s
native language in achieving academic goals. In particular, students
were asked to consider why immersion techniques, which might be
appropriate for pursuit of second language goals in certain contexts
(such as in this course with adults), could be damaging when
pursuing academic goals for language minority children, particu-
larly if the likely outcome is eventual replacement of the child’s
native language with the dominant language (Hernandez-Chavez,
1984),
During the subsequent phase of the course (which lasted
approximately 27 contact hours), students were required to plan
and design learning activities from the content areas that they
would then facilitate in the class, with their classmates role-playing
elementary school students. The guidelines for these small-group
activities stressed that they were to be highly interactive, cog-
nitively demanding, and require cooperation for full completion of
the task. They were also to be planned and implemented totally in
Spanish, with the groups composed of participants possessing
varying levels of proficiency.
Finally, participants were required to keep dialogue journals in
order to encourage development of Spanish writing skills. Students
were required to make regular entries in their journals, and were
encouraged to use the journal as an interactive device to com-
municate with the instructor. Specific instructions for the journal
included reflecting on emotions students were feeling in connection
with their language learning experience. In addition to serving as a
powerful stimulus for increasing writing fluency, the journals
provided a rich source of insight into the kinds of challenges that
students face when required to deal with cognitively demanding
tasks in their weaker language.

EVALUATING THE COURSE
In order to determine whether the course was accomplishing its
goals, during the 1987 and 1988 summer sessions data were col-
lected, designed to answer the following questions:
1. Did participants increase their proficiency in Spanish?
2. Did participants increase their confidence in using Spanish for
academic/learning purposes?
3. Did participants gain insight into the difficulties experienced by
LEP students when having to deal with the curriculum in their
weaker language?
4. Were insights gained with respect to the integration of language
and content in bilingual classrooms?
5. Were insights gained with respect to the second language acqui-
sition process, including strategies commonly used by second
language learners?
The data sources for the study included (a) pre- and postcourse
data on language Proficiency, (b) student evaluations of the course,
and (c) entries from dialogue journals.
Language Proficiency Data

Because of the relatively short duration of the course (42 contact
hours per summer session), it was not really expected that
measurable gains in Spanish language proficiency would be found.
Nevertheless, pre- and posttests using four different measures of
language proficiency were administered in order to explore
possible gains in Spanish proficiency. The first measure was a
dictation: in 1987, a 92-word selection taken from a teacher’s manual
for a bilingual reading curriculum; and in 1988, a 108-word selection
from a Mexican short story (high school level). In scoring, spelling
errors were ignored. The second measure was a relatively simple
cloze passage based on a children’s story. This test contained 24
items obtained by deletion of every sixth word, and was scored
following the exact-word method. The third measure was a more
difficult cloze passage based on a teacher’s guide for science
curriculum. It contained 25 items obtained by deletion of every
eighth word, and was corrected using appropriate word scoring.
The first three measures were administered by the course instructor.
The fourth measure (which was administered during summer
1987 by a research assistant, but not administered during summer
1988 because of lack of funding) was the Spanish version of the Lan-
guage Assessment Scales (LAS) II. The LAS is an oral proficiency
416 TESOL QUARTERLY

measure that consists of five sections, each requiring a different
task: discrimination and production of sounds, vocabulary
identification, oral comprehension, and story retelling. The test
generates scores that are converted to five proficiency levels,
ranging from Level 1 (nonspeaker) to Level 5 (fluent speaker).
Students took the pretest for each of the four measures on the first
day of class, prior to any instruction; the posttest was taken on the
final day of class.
The results obtained by the first three measures of language
proficiency are reported in Table 1. The overall pattern is one of
TABLE 1
Dictation and Cloze Test Results (Percentage Correct)
Note. Statistical significance tests reported are paired t-tests. The 2 years have been pooled.
For each evaluation measure, summary measures and significance tests are based on
all students whose gain scores were available. The significance of these multiple t-tests
is further supported by the results of a single multivariate procedure, Hotelling’s T2
test (p < .01), performed for all students who had gain scores available for all three
evaluation measures.

gains, which were substantial in many cases, with only a few losses.
For all measures, the average gain scores were statistically significant.
Table 2 records gain scores on the LAS II test, which was
administered only during the 1987 summer session. Six of the 9
students achieved gains of 10 points or more on this measure; no
students posted losses. The average gain score was significant. It is
interesting to note that 6 out of the 7 students who began the course
with a LAS II score below Level 4 tested at Level 4 or above at the
conclusion of the course 3 weeks later. It might be worth
speculating on the 2 students who began the course at Level 4 or
above (Students 1 and 2), and who posted no gains. There are at
least two possible explanations for this: Either Students 1 and 2
failed to gain much proficiency because they were already at a
fairly high level, or the test was too easy for them and thus did not
adequately measure the gains that they may have made in Spanish.
The latter explanation is strengthened by the fact that these two
students achieved substantial gains on the two cloze tests (Table 1).
It may be that the LAS II is not sensitive to gains by students who
are already at a fairly high level of Spanish proficiency.
Student Evaluations
At the conclusion of the course, the students were asked to
complete an evaluation form that focused, in part, on the extent to
TABLE 2
Gain Scores on LAS II Test
418 TESOL QUARTERLY

which they felt the course had helped them in three specific areas:
(a) improving their Spanish proficiency, (b) understanding theories
related to bilingual instruction, and (c) teaching a second language
(see Appendix). The form required respondents to select an answer
on a 5-point Likert scale with 3 points described: A Great Deal
(scored as 5), A Fair Amount (scored as 3), and Not at All (scored
as 1). Efforts were made to encourage frank responses: Students
completed the forms anonymously, and forms were collected by a
student. The forms were not returned to the instructor until after
grades for the course had been turned in.
Summary results from the student evaluations are reported in
Table 3. High means (defined as above 4) were obtained for some
of the items under the broad category of improving Spanish
proficiency, but not for others. Specifically, students felt they had
made significant improvement in their overall fluency and in
academic language (including vocabulary and the ability to
communicate concepts from the content areas), but not in gram-
matical knowledge or in writing mechanics. These results coincide
closely with course goals, which focused heavily on oral communi-
cation related to teaching the bilingual curriculum, with only
secondary stress on writing skills and grammatical knowledge.
TABLE 3
Student Perceptions of Course Effectiveness
Means from Student Self-Report Data (1987, 1988 N = 17)

Under the category that relates to understanding theories of
bilingual instruction, all four items had means above 4. Each of
these items related to a specific area of the syllabus for which
readings had been assigned and lectures had been presented:
cooperative learning, integration of language and content
instruction, second language acquisition theory, and the importance
of native language development in bilingual settings. Similarly, high
means were obtained for the three items related to second language
instruction. These items corresponded to major course goals such as
using small groups for second language teaching and creating an
awareness of the kinds of problems encountered by LEP students in
the classroom. The high means obtained for all the items included
under these two categories, therefore, seem to suggest that the
course may have led to important theoretical and practical insights
related to effective bilingual and ESL instruction.
Dialogue Journals
Additional insights on effects of the immersion experience on
course participants were obtained from the dialogue journals. The
student entries are so rich as to merit separate treatment elsewhere,
but a few insights briefly summarized here make possible a fuller
understanding of the data presented.
First, the intensity of emotions surrounding the immersion
experience was evident in all the journals. One of the lower
proficiency students wrote (uncorrected version):
This student, who was struggling a bit with her Spanish, was clearly
concerned that her true personality could not be adequately
revealed when she was denied access to English. This first-hand
experience and the insight it engendered is extremely significant for
teachers of LEP students.
A second area explored in the journals related to the continuing
need to foster cooperation among group members. One student
wrote (uncorrected):
420 TESOL QUARTERLY

[Everyone works well and each person helps the others—but there exists
a certain tendency by some to avoid a particular group—I don’t know.
For me, I prefer to be with the native speakers.]
In a later entry, this student noted that unless there was open
encouragement on the part of the instructor and a conscious effort
among participants, there was a tendency for communication to
take place along ethnic lines. This tendency, which was noted on a
number of occasions, underscores the necessity for a clear and
deliberate strategy on the part of the instructor to maintain
heterogeneity within groups, and to gently nurture full elaboration
of each individual’s role within the group.
A third point raised was the effectiveness of dialogue journals for
affective as well as pedagogical reasons. A student wrote (uncor-
rected):
Finally, the journals provided anecdotal evidence of students’

perceptions that their fluency in Spanish had improved notably.
One Anglo student, whose former husband was a native speaker of
Spanish, wrote (uncorrected):
DISCUSSION
The experimental Spanish immersion course described here
sought to accomplish a number of goals simultaneously:
1. To meet training needs for bilingual teachers through the

development of academic language proficiency in Spanish,
particularly through a broadening of vocabulary range and an
increase in fluency in dealing with the content areas.
2. To meet training needs for ESL teachers by helping them gain
direct insight into the challenges facing an LEP student in
dealing with subject matter in a weaker language, as well as
helping ESL teachers working with Spanish-speaking popula-
tions to obtain a minimal functional proficiency in the home lan-
guage of their students.
3. To serve as an experiential model for an alternative approach to
ESL instruction that simultaneously meets linguistic and
cognitive needs of language minority students.
The pre- and posttest data suggest that course participants
increased their proficiency in Spanish, but we do not know that
these measurable gains were obtained as a result of the intensive
immersion experience. Moreover, not all students posted impressive
gains. Some participants seemed to improve substantially in their
Spanish proficiency while others did not. In part, these results may
reflect measurement problems that exist in attempting to demon-
strate small-scale gains in language proficiency through integrative
instruments such as the cloze (Madsen, 1983).
What is clearly evident from the participants’ self-evaluations,
however, is that the overwhelming majority of participants (15 out
of 17), felt that their fluency in Spanish, as well as their vocabulary
range, had substantially improved as a result of their experience.
These self-perceived gains translate into greater confidence in the
use of Spanish for instructional purposes by the bilingual teachers;
this alone may be as significant as any real gains.
The second objective, which relates to a need for ESL teachers to
gain both empathy and understanding of the learning process of
LEP students when functioning in their weaker language, appears
to have been convincingly attained, based on both self-evaluations
as well as on subjective comments included in the dialogue journals.
In addition to this explicit goal, the dialogue journals reveal that
additional insights related to interethnic communication in bilingual
settings were apparently obtained by a number of the participants.
Based on data from the course evaluations as well as from the
dialogue journals, it appears that the third objective (providing an
experiential pedagogical model) was firmly obtained by the par-
ticipants. Without exception, teachers participating in this intensive
immersion experience, within which they performed problem-
solving tasks following a cooperative learning approach in linguis-
tically heterogeneous groups, felt that they were now able to better
422 TESOL QUARTERLY

achieve the integration of language and content-area instruction in
their classrooms.
Although the number of students participating in this course is too
small for broad generalizations to be drawn, the possibilities posed
by this type of experientially grounded methods course appear to
be promising indeed. One factor that needs to be explored is the
extent to which the positive effects reported here are dependent
upon a sustained, semi-intensive format such as existed in this
summer school course, meeting daily for 2 hours or more. The
potential for applications of this type of immersion experience in
the in-service development of bilingual/ESL personnel merits
further exploration. New means must be found through which
classroom teachers may experience, in a direct and dramatic
manner, the tremendous benefits of an instructional approach that
thoroughly integrates language and content-area instruction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Data from the first year of this study were presented at the National Association for
Bilingual Education 17th Annual International Bilingual/Bicultural Education
Conference in Houston, April 1988. An updated version of the paper was presented
at the 2&d Annual TESOL Conference in San Antonio, March 1989. Funding from
the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of
Texas at San Antonio is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks go to Patricia
Rosales and to María Espericueta for their assistance in completing the study, as
well as to anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers for their helpful suggestions.
Summary measures and significance tests in Tables 1 and 2 were computed by a
TESOL Quarterly reviewer.
THE AUTHOR
Robert D. Milk, Professor and Director of the Division of Bicultural-Bilingual
Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has taught ESL and Spanish at
the secondary level and worked as a teacher educator in Peru at the elementary
school level. He currently directs two Title VII training projects for bilingual
education teachers.
REFERENCES
Celce-Murcia, M. (1983). Problem solving: A bridge builder between
theory and practice. In J. E. Alatis, H. H. Stern, & P. Strevens (Eds.),
Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
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APPENDIX
Course Evaluation
I. Rate your level of proficiency in Spanish (circle one) Low Intermediate High
II. To what extent do you feel that the course A = A Great Deal
helped you in each of the following areas C = A Fair Amount
(circle one): E = Not at All
A. Language proficiency (Spanish)
1. Overall fluency
2. Ability to communicate ideas and concepts
related to content areas
3. Vocabulary
4. Awareness of mechanics for writing
5. Understanding of Spanish grammar
6. Awareness of local & regional Spanish
variety
B. Understanding theories
7. Second language acquisition in the classroom
8. Cooperative learning
9. Integrating language and content
10. Dual language development in bilingual
settings
C. Teaching a second language
11. Effective ideas/techniques
12. Use of small groups
13. Awareness of learner’s problems in dealing
with content in a weaker language
426 TESOL QUARTERLY

The TOEFL Test of Written English:

Causes for Concern
ANN RAIMES
Hunter College, City University of New York
Owned and administered by the Educational Testing Service

(ETS), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), taken
by approximately 600,000 students a year, influences access to or
exclusion from colleges and universities in North America. This
article provides background information about the TOEFL and
ETS; describes the development of ETS tests of composition for
native speakers of English and of the most recent addition to the
TOEFL testing program, the Test of Written English (TWE); and
explores seven areas of concern with respect to the TWE: the
comparability of topic types; the lack of topic choice; the lack of
distinction between graduate and undergraduate students; the
scoring system; the question of what the test measures; the
question of whether both the TOEFL and the TWE are needed;
and the backwash effect of the TWE, including the proliferation
of coaching and test-specific instructional materials. The article
urges careful scrutiny of new developments in ETS testing as they
affect our students, and ends with seven recommendations for
action.
On six Fridays and six Saturdays a year, thousands of people in

places as far-ranging as Dallas, Texas; Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylva-
nia; Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Victoria, British Columbia;
Quito, Ecuador; Sydney, Australia; Alexandria, Egypt; Athens,
Greece; Lome, Togo; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Kyoto, Japan assemble at
test centers to take the TOEFL—the Test of English as a Foreign
Language. At more than 500 test centers in the U.S. and Canada
alone and 700 centers in 170 other countries, approximately 600,000
students a year take the TOEFL, and “as many as 80,000 may test
worldwide on one date” (Educational Testing Service, 1989, p. 1).
THE TOEFL AND THE EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE

The TOEFL testing program is owned and run by an organiza-
tion that exercises considerable power over education and
427
professional life in the United States: the Educational Testing
Service (ETS). ETS has an enormous impact on U.S. students’ lives
with its Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Graduate Record Exam
(GRE), Law School Admission Test (LSAT), and numerous other
standardized tests that influence access to higher education and to
professions. TOEFL’S influence also extends beyond academia,
since “many government agencies, school programs, and licensing/
certification agencies use TOEFL scores to evaluate English
proficiency” (Educational Testing Service, 1990a, p. 3). In some
states of the U. S., you can’t get to be a real estate salesperson, a
firefighter, a plumbing engineer, a golf pro, or even a barber
without taking an ETS test (Owen, 1985).
The TOEFL expands not only the influence of ETS but also its
revenues. Even in 1977, the TOEFL was ETS’s seventh highest
source of revenue, contributing a profit on gross revenues of more
than 10% (Nairn & Associates, 1980). And in 1979, ETS, classified as
a tax-exempt, nonprofit institution, grossed $94 million in annual
revenues ( Nairn et al., 1980). Since that time the TOEFL has grown
steadily, showing an average increase of about 41,000 students a
year. Although the scores are used by more than 2,300 colleges in
North America, the fees for the TOEFL are paid by the individual
students. Currently fees range from $31 to $41. On the basis of
simple arithmetic, one may infer that the 566,000 students who
registered for the TOEFL in 1988-89 (Educational Testing Service,
1990a) contributed a great deal to ETS revenues.
An organization with such influential, widespread, and lucrative
testing programs is bound to generate criticism. A Ralph Nader
organization has produced a highly critical report, The Reign of
ETS: The Corporation that Makes up Minds (Nairn et al., 1980).
This generated a series of critical examinations of ETS and
particularly of the SAT. A no-holds-barred attack on ETS’S
domination of the testing field appeared in 1985 (Owen), closely
followed by several academic research studies. Among these,
Crouse and Trusheim (1988) have presented the results of a 6-year
research study that shows in particular the adverse effect the SAT
has on black and low-income applicants. Rosser (1989) has reported
that the SAT is biased against women, underpredicting their grades.
ETS counters many of the criticisms by referring to its own research
findings. Two Harvard professors (Slack & Porter, 1980), however,
in an attempt to dispute the validity of the SAT, have argued that
ETS’s rebuttals of criticism cite research studies in a way that is so
highly selective as to be biased. They also provide evidence that
ETS misrepresents data on validity coefficients for the SAT with
high school records, concluding that “the data that can be tracked down
428 TESOL QUARTERLY

and analyzed are often at variance with the numerous summary
statements to be found in ETS’s technical documents and
promotional literature” (p. 169).
To deflect criticism, ETS has tried to involve professional experts
to plan programs and generate policy. It has been the practice of
ETS to form and confer with advisory groups, such as the TOEFL
Policy Council. However, the members of the council and of its
committees are appointed by ETS-governed boards or elected by
the appointed members. If members are unhappy with ETS, they
have little recourse. The tests belong to ETS. So do the data. The
control over what data are released, what research is carried out and
reported, and ultimately what is tested and how, remains the
province of the ETS staff. ETS does appoint a TOEFL Research
Committee composed of prominent experts in our field. But
according to the description of current TOEFL research procedures
presented at ETS’s Second TOEFL Invitational Conference
(October 1984), research studies are proposed and conducted by
ETS staff members, not initiated by the committee (Holtzclaw,
1986). ETS unilaterally and unequivocally controls the form and
content of the tests and the data they generate.
Since ETS owns, designs, administers, and evaluates the TOEFL,
it is in a position to exercise a great deal of influence over ESL/EFL
students’ academic careers. That influence is spreading. Even as
more and more students take the TOEFL each year, more tests, are
being added. In the early 1980s, a separate Test of Spoken English
(TSE) was added (with an additional fee for students ranging from
$75 to $100). Then, in 1986, the Test of Written English (TWE) was
added, administered at four of the twelve TOEFL administrations.
As of now, students are not chargedan additional fee. The purpose
of the TWE, as an ETS booklet rather euphemistically puts it, is not
so much to test as to “provide students with an opportunity to
demonstrate their ability to write in English” (Educational Testing
Service, 1990b, p. 3).
This demonstrating of ability, of course, leads to what higher
education institutions in North America have been doing with
TOEFL scores for many years: using them to admit or exclude
students. TOEFL tests are also used to structure curricula of
preparation courses, instruction, and materials. Such a widespread
testing program has a considerable impact on teachers and on our
constituency of ESL/EFL students. We need to examine it—and
continually reexamine it—with the utmost care. Bearing in mind
that “testing is power’” and that “the teaching and testing of English
are, in a large sense, political acts” (White, 1986, p. 77), we need to
look closely at this new writing test to examine its purpose, its
structure, and its effects.
THE TOEFL TEST OF WRITTEN ENGLISH 429

ETS TESTS OF COMPOSITION FOR NATIVE
SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH
First, however, it is instructive to examine ETS practice with
respect to combinations of essay and standardized tests of
composition for native speakers of English. The College Board
(which later joined forces with ETS for its Admissions Testing
Program) began testing composition with essay tests in 1916
(Godshalk, Swineford, & Coffmann, 1966). It was in 1947 that the
College Board first experimented with testing writing objectively
(without an essay). An objective section was included in the English
Composition Test (ECT), one of the subject area Achievement
Tests. When the Board compared the essay with the objective
section and with course grades and teachers’ ratings, the findings
were that a 60-minute essay would have “markedly less predictive
value [of teachers’ ratings of ability to write expository prose, and
course grades in English] than a full length test composed entirely
of objective material” (cited in Davis & Davis, 1953, p. 178).
Objective approaches then replaced the essay in the ECT.
However, teachers protested and in 1953 a 2-hour essay exam, the
General Composition test (GCT), was instituted for 3 years on an
experimental basis. During this period, the College Board and ETS
studied the results of three of their tests: the verbal portion of the
multiple-choice SAT, the multiple-choice ECT, and the new GCT
(reported in Hoffmann, 1962, and in Godshalk, Swineford, &
Coffmann, 1966). The study compared the results of the three tests
with a standard by which “teachers of English composition at
selected schools [rated] their students on the basis of many essays
each student had written in school” (Hoffmann, 1962, p. 116). The
all-essay test—the GCT—correlated least well. First and second
were the verbal SAT and the ECT respectively. Multiple choice had
won the day as an indicator of real-world writing ability. ETS
eliminated the GCT. Yet, even though the study had shown that the
SAT was a better indicator of essay writing ability than the ECT,
the latter continued to be offered, and students continued to take
and pay for both the SAT and the optional ECT as part of their
college application process.
Since teachers and administrators continued to insist on the value
of asking students to write, ETS experimented with writing
samples, editing tasks, and more essay tests until in 1977 they
released an alternative version of the English Composition Test,
with one of the multiple-choice sections replaced by a 20-minute
essay holistically rated by two readers. Native speakers of English
who now apply to so-called selective colleges and universities can
430 TESOL QUARTERLY

elect either the English Composition Test without essay or the ECT
with essay. Scores on these tests are reported as a single numerical
score on the familiar 200 to 800 scale. An ETS publication (College
Entrance Examination Board, 1989) reports that “the correlation
coefficient between the multiple-choice and essay components of
the English Composition Test is .47” (p. 21), lower even than the .66
correlation coefficient reported between verbal and mathematical
scores of the SAT. Owen, who takes ETS to task in his book None
of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude (1985),
provocatively asks a series of questions about these two alternative
composition tests and the research findings. The first question to
ask, he suggests, is whether the ECT with essay is a "better measure
of writing skills than the ECT without ." An answer to that question
would lead to more questions: “If one test is better, why give the
other? If the tests are the same, why give both? In an exercise that
is supposed to rank people scientifically on a scale from 200 to 800,
how can you offer a choice of tests?” (1985, p. 26). He contends that
throwing out the multiple-choice version would “imply what ETS
has always denied: that an essay test, especially a teeny one, is better
than a multiple-choice test.” Alternatively, getting rid of the essay
would appear to be confessing that holistic grading is ineffective—
or in Owen’s more colorful terms, “a bunch of hooey” (1985, p. 26).
Meanwhile, students have to decide which test to take.
THE TOEFL TEST OF WRITTEN ENGLISH

There are clear parallels between the two versions of the ECT
and the TOEFL/TWE. Long before the introduction of the TWE,
the TOEFL used to have five multiple-choice sections: Listening
Comprehension, English Structure, Vocabulary, Reading Compre-
hension, and Writing Ability. An ETS study in 1967 by Pitcher and
Ra (cited in Hale, Stansfield, & Duran, 1984) looked at correlations
between writing sample scores on four separate themes and the five
sections of the TOEFL. The highest correlations were .74 for both
the English Structure and the Writing Ability sections. A 1979 ETS
study of the TOEFL by Pike (cited in Hale, Stansfield, & Duran,
1984) examined correlations between sections of the test with an
essay test, a cloze test, and a rewriting test. This time stronger
correlations (averaging .85) were found between the essay and the
Writing Ability section of the test. Pike’s recommendation after this
research was that the TOEFL Writing Ability section should not be
replaced with a writing sample but that the Writing Ability section
should be combined with the English Structure section. Once again
the research recommended the multiple-choice format for assessing
writing ability.

According to ETS, it was pressure from faculty to institute an
essay test that led to the development of the TWE. ETS officials
writing in the TESOL Newsletter (Stansfield & Webster, 1986)
described the preparation for the new test, mentioning “a survey of
academic writing in 190 departments conducted for the TOEFL
program by Bridgeman and Carlson” (p. 17). In fact, Bridgeman
and Carlson (1983) did not collect actual academic writing samples
from those 190 departments. They began by interviewing 30 faculty
members from six universities in engineering, business, and English
language institutes. Then after “in-depth discussions with advisory
committee members, research and program staff members at ETS
and faculty and administrators at local institutions” (p. 13), they
developed a questionnaire, which included 10 possible topic types.
Faculty members were to indicate the “degree of acceptability”
(Appendix A, p. 7) for each topic and to indicate the topic types
they considered the most appropriate. In other words, the choice of
topic types came before the questionnaire was sent out, not after
responses about actual writing assignments were received.
The questionnaires were then sent to faculty in the following 7
disciplines: undergraduate English and 6 graduate departments—
electrical engineering, civil engineering, computer science,
chemistry, psychology, and MBA programs. The same question-
naires were sent to graduate and undergraduate faculty. The
respondents were asked to rate not just the topic types but specific
examples of topic types. These, too, were developed by ETS staff.
One hundred ninety questionnaires were returned. Again, it is
important to note that these 190 departments were merely
responding to categories established by ETS researchers, not
contributing to the development of the categories. Despite these
drawbacks, the researchers stated broad conclusions with
confidence: “Although some important common elements among
the different departments were reported, the survey data distinctly
indicate that different disciplines do not uniformly agree on the
writing task demands and on a single preferred mode of discourse
for evaluating entering undergraduate and graduate students”
(Bridgeman & Carlson, 1983, p. 56-57).
Notwithstanding findings that questioned the viability of a
generalized writing test, ETS went ahead with the TWE. Four
features were adopted after the preliminary research:
1. Two topic types were selected. In one the student “compares/
contrasts two opposing points of view and defends a position in
favor of one”; in the other, the student describes and interprets a
chart or graph (Stansfield & Webster, 1986, p. 17).
432 TESOL QUARTERLY

2. Only one topic type appears on each test for a 30-minute
response.
3. Scoring of the TWE is on a holistic 6-point scale by two readers.
4. Scores are reported to individual colleges.
These features, and more recent adjustments to the test format,

present at least seven major causes for concern.
CAUSES FOR CONCERN

First, we should be concerned about the comparability of the
topic types selected, scrutinizing comparability both between topic
types used for native versus nonnative speakers and between topic
types used on different administrations of the TWE. Native
speakers of English applying to undergraduate programs in colleges
and universities in North America only write an essay on an ETS test
if they select the English Composition Test with essay. For this, they
write on topics such as “People seldom stand up for what they truly
believe; instead they merely go along with the popular view. Do
you agree or disagree with this statement?” (Essay topic for
December 4, 1982, cited in Shostak, 1987, p. 11). This relatively
straightforward position paper with one conceptual demand (to
take a position on an issue) certainly seems less demanding than the
two- or three-part task of the TWE: compare, contrast, and take a
position; or describe and interpret a chart or graph.
After Bridgeman and Carlson’s extensive research (1983), two
topic types were selected for the TWE. The official test guide
asserts that “further research by Carlson, Bridgeman, Camp, and
Waanders (1985) reported that correlations among writing topics
were as high across topic types as within topic types, suggesting that
overall competency in composition could be adequately assessed
using a variety of composition types” (Educational Testing Service,
1989, p. 2). The researchers do indeed support the first statement
about correlations, but their text does not offer the suggestion that
ETS implies:
Correlations were as high across topic types as within topic types. This
result suggests that (1) the different topics did not elicit qualitatively
different writing performance, and/or (2) the readers maintained a
comparable scale for evaluating the writing samples, despite
fluctuations from topic to topic, These positive results, however, should
not be interpreted as evidence that papers written in response to any
topic or type of topic would yield equivalent reliability [italics added].
The topics were selected on the basis of previous research indicating

that specific kinds of topics would serve as more appropriate stimuli to
reflect the academic writing task demands experienced by students in
higher education in the United States. Carefully controlled conditions of
design and pretesting, and of scoring methods that emphasized
functional academic English proficiency, would need to be replicated to
attain similar results. (Carlson, Bridgeman, Camp, & Waanders, 1985,
p. 76-77)
The researchers’ caution is necessary. According to a senior ETS

official, ETS and its Core Reader Group for the TWE have decided
that the chart/graph topic raises so many concerns that it should not
be used until more research is carried out (Henning, 1990). And,
according to the Director of the TWE, it has been used only once in
the last eight test administrations, when it was included only for
research purposes as part of a comparability study (C. Taylor,
personal communication, December 1990). According to Taylor, so
much language is contained in the charts and graphs themselves that
there is a concern that students simply reproduce that given
language. However, although the chart/graph topic has been
shelved, it is still listed as a TWE topic type in the official guide
(Educational Testing Service, 1989). Interestingly–and confusingly
for both students and teachers–it appears there not with the
originally announced “compare, contrast, and defend” topic, but
with two different topic types: “express and support an opinion”
and “choose and defend a point of view” (Educational Testing
Service, 1989, p. 4). And indeed, one of the sample essay questions
in the guide illustrates how far the TWE has moved not only from
the chart/graph topic but also from the original compare, contrast,
and defend topic that the research recommended:
Inventions such as eyeglasses and the sewing machine have had an

important effect on our lives. Choose another invention that you think is
important. Give specific reasons for your choice. (p. 57)
There was a good deal of literature to explain the decisions about
topics in the new TWE, but very little to explain the quite radical
changes that are occurring in the test. The speed of substitution of
new topics for old does not appear to be the result of the carefully
conducted research appropriate for a large-scale testing program
that affects students’ academic careers. One might question the
claim made by the Assistant Director of the TWE Division at ETS
that “since the introduction of the TWE test, carefully controlled
item development, pretesting, pretest analysis, test administration,
and postadministration scoring procedures have helped to maintain
the comparability of TWE topics within and across administrations”
434 TESOL QUARTERLY

(Fallon, 1989, p. 7). With swift changes in topic types, comparabil-
ity must be difficult to maintain. Meanwhile, students take the test
and have scores reported.
Second, we should be concerned that students are presented with
only one topic type, though different types of topics are offered at
different test administrations. Greenberg (1986) points out that “this
administrative decision seems to fly in the face of the TOEFL
researchers’ hypothesis that writing competence is a situational
construct and, as such, should be elicited by tasks with different
academic demands” (p. 537). In fact, the ETS research conducted
by Bridgeman and Carlson used a multidimensional scaling analysis
to show that the two essay types initially selected for TWE “seem to
call for very different cognitive and linguistic skills” (Greenberg,
1986, p. 537). Faculty perceived this without the benefit of research
findings; Bridgeman and Carlson (1983) report that the chart/graph
topic was seen as “inappropriate by a majority of the English
faculty” (p. 56). In addition, the 1985 TOEFL research study by
Carlson et al. noted that “one writing sample is not necessarily a
sufficient sample of writing performance” (p. 81) and recom-
mended assessment by means of more than one writing sample.
Despite that, only one topic appears at any TWE test administration
and is expected to have predictive validity for graduate and
undergraduate students in any discipline.
Third, we should be concerned about the curious blending of
undergraduate and graduate levels that the TWE promotes. Of the
7 disciplines surveyed, only 1 (English) was at the undergraduate
level. The faculty there recommended the compare and contrast
topic, while the graduate disciplines (engineering, business, and the
sciences) recommended the chart or graph-neither of which seem
to be favored in current test administrations. While ETS
distinguishes between the undergraduate SAT and the graduate
GRE for native speakers, nonnative-speaking students applying for
undergraduate and graduate schools all receive the same TOEFL
and TWE. Yet they will face very different demands.
Fourth, we should be concerned about several aspects of the
scoring system. Colleges and universities to which nonnative-
speaking students apply receive not the TWE writing sample itself
but only a score on a 6-point scale. The score can thus only be useful
for admission (or rejection); the writing sample is not available for
an institution’s specific diagnostic purposes.
For students rattled enough by the ETS numbers game, the
numerical score of the TWE can only add confusion and stress.
Already they are baffled by the scoring system of the TOEFL, in
which they receive a scaled score from 200 to 677, with a last digit

of 0, 3, or 7. The 1990-91 Bulletin of Information for TOEFL and
Test of Spoken English informs students that scaled scores are
reported; then, unrealistically, refers these students to journal
literature on item response theory, and tells them to add the scaled
scores for each section and multiply by ten thirds (Educational
Testing Service, 1990a)! If they don’t trust the computer scoring and
the complicated scaling of the TOEFL, they can request restoring
by hand–for an additional $20.
The TWE, holistically scored by two readers on a 6-point scale,
allows for no restoring. Students know that if TOEFL and TWE
scores begin to be formally linked for admissions purposes, students
can be denied acceptance at a college or university on the strength
of one point on a holistic scale. With such a numbers game, it’s no
wonder that students become desperate and test forms are leaked.
A recent New York Times article reported that “620 students who
took the TOEFL in five centers around the southern Indian city of
Bangalore on October 28 had their test results annulled” because
copies of the test had been widely sold beforehand (Crossette, 1990,
p. A10). And when Qinghua University, wanting to limit the
number of students entering U.S. schools, did not announce the
place of registration for the TOEFL test, students lined up in
random places until the final announcement caused a riot and one
student jumped to his death. He was carrying a “notebook with the
words ‘TOEFL, TOEFL, TOEFL, CONFIDENCE, CONFI-
DENCE, CONFIDENCE’ etched on the cover” (Elliott, 1990, p. 23).
Fifth, we should be concerned about establishing clearly what the
TWE is or is not testing. ETS personnel frequently assert that
TOEFL is not an aptitude test—and in fact it does not correlate
highly with students’ grade point averages (Light, Xu, & Mossop,
1987). ETS testing directors assert that the purpose of the TOEFL
is to help “institutions to determine whether a nonnative English-
speaking applicant for admission has attained sufficient proficiency
to study in an English-medium instructional environment”
(Stansfield & Webster, 1986, p. 17). But if the test is measuring
attained proficiency, why does the writing test present tasks that are
representative not of the writing the students have done in the
past—the types of tasks the IEA (International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement) Study of Composition has
identified (Purves, 1988) —but of the type that they will be doing in
the future? Why should international students be expected to have
mastered college-level writing as a requirement for admission?
Don’t the faculty have a responsibility to teach field-specific forms
of academic writing, rather than expect mastery from their entering
students, particularly students from other countries?
436 TESOL QUARTERLY

Sixth, we should be concerned about whether we need both the
TOEFL and the TWE. TOEFL researchers reporting on a
correlation study have found that “the correlation of scores on the
writing sample with the TOEFL total scores and with GRE verbal
scores is nearly identical, indicating that the writing sample scores
serve as an indicator of English language skills” (Carlson et al., 1985,
p. 79). They justify the use of both TOEFL and TWE by saying that
correlations between the holistic essay score and the TOEFL score
indicate that “the two measures evaluate English proficiency to a
considerable degree, but that the overlap between the two
instruments is not perfect. The writing sample contributes
additional [italics added] information regarding English profi-
ciency” (Carlson et al., 1985, p. 79). For the recipient, that
additional information is buried in a holistic, 6-point score. ETS
researchers provide justification for the TWE, saying, “TOEFL
provides evidence of mastery of English language. skills, but not of
higher order writing skills such as organization and quality of ideas”
(Carlson et al., 1985, p. 79). But since ETS rejected scoring on the
three separate features of content organization, and grammar
despite faculty members’ recommendations that this would be
preferable to an overall score (Bridgeman & Carlson, 1983), we
have no way of knowing what kind of organization or what quality
of ideas a score reflects.
Even preparation books for the TWE raise questions about the
need for both the TOEFL and the TWE: “The TOEFL Program’s
research has suggested that if you score around 550 on the TOEFL,
you are most likely to score about a 4 on the TWE. If you score
around 500 on the TOEFL, you are most likely to score about a 3 on
the TWE” (Hamp-Lyons, 1989, p. 2). Recalling the questions that
Owen asked about the two versions of the ECT, one needs to ask
similar questions about TOEFL and TWE: If one testis better, why
give the other? If the tests are the same, why give both? We’ve seen
from ETS’S handling of the ECT that the tendency is not to replace
but to add on. So TOEFL has been joined by the TSE and the
TWE.
Finally, we should be concerned about the special instruction and
the resulting inequalities that the tests generate, as well as the effect
on instruction in general. Students from high-income families tend
to receive high SAT scores (Admissions Testing Program of the
College Entrance Examination Board, 1979), and coaching has been
shown to be concentrated in the higher income groups (Federal
Trade Commission, 1979), inevitably linking it to class and race.
While ETS staff members have consistently denied that coaching
can influence the results of standardized tests like the SAT or GRE

(Pike & Evans, 1972; Jackson, 1980), other data show otherwise
(Pallone, 1961; Marron, 1965; Slack & Porter, 1980).
Although not advised by ETS, coaching flourishes for the
TOEFL as well as for the SAT. According to a Research Associate
at Stanley Kaplan Educational Centers, for example, TOEFL
preparation courses give students 100 hours of audiotape practice of
TOEFL-type questions (L. Earl, personal communication, April,
1989). In these courses and in any curriculum leading up to a
standardized test, the test itself creates a negative backwash effect.
What the multiple-choice format of the TOEFL actually leads to in
instruction is far removed from the communicative classroom
advocated by most TESOL professionals (Savignon, 1986).
TOEFL self-study test materials are as reductive as special
courses. ETS provides its own TOEFL study materials at a cost of
$39. In addition, many commercial publishers, seeing the spread of
the test, have jumped on the bandwagon. It is not surprising that
with the new Test of Written English, new TWE preparation books
are also appearing, as indicated by a book review in this issue of the
TESOL Quarterly. Teachers who have seen writing as a tool of
learning, as a means of expressing ideas and creating language for a
variety of purposes and audiences, will not welcome textbooks
relegating it to repetitive practice of two ETS-generated topics.
Also alarming is the fact that the topic types of the TWE seem to be
changing so rapidly that as preparation books appear, they might be
out of date. Students and teachers need to know how the test format
is changing before they even consider buying and using specific
test-preparation textbooks. Most important, we need to heed Roy’s
words (1987) that we “not allow consciousness of the TWE to foster
a narrowly instrumental mode of teaching and a dependent mode
of learning” (p. 5).
These seven causes for concern alert us to the fact that the new
Test of Written English, as well as the literature surrounding it and
developed from it, should be scrutinized with great care. To
preserve symmetry, seven recommendations for action by ESL/
EFL teachers are presented.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Individually, by telephone, letter, publication, and in public
forums, we should continue to ask questions, more questions,
and more probing questions about the TWE.1 We need to ask
1 One forum for discussion of the TOEFL is the Fair Test Examiner, the newsletter of Fair
Test (The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, 342 Broadway, Cambridge, MA
02139-1802), which works to reduce the overuse and misuse of standardized tests.
438 TESOL QUARTERLY

about test question development and content-related validation
evidence. We also need to ask about construct-related validation
evidence and about reliability. At present, ETS research uses
only another of its tests, the TOEFL, to establish construct
validity and reliability (Educational Testing Service, 1989). We
need to know ETS’s plans for the test: So far they have
announced no plans to make the TWE a separate test with a
separate fee, like the TSE, but will this policy continue once
colleges have prescribed score cutoffs for admission? Consider
how many students would be excluded from the possibility of
higher education with the institution of a fee increase.
2. Those of us who teach ESL in postsecondary schools in North
America need to be informed about the admissions policies of
our own schools. How do they use TOEFL and TWE scores?
ESL teachers can’t let subject area faculty, college administra-
tors, and ETS personnel make all the crucial decisions about
which international students are admitted to our institutions and
what skills they need. We are the experts. We need to reassert
that position.
3. We should press for more information about the training of raters
for the TWE. What factors influence assessment? Vopat (1982)
provides a chilling description of “formulaic essay writing and
assembly-line grading” (p. 45) for ETS’s Advanced Placement
essays. What kind of writing are raters trained to reward? Are
they encouraged to “recognize a wider variety of rhetorical
modes” than the ethnocentric deductive linear argument, which
Land and Whitley (1989) view as “situated within a particular
sociopolitical context” (p. 289)?
4. We should see to it that ESL/EFL students are not treated as one
monolithic group. Tests should reflect the variety of students’
educational levels and purposes, distinguishing between
graduate and undergraduate students.
5. We should avoid recommending and using reductive methods of
instruction and materials for test preparation. Our students
should be spending time learning English, not learning ETS-
coping skills.
6. We should examine the TOEFL and TWE in relation to other
proficiency tests such as the oral ACTFL (American Council on
the Teaching of Foreign Languages) proficiency tests. We should
examine the TWE also in relation to research such as the IEA
study of the types of writing students in secondary schools
actually do (Purves, 1988). Perhaps this data base is the one that

should determine the kind of writing that undergraduate
applicants are asked to produce.
7. Finally, we need to set up mechanisms to keep close watch on
ETS tests that affect our students. Professional educational
organizations (e.g., TESOL) might set up their own indepen-
dent, active, and vigilant testing committees to review test devel-
opment, procedures, scoring, and fees, to carry out research, and
to disseminate results and recommendations. We should know
the effects of tests on our student population in terms of
economics, quality of instruction in English, and requirements
for further study. When students’ inclusion or exclusion from
higher education is at stake, the stakes are indeed high.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 24th Annual TESOL
Convention in San Francisco, March 1990. The author is grateful to colleagues
Karen Greenberg and Kate Parry, and three anonymous TESOL Quarterly
reviewers for their helpful comments. The views expressed here remain those of
the author. Sandra Silberstein, TESOL Quarterly editor, posed searching,
thoughtful questions and offered wise counsel.
THE AUTHOR
Ann Raimes is the author of many articles on writing research, theory, and
teaching, and on ESL methodology. Her books include Techniques in Teaching
Writing (Oxford University Press, 1983), Exploring Through Writing (St. Martin’s
Press, 1987), and How English Works: A Grammar Handbook With Readings (St.
Martin’s Press, 1990). She is Chair of the TESOL Publications Committee.
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442 TESOL QUARTERLY

Student Input and Negotiation

of Meaning in ESL
Writing Conferences
LYNN M. GOLDSTEIN
Monterey Institute of International Studies
SUSAN M. CONRAD
Central Washington University
Research and practice in composition pedagogy suggest that

student-teacher conferences play an important role in helping
students become more effective writers. Many students, teachers,
and researchers believe that conferences are valuable because they
allow students to control the interaction, actively participate, and
clarify their teachers’ responses. This paper reports the results of a
study that examined the degree to which these characteristics were
present in conferences between one teacher and each of three
students enrolled in an advanced ESL composition course. In
addition, the study looked at the students’ texts to determine how
students dealt with the revisions discussed in the conferences and
the role negotiation of meaning played in the success of such
revisions. There were large differences in the degree to which
students participated in the conferences and negotiated meaning.
In addition, students who negotiated meaning made revisions in
the following draft that improved the text. In contrast, when
students did not negotiate meaning, even when they actively
participated in the conference, they tended either not to make
revisions or to make mechanical, sentence-level changes that often
resulted in texts that were not qualitatively better than previous
drafts.
Student-teacher writing conferences are widely recommended in

composition pedagogy and many claims have been made about
their role in helping students become more effective writers. These
claims, however, remain unverified for second language writers
because none of the research has examined the discourse that takes
place in conferences or the relationship between this discourse and
subsequent revision for these writers. In fact, most claims for both
443
native-speaker and ESL writers are based on the participants’
impressions of, or attitudes towards, conferences.
In a study of native speakers, Carnicelli (1980) reviewed students’
evaluative comments towards their conferences. On the basis of
these, he concluded that conferences are a more effective means of
feedback than are written comments because conferences allow
students to express their opinions and needs, and to clarify teachers’
comments when they are not understood: “If a teacher’s response is
unclear the student can simply ask for an explanation” (p. 108).
Zamel (1985) and Sokmen (1988) reach similar conclusions for
conferences with nonnative speakers. Zamel discovered that ESL
students often found written comments difficult to understand.
Thus, she suggests that teachers need to hold conferences with
students because “dynamic interchange and negotiation is most
likely to take place when writers and readers work together face-to-
face” (p. 97). Sokmen concurs, stating that “responding in confer-
ences is more effective than in writing because you, the teacher, can
interact dynamically with the students to understand the intent”
(p. 5).
The above claims, however, are based, not on an examination of
discourse that actually occurs in conferences, but on students’ and
teachers’ evaluations of conferences. The few studies that have
examined actual discourse have focused on native-speaker confer-
ences. Freedman and Katz (1987) analyzed transcripts of several
conferences and found that the discourse within these conferences
had predictable parts: openings, student-initiated comments and
questions, teacher-initiated comments and questions, reading of the
paper, and closings. Examining one conference in detail, they
discovered that the teacher and student followed interfactional rules
that “placed the conference somewhere between” (p. 77) con-
versational turn-taking rules described by Sacks, Schegloff, and
Jefferson (1974) and the rules of classroom turn-taking as described
by Mehan (1979). While the teacher initiated many questions to
guide the student, the student supplied the direction and content of
the conference. Freedman and Katz hypothesized that a student’s
input and control of the discourse accounts for the effectiveness of
conferences in improving student writing. However, they did not
actually look at the relationship between these factors and
subsequent revisions or papers to test this.
Walker and Elias (1987) compared the discourse in conferences
rated highly by tutors and students to those rated poorly. Highly
rated conferences were characterized by a focus on the student,
with a discussion of criteria for successful writing and with an
evaluation of the student’s work. Low-rated conferences were
444 TESOL QUARTERLY

dominated by the tutor and contained repeated requests for
explanations, either by the tutor or student or both. Since success in
this study is defined by tutor and student evaluation, there is no
discussion of whether writing or revisions that occurred after the
more “successful” conferences were more effective than those that
occurred after less successful conferences.
Researchers have also studied the variation among students in the
discourse they produce within conferences. Freedman and Sperling
(1985) examined the conferences of 4 native-speaker students: 2
high-achieving students and 2 low-achieving students. The high-
achieving students elicited more praise from the teachers while low-
achieving students tended to nominate topics that “alienated” (p. 128)
the teachers. Freedman and Sperling conclude that the interactions in
conferences vary and that “these differences in conversational
interaction signal the possibility of differential instruction” (p. 128).
These researchers do not, however, examine the relationship between
such “differential instruction” and student success.
The relationship between the discourse created in conferences
and subsequent revision or overall writing improvement has been
studied by Jacobs and Karliner (1977). They compared the confer-
ences of two native-speaker students to determine if the differences
in the roles played by teacher and student corresponded to
differences in the revisions made in subsequent drafts. They found
that the student who engaged in exploratory talk and who initiated
more discussion in the conference made revisions that contained
deeper analysis of the subject. In contrast, the student who deferred
to the teacher, with the teacher acting as an expert who gives
suggestions even before hearing the student’s ideas, made more
surface-level changes and never solved the deeper problems in
content. Jacobs and Karliner conclude that the type of verbal
interaction within the conference does influence the type of
subsequent revision made.
We must be cautious in extending the conclusions of these studies
to ESL student-teacher conferences. First, there is very little re-
search that examines actual conference discourse and/or confer-
ence discourse in relation to subsequent revision. Second, we cannot
extrapolate from studies where the subjects were native speakers of
English because we cannot assume that nonnative speakers will be-
have in conferences in the same ways that native speakers behave.
THE STUDY
In our study we sought to answer the following questions:
STUDENT INPUT IN ESL WRITING CONFERENCES 44.5

1. To what extent do ESL writing conferences ensure student in-
put?
2. To what extent is meaning negotiated in ESL writing confer-
ences? (See Figure 1 for a definition of negotiation of meaning.)
3. What is the relationship between the discourse in the conference
and successful revision in the subsequent draft?
The Educational Context

Subjects were selected from 21 students in an advanced ESL
composition class at a large urban university. The teacher was an
experienced ESL composition instructor who had been using con-
ferences as an integral part of her courses for the previous 4 years.
The students wrote multiple drafts of expository papers, had a
scheduled 20-minute conference every other week to discuss the
draft they were working on, and received written feedback on
another draft in the week between conferences. The teacher did
not read the drafts that were discussed in conference until the
actual conference and students were asked to be ready to identify
areas they wanted to discuss when they came to conference.
METHODOLOGY
Subjects
Three students were selected from three different cultural
backgrounds. The students had roughly equivalent proficiency, as
determined by a holistic evaluation of all the papers each had
written during the semester. They were in the last course of an
ESL sequence that leads to Freshman Composition. Each
demonstrated a working knowledge of academic rhetoric, and
evidenced only relatively minor and infrequent sentence-level
problems.
Two women and one man, all in their 20s, participated in the
study. All three were full-time matriculated students in their junior
year majoring in a science. All had been in the United States for 6
years and were fluent speakers of English who evidenced no
difficulty in understanding or participating in spoken discourse.
Two of the subjects, Tranh (from Vietnam) and Zohre (from Iran),
had attended high school in their native countries; Marigrace (from
the Philippines) had attended public high school in the United
States.
446 TESOL QUARTERLY

Data Collection
With the students’ permission, the teacher taped all the confer-
ences and collected copies of each draft of every paper. Oral data
consisted of tapes of ten 20-minute conferences, 3 each for Zohre
and Marigrace, and 4 for Tranh. Written data consisted of 2 drafts
each of 10 papers (3 papers each for Zohre and Marigrace, and 4 for
Tranh). One draft of each paper was written before the conference
and was discussed in the conference, and the other draft of the
paper was written after the conference.
Conference Data Analysis

The 10 tapes of the conferences were transcribed orthographi-
cally. Our first attempts to apply established discourse analysis
systems to the data did not account for elements that appeared
important in the conferences. As has been the case for other
researchers (Walker & Elias, 1987; Freedman & Sperling, 1985; van
Lier, 1988), it became obvious that our data should suggest the
categories, rather than be made to fit imposed categories.
Consequently, we looked for recurring patterns and variations
across students that suggested to us how the discourse was
structured and what the roles of each participant were in the
discourse. As new patterns and variations emerged, we went back
and coded them in conferences that we had already analyzed.
Through this iterative process, we identified seven features (see
Figure 1) for coding. After we had finished analyzing all the confer-
ences once, we went through them two more times (independently
and then together) to ensure that our analysis was consistent across
all conferences.
After the features were identified and coded on the transcripts,
we obtained frequency counts per conference for types of discourse
structures, topic nominations, invited nominations, turns per epi-
sode, questions, and negotiations. We then calculated mean
frequencies per category for each student’s conferences.
Analysis of Revision and Negotiation

One of the goals of this research was to look at the relationship
between what was discussed in conference and what was revised in
the subsequent draft. We recognize that many other revisions may
have occurred that were not discussed in conference and that many
other rhetorical problems may have remained in the drafts.
However, we decided to limit ourselves in this study to an examina-
tion of only those revisions that were discussed in the conference.
Our overall goal was to determine what elements (if any) in the
STUDENT INPUT IN ESL WRITING CONFERENCES 447

FIGURE 1
Discourse Features
Episodes: These are subunits of conferences, with a conference made up of a series of

episodes. Each episode has a unique combination of topic and purpose such that a change in
either or both signifies a new episode. Episodes could be interrupted by others, continuing at
the end of the interruption.
Discourse Structure: Each episode was characterized by a particular discourse structure. Six
types of structures emerged from the data.
1. Teacher talks and student backchannels1
2. Teacher questions and student answers.
3. Teacher talks and student talks.
4. Student talks and teacher backchannels.
5. Student questions and teacher answers.
6. A combination of the above.
Topic Nomination: The participant who introduced either a new topic and/or new purpose,
effectively changing to a new episode, was said to have nominated the topic of the new
episode.
Invited Nomination: An invited nomination occurs when the participant nominates the topic
in response to a question such as, “What would you like to discuss?”
Turns: A change of speaker signified a new turn, with the exception of backchannels. There
are many theoretical positions on whether or not backchannels are turns (see van Lier, 1988,
for example). However, these positions vary with the data being analyzed. Thus, we do not
count backchannels as turns because, while they showed the listener was attending, in our
data they do not expand, comment on, agree or disagree with, or ask for clarification of what
the speaker was saying.
Questions: We counted the number of questions asked both by student and teacher. This
category contains only those questions not used for negotiation (see below).
Negotiation: Two types of negotiation were identified Negotiation of meaning, identified in
many second language acquisition studies (see, for example, Long, 1983) refers to
confirmation checks, comprehension checks, and clarification requests.
Negotiation of revision took place not when meaning needed to be clarified, but when
revision strategies needed to be clarified. These consisted of (a) the student confirming the
teacher’s suggestion of a need for revision or the use of a revision strategy (for example,
saying, “So you are suggesting that I should change the order of these”); (b) either the teacher
checking to see if the student had understood a discussion of revision options or a student
checking (for example, the teacher saying, “So what strategies can you use to revise this?”);
(c) the student checking, while the need for revision was being discussed, to see if it would
be appropriate to revise in a certain way (for example, the student saying “What do you think
if I added this example here?”); (d) the student stating that he or she did not understand either
why a revision would be necessary or how to revise.
1 Backchannefs are verbal devices such as um-hum, yeah, and um that indicate that a listener
is attending to a speaker.
conference discourse concerning revision appeared to influence

whether and how the students revised those areas.
After we had analyzed the conference transcripts, we looked at
the student papers. We compared the conference draft to that
written subsequently, examining those places in the papers that had
been identified in the conferences as needing revision. Through this
448 TESOL QUARTERLY

process, a pattern began to emerge: Revisions seemed to occur
when they had been negotiated in the conference. Working with
this hypothesis, we went back to the transcripts and identified all
the discussions of revision and categorized them on the basis of
whether negotiation had taken place. We again compared the draft
being conference with the one written after the conference, this
time to discover which revisions had been made and how successful
these had been. In the determination of successful revision, each of
the researchers analyzed the written data individually, then
compared and discussed categorizations, reaching consensus on
what was successful or not, and why. Next, we compared
negotiated discussions of revision to nonnegotiated ones to see the
degree to which each resulted in successful, unsuccessful, or no
revision.
We defined successful revisions as those we judged had solved or
improved upon a rhetorical problem discussed in the conference
while being consistent with the writer’s purpose, main point, and
audience. This also allowed us to credit as successful those revisions
that solved the rhetorical problem under discussion even if, when a
strategy had been discussed in conference, the student chose to use
a different one.
To illustrate, Tranh wrote a first draft about discrimination in
which he had confused types of discrimination with causes of
discrimination and in which he had arrived at a superficial
discussion. In the conference, the teacher elicited the fact that
Tranh’s purpose was to examine the causes of discrimination so that
people could arrive at solutions to it. The teacher and Tranh then
went on to examine whether or not his purpose had been achieved,
discovering that it had not been and that Tranh was confused about
the difference between cause and type of discrimination. As the
conference unfolded, they jointly generated possible causes of
discrimination and discussed how to focus on and develop only
those parts of his paper related to his purpose.
After the conference, Tranh rewrote his introduction making it fit
his purpose; he kept in causes he had discussed in the previous draft
while he eliminated any discussion from the previous draft on types
of discrimination; he expanded his discussion of causes by adding
ones he had not mentioned in his previous draft; he provided
concrete illustrations for some of the causes he was writing about;
he completely rewrote his conclusion to be consistent with his
purpose. These revisions were judged successful since they solved
rhetorical problems of the previous draft. Importantly, he was able
to decide on his own which parts of the text fit his purpose and
should remain and which didn’t and should be removed. Also, he

was able to generate causes that were not in his previous draft and
that had not been discussed in conference.
It is important to note that our definition of success is “local”: We
were examining only the relationship between revisions discussed in
the conference and the revisions that appeared in the subsequent
draft. We recognize that future research needs to address rhetorical
issues not discussed in the conference, as well as the long-term
effects of conferencing on writing quality and revision.
RESULTS
Conference Data
The mean scores for each discourse feature and discourse
structure are displayed in Tables 1 and 2. These scores demonstrate
that there was much variation across the students in the amount of
interfactional work they did in their conferences. Frequencies for
individual conferences are not reported because there was little or
no variation across each student’s conferences.
TABLE 1
Comparison of Student input Discourse Features
The three students differed greatly in the amount of input they

contributed. First, the degree to which each set the agenda can be
seen in the percent of nominations (see Table 1). While Zohre and
Tranh contributed roughly half of the topic nominations, Marigrace
contributed only one fifth. Second, these three students differed in
how much interfactional work they did building the discourse (see
Table 2). Tranh consistently did more work than Zohre, who in turn
consistently did more than Marigrace. Although Zohre and Tranh
made about the same percent of topic nominations (Table 1), twice
450 TESOL QUARTERLY

as many of Zohre’s nominations were invited nominations (41% for
Zohre vs. 20% for Tranh). Marigrace’s nominations, in addition to
being relatively infrequent (19.50%), were often invited (42.88% of
her nominations were invited). Marigrace was also more often
invited to contribute input to the conference in other ways. For
example, the teacher frequently used questions (14 times per con-
ference) with Marigrace; in contrast, she asked far fewer questions
of Zohre and Tranh (6 and 6.75 per conference respectively) who
more often voluntarily contributed to the conferences.
The students also differed in the degree to which they clarified
meaning (Table 1). Marigrace was responsible for only 33.20% of the
meaning negotiations (mean per conference = 1.66); Zohre was
responsible for 55.75% (mean per conference = 6.30) and Tranh for
60.78% (mean per conference = 7.75). This is another measure
demonstrating that Tranh did the most conversational work in the
conferences, Zohre the next, and Marigrace considerably less than
either of the other two.
The amount of work that the students did is also reflected in the
degree to which they used each type of discourse structure (see
Table 2). Those episodes where the student did less work than the
TABLE 2
Comparison of Student Input: Discourse Structure (%)
teacher (teacher questions/student answers, and teacher talks/

student backchannels) occurred most frequently with Marigrace
(60.60%), the next most frequently for Zohre (50.00%), and

considerably less frequently for Tranh (14.28%). In contrast,
episodes where the student did more of the work (student ques-
tions/teacher answers, and student talks/teacher backchannels)
never occurred in Marigrace’s conferences, occurred 8.33% of the
time in Zohre’s conferences, and 14.28% of the time in Tranh’s.
Episodes in which student and teacher shared the work occurred
least frequently for Marigrace (21.21%), more frequently for Zohre
(36.11%) and most frequently for Tranh (53.57%).
The Relationship Between Revision and Negotiation

Table 3 presents the results of the analysis of the relationship
between the revision of the written drafts and negotiation of
revisions. These results support our hypothesis that there is a
positive relationship between negotiation and successful revision.
TABLE 3
Negotiations of Revisions (%)
When teacher and student negotiated revisions, the ensuing

revisions were almost always successful (see Table 3). In the
following excerpt from one of Zohre’s conferences, for example,
the teacher and Zohre discuss the need to include more concrete
details in a paper written as a letter to convince a friend to come for
a visit. In lines 9-10 Zohre negotiates by asking if a certain revision
strategy would be appropriate, and in lines 27-29 she checks her
understanding of the number of examples needed:
T: Um:: (teacher reading from Zohre’s text) “In addition there are
many cheap ethnic restaurants in which can satisfy the taste of
an adventurist person.” Here’s another place where I think that
452 TESOL QUARTERLY

someone could get a real sense of the place um by describing a
little bit the kind of food you might get in one particular restaurant
a Thai restaurant or something like that
Um
the sensations the taste what the food looks like (.)
like ok in different restaurants like I say what kind of food they
have
Umhum, um: you know if I were if I were gonna write to someone
and I was gonna say um you can find many cheap ethnic
restaurants you can sa-satisfy the taste of an adventurist person that
means a taste I’ve never tasted before urn if I’m an adventurous
person I’m gonna try something new. So I’d try to think of
something exotic you know for example you could try Thai food
and you can taste the hot and sweet flavors in combination with
each other with coconut milk urn
um
make their mouths water
ya
you know in a sense. You don’t have to the purpose of the paper
isn’t to describe the restaurant so you don’t have to go into any
great detail but if you could just have one line the dominant flavors
of a particular cuisine I think would make it very vivid
o.k. just one example
ya
would be enough
ya
In the subsequent draft of the paper Zohre adds details that give the
reader a more vivid picture of one of the restaurants:
there are many cheap restaurants in which can satisfy the taste of an
adventurist person. For example, there is a Moroccan restaurant which
serves you with a spicy lentil based soup, platters of Arabic bread and
different entrees, most of which are chicken or lamb stewed with
various combinations of fruits and vegetables. In this restaurant you eat
with your fingers like North African tradition.
These details were of Zohre’s own making, not a copy of those
given as an illustration by the teacher. She extracted the principle
and applied it to her own writing.
Table 3 shows that all three students, not only Zohre, had a higher
percentage of successful revisions when negotiation had taken
place. Every time Marigrace and Zohre negotiated, their sub-
sequent revisions were successful. When Tranh negotiated, 91.66%
(11/12) of his revisions were successful. None of Tranh’s were
unsuccessful, but there is one instance where he did not revise
STUDENT INPUT lN ESL WRITING CONFERENCES 453

despite negotiation. This lack of revision, however, may be due to
a discussion between the teacher and Tranh in which this revision
was determined to be of relatively minor importance.
In contrast, when the students did not negotiate (i.e., when the
teacher made revision suggestions and the student backchanneled),
the subsequent revisions were often either unsuccessful or not
attempted at all (Table 3). For example, in the same conference
referred to above, Zohre did not negotiate when the teacher sug-
gested using more specific details in another part of the paper.
Zohre only backchanneled while the teacher spoke
T: . . . where I fel– I felt you needed the detail and (teacher reading
Zohre’s text) “it has really nice and big campus” this
Z: uhuh
T: word “nice” means nothing
Z: oh
T: O.K. what does nice mean
Z: O.K. like I know
T: um you might want to describe the campus briefly
Z: o.k.
T: here it’s set on a hill lots of green and the architecture you know
Z: ya
The only change Zohre made in her next draft is from “it has really
nice and big campus” to “It has a nice and big campus.” She did not
address the need for specific details.
We can also contrast this excerpt to the previous one While Zohre
did not do a lot of conversational work in either excerpt, in the
previous one she did negotiate the revision suggestion, and she
acted on that suggestion successfully. She did not act on the
nonnegotiated suggestion even though both suggestions addressed
the need for more detail.
The relationship between lack of negotiation and unsuccessful/
unattempted revision holds for all three students (Table 3). When
revisions had not been negotiated, Zohre either revised unsuccess-
fully (40%) or did not attempt revision at all (60%). While Tranh had
some successful revisions (20%) when he didn’t negotiate, the
majority were unsuccessful (60%) or not attempted (20%). Although
Marigrace had the highest number of successful revisions in
nonnegotiated instances (33.33%), she still produced a greater
number of unsuccessful revisions (66.67%). In three out of the four
cases of nonnegotiated successful revision (both of Marigrace’s and
one of Tranhs), the discussion included specific instructions for
very mechanical revisions, such as the switching of the order of two
454 TESOL QUARTERLY

sentences. And, in these cases, the instructions were restated. The
simplicity of these revisions and the restatements may explain why,
even without negotiation, these revisions were successful.
DISCUSSION
Our results do not support some of the claims that have been
made for conferences. Much of the literature suggests that the very
act of conferencing (see, for example, Carnicelli, 1980; Zamel, 1985)
leads students to contribute input setting the agenda, making their
needs known, expressing their ideas and opinions, and asking
questions and clarifying meaning. However, we have not found this
to be the case for all the students in this study. Like Jacobs and
Karliner (1977) and Freedman and Sperling (1985), we have found
variation across students in the way they interact with the teacher in
a conference. Marigrace’s conferences were characterized by the
teacher generating most of the input and doing most of the
conversational work: The teacher nominated the topics, the teacher
did most of the talking, and the teacher used questions to engage
Marigrace in the interaction. Marigrace primarily backchanneled.
Tranhs conferences contrasted sharply with those of Marigrace. His
were characterized by student and teacher equally contributing
topic nominations, questions and talk, and backchannels; they
shared in the building of the discourse. Zohre’s conferences fell
between these extremes. Thus, while a student may contribute input
to the conference, may set the agenda, and may negotiate meaning,
these are not guaranteed—even in conferences with the same teacher.
Each student who participates in a conference brings to that con-
ference a unique personality that may affect the ways in which that
student behaves in the conference. For example, the teacher’s
impression, before the study began, was that Tranh was the most
assertive, Zohre the next, and Marigrace the least. If this is the case
this might be one explanation of why Tranh contributed the most
input, Zohre somewhat less, and Marigrace the least.
The teacher’s role in producing variation in the conference
discourse needs to be considered. One possibility is that the teacher
may have adjusted to the student’s individual discourse style, thus
reinforcing it, whether or not this resulted in the student actively
participating in the conference. For instance, the greater amount of
conversational work done by the teacher in Marigrace’s confer-
ences, asking many questions for example, may be an adjustment to
Marigrace’s lack of voluntary input and may have encouraged her
to continue to rely on the teacher to do most of the interfactional
work in the conference.

However, it is also possible that the teacher gave differential
treatment to students for reasons other than the teacher adjusting to
the students’ own discourse styles, as Freedman and Sperling (1985)
suggested in their study. In our study, once students’ behaviors in
conference and in class had been observed, the teacher may have
subconsciously behaved in ways consistent with her expectations of
the students. The teacher may have accepted less participation from
Marigrace in the conference because she evaluated her as a less
capable student on the basis of her initial conferences and revisions.
On the other hand, the teacher may have been more encouraging of
discussion with students such as Tranh and Zohre who more
actively participated in conferences and who revised their papers
more successfully.
In addition, as members of diverse cultures, ESL students come
with rules of speaking that may conflict with those of U.S.
classrooms and with those teachers might like to see operate in con-
ferences. These rules of speaking may also play a role in the
students’ perceptions of theirs and their teachers’ roles in a confer-
ence. As Phillips (1972) has demonstrated, for example, students
often bring to the classroom rules of speaking from their own
cultures that work differently from those of the new culture. In our
study, it is possible that the variation we have seen across the three
students may result, at least in part, from these students using
culturally diverse rules for how much teachers and students control
the discourse when interacting with each other.
Students may have also acquired rules of speaking from typical
U.S. classrooms that may also conflict with those of the conference.
For example, in many U.S. classrooms it is the teacher who typically
initiates and questions, the student who responds, and the teacher
who evaluates (see, for example, Mehan, 1979). Again, this may
result in some students contributing more input than others. In our
study, it is possible that Marigrace had been influenced by her high
school education in the United States and was consequently follow-
ing that discourse structure.
In the end, however, regardless of why variation across students
existed, the results show that conferences do not necessarily do
what the literature claims they do—they do not necessarily result in
student input. In sum, instructional events such as conferences are
dynamic, lending themselves to the myriad influences and
interpretations of their participants.
Conferences also do not necessarily result in revision, and when
revision occurs after a conference, it is not always successful. Our
data suggest that negotiation of meaning does play a role in
subsequent revision and we need to ask why negotiation would lead
456 TESOL QUARTERLY

to more successful revisions. First, just as negotiation clarifies
meanings in ordinary conversations, negotiation in the conference
may clarify the need for revision and the strategies to undertake the
revision. Students, therefore, may understand more clearly what to
revise, how to revise, and why they need to do so. In addition,
negotiation may lead to better retention of what has been discussed.
Negotiation requires the student to be more actively involved in the
discussion either by asking questions or answering them, which may
lead to better retention (see, for example, Stevick 1976). Finally, it
is also possible that students negotiate points where they most
clearly see the need for revision; they may already be predisposed
to revising in the area being negotiated and may be more interested
in discussing how to do so. For example, in Zohre’s case, there are
several instances where she shows very little interest in the revision
the teacher has nominated for discussion, and in fact she does not
make these revisions in subsequent drafts.
Although we do not know all the characteristics of discourse that
might lead to successful revision, this study suggests that negotiation
plays an important role. The student who was conversationally
active (Tranh) and the student who was more dependent on teacher
input and direction (Marigrace) both demonstrated more successful
revisions when negotiation occurred. However, we have seen that
despite the claims made, conferences do not ensure that negotiation
will take place any more than they necessarily result in a great deal
of student input and control.
IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

We cannot expect that students will come to writing conferences
understanding the purposes of such conferences, the rules of
speaking, and the respective roles of the participants. Since the
quality of their conferences and revisions can be affected by
participant expectations, we must teach students the purposes con-
ferences can serve, and stress that the discourse and the teacher-
student relationship can vary greatly between a conference and
classroom. In a sense, we need to give students permission to break
the rules they may have learned previously and we need to teach
them new rules for a new speech event.
This can be accomplished in several ways. Teachers can have
students discuss the rules of speaking the students feel govern
classroom behavior, making these rules explicit. The teacher can
then discuss conferencing with students in terms of the goals of con-
ferences, the roles of participants, and the rules of speaking. Con-
ferences and classrooms can be compared and contrasted so that

students understand the differences and gain permission to behave
differently in conferences.
Furthermore, our results suggest that students might benefit from
explicit instruction concerning the importance of their conversa-
tional input and of the negotiation of meaning; in addition, students
need to be taught concrete ways to achieve these goals. We have
experimented with bringing the transcripts of the students in this
study into our ESL writing classes and having our students analyze
them. From this, the students have seen the differences among the
conferences, and they have learned specific techniques for
contributing input and negotiating meaning and revisions.
As teachers, we need to examine our own behaviors as well. One
means of doing so is to tape our conferences (with permission from
our students) and then examine them with particular questions in
mind. For example, we can ask if we control the discourse, thereby
discouraging our students from participating in the conference. By
coding how and the degree to which the teacher and student
nominate topics, and the relative amounts of teacher and student
talk, we can begin to answer this question. We can also compare the
treatment we give to different students, seeing if all are given equal
opportunities to contribute input and negotiate meaning. In
addition, we can examine the degree to which we negotiate
meaning when we want to clarify for ourselves or for the students.
There are many questions to be asked, and taping and analyzing the
discourse in our conferences is one means of answering these
questions.
In composition research we must move beyond an assessment of
the effectiveness of conferences based primarily on student and
teacher evaluations. While it is important to know the participants’
attitudes towards conferences, and the criteria by which students
and teachers judge the effectiveness of conferences, we need to
understand how discourse is jointly built by the participants, and
what characteristics of the discourse influence “success,” defined as
either improvements in subsequent revisions or in terms of more
positive student attitudes. We also need studies that compare the
success of revisions made after conferences with those made after
written comments so that we can examine the relative effectiveness
of these different forms of feedback.
Finally, ESL composition teachers are indebted to those who
teach native speakers and who have conducted research with
native-speaker writers. They have taught us much about compos-
ing, and over time we have discovered that their findings are often
applicable to ESL students. However, while the results of this study
are similar to those of Jacobs and Karliner’s (1977) study of native
458 TESOL QUARTERLY

speakers, we should keep in mind that ESL students bring with
them diverse cultures and languages. This fact argues for more
research conducted with an ESL population. There may be, for
example, many student characteristics, such as culture, that
potentially affect how students conference or how their teachers
respond to them. For that matter, teachers may differ greatly from
each other in how they interact with their students in conferences
(see, for example, Katz, 1988). These factors, among many others,
need to be systematically studied since writing conferences are not
stable entities but rather, dynamic events affected by context and
participants.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is a revised version of presentations made at the 22nd Annual TESOL
Convention in Chicago, March 1988; the Second Language Acquisition Forum in
Honolulu, March 1988; and the 1989 Conference on College Composition and
Communication in Seattle, March 1989. We would like to thank the students who
participated in this study and Anne Katz, Joanne Cavallero, Kathi Bailey, Tim
Hacker, and two anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers for their valuable
suggestions on the paper.
THE AUTHORS
Lynn M. Goldstein is Associate Professor of TESOL/applied linguistics and the
coordinator of campus-wide writing courses at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies. She has published articles on second language acquisition
and on dialogue journals, and is the 1987 recipient of the TESOL/Newbury House
distinguished research award.
Susan M. Conrad teaches ESL at Central Washington University. She has also
taught ESL and composition in California, New York City, and Korea, and as a
Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho. She has published on dialogue journals, and
has made presentations on discourse analysis and composition.
REFERENCES
Carnicelli, T. A. (1980). The writing conference A one-to-one conversa-
tion. In T. R. Donovan & B. W. McClelland (Eds.), Eight approaches to
teaching composition (pp. 101-131). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Freedman, S., & Katz, A. (1987). Pedagogical interaction during the
composing process: The writing conference. In A. Matsuhasi (Ed.),
Writing in real time: Modeling production processes (pp. 58-80). New
York: Academic Press.
Freedman, S., & Sperling, M. (1985). Written language acquisition: The
role of response and the writing conference. In S. Freedman (Ed.),
Acquisition of written language: Response and revision (pp. 106-130).
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Jacobs, S., & Karliner, A. (1977). Helping writers to think: The effect of
speech roles in individual conferences on the quality of thought in
student writing. College English, 38, 489-505.
Katz, A. (1988). Responding to student writers: The writing conferences of
second language learners. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford
University, Palo Alto.
Long, M. H. (1983). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation and
the negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4, 126-141.
Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Philips, S. U. (1972). Participant structure and communicative compe-
tence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. In
C. Cazden, V. Johns, & D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of language in the
classroom (pp. 370-394). New York: Teachers College Press.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematic for
the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 694-735.
Sinclair, J. McH., & Coulthard, R. M. (1975). Towards an analysis of
discourse. London: Longman.
Sokmen, A. A. (1988). Taking advantage of conference-centered writing.
TESOL Newsletter, 22 (l), 1,5.
Stevick, E. W. (1976). Memory, meaning, and method. Rowley, MA:
Newbury House.
van Lier, L. (1988). The classroom and the language learner. London:
Longman.
Walker, C. P., & Elias, D. (1987). Writing conference talk: Factors
associated with high- and low-rated writing conferences. Research in the
Teaching of English, 21, 266-285.
Zamel,7V. (1985). Responding to student writing. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (1),
79-97.
460 TESOL QUARTERLY

Teaching the English Articles

as a Binary System
PETER MASTER
California State University, Fresno
The English article system can be taught as a binary division

between classification (a and Ø) and identification (the). All the
other elements of article usage can be understood within this
framework, allowing a one form/one function correspondence for
a and the. Furthermore, the notions of classification and identifi-
cation can be introduced as distinct concepts before the various
rules for article usage are taught. This simplified schema is
presented as a pedagogical tool for selecting the appropriate
article, a universally acknowledged difficulty for nonnative
speakers of English.
The English article system is one of the most difficult aspects of

English grammar for nonnative speakers and one of the latest to be
fully acquired. It appears deceptively easy to most native speakers,
who usually have difficulty articulating the rules for article usage
much beyond “It sounds right.” And since the articles are either
unstressed (a(n) and the) or invisible (the zero article [Ø]), it is
difficult for students to gain sufficient input from native speakers to
acquire the system. Furthermore, the articles, like the other late-
acquired elements rarely cause misunderstanding when misused in
spoken language. It is usually only when ESL/EFL students have to
write that they become aware that they lack the basic concepts
necessary to guide them in choosing the correct article.
There are comparatively few attempts in the literature to provide
a coherent grammar for teaching the articles as a system. Whitman
(1974) bases his pedagogical sequence on the assumption that En-
glish article structure is “a sequence of quantification and
determination rather than a choice between specified and
unspecified (p. 253). He delineates six steps for teaching the
system:
1. Quantity (Singular and plural count nouns)
John has a book versus John has [Ø] four books.
461
2. Generic plural
All apples are red versus [Ø] Apples are red.
3. Noncount nouns. (Noncount vs. count and a lot of vs. much
and many)
John drank a lot of water versus John bought a lot of books.
Do we have much water? versus Do we have many books?
4. Determiners (which- NP questions and first/subsequent men-
tion)
Which books are red? The red books are on the table.
I read a book. The book was called Dracula.
5. Quantity and determiner
One of the books on that table is blue.
6. Generic articles
Elephants never forget.
An elephant never forgets.
The elephant never forgets.
Whitman maintains that generic usages of a/n and the “are not that
commonly found” and are “probably best delayed considerably” in
teaching the article system (p. 261).
McEldowney (1977) takes a form/content approach to the
teaching of the articles. She says that four types of meaning are
communicated by the presence or absence of a, the, or -s in various
combinations in noun phrases: (a) general or particular, (b) any or
special, (c) countable or uncountable, and (d) singular or plural. She
then cites three universal types of error which she claims occur
irrespective of Ll: (a) omission of a/the/-s, (b) wrong insertion of
a/the/-s, and (c) confusion of a/the/-s. With these taxonomies in
view, McEldowney proposes the following “stages of learning”
(p. 110):
1. Classification
a + N (any one) versus the + N (the special one).
Choose a bag. versus Take the red bag.
N + s (plural classification)
These are bags.
2. Plurality
some + N + s (any ones)
Choose some bags from the collection.
the + N + s (the special ones)
Take the red bags.
462 TESOL QUARTERLY

3. Mass or substance
N (the substance in general)
Mud is found at the bottom of rivers.
some + N (any substance)
Some mud is grey; some mud is black.
the + N (the special substance)
Point to the black mud.
4. Numbered specific; generic
numeral N + s (any numbered ones)
Choose six pens from the collection.
a + N/the + N (ones in general)/the + N + s
An elephant never forgets.
The elephant never forgets.
The elephants never forget.
McEldowney’s sequence links the English articles to three
concepts: any (a) to mark choice, special (the) to mark specifica-
tion, and general (-s and later a and the) to mark generalization. Her
decision to resort to the -s plural in order to avoid referring to the
zero article, however, results in the neglect of the relatively frequent
Ø + noncount noun category (e.g., This battery needs water).
Pica (1983) argues not for a new pedagogical sequence but for the
inclusion of discourse-related rules in the presentation of the English
article system. She based her research on a perusal of the kinds of
article rules typically presented in ESL/EFL grammar texts and
compares them with the article use of native speakers in requesting
and giving directions and ordering food at restaurants. She
concludes that “article use may have more to do with communica-
tion and communicative competence than with grammar and lin-
guistic competence” (p. 231) and makes the following recommen-
dations for instruction:
1. Since articles are often not necessary in immediate environ-
ments, activities like ordering food should be practiced first
“as a nonfrustrating lesson for beginning students” (p. 232).
2. First mention a and subsequent mention the are easy to teach
from a pedagogical point of view but are not used as
frequently as preforms (i.e., possessive pronouns) in natural
speech.
3. Since assessing the knowledge of the hearer is often no simple
matter, students should be encouraged to always use the with
a qualifying description rather than just a bare noun (e. g., the
nearest post office vs. the post office; the university bookstore
vs. the bookstore).
TEACHING THE ENGLISH ARTICLES 463

4. Dialogues should be used to provide students with relevant
examples of article use and the effect of using an incorrect
article should be discussed with the class to increase awareness
of native usage.
5. Students should be engaged in experiences outside the
classroom to foster natural acquisition.
Pica’s points are generally well taken, especially if spoken com-
municative competence is the goal and especially for students at
lower levels of proficiency. With more advanced students,
especially if the goal is written competence (where article errors
really stand out), Pica’s suggestions would need to be supplemented
with more detailed aspects of the article system.
Master (1983) presented a detailed schema for teaching the Eng-
lish article system, which was subsequently refined in other
publications (Master 1986a, 1986b, 1988a, 1988b). This system
presented a hierarchical sequence of six questions which must be
asked about each noun in a piece of discourse:
1. Is the noun countable (singular or plural) or uncountable (singular)?
2. Is the noun indefinite or definite?
3. Is the noun postmodified or not?
4. Is the noun specific or generic?
5. Is the noun common or proper?
6. Is the noun nonidiomatic or idiomatic (e.g., a set phrase, a title or
label reduction)? (Master, 1986b, p. 204)
A controlled study (Master, 1986c) in which this 6-point schema was
used in the experimental group versus no systematic treatment of
the article system in the control group found significant im-
provement on a fairly reliable article test (r = .79) between pre- and
postadministrations. The treatment, consisting of 6 hours of instruc-
tion spread over a period of 9 weeks, provided the intermediate
university-level experimental group with a systematic approach to
the article system in which the six steps were presented one at a
time, each building on the former in a hierarchical fashion. The
control group received no explicit, systematic approach to the
article system, although articles were corrected on written
compositions.
JUSTIFICATION OF THE BINARY SCHEMA

Although the schemas described above cover the majority of
situations in which articles occur, they are somewhat unwieldy for
464 TESOL QUARTERLY

students to use. Lisovsky (personal communication, 1987) created
an exercise in which he asked his students to identify whether a
noun was [± count], [± definite], [± postmodified], or [± generic]
before they selected the correct article. He found little correlation
between the students’ ability to classify the noun and their choice of
the correct article. Thus, despite considerable time spent on
teaching these distinctions, students appeared not to be able to use
this knowledge in choosing the article in an exercise. It would thus
seem that the significant improvement on the article test described
in Master (1986c) arose from the focusing of students’ attention on
the need for articles in English rather than from any explicit method
for choosing the article correctly.
What is needed is a description of the articles that would conform
to Bolinger’s (1977) notion that “the natural condition of a language
is to preserve one form for one meaning, and one meaning for one
form” (p. x), i.e., a generalized function of a and a generalized
function of the. Both students and teachers would welcome a
straightforward rule of thumb that accounts for article usage in the
greatest number of cases.
A one form/one function correspondence can be approximated
when Ø is used to classify a noun and the to identify it (as a is
derived from the word one and therefore only applies to singular
countable nouns, it is considered a variant form of Ø rather than a
separate category of articles). This binary division results from a
rejuggling of various descriptions of the English articles in order to
simplify their pedagogical presentation. The term classification, or
variations of it, has been used before in describing the article
system. Kruisinga (1932) used the term classifying (p. 242) to
describe the secondary or generic function of the definite article
whose function was to make a class noun into “a synonym for the
whole group” (p. 245). He thus used the term for a binary division,
but only to separate specific from generic usage. McEldowney
(1977) used the word classify (p. 110) in describing plural countable
nouns that do not require an article (i. e., take the zero article). As for
identification, Grannis (1972) spoke of a “conspiracy of uniqueness”
(p. 275) in which he sought to give a single meaning to the various
uses of the; this exactly parallels the aim of the present study. He did
not, however, apply the same notion to a and Ø.
In formal linguistic terms, determining the correct article in Eng-
lish requires the simultaneous consideration of four features:
definiteness [± definite], specificity [±specific], countability
[±count], and number [±singular]. Number really only applies to
[±count] nouns and should therefore only be considered a feature
of that subset. The four possibilities that result from combining the

features [±definite] and [±specific] are shown in the following
examples:
la. [–definite] [+specific] A tick entered my ear.
b. [–definite][–specific] A tick carries disease.
c. [+definite] [+specific] The computer is down today.
d. [+definite][–specific] The computer is changing our lives.
The new approach that the binary schema proposes is the collapsing
of the features [±definite] and [±specific] into a single feature
[±identified]. The feature [identified], or identification, thus
includes the features [+definite] [+specific] whereas [–identified],
or classification, includes the features [–definite] [–specific]. The
binary [ + identified] schema is essentially an argument for the
primacy of Examples lb and lC over la and 1d. In other words, it
suggests emphasizing the feature [ + definite ] and subsuming the
feature [ + specific ] for pedagogical purposes. The feature
[ + identified] thus comes close to the traditional feature [ + definite ].
A justification for this attempt to simplify the article system is set
forth in Stern’s (1983) description of pedagogical grammars: “A
pedagogical grammar is an interpretation and selection for lan-
guage teaching purposes of the description of a language, based not
only on linguistics but also on psychological and educational
criteria” (p. 186). The justification for the new terminology is that
the terms identified and classified embrace a larger concept than
definiteness, and, while they reduce the descriptive adequacy
required in formal linguistics, they allow a better description and
explanation of the article system for educational and psychological
purposes.
The Effect of Ignoring Specificity in Indefinite Nouns

Ignoring the feature [±specific] in indefinite nouns is equivalent
to saying that [–definite] embraces [–specific] or that all uses of a
(and Ø) are essentially generic. The specific/generic distinction
indicates when a noun phrase is a “real” or actual noun as opposed
to when it is the idea or concept of a noun. In the sentence A tick
entered my ear, a tick is specific because an actual tick entered my
ear. On the other hand, in the sentence A tick can carry disease, a
tick is generic because it does not refer to an actual tick but rather
to anything that can fit into the class of things called “ticks.” This is
obviously a very subtle distinction. Burton-Roberts (1976), for
example, argues that a scientist in John is a scientist is specific
whereas a scientist in A physicist is a scientist is generic. Generic
466 TESOL QUARTERLY

NPs are difficult to identify because they are based entirely on
context, i.e., they can only be determined from discourse
considerations and/or the nature of the sentence. This led some
researchers (e.g., Chafe 1969) to conclude that it was really the verb
that determined genericness and not the noun phrase. Celce-Murcia
and Larsen-Freeman (1983) speak of the potential ambiguity of the
indefinite article in a sentence such as I needed a book, which
allows both the specific interpretation but I didn’t have it and the
generic interpretation but I didn’t have one.
The binary schema thus seeks to diminish the importance of the
difference between Examples la and lb. The argument is that
whether or not we mean a specific, actual tick in Example la or a
generic one in Example lb, we still classify that tick when we use
the article a. These sentences could be paraphrased in the following
way:
2a. Something that can be classified as a tick entered my ear.
b. Something that can be classified as a tick carries disease.
The major consequence of the feature [–specific] (or [+generic])
is that subsequent mention constraints do not apply to the generic
noun phrase, generic noun phrases do not allow the unstressed
determiner some, and generic a cannot occur with nonrestrictive
relative clauses. However, spending class time on a distinction that
requires the same article (a in this case, although the same applies to
the zero article) seems unnecessary in all but the most advanced
levels of ESL/EFL instruction. This is especially true when the
[ + specific] status of a noun phrase is ambiguous, as shown in the
following passage from Newsweek (“Lost Signals,” 1989):
Husbands and wives [–spec] tend to bring their own scripts [–spec] to
a relationship [–spec] and assume, mistakenly, that their spouse
[+spec?] can read their emotional signals [+spec?] loud and clear. The
result [+spec] of this unwitting breakdown [+spec] in communication
[–spec] is often a vicious cycle [–spec] of attack and retaliation
[–spec]. Now, through adaptation [–spec] of a technique [–spec]
called “cognitive therapy” [—spec], counselors [—spec?] are helping to
patch up troubled marriages [–spec?] by teaching couples [–spec?] to
become better senders and receivers [–spec?] of emotional messages
[–spec?]. (p. 3)
The problem in this passage is that the author shifts from a clearly
generic introduction into an example, and it is hard to say (and not
particularly important, in my view) whether the example refers to
actual [+specific] or to representative [–specific] spouses or
situations,

The Effect of Ignoring Specificity in Definite Nouns
Ignoring the feature [±specific] in definite nouns is equivalent to
saying that [+definite] embraces [+specific] or that all uses of the
are essentially specific. As already noted, the specific versus generic
distinction shows when a noun phrase is the idea or concept of a
noun versus when it is a “real” or actual noun. The same distinction
is also apparent in the sentences The computer is changing our lives
versus The computer is down today. Although this is a more
substantial difference and one that must be recognized, generic the
is a comparatively infrequent usage.
In the proposed binary schema, generic the would count as
[+identified] and not as classified, thus posing a potential problem
for the schema. There are some who believe, however, that generic
the is not so very different from specific the. Burton-Roberts (1976)
states:
Generic NP’s mention individuals (ones that happen to be classes) just as
my brother and the sun mention individuals. Such NPs then are
fundamentally distinct from NPs determined by generic a, which do not
mention individuals. . . . definite NPs appearing . . . in sentences which
. . . mention individuals can be acceptably interpreted as generic (for
the simple reason that they are themselves individuals, and have the
same distribution as other NP’s mentioning individuals). (p. 435)
Burton-Roberts implies that the identified quality of even a
generic NP like the computer is retained. That is, we do not
immediately summon up the classifying notion “one of a group” for
this NP until we have decoded the sentence in which it occurs. And
even when we understand that the NP requires a generic
interpretation, we seem to interpret the class through the individual.
For this reason, generic the is described as “the identification of a
class” in the binary schema and is considered to be [+identified].
This is further justified by the fact that generic the has certain
qualities (e.g., it is often preferred when the noun is an agent of
change) which distinguish it from generic a and Ø (see Master, 1987,
who found generic the to occur comparatively infrequently, with
just under 350 instances in 50,000 words of text from Scientific
American, a genre in which one would expect considerable generic
usage).
PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS
It was suggested earlier that one of the pedagogical advantages of
the binary schema is that classification and identification can be
presented to students as concepts before the linkage to articles is
468 TESOL QUARTERLY

explained. After this dichotomy has been explained, the countabil-
ity of the noun must also be considered.
Classification can be introduced by having students sort a pile of
objects into categories: These are books/These are pencils/This is
paper. Or a teacher can go around the classroom asking, “What’s
this?” (It’s a blackboard/It’s a light switch/It’s chalk.) For more
advanced students, one could set classifying situations, e.g., “How
would you classify or describe the school/this student/the film
you’ve been watching?” (It’s a language school/She’s an Italian/It’s
a comedy.) Or, since definitions always require classification, one
could ask how a student would define a thermometer/a calculator/
a paragraph. All responses to the questions presented above require
Ø or a in the answer, the distinction entirely dependent on the
number and countability of the noun. Students will sometimes
spontaneously recognize this on their own. If not, it must be pointed
out to them.
Identification can be introduced by having students identify
specific members within each category: This is the blue book/
These are the red books. The questions “Which one is this?/Which
ones are these?” force an identifying response. Although the
classifying question “What’s this?” could also elicit an identifying
response in the real world (e.g., It’s the key you accused me of
stealing/it’s the remains of the steak you’ve been broiling for the last
half hour), the use of the question words what for classification and
which for identification is recommended in order to keep the
pedagogical distinction clear.
Ultimately, the student should be able to understand the
difference between the two. For example, the teacher could say,
pointing to a student:
3a. How would you classify this person? (She’s a student.)
b. How would you identify this person? (She’s the student with the red
hat./it’s Joan.)
Names (proper nouns) identify, as do possessive determiners (e.g.,
my, his, their), possessive -’s (e. g., John’s, the girl’s), demonstratives
(e.g., this, that), and certain other determiners (e.g., either/neither,
each, and every). The articles Ø and a classify, as do the determiners
some/any, no and one.
Countability and Number

The purpose of the binary schema is to simplify article choice by
reducing the number of features required to correctly determine
the article from four to three. We turn now to the features of

countability and number, which the schema cannot dispense with.
Countability must be considered only when the noun is classified
([–identified) because identified nouns require the whether the
noun is countable or not. The primary article occurring with
uncountable and countable nouns is Ø. In a tally of all the articles
used with common nouns in an issue of Newsweek (1989) (N =
5004), 46% of the nouns took Ø, 35% took the, and 19% took a. If a and
Ø are combined, the function of articles, at least in this genre, is to
classify (65%), nearly twice as often as it is to identify (35%). The tally
also underscores the importance of the zero article, which has often
been neglected in article studies because it is difficult to count (e.g.,
Brown, 1973; Lamotte, Pearson-Joseph, and Zupko, 1982). One of
the reasons Ø occurs more often is that it applies to both noncount
nouns and to plural count nouns, not to mention the numerous cases
in which Ø occurs with a singular count noun (e.g., at school, on
edge, the smell of onion, hunting fox). Thus, nouns are typically
classified with Ø, and only with a discrete, singular count noun is a
required. In other words, a fully separate feature indicating
[± singular] is really not justified given the comparative infrequency
of a. This reduces the number of “features” governing the articles
from three to two: [ ±identified] and [±count ].
The best way to assign the articles, as other writers have pointed
out (e.g., Huckin & Olsen, 1983), is through a flow chart in which
the classification/identification dichotomy is invoked first,
followed by the count/noncount dichotomy and finally by singular/
plural considerations, as shown in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1
Chart for Determining the English Articles
470 TESOL QUARTERLY

Teaching the Details of Article Usage Within the Binary Framework
After the concepts of classification and identification have been
presented and practiced, a chart (see Figure 2) can be drawn on the
blackboard—the left side for classification, the right for identifica-
tion—to show how the details of article usage can be interpreted in
a binary manner. The count/noncount distinction is then discussed
as a subset of classification as this distinction is not necessary when
the is present.
FIGURE 2
Summarized Aspects of Classification and ldentification
First and subsequent mention. The next step is to teach the notion of
first and subsequent mention. First mention, which requires Ø or a,
is simply a form of classification in the binary schema. The first time
we are introduced to a new noun, it is simply a member of a class.
The classifying article can be paraphrased with the words n o
particular or one we haven’t seen before. So we might say: "A man
[no particular man] is walking down a road [no particular road]
with some wood [no particular wood] ." The subsequent mention of
that noun of course requires the: The man is old, the road is long,
and the wood is heavy. But the reason the is required is that the
nouns are now identified. To use the questions described earlier, we
could ask of the first mention picture, “What’s that?” (It’s a man/It’s
a road/it’s wood.) However, in the subsequent mention picture we
could ask, “Which man/road/wood is that?” (It’s the old man who
is carrying some wood/it’s the road that the old man is walking

along/It’s the wood that the old man is carrying.) Notice that if we
had asked the which question of the first mention picture, a logical
response would have been “How should I know?” or, imagining an
identifying response, “I suppose it’s the one the speaker/writer is
talking about.” On our chart (Figure 2), we would put “first
mention” on the classification side and “subsequent mention” on the
identification side, and then provide students lots of practice in
which they can apply just this principle.
Ranking adjectives and shared knowledge. Ranking adjectives and
shared knowledge automatically identify nouns, so they always
require the. They both belong under the identification column of
the chart. A typical way to paraphrase the in English is to say “the
only one.” Thus, when we say “the most beautiful/the next/the only
city,” for example, representing the three kinds of ranking
adjectives (superlative, sequential, unique), we know that there is
only one city that can be meant. Similarly, with shared knowledge,
when we say “the moon/the school/the window,” representing the
two most common kinds of shared knowledge (universal and
regional/local), we know that only one is being referred to. It must
therefore be identified.
Postmodification. In teaching the effect of postmodification on
article use, an amorphous shape can be drawn on the blackboard to
represent a noncount noun and the word water written (using Ø and
thereby classifying it) inside that shape. The word salt/spring/lake
is then written in front of that word and students are asked what the
article should now be. Invariably, they will say “the.” This response
can be used as a jumping off point to introduce the notion of
postmodification because it is only when an uncountable noun is
postmodified that the is required. This is introduced by drawing a
broken line to isolate a small part of the amorphous shape, to limit
the quantity. In this way, a sentence like Water is necessary for life
can be contrasted with The water in this glass is dirty. In terms of
classification/identification, when we speak of water or salt/
spring/lake water, we are speaking of no particular water but rather
a type of water, which naturally comes under classification. When
we postmodify water, essentially limiting it, then we have identified
that water. So “limiting postmodification” is placed under the
identification column because one of the ways to identify
something is to postmodify it.
After students have had a chance to practice moving from a
classified to an identified noncount or plural count noun by means
of postmodification, another example is introduced: A thermometer
is an instrument that measures temperature. This is an example
472 TESOL QUARTERLY
I
where postmodification does not require identification, which is
always the case in definitions or, for that matter, in any postmodify-
ing phrase whose function is to classify or define rather than to
identify. The distinction is shown in the following example:
4a. Houdini was the man who could open any lock. [identification]
b. Houdini was a man who could open any lock. [classification]
In the first sentence, we single out Houdini (i.e., identify him) as
being the one who was perhaps the best at this particular skill. In the
second, we place Houdini in a group of like others (i.e., we classify
him). “Defining postmodification” is therefore placed under the
classification heading opposite “limiting postmodification.”
Descriptive versus partitive. A slightly more complicated version of
this technique applies to postmodification with of-phrases. If the of-
phrase serves to describe the headnoun (e.g., the diameter of a
circle, the length of a room), then it limits that noun, which serves
to identify it because there is usually only one. Furthermore, such
phrases can be inverted into possessive structures (a circle’s
diameter, a room’s length) and we have already seen that possessive
determiners always serve to identify nouns. If, on the other hand,
the headnoun of the of-phrase represents a portion, part (hence the
term partition), or measure of the object of the preposition of (e.g.,
a cup of coffee, a length of eight feet), then it presents one of many
possible divisions of that object (we could have a pound/bag/
teaspoon of coffee or a height/diumeter/thickness of eight feet),
which serves to classify it. Partitive phrases cannot be inverted into
possessive structures (*coffee’s cup, *eight feet’s length). Thus,
“descriptive of-phrases” is placed under the identification column
of the chart and “partitive of-phrases”’ under the classification
column.
Intentional vagueness. One special use of descriptive of- phrases with

Ø rather than the occurs frequently in scientific prose. A phrase like
the replication of cells, a typical descriptive of-phrase, which
usually takes the, is sometimes rendered with the zero article,
replication of cells. Christophersen (1939) noted that “when
continuate-words [i.e., noncount nouns] and plurals are used in
zero-form [i.e., with the zero article]. . . . only the common
properties of the object denoted are thought of, not special features,
and as for quantity, the limits are imagined as vague and indefi-
nite” (p. 66). This usage is commonly referred to as “intentional
vagueness.” Replication of cells represents a less focused notion and
hence more a type of classification than the replication of cells,

which represents a focused, identified activity. Thus, “intentional
vagueness” is also placed in the classification column.
Other classifying conditions. One of the more important classifying
conditions is the description of general characteristics, often with
the verb have:
5a. A zebra has [Ø] stripes.
b. Jupiter has a red spot.
c. San Francisco has a population of 800,000.
Another is the use of classifying noun phrases after existential there
and it:
6a. There is a book on the table.
b. There are [Ø] holes in your sweater
c. There is [Ø] paint in your hair.
d. It’s a boy.
e. It’s [Ø] sugar.
This category subsumes the whole notion of generic noun phrases,
that is, abstract representatives of a class rather than actual
representatives, because an abstract representative is a classifica-
tion.
Proper nouns. One thing that the classification/identification dichot-
omy cannot simplify or explain is the use of the and Ø with proper
nouns. It seems entirely arbitrary, for example, that rivers require
the (the Amazon, the Mississippi) whereas parks require Ø
(Yosemite Park, Yellowstone National Park). For this reason
Huebner (1983) and others count articles with proper nouns as an
entirely separate class. Those proper nouns that take Ø, however,
can be both classified and identified, as in the following examples:
7a. There’s a Mr. Smith to see you, sir.
b. This was not the London I knew.
One observation concerning proper nouns, although it does not fit
the generalization that the identifies and Ø classifies may, however,
be useful to ESL/EFL teachers. The names of political divisions
(China, California, Chicago) typically take Ø whereas the titles of
political divisions (the People’s Republic of China, the state of
California, the city of Chicago) take the. Similarly, the names of
individual people, mountains, and islands (John Smith, Mt. Everest,
Wake Island) take Ø whereas the names of families, mountain
ranges, or groups of islands (the Smiths, the Himalayas, the
Hawaiian Islands) take the.
474 TESOL QUARTERLY

Idiomatic phrases. Another aspect that the classification/identifica-
tion dichotomy cannot really explain is article use in idiomatic
phrases. The use of Ø with formal names of diseases (typhoid,
cancer, meningitis) as opposed to the with less formal names (the
flu, the bends, the plague), the fact that we can use Ø with half (half
a loaf) but must use a with other fractions (an eighth of a loaf), the
use of Ø with few and little to indicate a negative context (few
people [=not many] remember him) in contrast to the use of a with
the same words to signify a positive or neutral context (a few people
[=a small group] came to the hospital) —all these, not to mention
the numerous set phrases (e.g., hand in hand, go by the board, at
sea, all in a dither), are the arbitrary phrases that characterize
idiomatic usage. Idiomatic usage remains, for the student, in the
realm of things which must be learned and memorized and for
which there is rarely a productive rule. There are some cases,
however, where the difference between the adverbial and the
nominal usage of an idiomatic phrase reflects the classification/
identification dichotomy (e.g., with in case of, in fact, and at last)
although the phrase only retains its true idiomatic sense as an
adverbial:
Adverbial Usage (classified) Nominal Usage (identified)
In case of fire, break the glass. In the case of fire, the insurance
won’t cover it.
In fact the earth is a minor planet. He lied in the fact that he didn’t tell
the whole truth.
The plane arrived at last.
— At the last, he admitted his greatest
crime.
Student Errors with Classification and Identification

The most important justification of a pedagogical methodology is
that it truly meets a student need. Do students actually make errors
with classification and identification? The following are examples
of confusion over the dichotomy from student writers whose first
languages do not contain an article system:
1. Used classification (a); required identification (the)

The hull is a lower part of the ship.
Net sales represents a total amount of activity of a merchandising
firm.
The computer is a control unit of the robot.

2. Used classification(Ø); required identification (the)
An income statement . . . shows relationship between two important
parts of the firm’s actiuity.
The manager can decide on a profitable plan for next period based
on the income statement.
3. Used identification (the, possessive determiner); required classifica-
tion (a)
The worst of forecasters occasionally produce the very good forecast.
How does one open oneself to Zen and get the clear mind?
It [the end affecter] functions like our human hand.
4. Used identification (the); required classification (Ø)
1 think this exercise needs the discussion because each student might
have a different answer.
The line has the variations such as its length, bending, and thickness.
Selecting the familiar topics for the students is important for im-
proving their motivatwn.
Such errors will no doubt be familiar to ESL/EFL composition
teachers. They show that students do indeed commonly make
errors in deciding whether to classify or to identify a noun phrase.
CONCLUSION
Many examples of article usage have been discussed that can be
understood in terms of a binary classification/identification
dichotomy. The greatest advantage of the dichotomy is that it
provides a framework in which a/ Ø has one clear role and the
another. Another advantage is that there is no need to present the
generic/specific distinction. And a third is that the notion of
intentional vagueness takes on a more principled application. The
weakness of the dichotomy is that proper nouns and idiomatic
phrases still need to be covered separately. However, even with
these, some principles of classification/identification apply.
Little has been said in this discussion regarding articles and
discourse. Rutherford (1987) summarizes the need to recognize
article usage as a discourse phenomenon with its own binary
constraints: “given” and “theme” require the whereas “new” and
“rheme” require a/ Ø (p. 77). The contrast is shown in the following
examples from Rutherford:
8a. On stage appeared a man and a child. The child [given/theme] sang
a song.
b. Last on the programme were a song and a piano piece. The song
was sung by a child [new/rheme]. (p. 167)
476 TESOL QUARTERLY

In the classification/identification dichotomy, if a noun phrase is
given (i.e., thematic), it is identified; if it is new (i.e., rhematic), it is
classified. Discourse considerations clearly play a decisive role in
article selection in first and subsequent mention environments,
including some regional/local aspects of shared knowledge and the
subsequent mention aspects of postmodification. However, in
selecting the article with ranking adjectives (e.g., the tallest
mountain), with world shared knowledge (e.g., the sun), with
descriptive versus partitive of-phrases (e.g., the diameter of a circle,
a pound of onions), with intentional vagueness (e.g., replication of)
cells), and with proper nouns and idiomatic phrases, there is no
need to go beyond sentential boundaries unless first/subsequent
mention is a factor (e. g., I loved London, but this was not t h e
London I knew). Thus, discourse is an important factor but not the
only one required for article choice. The classification/identifica-
tion dichotomy, on the other hand, can be applied whether or not
discourse is the controlling factor.
In conclusion, it has been my purpose not to undermine the
careful theoretical linguistic descriptions that have refined our
understanding of the article system but rather to provide an
understandable pedagogical tool by means of which nonnative
speakers of English might better hope to grasp this elusive aspect of
English grammar.
THE AUTHOR
Peter Master is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at California
State University, Fresno. He is the author of Science, Medicine, and Technology:
English Grammar and Technical Writing (Prentice Hall, 1986) and is interested in
the acquisition and teaching of the English article system.
REFERENCES
Bolinger, D. (1977). Meaning and form. London: Longman.
Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
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Burton-Roberts, N. (1976). On the generic indefinite article. Language,
52 (2), 427-448.
Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1983). The grammar book.
Cambridge, MA: Newbury House.

Chafe, W. (1969). English noun inflection and related matters from a
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478 TESOL QUARTERLY

Attitudes of Native and Nonnative

Speakers Toward Selected
Regional Accents of U.S. English
RANDALL L. ALFORD and JUDITH B. STROTHER
Florida Institute of Technology
Although some research has been done on the attitudes of native

speakers of English toward various regional varieties of U.S. En-
glish, few studies have been done on nonnative speakers’ reactions
toward regional accents. This empirical investigation sought to
determine the attitudes of both L1 and L2 listeners toward specific
regional accents of U.S. English and to compare and/or contrast
those attitudes. The subjects were 97 university students from
Florida Institute of Technology, half of whom were L2 listeners
(advanced ESL students) and half of whom were L1 listeners.
Through the use of a modification of the matched guise technique,
the students listened to tapes of the same passage read by a male
and female native speaker from each of the following accent
groups: (a) southern (South Carolina), (b) northern (New York),
and (c) Midwestern (Illinois). Respondents then recorded their
attitudes about each of the readers using a Likert scale. The results
indicated that the judgments of L2 subjects differed from those of
L1 subjects and that L2 subjects were able to perceive differences
in regional accents of U.S. English.
Dialects are varieties of a language, usually mutually compre-

hensible by a particular group of people. Although this seems to be
a fairly standard definition, there are debates among authors about
precise definitions of and differentiations among such terms as
dialect, variety, and accent. Chaika (1982) has included the
following as characteristics of dialects: the way words are
pronounced, syntax, and word choice between speakers, in addition
to differences in timbre, tempo, and paralinguistic features.
Wolfson (1989) states:
From the point of view of sociolinguistic description, a dialect is best
regarded as a regional variant. That is, the dialect or variety of a lan-
guage used by particular speakers is determined in large part by where
479
they come from. Pronunciation is one of the most obvious differences
separating regional dialects, but syntactic and semantic patterns also
differ, as do some sociolinguistic rules. (p. 3)
When the focus narrows to strictly pronunciation (phonological
or phonetic distinctions), the term accent is used (Fromkin &
Rodman, 1983; Peñalosa, 1981). Pronunciation differences are
probably the major factor in U.S. English regional varieties, with
vowel differences being the most crucial distinguishing feature.
Rather than being recognized as having various pronunciation rules,
regional accents are often characterized by popular labels such as
drawl, twang, nasal, and flat (Christian & Wolfram, 1979).
Although dialectologists have carefully analyzed regional dialects
for such features as lexical or phonological variations (e.g., Carver,
1987), and some research has been done to record attitudes of native
speakers of English toward selected accents of U.S. English, there is
a paucity of research dealing with perceptions of L2 speakers
toward various regional accents of U.S. English.
However, if the media is any indication, popular stereotypes
abound, available to native and nonnative speakers. It is not
uncommon to find references to various regional dialectal groups in
the popular press, especially for humorous, condescending, or
derogatory purposes. In an article on southern stereotypes on
television, Blount (1988) complained that “the stronger a character’s
Southern accent, the dumber and/or less honest the character. . . .
The license to assume that Southerners are morons still holds on TV
today” (p. 28). Derogatory images are certainly not confined to
southerners. For example, New Yorkese is considered by some to
be both crude and loud (Hunt, 1986). U.S culture is saturated with
caricatures of various ethnic and regional peoples (e.g., Lil’ Abner,
Snuffy Smith, the Dukes of Hazzard, Roseanne, Archie Bunker, and
the Honeymooners). These generalized impressions become stereo-
types of the group they are purported to represent and in many
cases such stereotypes become part of one’s cultural background—
one’s frame of reference.
According to Gallois and Callan (1981), studies of how people
form impressions have consistently shown the readiness of
individuals to use language as a cue to classify others into groups.
When people know little about an individual, they tend to attribute
to that person various traits that they associate with the group(s) to
which they assume the person belongs (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In
such situations, virtually any cue to group membership may serve as
the basis for ascribing a stereotype. Therefore, a key part of stere-
otype formation is the value judgment a person makes about
different languages or dialects (Sledd, 1969). This is clearly
480 TESOL QUARTERLY
I
demonstrated in Golden’s study (1964, cited in Sledd, 1969) showing
that southern speech elicited negative reactions among employers in
Detroit.
Stereotypes may sometimes be formed by individuals as a result
of direct experience with members of the stereotyped groups. For
the most part, however, such impressions are learned by word of
mouth or from books and films (Karlins, Coffman, & Walters,
1969). The mass media are probably the most common source for
international students, who, even before coming to the United
States, may have formed their entire impressions of the stereotypi-
cal “American” from movies, television, and the press.
These impressions may not include perceptions of regional
variation in speech patterns; no research exists on the question of
whether or not exposure to movies and television results in
nonnative listeners’ recognizing differences in varieties of English.
Such research might ask the following types of questions: (a) Are
nonnative listeners able to perceive the phonological variations in
speech by speakers of different varieties of U.S. English? (b) If they
do detect differences, do they attach value judgments to those
differences? and (c) What factors enter into these value judgments?
Some studies have dealt with how L1 speakers perceive groups
who speak different varieties of English. For example, Labov
(1969), who studied black English vernacular in New York,
confirms that “many features of pronunciation, grammar, and
lexicon are closely associated with black speakers—so closely as to
identify the great majority of black people in the northern cities by
their speech alone.” He goes on to point out that while many white
northerners, particularly those living in close proximity to black
communities, share some of these speech characteristics and some
black northerners have none, or almost none, of these features,
we are dealing with a stereotype that provides correct identification in
the great majority of cases, and therefore with a firm base in social
reality. Such stereotypes are the social basis of language perception; this
is merely one of many cases where listeners generalize from the variable
data to categorical perception in absolute terms. (p. 242)
Labov points out that a speaker who uses a stigmatized form
20%-30% of the time will be assumed to be using this form all the
time. Labov played tapes with sizable extracts from the speech of
14 individuals. He asked his subjects to identify the family back-
grounds of each and found that no one even came close to a correct
identification of black and white speakers. Labov concluded that
this result does not contradict the statement that there exists a socially
based black speech pattern; it supports everything that I have said on
ATTITUDES TOWARD U.S. REGIONAL ACCENTS 481

this point. The voices heard on the test are the exceptional cases: blacks
raised without any black friends in solidly white areas; whites raised in
areas dominated by black cultural values; white southerners raised in
predominantly black areas. . . . The speech of these individuals does not
identify them as black or white because they do not use the speech
patterns that are characteristically black or white for northern listeners.
The identifications made by these listeners, often in violation of actual
ethnic membership categories, show that they respond to black speech
patterns as a social reality. (p. 243)
In a study (Alford & Strother, in press) of southerners’ opinions of
selected regional accents, southerners’ reactions were found to be
highly sensitive to differences between northern and southern
speakers and between northern and Midwestern speakers; however,
they did not register significant differences between southern and
Midwestern speakers. This might suggest that southerners react
more positively to a Midwestern accent because they perceive it as
being more standard, more acceptable, and more similar to their
own. Since southerners rate northerners as significantly different
from both themselves and from midwesterners, it could be assumed
that this judgment is based on strong stereotypes.
Gallois and Callan (1981) examined the reactions of native-born
Australian subjects to Australian, British, and some nonnative
accents using sex of subject, nationality of speaker, and sex of
speaker as independent variables. They found a significant main
effect for sex of speaker (p < .01), indicating that males were
perceived more negatively than females, and a significant
interaction (p < .01) between nationality and sex of speaker. For
these subjects, for example, Italian male voices were rated more
negatively than any other group; Italian females as positive as any
other group and more positively than speakers with native
Australian accents, and male British speakers were rated quite
favorably. This is in direct contrast to the findings of the current
study in which males were almost always rated more positively than
females from the same dialectal regions.
Anisfeld, Bogo, and Lambert (1962) found that when the same
speakers used Jewish-accented English, they were rated much less
positively on personality characteristics and were labeled
“immigrants” on the basis of accent alone. Tucker and Lambert
(1969) used three groups” of college students as subjects (one
northern white, one southern white, and one southern black). These
subjects used adjective checklists to evaluate recorded readings by
six U.S. English dialect groups: network (the speech of television
newscasters on the major networks), educated white southern,
482 TESOL QUARTERLY

educated black southern, Mississippi peer, Howard University, and
New York alumni. They found that both northern white and
southern black judges rated the network speakers most favorably
and the educated black southerners next. The network speaker,
followed by the educated white southerner, received the most
favorable ratings by the southern white subjects. Both groups of
white subjects rated the Mississippi peer least favorably while the
black subjects ranked the educated white southerner the least
favorably.
In a study on bidialectal differences between French-speaking
and English-speaking Canadians speaking English, Lambert (1967)
made the following generalization:
A technique [matched guise] has been developed that rather effectively
calls out the stereotyped impressions that members of one ethnic-linguis-
tic group hold of another contrasting group. The type and strength of
impression depends on characteristics of the speakers—their sex, age,
the dialect they use, and very likely the social class background as this is
revealed in speech style. The impression also seems to depend on
characteristics of the audience of judges—their age, sex, socio-economic
background, their bilinguality and their own speech style. (p. 100)
While these studies have focused on L1 subjects’ reactions to
accented speech, relatively little has been done to discover how L2
learners react to various U.S. English speech varieties. Eisenstein
and Verdi (1985) used three varieties of English—standard, New
Yorkese (New York nonstandard English), and black English—to
investigate the ability of L2 working class subjects to discriminate
among varieties. They found that learners are able to discriminate
among the different varieties in the early stages of language
acquisition, but that the attitudes and stereotypes for these speakers
did not develop until learner proficiency in English increased
(Wolfson, 1989).
Few studies have measured L2 responses to regional accents in
standard U.S. speech. A study by Strother and Alford (1988)
examined the relationship between the quality of an L2 speaker’s
pronunciation and his/her ability to perceive differences in L1
speakers’ accents. No significant correlation was found between
scores on a pronunciation test and the ability to detect differences in
accent, a finding that may be explained in part by the fact that the
L2 subjects did rate the various accents as significantly different.
The purpose of the study reported in this article was to compare
the reactions of L1 and L2 subjects to selected standard U.S. English
accents.

METHOD
Subjects
The subjects, all of whom were students at Florida Institute of
Technology, included 31 L1 and 66 L2 speakers of English. All
students were tested in their linguistics, foreign language, or ESL
classes.
Of the L1 group, 16 were from the North, 9 from the South, and
6 from the Midwest. The average age of the group was 23, and 61%
was male. The L2 subjects came from 24 different countries and
represented 15 languages; Arabic (36%) and Chinese (27%) were the
largest groups. The average age of the predominantly male (84%) L2
group was 23.2 years; L2 subjects had spent an average of 6.37
months in the United States at the time of testing. The L1 subjects
were undergraduates, while the L2 subjects included both under-
graduate and graduate students.
Materials and Procedure

The matched guise technique, which was developed at McGill
University by Lambert, Hodgeson, Gardner, and Fillenbaum
(1960), is a subjective reaction test used to reveal how people feel
about characteristics of others based solely on tape-recorded speech
of individuals who are bilingual or bidialectal (Anisfeld, Bogo, &
Lambert, 1962; Webster & Kramer, 1968). Subjects indicate twice
(once to each guise) how they react to each trait for each speaker by
marking a scale divided into any odd number of segments.
Numbers are assigned to each fine distinction on a continuum and
averages of each trait are calculated.
However, a modification of the matched guise technique—which
has also been used by Anisfeld, Bogo, and Lambert (1962); Markel,
Eisler, and Reese (1967); Tucker and Lambert (1969); Carranza and
Ryan (1975); Ryan and Carranza (1975); Williams, Hewett, Miller,
Naremore, and Whitehead (1976)—was employed in this study.
This modification uses several speakers from each accent group, all
of whom speak with their normal accents. This technique utilizes
natural rather than “counterfeit” accents, which may only represent
actual stereotypes of the speakers. This also prevents speakers from
varying their voice quality and style in an attempt to distinguish
among the various accents.
All subjects listened to a taped text, which dealt with the
culturally neutral topic of what to do in case of an earthquake
(Morley, 1979), read by a male and a female native English speaker
from each of the following regional accent groups: North (New
York), South (South Carolina), and Midwest (Illinois). These
484 TESOL QUARTERLY

middle class, white speakers were college educated and had been
screened to control for variations in style, voice quality, and age.
Therefore, syntax, word choice, and voice quality variables were
controlled for, leaving accent—pronunciation and intonation—as
the variables under consideration in this study. The recording was
produced in a professional studio to control volume, clarity, and
overall sound quality. The same text was read twice by each
speaker in random order, taking from 1.25 to 1.50 minutes to read.
This was done to ensure that subjects were consistent when rating a
particular speaker both times they heard that speaker. Selection in
the order of speakers was randomized by having them draw
numbers (1-12) from a hat.
A bipolar rating scale was constructed by using adjectives which
could be clearly understood by L2 as well as L1 raters following
Tucker and Lambert’s (1969) suggestion that “to be most useful, the
rating scales provided listeners for evaluating speakers should be
developed specifically for the sample of subjects to be examined
(p. 404). The following 24 positive and negative traits were paired:
very intelligent/not very intelligent good family training/poor
family training; well educated/poorly educated; ambitious/lazy;
self-confident/not self-confident; professional/nonprofessional;
trustworthy/untrustworthy; sincere/insincere; friendly/unfriendly;
patient/impatient; gentle/harsh; and extrovert/introvert. After
listening to each speaker, the subjects were asked to evaluate
personality characteristics of that speaker, using speech style and
voice characteristics as cues, by marking their responses on a 7-
point Likert scale.
Each subject’s reactions to each speaker were recorded in the
form of a numerical index for each region. This index was obtained
by summing the ratings for each trait for each speaker.
In the ranking, a score of 1 was the most negative, and 7 was the
most positive. It should be noted that a rating of 7 for each of the
characteristics on the Likert scale may not represent the most
positive evaluation for all subjects. Whereas most L1 subjects would
value such traits as extroversion or ambition, this may not be the
case for all L2 subjects. However, since differences are being
examined, the data are still valuable.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The results of this study should not be overgeneralized because
(a) there was a relatively small sample size, especially for L1
subjects, and (b) both L1 and L2 subjects had geographically
diverse backgrounds.

While a modification of a true matched guise avoids “a feigned
accent” and while every effort was made to control for style, voice
quality, age, and educational background, every voice has its own
“personality cue value” (Webster & Kramer, 1968, p. 239) in
addition to the words or accents being used.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

To determine subjects’ reactions to the six speakers, several
statistical analyses were completed. To test for intrarater reliability,
a two-tailed Pearson Product-Moment Correlation was calculated
(averaged using the Fisher z transformation) to determine the
degree of correlation in the way subjects rated each speaker the two
times that the speaker read (r= .455).
The hypothesis that differences exist between reactions of L1 and
L2 subjects toward specific U.S. English accents—northern male,
northern female, southern male, southern female, Midwestern
male, and Midwestern female—was tested using an analysis of vari-
ance with repeated measures. The hypothesis was supported
(p< .0001). There was a significant difference (p< .0001) among
the regional accents as perceived by all subjects. There was also a
strong interaction between the native-speaker status (Ll vs. L2) of
the subjects and their reactions to the accents (p < .0016).
The data confirm the hypothesis that L2 subjects, as well as L1
subjects, are able to perceive differences among the regional
accents and that the perceptions of L2 subjects differ from the
perceptions of L1 subjects.
One might speculate that U.S. English speakers would provide
uniform responses on a Likert chart for regional dialect groups
without even listening to a tape. This would be because of strong
cultural biases based on both personal experience and impressions
from stereotypes given in the media for each group of people
represented by a regional accent.
Katz and Braly (1933) conducted a pioneer study of verbal stere-
otypes, looking at the five primary traits used by 100 Princeton
undergraduates to characterize 10 different racial and national
groups. There was an impressively high level of agreement of these
verbal descriptions, which yielded a distinctive set of population
labels for each of the 10 groups. In reviewing this study, Karlins,
Coffman, and Walters (1969) noted that “since most students had no
contact with members of the stereotyped groups, it was obvious
that they had simply absorbed the prevalent images of their day and
culture” (p. 1). The results of the Katz and Braly study were
confirmed at the University of California, Los Angeles, by Centers
486 TESOL QUARTERLY

(1951) and by Reed (1971) with white southern college students as
subjects.
International students, for the most part, do not have the same
cultural framework as native students. It is important to note that
the L2 subjects had only been in the United States for slightly more
than 6 months, barely enough time to form surface-level value
judgments about the area in which they were living (in this case,
Florida), much less to form complex opinions about the individual
characteristics of and the interrelationships among various parts of
the country. Their reactions to the various speakers in our study are
all the more interesting in this light. It can be assumed that, aside
from television and movies, a large part of their value judgments
toward the various dialects was different from the cultural biases
native speakers have. However, some of the subjects’ own cultures
no doubt are influencing factors. Perhaps the strongest evidence of
this is seen in the differences in rating male/female speakers,
independent of accent, for some characteristics.
In addition to regional accent, voice qualities of “maleness” or
“femaleness” may have an important effect on listener perceptions.
O’Leary’s (1977) literature review on the stereotyping of male and
female personality characteristics shows that, as in Gallois and
Callen’s (1981) study described earlier, male and female subjects
did not differ in their impressions of male and female speakers. Men
and women tend to share sex-role stereotypes, indicating that both
sexes share expectations about the characteristics of a typical male
and typical female.
Key (1975) has summarized a number of studies which link these
stereotypes to the voices and speech styles of males and females. On
the other hand, as Gallois and Callan (1981) have pointed out, a
speaker’s sex has not been considered in studies dealing with lan-
guage and accent-based stereotypes. There is certainly a strong
possibility that these two variables—sex and accent-based stereo-
types—interact in determining what perceptions people have of
accented language.
While it is beyond the scope of this study to analyze in detail the
rationale behind each L1 and L2 rater’s decisions about male and
female speakers, it is an area of study that should be pursued. Due
to the variety of cultures within the L2 group (representing 24
counties), an analysis of the relevant cultural factors is not feasible
for this study.
Table 1, a descriptive presentation of L1 subjects’ ratings of
characteristics of. regional accents, indicates some interesting
patterns. In each category, the highest rating is italicized, with a
rating of 7 being highest and therefore the most positive. Most

TABLE 1
L1 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of Regional Accents
(n =31)
people in the U.S. consider network standard to be the most

acceptable accent since it is considered both regionally and socially
neutral (Marckwardt, 1980). Many native speakers of U.S. English
consider the Midwestern accent to be closest to this network model,
a finding supported by a recent survey conducted by Strother and
Alford (1989). However, the results of the current study indicate
some differences. The summary figures at the bottom of the table
show that this group of 31 native speakers accorded the southern
male the highest overall rating (5.3). The second highest ranking
was assigned to the Midwestern female (5.1), with the Midwestern
male and the southern female tying for third place at 5.0. It is
especially surprising that, with 52% of the L1 subjects coming from
the North, they ranked both the northern male and the female quite
low (4.5 and 3.8).
In individual characteristic ratings, the Midwestern male received
more high rankings than the other speakers. The Midwestern female
received the highest ranking for good family training and for
patience. It is also worth noting that together the Midwestern male
and female were highest on 8 of the 12 categories. The other 4
characteristics on which they were rated lower—trustworthiness,
sincerity, friendliness, and gentleness—are of an interpersonal
nature. In contrast, the southern male was rated highest in
488 TESOL QUARTERLY

trustworthiness and sincerity, and the southern female in friendli-
ness and gentleness.
Table 2, a descriptive presentation of L2 subjects’ ratings of
characteristics of regional accents, shows that this group of 66 L2
subjects accorded both the midwestern male and the southern male
an equally high rating (5.5). In all characteristics except one, either
the southern male or the midwestem male received the highest
rating or tied for it. The one exception was the characteristic of
friendliness in which the southern female was rated highest.
TABLE 2
(n= 66)
Characteristics Speakers
Just as in the L1 data, both the southern and Midwestern females

received higher overall ratings than either the northern male or the
northern female. The lowest ratings are also noteworthy. Again the
northern female received the lowest overall rating. Several
individual ratings were unusually low. For example, the northern
male got a 3.5 rating in patience. Both the northern and southern
females (3.7 and 3.6) were rated very low in extroversion. Although
determining the reason for this was not a part of this research, a
study could be developed to uncover the rationale behind these
judgments.
The bar graphs clearly show differences in the summary ratings
by L1 and L2 respondents. Figure 1 presents L1 subjects’ ratings of

regional accents and Figure 2 shows the ratings by L2 subjects. As
an example of a single characteristic, the ratings for professional/
nonprofessional have been graphed in Figure 3 for L1 subjects and
in Figure 4 for L2 subjects.
FIGURE 1
North South Midwest
Male Female
FIGURE 2
490 TESOL QUARTERLY

FIGURE 3
L1 Subjects’ Mean Ratings of a Single Characteristic Professional/Nonprofessional
7 “
7-”
When L1 subjects react to U.S. English accents, we assume that

various cultural and dialectal stereotypes, including male/female
differences, are part of their frame of reference. Future research

needs to ascertain the reasons for the development of L2 subjects’
strong opinions of U.S. accents. It can be assumed that their stere-
otypes of male and female characteristics in their countries are
deeply ingrained in their cultures and may be transferred to these
ratings. Especially within some of the individual characteristics,
strong male/female differences become more pronounced.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The statistical analyses show that L2 speakers of English are able
to detect regional accent differences in U.S. English. The subjective
ratings of characteristics of each of the regional groups also show
that L2 speakers are able to rate their perceptions of a speaker’s
favorableness (characteristic by characteristic) based primarily on
pronunciation variations separate from native speakers’ regional
cultural biases. The exception to this may be differences in rating
male versus female speakers where the subjects’ own cultures—not
their perception of a region of the United States—may dictate their
ratings. There are several important implications that can be drawn
from the conclusions.
It would seem beneficial for students learning English to know as
much as possible about the distinctions that exist within the lan-
guage they are learning since information regarding language
diversity is an excellent introduction to the social and cultural back-
ground of that group (Wolfson, 1989). Wolfram and Christian
(1989) suggest that “the key to attitudinal changes lies in developing
respect for the diverse varieties of English” (p. 22). Knowing how
people react to language features on the basis of what is considered
most crucial or stigmatizing to students gives teachers an insight that
they can apply in the classroom situation (Shuy, 1969). The type of
sociolinguistic research represented by this study provides a
valuable tool in making all of us aware of the stereotyped attitudes
we have toward other groups. This knowledge should, therefore, be
used to counteract such beliefs for both the native and nonnative
alike.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

In a current project, this study is being replicated in the specific
regions represented (North, South, Midwest). The same materials
and empirical procedures are being used with both L1 and L2
subjects in New York, South Carolina, and Illinois, the regions
represented by the accents of the speakers on the tape. The results
of this comprehensive collection of data will be compared to the
492 TESOL QUARTERLY

results of the current study to determine (a) whether L1 subjects
react more or less favorably to their own accent than do subjects
outside the region, and (b) whether the region in which L2 subjects
are living affects their ratings of the various regional accents.
A number of valuable research studies would add to this attempt
to measure L2 speakers’ reactions to variations in regional accents of
U.S. English. In addition to the suggestions for further research
discussed throughout this paper, this study should be replicated
with other speakers from the same regions in order to confirm these
findings. With confirmation, the results would be more accurately
generalizable.
THE AUTHORS
Randall L. Alford, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Foreign Lan-
guage, is the Chair of the Florida Institute of Technology Division of Languages
and Linguistics and Director of its Language Institute. He is a former President of
Gulf Area TESOL.
Judith B. Strother, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at Florida Institute of
Technology, does research in English for special purposes/English for science and
technology. She has authored Kaleidoscope (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1988) and
Syntax in the ST Register: Effect on Writers’ Choices and Readers’ Comprehension
(Wibro, 1990), and contributed to Research in Reading in English as a Second Lan-
guage (TESOL, 1988).
REFERENCES
Anisfeld, M., Bogo, N., Lambert, W. E. (1962). Evaluational reaction to
accented English speech. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
65, 223-231.
Alford, R. L., & Strother, J. B. (in press). A southern opinion of regional
dialects. Perspectives on the American South. New York: Gordon and
Breach.
Blount, R. (1988, July 2). My, how they kiss and talk. T.V. Guide, pp. 26-29.
Carranza, M. A., & Ryan, E. B. (1975). Evaluative reactions of bilingual
Anglo and Mexican American adolescents towards speakers of English
and Spanish. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 6,
8-104.
Carver, C. M. (1987). American regional dialects: A word geography. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Centers, R. (1951). An effective classroom demonstration of stereotypes.
Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 41-46.
Chaika, E. (1982). Language: The social mirror. Rowley, MA: Newbury
House.
Christian, D., & Wolfram, W. (1979). Dialects and educational equity—
Exploring dialects. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Eisenstein, M., & Verdi, G. (1985). The intelligibility of social dialects for
working-class adult learners of English. Language Learning, 35 (2),
287-298.
Fromkin, V., & Rodman, R. (1983). An introduction to language (3rd ed.).
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Gallois, C., & CalIan, V. J. (1981). Personality impressions edited by
accented English speech. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 12 (3),
347-359.
Hunt, G. W. (1986). On many things. America, 155 (16),2.
Karlins, M., Coffman, T. L., & Walters, G. (1969). On the fading of social
stereotypes: Studies in three generations of college students. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1-16.
Katz, D., & Braly, K. (1933). Racial stereotypes of one hundred college
students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 280-290.
Key, M. R. (1975). Male/female language. Mehuen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.
Labov, W. (1969). The logic of nonstandard English. (Georgetown
Monographs in Languages and Linguistics No. 22). Washington, DC:
Georgetown University, Center for Applied Linguistics.
Lambert, W. E. (1967). A social psychology of bilingualism. Journal of
Social Issues, 23 (2), 91-109.
Lambert, W. E., Hodgeson, R. C., Gardner, R. C., & Fillenbaum, S.
(1960). Evaluational reactions to spoken languages. Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology, 60 (1), 44-51.
Marckwardt, A. H. (1980). American English (2nd ed.). NY: Oxford
University Press.
Markel, N. N., Eisler, R. M., & Reese, H. W. (1967). Judging personality
from dialect. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6, 33-35.
Morley, J. (1979). Improving spoken English. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
O’Leary, V. (1977). Toward understanding women. Monterey, CA:
Brooks/Cole.
Peñalosa, F. (1981). Introduction to the sociology of language. Rowley,
MA: Newbury House.
Reed, J. S. (1971). The enduring south: Subcultural persistence in mass
society. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath Lexington Books.
Ryan, E. B., & Carranza, M. A. (1975). Evaluative reactions of adolescents
toward speakers of standard English and Mexican accented English.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 855-863.
Shuy, R. (1969). The relevance of sociolinguistics for language teaching.
TESOL Quarterly, 3 (l), 13-22.
494 TESOL QUARTERLY

Sledd, J. (1969). Bi-dialectalism: The linguistics of white supremacy. En-
glish Journal, 58 (9), 1307-1329.
Strother, J. B., & Alford, R. L. (1988, March). The relationship between L2
speakers’ pronunciation and their ability to detect variations in dialects
of American English. Paper presented at the 22nd Annual TESOL
Convention, Chicago.
Strother, J. B., & Alford, R. L. (1989). [Survey of attitudes of regional
dialects]. Unpublished raw data, Florida Institute of Technology,
Division of Languages and Linguistics, Melbourne.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup
conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of
intergroup relations (pp. 33-48). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Tucker, G. R., & Lambert, W. E. (1969). White and Negro listeners’
reactions to various American-English dialects. Social Forces, 47,
463-468.
Webster, W. G., & Kramer, E. (1968). Attitudes and evaluational reactions
to accented English speech. Journal of Social Psychology, 75, 231-240.
Williams, F., Hewett, N., Miller, M., Naremore, R. C., & Whitehead, J. L.
(1976). Explorations of the linguistic attitudes of teachers. Rowley, MA:
Newbury House.
Wolfson, N. (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York:
Newbury House/Harper& Row.
Wolfram, W., & Christian, D. (1989). Dialects and education: Issues and
answers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

REVIEWS
The TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant to
TESOL professionals. In addition to textbooks and reference materials, these
include computer and video software, testing instruments, and other forms of
nonprint materials.
Edited by HEIDI RIGGENBACH

Recent Publications in Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition
Dennis Preston. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Pp. xv + 326.
Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL
Nessa Wolfson. Cambridge: Newbury House, 1989. Pp. xvi + 319.
Second language acquisition (SLA) research is now proceeding in

two general directions: First is the investigation of learner internal
issues, that is, the representation of the internal grammars of the L1
and L2; second is the investigation of external variables. Dennis
Preston’s Sociolinguisties and Second Language Acquisition and
Nessa Wolfson’s Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL make
significant contributions to the field in the second area. Preston’s
book, in particular, provides a wealth of background to both SLA
and sociolinguistics and successfully shows how the two fields can
contribute to each other. However, the two volumes differ
considerably in what they take to be the important contributions of
sociolinguistic methods and findings to SLA and TESOL.
Preston’s book begins with a brief review of sociolinguistic
research that demonstrates the importance of a variety of
interfactional factors and learner characteristics. The section on
individual characteristics provides a detailed description of
participants; the discussion of interfactional factors expands Hymes’s
(1972), SPEAKING taxonomy. Preston then looks at research in
which these variables have been investigated in both first and
second language sociolinguistics.
Most of the book comprises reviews of major variationist theories
of SLA. The discussion begins with Krashen’s Monitor Model
(1981), in which variation is attributed entirely to the use of the
monitor. Preston points to Krashen’s conflation of the sociolinguistic
concept of attention to form and the psycholinguistic concept of
497
monitoring as a major weakness in this approach to variation. In
reviewing Tarone’s (1983) continuous competence model, Preston
criticizes the construct attention to form as too primitive to capture
the complexity of the factors that may differ across what Tarone
calls “tasks” (p. 59). Last, Preston reviews Ellis’s variable compe-
tence model which, he maintains, adds some psycholinguistic depth
to Tarone’s capability continuum. This is an especially important
section since, for many, Ellis’s Understanding Second Language
Acquisition (1985) is their first exposure to SLA research and
perhaps even to sociolinguistic research. Preston does point to
serious problems, however, in Ellis’s presentation of basic concepts
in the work of both Bickerton and Labov.
In contrast, much of Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL
(Perspectives), focuses on native-speaker behavior as part of the
field the author calls microsociolinguistics. The late Nessa Wolfson
was a tireless champion of the systematic examination of the rules of
speaking across speech communities. In particular, she argued for
the use of authentic, spontaneous data as the best way of accurately
documenting what constitutes communicative competence in a
given speech community. This perspective dominates much of her
book. Although the title suggests the same integration of the fields
of sociolinguistics and TESOL that is achieved for sociolinguistics
and SLA in Preston’s book, the topics covered (such as rules of
speaking, sociolinguistic methodology, cross-cultural speech act
research, and male/female language) demonstrate the dominance
of sociolinguistic concerns in this volume. In fact, very little is
offered in Perspectives in the way of teaching applications. This,
Wolfson maintains, is because we know so little about the speech con-
ventions in our own community and therefore are not yet in a position
to provide instruction on such matters to nonnative speakers.
For Preston, the goal of sociolinguistics is the investigation of
variation. He maintains, in contrast to Wolfson’s position, that there
is no need to wait for the continued investigation of native-speaker
behavior and that the insights from sociolinguistic methodology can
be used to inform SLA research in two basic ways. First, as in
native-speaker research, it is crucial that analyses of second lan-
guage learner data take into account a wide range of variables:
ascribed and acquired, individual characteristics as well as
interfactional factors. These are the kinds of factors that sociolinguis-
tics and ethnographers, Hymes in particular, have suggested are
important in describing and analyzing variation in language use.
Preston goes beyond this, however, to his second claim that the
quantitative/sociolinguistic methodologies that have been used to
analyze variation in language use in a single speech community (for
498 TESOL QUARTERLY

example, by Labov) “due to their sensitivity to the variability of
grammar, are excellent means of capturing synchronic and
diachronic aspects of interlanguage systems, no matter what the
source of variation [italics added]” (p. 198). However, the study of
second language variation cannot completely parallel native-speak-
er sociolinguistic research because there is no speech community.
Preston does not emphasize sufficiently the important distinction
between first and second language research. While methods of
analysis may remain useful in investigating SLA, the assumptions on
which they rest are very different.
However, Preston’s thesis that sociolinguistic methods are ap-
propriate and necessary for SLA data analysis allows him to provide
an excellent introduction to Labovian quantitative methods used to
study sociolinguistic variation. He examines first how an analysis of
all of the factors in his taxonomy might help to explain code-
switching in data from Fishman (1972). He then discusses a study in
which quantitative methods were used to determine the factors
influencing the use of plural marking by second language learners
(Young, 1989). It is particularly important to stress that this second
study must be viewed simply as the application of a procedure for
data analysis. Although both Young and Preston claim that they are
working within the framework set forth originally by Hymes (1972),
this is misleading. Hymes never intended that his SPEAKING
framework be used for componential analysis; rather, that the
importance of each of the components be explored and understood
within the context of the speech community.
Perspectives explores a number of other sociolinguistic traditions,
focusing more on qualitative approaches than does Preston’s
volume. Wolfson particularly stresses the work of Hymes; her book
is more in keeping with the spirit of Hymes’s SPEAKING taxonomy
and his analysis of speech events than is Preston’s. Wolfson also
briefly explores philosophical and ethnomethodological traditions,
as well as Brown and Levinson’s (1978) pragmatic work on
politeness and face. Much of her book, however, is devoted to
Wolfson’s concern for how sociolinguistic data are gathered and
interpreted. Several chapters are devoted to Wolfson’s work, as well
as that of others, on rules of speaking and cross-cultural investiga-
tions into speech act production and interpretation. Such speech
acts include compliments, apologies, greetings, refusals, and
requests. It is Wolfson’s contention that when a nonnative speaker
makes pragmatic errors, such as in the misuse or misinterpretation
of these speech acts, native speakers are less forgiving than when
the errors are grammatical or lexical. Often such behavior is
interpreted as rudeness, obtuseness, and so on. For this reason,
REVIEWS 499
Wolfson argues, it is essential that such concerns become funda-
mental to the field of language teaching. In order to do this,
however, native-speaker teachers and researchers need to develop a
better understanding of their own behavior.
The remainder of Perspectives addresses other topics in sociolin-
guistics, but their treatment is somewhat cursory. These include lan-
guage and gender, variation across social classes, multilingualism,
and bilingual education. The strength of this volume clearly lies in
Wolfson’s discussions of research methods and findings in micro-
sociolinguistics and their potential contribution to the field of
TESOL. Her death will leave a void in this area of the field that will
indeed be difficult to fill.
Although these two books clearly take very different approaches
to how sociolinguistics, TESOL, and SLA are related, the two
volumes are complementary and together would make an excellent
introduction to important issues in these fields. While other books
may be preferred for broader perspectives on such issues as the
history of nonstandard dialects in the United States, immigrant lan-
guages, and approaches to multicultural education, these two
should be required reading for anyone interested in the social
context of SLA and language teaching, which arguably should
include every researcher in our field.
REFERENCES
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness
phenomena. In E. Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in
social interaction (pp. 56-289). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R. (1985). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Fishman, J. (1972). The sociology of language. Rowley, MA: Newbury
House.
Hymes, D. (1972). Foundations in sociolinguistics. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.
Krashen, S. (1981). Second language acquisition and second language
learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Tarone, E. (1983). On the variability of interlanguage systems. Applied
Linguistics 4 (l), 42-63.
Young, R. (1989). Ends and means: Methods for the study of interlanguage
variation. In S. Gass, C. Madden, D. Preston, & L. Selinker (Eds.),
Variation in second language acquisition: Psycholinguistic issues
(pp. 63-90). Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters.
JESSICA WILLIAMS
University of Illinois at Chicago
500 TESOL QUARTERLY

Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit: Preparing for
the TOEFL
Daniel B. Kennedy, Dorry Mann Kenyon, and Steven J. Matthiesen.
New York: Newbury House/Harper& Row, 1989. Pp. xi + 262.
Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit: Preparing for

the Test of Written English
Liz Hamp-Lyons. New York: Newbury House/Harper & Row,
1989. Pp. vi + 134.
Why must I take the TOEFL?

Does the TOEFL cost the same in each country?
Should I guess if I’m not sure about an answer?
If I need to guess, what strategy should I use?
Are there any general test taking strategies 1 should use?
Detailed answers to these and 38 other questions are found in

Preparing for the TOEFL, one of two books in the Newbury House
TOEFL Preparation Kit. The book contains everything you’ve
always wanted to know about the TOEFL, but never had a chance
to ask. Written clearly and simply, it contains careful explanations
about every part of the TOEFL.
An entrance requirement at 2500 colleges and universities in the
U. S., Canada, and other parts of the world, the TOEFL is one of the
most widely used language proficiency tests in the world. In order
to make maximum use of the available test time, students must be
prepared for the kinds of questions that will be asked and need to
develop good test-taking strategies.
For this reason, the number of TOEFL preparation books on the
market has proliferated despite the publication by the Educational
Testing Service of the practice tests contained in Understanding
TOEFL, published in 1980, and Reading for TOEFL, published in
1987. The public’s demand for more preparatory materials indicates
the importance of passing the test.
The Newbury House TOEFL Preparation Kit consists of two
books, one with accompanying materials. Preparing for the TOEFL
includes three practice tests with answer sheets; accompanying the
book are two tapes for practicing the Listening Comprehension
section of the TOEFL, and a pamphlet containing a typescript and
answers for the three practice tests in the book. The second book is
Preparing for the Test of Written English. (All components can also
be purchased separately.)
Preparing for the TOEFL begins with a basic description of the
REVIEWS 501
TOEFL examination, including sample questions. The next part
“provides detailed answers to over forty questions commonly asked
about the TOEFL program and its policies” (p. iv). The next
chapters describe the seven major types of questions within the
sections on Listening Comprehension, Structure and Written
Expression, and Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. The
authors aim to help students recognize the different types of
questions to expect so that they will be better able to answer each
question correctly.
Although other study materials with which I am familiar contain
a review of English grammar, none is as specifically tailored to the
TOEFL items as is this guide. Each grammar point is defined in
simple language and followed by seven sample questions
illustrating how the feature is tested on the TOEFL. No extraneous
material is introduced to confuse students.
The authors provide sensible, practical suggestions concerning
the Vocabulary portion of the TOEFL. They have observed that
two criteria for the appearance of a word in the Vocabulary section
are (a) whether it can be found in a variety of contexts in university-
level reading, and (b) whether it can easily be given a synonym.
Test developers have no choice but to select such words if the test
is to be valid. This means the student need not study most technical
words, idioms, or phrases; nor need one study types of birds, fish
and other animals, foods, clouds, minerals, etc.
Since the Vocabulary section of the TOEFL is essentially a test of
synonyms, the authors of Preparing for the TOEFL tell students not
to waste time reading the whole sentence but to look only at the
underlined word and choose its synonym. To illustrate that the
context doesn’t help, the authors give sentences in which they blank
out the key word being tested, but include the four response
choices. Any of the four choices would be possible in the sentence.
Preparing for the TOEFL deals straightforwardly with elusive
issues concerning the content of reading comprehension passages. It
is explained that “unhappy” (p. 1) subjects, such as divorce and war,
will not be included on the TOEFL. One should expect materials
with women in positive roles and ones describing the contributions
of U.S. ethnic minorities, Written texts will be academic in nature,
coming from encyclopedias and textbooks but not from scientific or
literary journals. However, the authors explain that knowledge of
the subject is not very important. “Do not worry if you are not
familiar with the topic being discussed. You will be tested on your
comprehension of the English language, not your general
knowledge” (p. 2).
The TOEFL is geared toward students who will be living and
502 TESOL QUARTERLY

studying in the U.S. or Canada, and thus it contains references to
North American events and figures. In their discussion of inference
questions in the Listening section, the authors suggest how the
reader may prepare for this fact. “To answer these questions, you
should try to become familiar with the kinds of settings students in
North America may find themselves in” (p. 42).
Two appendices are provided. One contains a list of the TOEFL
scores required by 100 U.S. colleges and universities having the
largest international student enrollments. Students can use this list to
compare their TOEFL scores with the entrance requirements of the
institutions they plan to enter. The second appendix provides
instructions and score conversion tables for translating raw scores
on the practice tests given in the book to scaled scores. After
deriving the scaled scores, students can compare their individual
scores with the scores of others who have taken the TOEFL by
referring to a table of norms for TOEFL test takers.
One of the strengths of Preparing for the TOEFL is the care and
detail of the explanations. Each question is discussed in terms of lin-
guistics on the microlevel (vocabulary and syntax of the sentence)
and the macrolevel (sociolinguistic considerations of the logic of a
situation, the tone of the speaker), as well as in terms of test
development logic and test-taking strategies. Fine details about the
test are also provided: “Note again that the numbers in this set of
options are listed in ascending order, as always on the TOEFL
(p. 53).
Most TOEFL preparation kits help students recognize the format
of each subtest, how to follow directions, and how to record
answers. They familiarize the students with the appearance of the
TOEFL. They do not analyze question functions. This is the first
preparatory guide to explain the linguistic and sociolinguistic
rationale as well as the testing function of each item type.
The authors do not mislead the student about the value of their
TOEFL preparation materials. They warn students that merely
reading study materials will not guarantee a high score. Students are
told that if, after they work through the book, their practice test
scores do not improve, their problem is a lack of English language
proficiency, and they are advised to enroll in an English language
course while continuing to review the kit. Should students need
further practice, the authors advise them to order the ETS TOEFL
Test Kits.
The extent to which the writers of Preparing for the TOEFL took
pains to produce questions as authentic as possible is impressive. As
explained in the introduction, the book is based on an examination
of thousands of TOEFL test questions, the TOEFL Test and Score
REVIEWS 503
Manual, and the TOEFL Research Reports. Based on this analysis,
the authors identified and described subcategories of the seven
TOEFL question types, wrote similar questions, and developed
three practice tests. What is unique is that these questions
underwent pretesting and retesting, just like the TOEFL items
themselves. The practice tests were administered to international
students studying at universities in the U.S. and elsewhere, and
items were statistically analyzed and reworded when necessary.
This procedure yielded questions that not only “look like TOEFL
questions, but also function like TOEFL questions. The final
version of the three practice tests was administered with a real
TOEFL” (p. iii) to students at several U.S. universities; scores on the
practice tests and the TOEFL were correlated, yielding a score
conversion table. Preparing for the TOEFL is the only TOEFL
preparation program I have seen that has been developed in such a
professional way.
The second book, Preparing for the Test of Written English b y

Liz Hamp-Lyons, is for those who wish to take this optional part
of the TOEFL. The half-hour test is offered four times a year with
the TOEFL, and, in almost all cases, is administered before the
TOEFL. The TWE requires one essay, to be written in 30 minutes.
There is only one question, no choice of topics.
Who should take this test? In the prefix, the author states that “the
book assumes that [the reader] already [has] an English proficiency
level of 450 or higher on the TOEFL” (p. iii) and directs the reader
to a page in the book with suggestions for determining whether one
is ready to take the TWE.
Hamp-Lyons defines academic writing as the kind of writing that
students and teachers do at universities and colleges. She discusses
successful academic writing, gives examples of real essays written
by students on topics and questions like those on the official TWE,
discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these essays, and justifies
the scores given them by TOEFL-trained essay scorers. The book
also includes practice writing tasks and a section that teaches
students how to score their own practice essays. The book has been
designed to enable students to work through it with or without the
help of a teacher, in groups or individually.
The discussion of the structure and organization of academic
writing is very clear, although the instructions would be more
suitable for a teacher than for the student. A student who is able to
read this book is well on the way to being able to write a
composition. (The language proficiency assumed for readers of this
book is somewhat higher than for Preparing for the TOEFL.)
504 TESOL QUARTERLY

In her introductory remarks to the student, the author states,
“Writing is like driving a car—you can only learn by actually doing
it, not by reading about how to do it!” (p. iii). She implements this
approach through the book. Her purpose is to teach specific skills
that prepare the student for the TWE or any other academic writing
test. In fact, the book contains comparisons with two other
academic writing tests, the British Council’s English Language
Testing Service (ELTS) writing component M2 and the University
of Michigan’s English Language Assessment Battery (MELAB).
Although these comparisons are not meant to be exact, their
inclusion helps the reader assess his or her writing level on various
tests and supports the idea that tests of academic writing are similar
and can be valid and reliable.
This book also contains a 45-page chapter called “Self-Scoring
Practice.” It explains that the TWE is a criterion-referenced test
based on an absolute standard of what good academic writing is. It
explains and elaborates on the 6-level scale (6 = competence,
1 = incompetence) developed by ETS for the TWE. For example,
ETS describes an essay receiving a score of 6 as one that “clearly
demonstrates competence on both the rhetorical and syntactic
levels, though it may have occasional errors” (p. 76). Hamp-Lyons
further describes each level in terms of organization, use of
supporting detail, coherence, and appropriateness. She gives
examples of students’ handwritten essays with a scorer’s comments
typed in the margins, and essays in which the student has made
revisions during the test itself. Thus students using the book are
provided many examples with which to compare their own writing.
The inclusion of students’ handwritten essays provides additional
authenticity. Each handwritten essay is also found in printed form
elsewhere in the book. Including 20 TWE-like prompts, the book
provides ample opportunity for practice in writing.
Hamp-Lyons describes the structure of typical academic tasks:
The student is given the “situation” and the “problem,” and must
suggest a “solution” and make an “evaluation” (SPSE) (p. 8). She
then discusses academic organization and invention strategies, such
as mind-mapping, a technique for showing pictorially how major
ideas are related.
The two books are excellent preparatory guides for the TOEFL
and the TWE. The authors are sensitive about the dangers of
studying for tests. They warn students about the need to develop
English language skills and make suggestions on how to do this.
Hamp-Lyons focuses on teaching academic writing skills.
In addition to the value of these books as guides for the tests,
REVIEWS 505
because the authors have carefully identified and implemented
rules underlying the development of language testing, the kit would
also be useful for those interested in standardized language testing.
Teacher training programs may also wish to include this kit in
courses on second and foreign language test development.
MARSHA BENSOUSSAN
Haifa University
506 TESOL QUARTERLY

BOOK NOTICES
The TESOL Quarterly welcomes short evaluative reviews of print and nonprint
publications relevant to TESOL professionals. Book notices may not exceed 500
words and must contain some discussion of the significance of the work in the
context of current theory and practice in TESOL.
Making it Happen: Interaction in the Second Language Classroom.

Patricia A. Richard-Amato. New York: Longman, 1988. Pp. xviii + 426.
This is an excellent textbook for a basic graduate class in TESL methods.

The text covers the theory and practice of TESL as well as the latest
thinking in international language instruction and bilingual education.
Although ambitious in scope, the book provides good depth of material.
Part I provides a theoretical perspective, including a brief history of
second language teaching methodologies and a careful examination of the
theoretical work of Krashen and Vygotsky. The underlying philosophical
framework of this section is that a second language classroom should be an
“interfactional one in which communication is emphasized” (p. xiii).
Part II, “Exploring Methods and Activities,” could be a separate book. It
provides excellent, detailed, practical teaching activities designed to help
the new instructor develop a genuinely interfactional classroom. The
suggested activities provide for a variety of options, including music,
drama, storytelling, and games.
Part III, “Some Practical Issues,” covers such practical topics as
classroom management, testing, computers, and textbooks. Each chapter
in the first three sections of the book is followed by an annotated list of
suggested readings and by questions for reflection and discussion.
Part IV, “Programs in Action,” shows the numerous settings in which
ESL instruction can take place. This is one of the most valuable sections of
the book. Teachers-in-training often think of only one type or level of ESL
instruction without realizing the tremendous variety of opportunities
available. For example, although a teacher may plan to work in a college-
level intensive institute, a more attractive position in an elementary school
may arise. In presenting interesting examples of diverse professional
options, this book performs a service to the profession.
Part V, the last quarter of the book, comprises a series of related
supplemental readings by scholars in the field including Noarn Chomsky,
Stephen Krashen, Lev Vygotsky, John Oller, and Jim Cummins. These
related readings are frequently referred to in the preceding text. Their
presentation here invites productive supplemental assignments since the
reader can conveniently examine the primary sources on which the text is
based.
507
Making it Happen is a comprehensive methods text. It can probably best
be utilized in a two-semester sequence although, with carefully selected
assignments, it would also be excellent in a one-semester course.
DOROTHY S. MESSERSCHMITT
University of San Francisco
The Foreign Teaching Assistant’s Manual. Patricia Byrd, Janet C.

Constantinides, and Martha C. Pennington. New York: Collier Macmillan,
1989. Pp. xii + 193.
The Foreign Teaching Assistant’s Manual is a resource book to be used

in international teaching assistant (ITA) training programs. The target
audience, those currently teaching or preparing to teach U.S. undergradu-
ates, is assumed to have an advanced level of skills in English.
The 25 chapters of this activity-oriented manual are arranged in five
parts. Part One, “Preparatory Activities,” provides questionnaires that
guide ITAs in collecting information on U.S. culture and educational
styles. Part Two, “Background to Teaching,” introduces a variety of
teaching responsibilities, such as organizing a course, presenting in class,
using audiovisual aids, leading a discussion, and record keeping. Part
Three, “Hearing and Pronouncing American English,” deals with
pronunciation of individual sounds, stress patterns, fluency, intonation,
and voice quality, Part Four, “Practice for Teaching,” includes
explanations, guidelines, and evaluation forms for a variety of
presentations to be videotaped in class. Part Five, “Observation,” provides
several open-ended worksheets to guide ITAs’ observation of undergrad-
uate classrooms.
Printed on 8½” by 11” punched and perforated pages, this book is
designed for integrated rather than sequential use. Each chapter begins
with an overview section with a persuasive rationale, chapter objectives,
and introductory content. Chapters are subdivided into nearly
autonomous sections that typically provide basic information, descriptions
of student activities, and accompanying worksheets.
Throughout the book, the authors communicate directly with the reader
using the second person. The overall tone is respectful of other cultures yet
firm in its recommendation that ITAs adjust to “American” English and
U.S. educational styles. While it is acknowledged that “U.S. undergradu-
ates are not always culturally sensitive or patient with outsiders” (p. ix), the
focus is on the ITAs’ skills and cultural adjustment for success in the U.S.
classroom.
The segmented design and individualized approach are this manual’s
dominant characteristics. These allow great flexibility for use with students
at different levels, for various curricula, and for courses ranging from a
few days to a full semester. Although the introduction states that the whole
508 TESOL QUARTERLY

book could be covered in a one-semester course, selective use of materials
and/or allowing two semesters would be a more feasible approach. While
suggestions for selecting and coordinating the materials are given in a one-
page appendix, teachers using this book will need to carefully analyze the
materials to coordinate them for their particular setting. They will also
need to plan and prepare thoroughly before using the materials in class,
since teacher-provided resources, such as videotapes of undergraduate
classes, are frequently required.
This book provides sound recommendations, multiple activities, and
many worksheets. For teachers who have or can develop their own
syllabus, it supplies excellent resource materials for a variety of ITA
training programs.
WANDA FOX
Purdue University
Languages and Children—Making the Match. Helena Anderson Curtain

and Carol Ann Pesola. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1988. Pp. xv + 352.
This is an up-to-date and comprehensive book on the field of elementary

school foreign language instruction. It is designed “by practitioners
primarily for practitioners” (p. xi) and is intended as a methods text and as
a practical guide for teaching language to children. The text is an excellent
resource not only for new teachers or teachers-in-training but also for
school administrators who are beginning implementation of a K-8 foreign
language program.
Languages and Children—Making the Match focuses on “communica-
tion” as the highest priority in teaching a language class. In an informative
introduction, the fundamental principles of the communicative approach
on which this book is based are summarized in 12 “Key Concepts for
Elementary and Middle School Foreign Languages” (pp. xiv-xv). These
include: "Successful language learning occurs in a meaningful communica-
tive context, " “Successful language learning activities for children
incorporate opportunities for movement and physical activity,” “Suc-
cessful language learning activities are organized according to a communi-
cative syllabus rather than according to a grammatical syllabus,” and
“Successful language learning activities establish the language as a real
means of communication.”
The first four chapters deal with elementary school foreign language
programs, including their history, the selection of an appropriate program
model, and program planning. Chapter 5 provides a comprehensive
overview of recent theories of second language acquisition that serve as a
foundation of effective programs. Chapter 6 provides an overview of
immersion programs—what they are, what makes them work, what are
their results. Chapter 7 describes useful techniques of content-based
instruction used in immersion programs, such as thematic webbing and
BOOK NOTICES 509

semantic mapping. The success of these programs demonstrates that com-
municative competence can be developed-as students are provided with
situations that require language use in real communication.
The most readable part of the volume is Chapters 8, 9, and 10, which
demonstrate “meaningful communication in the context of a holistic
approach to learning” (p. 117). These three chapters illustrate the wide
range of the holistic approaches—for example, how to create an environ-
ment for communication, how to give children experiences with the
culture, and how to plan a communicative classroom day-to-day. In other
chapters, different dimensions of a holistic approach are discussed:
evaluation, materials, classroom activities, and teacher preparation.
Unfortunately, compared to the clear presentation of the language
experience approach, the very brief presentation on the topic of evaluation
is not entirely satisfactory—only 14 pages are devoted to it. Some readers
might wish this chapter were more detailed.
However, an introduction to language instruction based on meaningful
communication is successfully made by this book owing to the multi-
dimensional practical examples of teaching strategies. There are excellent
questions for discussion in each chapter. This book is highly recommended
for foreign language teachers and also for teachers working with limited
English proficient (LEP) students.
NORIKO ISOGAWA
Purdue University
Conversation Gambits: Real English Conversation Practices. Eric Keller

and Sylvia T. Warner. Hove, England: Language Teaching Publications,
1988. pp. 96.
“What I’m trying to say is”; “Sorry, I don’t follow you”; “I don’t
understand, can you explain?” These are examples of conversation
gambits. A gambit is a conversational strategy that promotes discussion. In
their introduction to the student, the authors say: “We use gambits to
introduce a topic of conversation; to link what we have to say to what
someone has just said; to agree or disagree; to respond to what we have
heard” (p. 4). While gambits have little content, they have much meaning:
“They show our attitude to the person we are speaking to and to what (s)he
is saying” (p. 4). The authors state that using gambits will make students’
English sound more natural, will make it easier to converse and be
understood. “If we never use gambits in our conversation, other people
may think we are very direct, abrupt, and even rude—they will get a
wrong picture of us as people” (p. 4).
Useful in a secondary school or an adult ESL program for intermediate-
advanced students, Conversation Gambits is an excellent supplement to
other conversation or written activities. This well-structured text does
what other ESL materials often fail to do: It teaches students native-like
510 TESOL QUARTERLY

conversational phrases to enhance their English skills and at the same time
offers insight into cultural expectations by explaining the common and
proper usage of particular phrases or idiomatic expressions. For example,
the book suggests that “l wonder if” is a way of giving an open opinion
while inviting others to comment too (p. 23).
There are 63 lessons divided into three sections: (1) Opening Gambits
(e.g., “Excuse me for interrupting, but,” “Could you tell me”); (2) Linking
Gambits (e.g., “How about,” “In addition,” “What’s more”); and (3)
Responding Gambits (e.g., “That’s a good idea, but,” “You’re absolutely
right,” “Exactly!” and “I’ll have to think about that”).
Each one-page lesson focuses on a single topic, e.g., “Changing the
Subject,” "Generalizing," “Getting to Know Someone.” A list of gambits is
clearly printed on the side of the page. Classroom activities for pairs or
small groups are suggested. Interspersed through the text are pictures,
charts, graphs, games, and stories about life situations.
The last lesson, longer than the others, is called “Mini-Conversations.” It
provides many suggestions for practice of conversation gambits, e.g., “Tell
your partner a problem” (p. 85). These suggestions offer good
conversation starters that can easily be adapted to incorporate content
from students’ own lives. (They also could be used as starting points for
writing assignments.) Timely topics for conversation are given at the end
of this section—e.g., living in the city, politics, healthy eating, smoking,
teenage drug abuse.
This text fosters a natural conversational approach in the ESL classroom
and may also prove useful in English composition classes for monolin-
gual English students. While it is in no way a complete curriculum,
Conversation Gambits provides the ESL teacher with a good resource for
teaching some of the subtle language messages we often fail to convey in
our classes.
TERESA GRANELLI
Hofstra University
Crazy Idioms: A Conversational Idiom Book. Nina Weinstein. New York:

Collier Macmillan, 1990. Pp. vii + 62.
Designed to enrich the ESL curriculum, this book focuses on a

vocabulary of 45 common cultural idioms that often are not treated in the
classroom. The presentation and exercises are simple enough to be used
with high-beginners, and the book’s cartoon illustrations of each idiom
appeal to students of widely varied ages.
Each of the nine units introduces five idioms from a single category,
such as animal names, foods, colors, body references, or double meanings.
Idioms are introduced with an intuitive, discovery learning approach,
giving students generous exposure to the idioms before providing
BOOK NOTICES 511

definitions. The exercises lead the students to apply the idioms repeatedly
at increasingly complex levels.
Each unit begins by asking students to guess the meaning of five idioms.
This effective reading preparation exercise can be handled in class
discussion. A simple, situation-based dialogue then presents the idioms in
a context that allows students to infer their meaning. In the third activity,
students match each of five context-based cartoon illustrations with the
proper idiom. Next, the text briefly defines each idiom; and students, in
pairs or as a class, compare each expression’s idiomatic meaning with its
meaning in the students’ own cultures. The final activity provides for
directed conversation, requiring each student to find a member of the class
who fits each idiom in some specific way.
At the end of the book is a review of all 45 idioms, again requiring each
student to find someone in the class to whom the idiom applies in a
particular way. An answer key for the picture-matching exercises is also
provided, along with an index of expressions with the page number on
which each idiom was introduced. The introduction states that the book
comes with an audio cassette.
Published in paperback, with glued binding, the thin book is printed on
heavy 7½” by 9½” paper and should wear well. Although spaces are
provided in the book for student answers, the book could easily be reused
if students write answers on other paper.
The book’s use of reading, writing, and speaking skills to repeat the
material on progressively complex levels is effective; however, a few other
aspects of the book’s presentation should be considered. For instance, the
idioms presented are common in everyday speech but are rarely used in
formal English. At times it is difficult to match the pictures with the correct
idiom. In addition, the short definitions at times miss some of the idiomatic
meaning and its logical connection with the literal meaning, and the
double-meaning idiom section does not discuss the suggested “dangerous”
meanings.
Even with these considerations, the material is presented in a light-
hearted way, which in itself will enhance students’ learning. An
enterprising teacher could apply the effective format to other idioms as
well. Crazy Idioms can provide effective enrichment for an ESL
curriculum.
EDA ASHBY
Brigham Young University
Words at Work: Vocabulary Building Through Reading. Betty Sobel and

Susan Bookman. New York: Collier Macmillan, 1989. Pp. xiv + 122.
This text is written for young adults and adults at the high-beginner and
low-intermediate level. It is designed “to cultivate a comfortable, posi-
tive, fearless attitude toward reading” (p. ix) by emphasizing lexical
512 TESOL QUARTERLY

development in using “high-interest readings and practice exercises that
allow students to work alone, with partners, and in groups” (p. xi). The 10
chapters constitute self-contained lessons.
Each chapter follows the same format. It begins with preview questions
on the reading topic that follows. Next, there is a short reading followed by
a true-false comprehension exercise. The topics for the reading are either
on life in the United States (i.e., surrogate parenting, or television and
children) or on personal development (i.e., shyness, or money and credit).
Students are asked to fill in sentences with words selected from the reading
and then proceed to definition exercises in which they first define words
and then fit them into sentences that form a dialogue. Next there is practice
with derived forms. The lesson continues with a new paragraph that
summarizes the original reading using the new vocabulary. Each lesson
ends with a “Wrap-Up Activity” promoting student interaction.
Is this text successful? On the positive side, students are provided many
opportunities to manipulate the highlighted lexical items. The exercises
developed for such work are generally well executed, although in some
fill-in activities students would be able to figure out correct responses on
the basis of grammatical, not lexical, knowledge. The items selected for
practice are appropriate for students at the targeted ESL/EFL level. Thus,
one hopes students’ reading abilities will increase as a result of their
expanded vocabulary.
However, the text fails on other accounts. Effective reading requires
more than good lexical knowledge; good readers can deduce meaning
from context. Words at Work provides no practice in such skill develop-
ment.
Another problem is the claim that each article “is written in natural En-
glish, similar to the style of magazine articles” (p. ix). Since the reading
passages are not credited, the claim for natural language is undocumented.
The articles appear to have been adapted, which may perhaps disappoint
those instructors who, on the basis of the introduction, expect authentic
texts.
In a similar vein, the claim that the text is an “interactive reader” (p. xi)
apparently means that students engage in some activities with partners or
groups, not that the students interact with the text along the lines suggested
by current reading research. In short, those seeking authentic texts and
natural language or an interactive approach to reading instruction will
need to search elsewhere.
Finally, the topics chosen and some of the activities related to them seem
culturally biased. For example, shyness is portrayed as a liability that
should be overcome (Lesson 1). For some readers, the topics may be either
offensive or irrelevant. Students are expected to debate a case of surrogate
parenting (Lesson 10) and to devise a will (Lesson 5). Are these topics
appropriate for all cultures within and outside of the United States? Is
there a subtle U. S., middle-class bias involved in these readings?
In summary, while Words at Work probably can deliver on its promise
of building vocabulary, as a general reading text that would build other
BOOK NOTICES 513

reading skills and appeal to ESL/EFL students, it is deficient in several key
areas. For those considering using this text I would advise caution.
ELLIOT L. JUDD
University of Illinois at Chicago
Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar. Marianne Celce-Murcia

and Sharon Hilles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 189.
In their introduction the authors present a carefully constructed case for

the necessity of teaching grammar to certain second language learners.
The first chapter counters the current antigrammar stance by citing the
profile of students who show a pattern of high vocabulary but fossilized
inaccurate grammar arrived at through “street learning or through ‘com-
munication first’ programs” and who are “unsuccessful at increasing their
linguistic ability” (Higgs & Clifford, 1982, cited in Celce-Murcia & Hilles,
p. 3). The authors proceed to outline a framework for teaching grammar
based on three aspects of language: social roles and communicative
functions (e.g., politeness), semantic notions expressed through
grammatical structures (e.g., prepositions), and discourse factors (e.g.,
word order and topic continuity). To these aspects they link the teaching
techniques of dramatizing, responding to realia, and manipulating texts.
The teacher new to ESL will find a wealth of concrete ideas for teaching
grammar. However, while the practicality of the text is beyond question,
there is an overly structuralist tone in many of the chapters despite the
interweaving of communicative classroom techniques. The primary
justification given for this is that “we are more often obliged to teach
district- or school-prescribed syllabuses, which usually are structurally
based” (p. 23). This is a disappointing caveat for those who believe that
grammar must play an integral part in the communicative classroom. It
would have been preferable for the authors to have derived the
grammatical syllabus from actual student errors, and to have described the
teaching of grammar in the context of teaching the other ESL skills,
particularly reading and writing.
Interwoven with the teaching examples are numerous comments
concerning classroom management, such as the benefits of cooperative
learning and the strict use of English in the classroom. One problem is that
no mention is made of the differences that might arise in an EFL situation
where, for example, the practicality of using the students’ native language
may at times be justified. A weakness of the book is the unstated
assumption that the readers will be teaching ESL classes in an adult school
setting.
Despite these problems, the text serves well as an introduction to the
teaching of grammar. It provides many examples of simple, practical
techniques that make use of everyday materials, from classroom furniture
to pop songs to magazine pictures. The authors emphasize the fact that
514 TESOL QUARTERLY

their ideas are only suggestions to encourage the teacher to find innovative
ways to contextualized grammar instruction. Through example, the book
demonstrates how a teacher’s creative approaches can help ESL students
gain maximum benefit from instruction in grammar.
PETER MASTER
California State University, Fresno
A Linguistic Study of American Punctuation. Charles F. Meyer. New

York: Peter Lang, 1987. Pp. xv + 159.
Meyer’s purpose with this book is to set forth a comprehensive treatment

of contemporary U.S. (termed Modern American) punctuation based on
linguistic principles. Specifically, his focus is on those punctuation marks
whose uses have not been rigidly conventionalized: that is “periods,
question marks, exclamation marks, commas, dashes, semicolons, colons,
and parentheses” (p. xiii).
Chapter 1 overviews the history of U.S. punctuation and its linguistic
basis. Chapters 2 through 4 outline the syntactic, semantic, and prosodic
bases of punctuation norms. Chapter 5 specifies the pragmatic bases for
overriding these norms. Chapter 6 details the close correspondence
between actual practice and the prescriptive rules given in style manuals.
Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the rules and general principles of punctu-
ation. Several appendixes conclude the book.
Meyer’s thesis is that punctuation should be viewed as a system
consisting of a small set of general principles. For example, in considering
coordinate constructions, Meyer discusses a punctuation hierarchy and one
general principle. The hierarchy ranks the period, the semicolon, and the
comma in descending order. Meyer’s principle states that “the lengthier or
more complex a coordinated construction . . ., the greater the need to
punctuate it with a mark higher on the punctuation hierarchy” (p. 119). In
a sentence like My mother went to the bank (punctuation mark) and my
father went to the store, each clause is short and simple. Hence a comma
(lowest on the hierarchy) is appropriate.
This view of punctuation as a system of general principles has straight-
forward implications for the teaching of U.S. English. For example,
suppose that in a choppy, hard-to-read essay, a student uses a period to
separate the following clauses: My mother went to the bank. And my
father went to the store. Using Meyer’s system, the instructor can present
the punctuation hierarchy and principle, pointing out that the clauses are
short, simple, and structurally parallel, thereby arguing for a mark lower
on the punctuation hierarchy. Once the students master the principle, they
can apply the same criteria to a huge class of coordinated constructions.
Without Meyer’s system of general principles, the instructor is restricted to
idiosyncratic correction (e.g., “use comma here”) or reference to a specific
rule in a style manual.
BOOK NOTICES 515

Meyer’s approach also has implications for nonnative speakers learning
U.S. punctuation. Since different languages utilize different linguistic
structures in different ways, one question researchers might ask is how a
person’s native linguistic competence affects or interferes with the
acquisition of the punctuation of U.S. English.
With over 250 examples and 35 different tables, Meyer’s book should
also serve as a valuable summary of the data and principles of punctuation.
Moreover, Appendix 1 details how 13 different style manuals treat 53
different punctuation usages (e.g., the acceptability of the “dash for
emphasis” as in The man—an incredible fool—should be fired).
In sum, Meyer’s view of punctuation as a system of principles and his
extensive surveys of punctuation data should prove especially useful to
TESOL specialists and others engaged in either teaching or analyzing
written U.S. English.
K. SCOTT FERGUSON
Harvard University
Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL. Deborah Phillips. New

York: Longman, 1989. Pp. vi + 282.
The Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL comes close to

meeting its back cover claims of giving “students the skills, strategies,
practice, and confidence they need to increase their scores on this
important exam.” Although the book does not touch on the Test of Spoken
English and deals with the Test of Written English very superficially, the
materials and exam practice given for the three main sections of the test
are exemplary. The book claims to be all things to all people: a core text
for TOEFL preparation, a self-study tool for students preparing for the
test, and a supplementary text in a more general ESL course. The latter use
would seem inadvisable, as the text deals as much with test-taking
strategies as it does with language and skills content.
Additional materials are available to supplement the materials in this
volume. A separate typescript and answer key are needed to-work fully
with the text. The complete Longman program for the TOEFL includes
another book, Longman Practice Tests for the TOEFL, with its own
typescripts and answer keys included. Cassettes (two in each set) go with
each book.
The practical, frankly “beat-the-test” orientation shows up in such
instructions as choose the answer “that sounds different” (p. 18) or listen
“to the second line of the conversation” (p. 50), both in the section on
Listening Comprehension; and “do not spend a lot of time looking for
contextual clues to the meanings of the words” (p. 208) in the section on
Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. Strategies for each question
type in the three main sections of the TOEFL are described and the
teacher is reminded to do the practice exercises in class as “it is important
516 TESOL QUARTERLY

to keep the students under time pressure” (p. 5) while they do the
exercises.
Unlike most TOEFL preparation courses, Phillips’ work provides little
real TOEFL practice; the text begins with a pretest and ends with a
posttest, as does each section dealing with each of the three sections of the
TOEFL. These tests seem to have greater motivational than instructional
import; students are instructed in converting their scores to a 200-700
TOEFL-like scale and then “chart their progress” (p. 270). Many exercises
in the book adopt the TOEFL format but deal only with a specific skill or
language item in focus.
The real strength of the text lies in predicting areas in which students are
probably going to have difficulty (based on errors actually made on the
TOEFL) and then systematically dealing with these areas, most
successfully in the Structure/Written Expression section. Here such
common errors as subject-verb agreement are dealt with through brief
explanatory notes, exercises, and finally TOEFL-like practice. A problem-
solving approach follows the current trend in learner accountability:
Teachers are a resource and their job is to “assist the students in finding the
various ways that the sentences can be corrected” (p. 5). Material based on
specific problems permits teachers to omit certain sections of the text if
they don’t like the way the problem is addressed or if the language point
does not present a problem for their students.
The Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL has a pleasing
appearance, contains realistic testing material and answer sheets, and
provides adequate remedial work and test-taking strategies for the three
main sections of the exam. This is what it was written to do and the author,
publisher, and those who adopt it should not expect it to do any more—or
any less.
TERESE THONUS
Cultura lnglesa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Doublespeak, William Lutz. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Pp. xiii + 290.
Although we are language professionals, ESL teachers may not fully
appreciate the degree to which the manipulative language of advertisers,
bureaucrats, and politicians has come to pervade the public discourse. In
an effort to draw attention to the trend, William Lutz has compiled into
book form examples of doublespeak, which he defines as language that
can “mislead, distort, deceive, inflate, circumvent, obfuscate” (p. 2). “At its
least offensive, doublespeak is inflated language” (p. 9).
Consisting mostly of material previously published in the Quarterly
Review of Doublespeak, a publication of the National Council of Teachers
of English edited by Lutz, this catalogue of examples from across the
spectrum of public discourse is a sobering—and entertaining—account of
the phenomenon of doublespeak.
BOOK NOTICES 517

The term doublespeak was inspired by the work of George Orwell. In
his book 1984, Newspeak is the official state language; doublethink is
exemplified by the slogan “War is Peace.” Lutz quotes Orwell’s 1946 essay,
"Politics and the English Language"“ “The great enemy of clear language
is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and declared aims,
one turns as it were instinctively to long words” (p. 8). Lutz notes that the
problem is with the intent of the speaker or writer, not with the language
but with those who use it. Doublespeak is not simply another inoffensive
manifestation of the change all living languages are subject to. The
existence of doublespeak is by design, not by natural evolution. In too
many cases, its manifesto is manipulation and its primary goal is to
dissemble.
Teachers might use Lutz’ book to raise awareness of doublespeak and
some of its subtleties. They could develop lessons in critical thinking,
especially for reading courses where objectives include inferencing,
distinguishing fact from opinion, and identifying tone and bias. Double-
speak is a rich resource to use in the classroom. One familiar phrase that
Lutz dissects yields not only to grammatical and lexical, but also to
pragmatic analysis: “Twice as much of the pain reliever doctors
recommend most” (p. 95). Twice as much as what? he wonders. And just
what is the pain reliever doctors recommend most, anyway? According to
Lutz, it’s plain aspirin; the hollowness and pretension of the phrase begin
to emerge. Teachers can help students wade through other odious lan-
guage, such as this response to a request for a raise: “Because of the
fluctuational disposition of your position’s productive capacity as
juxtaposed to government standards, it would be monetarily injudicious to
advocate an increment” (p. 215).
Most of the examples in Doublespeak are drawn from the published
equivocations of politicians and bureaucrats. For example, there is the
helicopter that, as the National Transportation Safety Board once
reported, failed “to maintain clearance from the ground” (p. 214). And
who is trying to hide what behind an expression like, “predawn vertical
insertion” (p. 7)? (Remember Granada?)
Ironically, teachers are partly to blame for the proliferation of double-
speak. In a lengthy section on education doublespeak, Lutz finds that
educational journals and reports are replete with the stuff. Even English
teachers have fallen for it. Lutz cites a study in which English teachers are
found to prefer convoluted passages like those above to passages that say
the same thing in simpler prose. Lutz encourages teachers to be aware of
doublespeak: “They should be leading the fight against doublespeak by
teaching their students how to spot it, how to defend themselves against it,
and how to eliminate it in their own writing and speaking” (p. 63).
VINCENT G. BARNES
518 TESOL QUARTERLY

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES
The TESOL Quarterly invites readers to submit short reports and updates on their
work. These summaries may address any areas of interest to Quarterly readers.
Authors’ addresses are printed with these reports to enable interested readers to
contact the authors for more details.
Edited by GAIL WEINSTEIN-SHR

University of Massachusetts at Amherst/
Temple University
Listening Perception Accuracy of ESL Learners

as a Variable Function of Speaker L1
GEORGE YULE, SUSAN WETZEL, and LAURA KENNEDY
Louisiana State University
As we incorporate into our ESL speaking classes a greater number of

interactive tasks involving nonnative-speaker/nonnative-speaker (NNS/
NNS) dyads or groups, trying to create the optimum conditions for
learners to benefit from negotiated input (Long, 1983; Doughty & Pica,
1986), we have tended to move away from exercises that focus on linguis-
tic form, particularly in terms of the pronunciation and perception of En-
glish sound contrasts at the syllable or word level. This would seem to be
justified if we could be sure that, as an inevitable part of receiving
negotiated input, learners were in fact developing sufficient accuracy in
the production and perception of those features of spoken English that
play a crucial part in comprehension. According to Long and Porter
(1985), accuracy does not suffer when learners take part in interactive pair
work with other NNSs. However, this claim was primarily based on the
use of grammatical structures and seems, in our experience, to be less
tenable when we think of some learners whose accuracy in spoken
production does seem to be subject to some variation.
We do not know of any studies focusing specifically on level of
pronunciation and perception accuracy in NNS/NNS pair work, but we
have observed that learners seem to get by with fairly inaccurate
pronunciations (in terms of the target) when their NNS partner is very
familiar with their speech, particularly in the EFL context where
interlocutors share the same L1 (Kenworthy, 1987). We wondered if ESL
learners actually found it easier to identify English words when these were
spoken by other learners than when they were spoken by English native
speakers. In an attempt to answer this question, we designed a listening
perception exercise to investigate whether learners became more or less
accurate in their identification of English words as a function of the L1 of
the speaker.
519
THE STUDY
A group of 25 students of high-intermediate to low-advanced ability,
enrolled in sections of a Spoken English class at Louisiana State University,
voluntarily took part in our study. There were 13 Spanish first language
(SL1) speakers, 6 Vietnamese (VL1) speakers and 6 Chinese (CL1)
speakers. They were individually recorded reading two different sets of 40
sentences. Every sentence came in two versions, to provide a minimal pair
contrast. For example, when one set contained Everyone was present, the
other set contained Everyone was pleasant. We also had a U.S. English
speaker (EL1) record both sets. From these recordings we created, for
each individual learner, cassette tapes with sets of sentences such that each
learner had to listen to an English NS, a same L1 NNS, a different L1 NNS
and him/herself. Sample sentences for each listener were randomly
selected from each input source, with the result that there was no control
over which particular minimal pair contrasts were represented on each
listener’s cassette.
When the learners listened to their cassette tapes, they had to decide
which word had been spoken in each sentence. For example, the learner
would hear a spoken version of Put these in the bag, and have to indicate
on an answer sheet which member of a pair of words had been spoken: Put
these in the (bag/back). (For a more detailed description of the technique,
see Yule, Hoffman, & Damico, 1987). We thereby collected perception
accuracy scores for our three L1 groups listening to four different English
input sources: NS, same Ll, different Ll, and self. The accuracy results,
expressed as mean percentages for each L1 group along with the results of
the analysis of variance (ANOVA) by group are presented in Table 1.
TABLE 1
Mean Perception Accuracy (%) and ANOVAs by Listener Group
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Considering all the learners in our study as a single ESL population, we
find that there is a substantially higher level of accuracy when the
520 TESOL QUARTERLY

individual learners try to identify what they themselves have said, with
between self and each of the others.1 This should not be surprising since
individuals speaking a second language must, via the self-monitoring
process, become their own most common personal input providers, and
inevitably the most familiar (Gass & Varonis, 1984).
The same pattern as for the overall group (mean perception accuracy
for self differing significantly from each of the other speaker conditions,
but no real differences between any of those other conditions) is repeated
group, only the difference between listening to self and listening to same
SL1 groups, the relatively minor differences observed between their
perception accuracy scores when trying to identify what was said by an
English NS and a NNS (either with same or different Ll) would tend to
offer support to those who claim that the source of L2 input need not be
a native speaker.
However, the results for the Chinese L1 group present a quite different
picture. For this group, there is no difference in accuracy between listening
to self and to others with the same L1. Here the critical difference in mean
difference in listening to self versus an English native speaker and listening

to a same L1 speaker versus an English native speaker. That is, in marked
contrast to the SL1 and VL1 groups, the Chinese L1 group had significantly
greater accuracy in identifying English words when spoken by another
Chinese L1 speaker than when spoken by a native English speaker.
What might account for this difference in L2 perception accuracy
according to the L1 of the input provider among these groups? When we
conducted our investigation of listening accuracy, we had also gathered
information on a number of other factors. In analyzing the relationship
between these factors and the various listening accuracy scores, we could
find no connection between listening scores and self-reported factors such
as amount of time using English outside class, number of same L1 friends,
number of different L1 friends, or number of English L1 friends. Despite
their generally having the lowest accuracy scores, the CL1 group reported
a greater average number of years studying English (8.29) than the SL1
group (7.34) and the VL1 group (5.13). However, no significant correlation
was found between years studying English and any listening accuracy
condition. Nor was there any significant correlation between any listening
accuracy condition and reported years living in the United States: CL1
(2.17), SL1 (1.66), VL1 (4.58). What did provide a possible clue was the
apparent difference in the type of English language experience that the
CL1 and VL1 groups had had.
BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 521

If we compare the figures for time spent studying English and time
spent in the U. S., we might infer that these account for differences in L2
perception accuracy. The general English language learning experience of
the Vietnamese group had been in an ESL context (about 90%), but not so
for the Chinese group (about 25%). While the VL1 group had learned Eng-
lish in classes with learners from other L1 backgrounds, with English NS
teachers, and surrounded by the English language, the CL1 group
confirmed that they had had a traditional EFL experience, with very
limited English speaking or listening components. Whatever listening
experience they had been provided with involved Chinese L1 learners and
teachers speaking English. This scenario may provide some insight into the
fact that the CL1 group had achieved their highest accuracy scores when
listening to other CL1 speakers.
This explanation, however, does not seem as strong when we examine
the time spent by the SL1 group studying English in the ESL versus the
EFL context. These SL1 students had, on average, no more ESL
experience than the CL1 group (about 22%), yet had coped better with the
English NS input. We might point out, however, that these SL1 learners,
from South and Central America, had generally had much greater
exposure to spoken U.S. English, both in and out of their EFL classes, prior
to arriving in the U.S. Their general familiarity with U.S. cultural
references, for example, was observed in class to be much greater than that
of the CL1 students.
CONCLUSION
It is impossible, in this type of study, to measure the effect of previous
EFL instruction on performance within the ESL situation of a U.S.
university. We should, however, try to remember that the individual
learners in our ESL classes may have had qualitatively quite different EFL
learning experiences and developed quite different levels of ability in
specific skill areas. When we advocate NNS/NNS pairings in spoken
interaction tasks in the language classroom, we should be sensitive to the
potential differences in ability among different L1 learners to cope with
English language input from learners with different Lls. While the present
study has been limited to simple perception accuracy in isolation and not
within an ongoing interaction, it does provide some grounds for suspecting
that what might count as comprehensible input from a Chinese L1 speaker
to a Spanish L1 speaker may not count as such in the opposite direction.
Finally, it must be clear from our results that claims from research with
one specific L1 group of learners may not be accurate with regard to
another L1 group even, as in this case, when those groups are currently
sharing the same classroom experience. Consequently, when making
claims about, for example, the performance of a small group of Spanish L1
ESL learners on some task, in a particular setting, we should be extremely
cautious about turning those claims into powerful and unqualified
statements about what all learners do.
522 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES
Doughty, C., & Pica, T. (1986). “Information gap” tasks: Do they facilitate second
language acquisition? TESOL Quarterly, 20 (2), 305-325.
Gass, S., & Varonis, E. M. (1984). The effect of familiarity on the compre-
hensibility of nonnative speech. Language Learning, 34, 65-89.
Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English pronunciation. Harlow, England: Long-
man.
Long, M. H. (1983). Linguistic and conversational adjustments to non-native
speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 5, 177-193.
Long, M. H., & Porter, P. A. (1985). Group work, interlanguage talk, and second
language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (2), 207-228.
Yule, G., Hoffman, P., & Damico, J. (1987). Paying attention to pronunciation: The
role of self-monitoring in perception. TESOL Quarterly, 21 (4), 765-768.
Authors’ Address: Linguistics Program, 136 Coates Hall, Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, LA 70803.
Using Brainstorming and Clustering

with LEP Writing to Develop
Elaboration Skills
ANDREA B. BERMUDEZ and DORIS L. PRATER
University of Houston-Clear Lake
The need to develop intervention and prevention programs for at-risk

populations has clearly become a national educational priority as dropout
levels continue to escalate (United States General Accounting Office,
1987). To date, most educational models used with minority students,
particularly the limited English proficient (LEP), have approached
instruction from the standpoint of students’ deficits rather than their
strengths. This focus has resulted in temporary and costly solutions to the
problem (Fernandez, Bermudez, & Fradd, in press). The development of
writing skills in LEP and at-risk students has been largely ignored by
educators in the field. In addition, these writers face several challenges in
developing composing skills: (a) lack of awareness of critical cognitive
processes inherent to good writing, e.g., clustering related ideas and self-
directed memory searching (Englert & Raphael, 1988); (b) inability to
transform conversational patterns into writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1982); (c) lack of ability to regulate their own and others’ comprehension
of text and to organize ideas for writing (Englert & Raphael, 1988); (d)
dependence on external criteria and resources (Englert & Raphael, 1988);
and (e) conception of language as a set of discrete and mutually
independent skills (Padron & Bermudez, 1988).
In addition, recent studies of LEP writers suggest that these students
focus on form to the detriment of content or ideas (Padron & Bermudez,

1988; Widdowson, 1978; Zamel, 1982, 1983). LEP writers are not
systematically using strong metacognitive strategies such as planning,
brainstorming, and considering the audience; instead, they are focusing on
grammatical features and punctuation (Bermudez & Padron, 1988;
Raimes, 1980). Furthermore, being able to plan, draft, and revise requires
the ability to use recursive processes that tend to overwhelm the LEP
writer. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1986) report that lack of sufficient meta-
cognitive awareness necessary for successful writing would jeopardize the
quality of the written product. Consequently, developing metacognitive
awareness of the writing process is a good starting point for these learners.
Additionally, strategy instruction seems to be a promising writing
methodology for the LEP student (Chamot & O’Malley, 1987). Teaching
cognitive strategies has also shown to be effective in helping students make
the transition from oral to written language (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1982;
Chamot & O'Malley, 1987).
Mapping strategies, for example, have been found to help students
establish priorities and focus their writing (Miccinati, 1988). This strategy
has been defined in the research literature as a technique for externalizing
the individual’s cognitive structure by diagraming his/her knowledge
base of concepts and the relationships among concepts (Novak & Gowin,
1984). Similarly this type of strategy improves comprehension of text from
elementary school to adult levels (Prater & Terry, 1988; Singer & Bean,
1984; Slater, Graves, & Piche, 1985) and retention of information
(Miccinati, 1988). In addition, mapping assists in developing more
cohesive (Ruddel & Boyle, 1984; Miccinati, 1988) and longer essays
(Ruddel & Boyle, 1984). However, the impact of these strategies on ESL
writing has not been examined. As a result of the pressing need for
additional research in this area, the researchers conducted the present
study to investigate the effects of brainstorming and clustering on the
development of written language fluency and the elaboration of ideas in
LEP students.
METHOD
Subjects
The sample consisted of two groups of 16 third- and fourth-grade
Spanish-speaking LEP students from a low-income urban school in Texas.
Procedure
Students were matched according to their Individualized Developmen-
tal English Activities (IDEA) language proficiency scores. One student
from each pair was randomly assigned to a treatment group, one to a
control group. The same teacher worked with both groups for 45 minutes
per day for 6 days. Three reading selections from the basal reader that was
the class text were used (Arnold, Smith, Blood, & Lapp, 1987). The
524 TESOL QUARTERLY

selections were factual/informative reading passages. Two days were
spent on each of three selections.
The treatment group brainstormed ideas about the topic of the story
using the title of the selection and illustrations as a stimulus for their
thinking. The teacher served as scribe, placing the ideas on a transparency.
The students read the selection silently for the remainder of the class
period. The next day the teacher led the group in brainstorming other
ideas that they had gathered from their reading. Then, with the assistance
of the teacher, the students clustered the ideas by circling like topics in the
same color ink pen. Next, the treatment group wrote a paragraph about
the story. A 6-item comprehension measure was given to the students at the
end of the 2 days spent on each respective selection. One week later a
retention measure made up of the three comprehension measures was
given.
With the control group, the teacher introduced the selections using
preliminary questions provided in the basal reader. Then, the students
read the selection silently. The next day the teacher led a class discussion
based on questions provided in the basal reader and the student wrote a
paragraph about the selection. The same comprehension and retention
measures were given to the control group.
Evaluation Measures
Comprehension measure. Three 6-item tests based on the respective
stories were developed by the researchers. Items were written at both
literal/factual and inferential/interpretive levels. For each student, the
three test scores were summed to yield a single comprehension score
(range 0-18).
Retention measure. The 18 items were administered 1 week after the last
class session as a comprehensive retention measure.
Writing measures. The essays were analyzed for fluency (number of
words, number of idea units, number of main ideas); for elaboration
(number of ideas beyond text material); and for organization (number of
clusters).
Idea units are defined by Gere & Abbott (1985) as a single clause,
independent or dependent.
The number of main ideas in the reading selections was determined by
having two graduate students read each selection and list the main ideas.
In most cases these main ideas were topic sentences within each
paragraph, stated or implied. The final selection of main ideas was agreed
upon by both readers. Student essays were then scored against this list.
The number of ideas beyond the text material was determined by two
independent readings of the essays. New material added to the essay that
was not present in the text was counted.
The number of clusters was determined by counting the number of
occasions in which two or more sentences with related ideas were
expressed consecutively within the essay.

RESULTS
The means, standard deviations, and t-values for each of the dependent
measures are shown in Table 1. Elaboration was significantly higher for
the treatment group. No significant differences between the two groups
were found on measures of fluency, organization, comprehension, or
retention. Note, however, that the use of multiple t-tests calls into question
the significance of the elaboration measure. Thus, conclusions reported
here should be interpreted as suggestive only; further research is needed in
this area.
TABLE 1
Comparison of Experimental and Control Groups on Each
of the Evaluation Measures
Discussion
It may be that the graphic representation of concepts enables the LEP
writers to expand their discussion of materials presented in the basal
reader. The mapping activities and exchange of related ideas may activate
prior knowledge and facilitate linkages with new knowledge. The original
ideas presented beyond those contained in the text suggest that the learner
is actively involved in the process.
While not statistically significant, the finding that the treatment group
essays were better organized than the control group’s is also suggestive.
The clustering activities may provide the necessary mechanism for
fostering the grouping of related ideas in written products. The maps may
facilitate visualization of conceptual relationships among parts and
between parts and the whole. These learners may need more practice over
an extended period of time.
Educational Implications
If future research finds these effects to be significant, several
526 TESOL QUARTERLY

implications follow. In both brainstorming and clustering procedures, the
goal of the classroom teacher should be to move the student to
independent use of such techniques. The comprehension of factual/
informative texts is essential to handling reading in content areas. LEP
writers need to be provided a variety of tools to help them cope with
demands made upon them in content classes. The’ use of cognitive
strategies to enhance the development of composing skills may well be
effective with LEP learners. Strategy-oriented writing instruction
enhances the opportunities for the LEP student to use writing as a learning
tool as well as a skill to develop other language and thinking skills.
REFERENCES
Arnold, V. A., Smith, C. B., Blood, J., & Lapp, D. (1987). Connections: Level 3.2.
Observing. New York: Macmillan.
Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1982). From conversation to composition: The
role of instruction in a developmental process. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances in
instructional psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 1-64). Hillsdale, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bermudez, A. B., & Padron, Y. N. (1988). Teachers’ perceptions of errors in second
language learning and acquisition. In L. M. Malave (Ed.), NABE ’87. Theory
Research and Applications: Selected Papers (pp. 112-124). Fall River, MA:
National Dissemination Center.
Chamot, A. U., & O’Malley, J. M. (1987). The cognitive academic language
learning approach: A bridge to the mainstream. TESOL Quarterly, 21 (2),
227-249.
Englert, C. S., & Raphael, T. E. (1988). Constructing well-formed prose: Process,
structure and metacognition in the instruction of expository writing. Exceptional
Children, 54 (6), 513-520.
Fernandez, M. R., Bermudez, A. B., & Fradd, S. L. (in press). The Hispanic
dropout cycle: A proposal for change. Southwest Journal of Educational
Research Into Practice.
Gere, A. R., & Abbott, R. D. (1985). Talking about writing: The language of
writing groups. Research in the Teaching of English, 19, 362-379.
Miccinati, J. (1988). Mapping the terrain: Connecting reading with academic
writing. Journal of Reading, 31, 542-552.
Novak, J. D., & Gowin, D. B. (1984). Learning how to learn. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Padron, Y. N., & Bermudez, A. B. (1988, Spring). Promoting effective writing
strategies for ESL students. Southwest Journal of Research Into Practice 2, 19-27.
Prater, D. L., & Terry, C. A. (1988). Effects of mapping strategies on reading
comprehension and writing performance. Reading Psychology, 9 (2), 101-120.
Raimes, A. (1980). Composition: Controlled by the teacher, free for the student. In
K. Croft (Ed.), Readings on English as a second language: For teachers and
teacher trainees (pp. 386-398). Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.
Ruddell, R., & Boyle, O. (1984). A study of the effects of cognitive mapping on
reading comprehension and written protocols. (Technical Report No. 7).
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1986). Research on written composition. In M.
Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed, pp. 778-803). New
York: Macmillan.

Singer, H., & Bean, T. (Eds.). (1984). Learning from texts: Selection of friendly
text. Proceedings of the Lake Arrowhead Conference on Learning from text.
(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 251 512).
Slater, W., Granes, M., & Piche, G. (1985). Effects of structural organizers on ninth
grade students’ comprehension and recall of four patterns of expository text.
Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 189-202.
United States General Accounting Office. (1987). School dropouts: The extent and
nature of the problem. (GAO/HRD Report No. 86-106BR). Washington, DC:
Author.
Widdowson, H. (1978). Teaching language as communication. London: Oxford
University Press.
Zamel, V. (1982). Writing: The process of discovering meaning. TESOL Quarterly,
16 (2), 195-209.
Zamel, V. (1983). The composing processes of advanced ESL students: Six case
studies. TESOL Quarterly, 17 (2), 165-187.
Authors’ Address: University of Houston-Clear Lake, 2700 Bay Area Blvd.,

Houston, TX 77058.
528 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE FORUM
The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the
TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or
remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.
Comments on James W. Tollefson’s

Alien Winds: The Reeducation of
America’s Indochinese Refugees
and Elsa Auerbach’s Review
Two Readers React. . .
DONALD A. RANARD and DOUGLAS F. GILZOW

Center for Applied Linguistics
In her recent review of James Tollefson’s Alien Winds (1989),

Elsa Auerbach (Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring, 1990) finds little to criticize
and much to praise, recommending the book as “required reading
for all ESL educators.” It is not surprising that the review was
favorable, since Auerbach is singled out for special thanks in the
acknowledgments section of Alien Winds, and her own work
suggests a sympathy for Tollefson’s point of view. It was disturbing,
however, that there was apparently no attempt to verify Tollefson’s
charges against the Overseas Refugee Training Program (ORTP).
In fact, Auerbach highlights some of the more sensationalistic
accusations, describing raw sewage flowing through refugees’ living
quarters and teachers extorting sexual favors and bribes from
students. Had the reviewer taken steps to check the facts, she would
have discovered dozens of inaccuracies and distortions in the book.
It is for this reason that we wish to provide an alternative view of
the book and the program it attacks.
Originally planned as a temporary response to the “refugee crisis”
in Southeast Asia, the Overseas Refugee Training Program has
evolved into a sophisticated educational program that has
continued for over a decade. It has operated under unique
constraints, employing Thai and Filipino educators to prepare
refugees for the U.S. in camps 10,000 miles away.
529
Alien Winds makes serious charges against the Overseas Refugee
Training Program and the living conditions at one of the sites. Our
comments focus on the educational program since space does not
permit a full discussion of both issues, and because education is the
area most relevant to readers of the TESOL Quarterly. However,
two points should be noted about the processing centers. First, they
are not “American run,” as Tollefson asserts (p. 16); they are
operated by the host country governments and the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees. Second, conditions in the
processing centers are superior to those in any first-asylum camp in
Southeast Asia, in terms of housing, sanitation, and security—and
those conditions have steadily improved over time. In a recent
report (Pihl, 1990), a consultant to Lutheran Immigration and
Refugee Service characterizes the Philippine Refugee Processing
Center as a “country club” (p. 8), in comparison to first-asylum
camps in the region.
According to Tollefson, for the past ten years the U.S. govern-
ment has spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars providing English as a
second language instruction and cultural orientation to Indochinese
refugees as part of a systematic effort to divest these people of their
cultures, inculcate them with new values of subservience, and then
track them into dead-end menial jobs required by the U.S economic
system. This attempt, he maintains, shares the same fundamental
purpose as efforts by turn-of-the-century educators to “American-
ize” immigrants, and has led the overseas program into shoddy
pedagogy and an alarming number of abuses against the refugees.
If Tollefson is correct, he has uncovered an educational conspiracy
of unprecedented magnitude, involving thousands of U. S., Thai,
Indonesian, and Filipino educators, and organizations such as the
Experiment in International Living, Save the Children Federation,
World Education, International Catholic Migration Commission
(ICMC), World Relief Corporation, and the Center for Applied
Linguistics.
In his single-minded attachment to his point of view, Tollefson
not only ignores contrary evidence but also shapes the facts to fit his
thesis. We find half-truths, inaccuracies, misleading examples, and
simplistic generalizations throughout Alien Winds in criticisms of
the staff, the curriculum, the infrastructure, and other aspects of the
Overseas Refugee Training program in Thailand and particularly in
the Philippine Refugee Processing Center. Furthermore, the author
fails to take into account changes that have taken place in the
program since he left it in 1986.
530 TESOL QUARTERLY

EMPLOYMENT
In Alien Winds, Tollefson argues that the Overseas Refugee
Training Program focuses almost exclusively on employment and
that it trains refugees for dead-end, minimum-wage jobs by
teaching them the language and behavior of subservience and
obedience. This view is a serious misrepresentation of the program
and, in our view, reflects a skewed understanding of the realities
that refugees face in the U.S.
The program does not, as is charged, define successful resettle-
ment solely in terms of employment. While employment is an
important topic in the program classes, other topics, such as health,
transportation, shopping, directions, and personal information, far
outnumber employment-related areas in both the ESL and Cultural
Orientation curricula. Interestingly, in the mid-1980s, at a time when
almost all federally funded training for refugees in the U.S. had
become employment-related, thus restricting eligibility to only
employable refugees, the overseas program was committing its
resources to better meet the needs of children, adolescents, and
homebound mothers. Tollefson does not report these and similar
developments that do not support his thesis. (The special
curriculum for homebound women is mentioned, but surprisingly is
used as proof of the program’s failure to force these women into
minimum-wage employment.)
In Alien Winds, not only is the amount of attention paid to employ-
ment exaggerated, but the quality and content of employment-
related instruction is also misrepresented. Tollefson’s charge that the
ORTP willfully disregards the employment backgrounds of students,
many of whom (he suggests) are well-educated professionals,
misrepresents who the refugees are and what the program does. In
fact, since the ORTP was established, only a minority of the refugees
have been well-educated professionals. In contrast to the Indochinese
refugees who arrived in 1975, many since then have had rural
backgrounds, little formal education, and no previous contact with
people from the U.S. or other Westerners (Caplan, Whitmore, & Bui,
1985; Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1983; Rumbaut, 1985). For
example, the average number of years of education for the 1988
arrivals was 4.2, compared to 9.5 years for those arriving in 1975
(Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1983, 1989).
While it is true that the Work Orientation component has
concentrated its resources on less educated refugees, it is also true
that in recent years the component has taken into account the
varying backgrounds of refugees. Students in these classes are
THE FORUM 531

grouped according to their previous work experience and levels of
education. Furthermore, many of the better educated refugees are
not students in the program at all, but rather serve as resources in
Cultural Orientation classes and in programs for elementary school-
aged children and adolescents. These English-proficient refugees
are offered additional classes in TOEFL preparation, advanced
English, and career exploration.
Tollefson’s claim that the program teaches refugees the language
and behavior of subservience and obedience likewise is based on a
selective use of the facts. Contrary to Tollefson’s allegations,
refugee students practice giving as well as following orders. At
Level C, students learn to give one-step instructions, and at Level E,
they practice explaining a technique or procedure (Center for
Applied Linguistics, 1985). Nor does Alien Winds mention that
Work Orientation devotes several hours to identifying legal rights
and responsibilities in the workplace. In these lessons, refugees
learn how to spot errors in paychecks, discuss different types of
discrimination from which workers are protected, describe the
purpose of unions, and list typical worker benefits (International
Catholic Migration Commission, 1987).
Because of the educational backgrounds of most of the students
in the program, Work Orientation does tend to focus on the
language and skills needed for entry-level employment. At the same
time, the component has always spent considerable time on the
strategies needed to move up on the job or to find a job elsewhere.
In a series of lessons, refugee students complete skills inventories
and interest and preference checklists, and then examine various
occupational options before developing a plan for “jobs they can do
now, jobs they would like to have in the future, and skills they
would have to develop through future education and/or training”
(International Catholic Migration Commission, 1987, p. 6). These
lessons are followed by others that explore educational options.
Alien Winds, however, does not give serious attention to this aspect
of the curriculum; the author apparently believes that the program’s
treatment of upward mobility not only betrays an unrealistically
rosy picture of economic realities in the U. S., but that it is a
purposeful part of the program’s intent: to lure refugees into
accepting entry-level jobs.
If the program expresses a positive attitude towards upward
mobility, such an attitude is partly because job mobility is an
unfamiliar concept to many Indochinese refugees: In their
countries, the first job was often the job one kept for life. In the
ORTP, refugees learn that, unlike the situation in their own
countries, U.S. workers change jobs frequently and seek additional
532 TESOL QUARTERLY

training in order to improve their lot. (The students get the bad
news as well. While refugees learn that it is possible to move up the
economic ladder, they also learn that it is possible to move down—
and to fall off it completely. This is also an unfamiliar notion to
many refugees from Southeast Asia, where a personal relationship
of responsibility between employer and employee makes layoffs
and firings much less frequent than in the U. S.)
Tollefson ridicules the program’s treatment of upward mobility
as naive, arguing that for most refugees upward mobility is more
myth than reality. He cites studies showing that several years after
their arrival in the U.S. many refugees, even those with jobs, are still
living at levels of poverty. Thus, by encouraging refugees to take
entry-level jobs, Tollefson argues, we are dooming them to poverty
and helping to create an underclass.
As elsewhere, we find a selective use of the data. The main
evidence for the claim that refugees are suffering “a permanent
economic crisis” and “long-term poverty” (p. 124) is drawn from a
1985 Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)-commissioned study
that examines the economic achievements of post-1978 arrivals
(Caplan, Whitmore, & Bui, 1985). While the study found high rates
of unemployment and poverty in the early period of resettlement, it
also found a gradual ascent out of poverty over time. After four
years in the U.S., 70% of the refugee sample was above the poverty
line, a rate that is not very different from rates for other U.S.
minorities (Caplan, Whitmore, & Bui, 1985). In a more recent look
at the data, the authors predicted “the likelihood of continued
economic independence and improvement in economic status” and
called the refugees’ climb out of poverty “a major accomplish-
ment,” particularly considering that it occurred at a time of
economic recession, when the percentage of households above the
poverty line fell for the U.S. population in general, and for other
minority groups in particular (Caplan, Whitmore, & Choy, 1989,
p. 65).
At the same time, it was found that individual incomes did not
improve very much over the four- year period. After a year of
employment, refugees were earning an average of $5.20 per hour;
after two or more years of employment, they earned an average of
$5.35 an hour. (Note, however, that both figures are substantially
above minimum wage, Throughout his book, Tollefson mislead-
ingly uses the terms entry-level employment and minimum-wage
employment interchangeably.)
Economic improvements were made less through individual
advancements, the study found, than by increases in the number of
people working in households. Another study (Baker & North,
THE FORUM 533

1984), however, shows significant increases in individual income
among 1975 arrivals. Baker and North found that among young
male refugees, the median income rose steadily, approaching parity
with U.S. workers in 1979, while the median earnings of female
refugees actually surpassed those of U.S. female workers.
It is unlikely, given the backgrounds of post-1979 arrivals, that
these refugees will achieve the same level of success as the better-
educated 1975 arrivals. Still, there is reason for some optimism. In a
recent Wall Street Journal article, one of the authors of the 1985
ORR study says that the “economic and educational attainments [of
post-1979 arrivals] are stunning. To a surprising degree the boat
people have achieved a high level of control over their own destiny”
(Caplan, 1990, A14).
While the sensational successes of individual refugees reported in
the media are hardly typical, evidence does not support what
Tollefson calls the “bleak picture of resettlement” (p. 122). The
truth is somewhere in between, and it is this truth that the Overseas
Refugee Training Program tries to convey.
ESL AND PROFESSIONALISM

When the program was first launched in 1980, there was more
concern for the refugees’ immediate survival needs than for their
long-term language development. There was good reason for this
concern. The ORTP was established after President Carter’s
decision to accept for resettlement 14,000 Indochinese a month,
more in two months than had been resettled in the two previous
years combined (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1981). Having
shifted at jetspeed from their familiar rural Southeast Asian
surroundings to cities and suburbs across the U. S., these refugees
frequently found themselves in linguistic and cross-cultural
confusion. There were stories of Hmong hilltribe people from Laos
hosing down the living room floor in their Seattle apartments, then
industriously sweeping the water down the heat registers; others
attempted to cook a whole chicken in an electric toaster (Levine,
1982). A number of stories were more alarming. Sponsors and case
workers in resettlement agencies were concerned that many
refugees were unable to understand or follow instructions from
doctors, could not read warning and danger signs, and had no idea
what to do in case of a household emergency except “call the
sponsor. ” There were reports of widespread and serious mental
health problems, particularly depression, among refugees (Cohon,
1980; United Community Planning Corporation, 1982; Wester-
meyer, 1985). In one widely reported incident, a refugee man,
534 TESOL QUARTERLY

unable to understand what was happening to him and fearing that
he had failed his family, organized the attempted mass suicide of his
entire family (Trillin, 1980).
Thus, the overseas program began with a specific but critical
purpose: to ease the initial shock of entry into an unfamiliar culture.
Over time, as the numbers of refugees decreased and the sense of
crisis diminished, the program expanded its scope of purpose to pay
more attention to refugees’ longer range needs—in particular, their
general language development and strategies for cross-cultural
coping. Tollefson is apparently unaware of these developments, or
has chosen to ignore them.
For example, in his recommendations, Tollefson urges the
overseas program to “reconsider the competency-based approach
to ESL” (p. 155) because in his view it limits the education students
receive. In fact, in 1985 overseas program staff were concerned that
there was not enough attention given to general English language
skills, particularly literacy skills (Kharde & Corey, 1986). Their
solution was not to throw out the competency-based model, but to
reduce the number of required competencies, thus allowing
teachers and students more time for other areas. Since 1986, ESL
classes in the ORTP have devoted more time to developing
students’ reading and writing skills. For example, students in upper-
level classes read authentic essays and newspaper texts and debate
current U.S. social issues. In lower-level classes in the Philippines,
many instructors employ a whole language approach, in which
students and teachers collaboratively choose the topics for study. In
these classes, survival competencies are still “covered,” however.
They come up naturally, teachers report, because they reflect areas
of basic concern to refugee adults on their way to the U.S. (Snyder,
1990).
The program has changed in many other ways over the years,
partly in response to constructive criticism from its own staff, as
well as from outside the program. For example, in a 1985 TESOL
Quarterly article, Tollefson made a number of suggestions:
grouping students by gender and age for specific lessons, mixing
students of various ethnic backgrounds for ESL instruction,
increasing the number of former refugees on the staff, and
increasing the focus on communicative language teaching methods.
In fact, very similar measures were already being implemented by
the time the article was published.
Given the program’s commitment to constructive change, it is
especially distressing to find in Alien Winds the contention that
weaknesses in the program’s instruction are intentional. Tollefson,
who was once a part of that process of change, now asserts that the
THE FORUM 535

Overseas Refugee Training Program is rigid and backward in its
ESL instruction, purposely maintaining a U.S. staff that is
ineffective and less than competent. Such a staff, he says, is a
necessity to the program’s ill-intentioned administration, which is
committed to restricting refugees’ access to better jobs.
This conspiracy theory of poor instruction is as absurd as it is
groundless. Tollefson admits that “hiring has recently improved”
(p. 99) but does not mention that since 1985, the coordinators of the
ESL components in the Philippines have had PhDs in relevant
fields. In fact, nearly all the U.S. ESL supervisors in the program
have master’s degrees and relevant overseas experience. The typical
ESL supervisor is one who has spent several years overseas as a
Peace Corps volunteer, returned to the U.S. for a master’s degree in
TESL, and after some work with U.S. programs (often refugee-
related), accepts a position with the overseas refugee program. It is
simply unfair of Tollefson to characterize these professionals as
having “virtually no previous experience” (p. 99) and to imply that
they are motivated by greed.
The ORTP has a demonstrated commitment to recruiting and
maintaining a professionally qualified staff, emphasizing profes-
sional development for all instructors and supervisors: Thais and
Filipinos, as well as U.S. staff. For 16 months, Tollefson himself was
part of a large training department in the Philippine program site
offering sessions on ESL techniques, second language acquisition
theory, and dozens of other related topics. His own training sessions
on Krashen and Terrell’s natural approach were documented in an
article in the ORTP publication Passage: A Journal of Refugee
Education (Wachman, 1985). Since 1986, a regular schedule of
university courses has been offered in the Philippines Refugee
Processing Center. These courses have been of particular benefit to
teachers wishing to pursue master’s degrees in linguistics and
language teaching. In addition, there are excellent, large collections
of professional materials in libraries at training sites in both
Thailand and the Philippines. These would be rather peculiar
endeavors for a program dedicated to poor ESL instruction.
From the beginning of instruction in the ORTP in 1981 until
budget cuts took their toll in 1988, the program collected teaching
ideas from its staff and published them, first in the form of resource
manuals and later in the magazine, Passage. The purpose of these
collections was to document the instruction in the program and to
share expertise among the training sites and with practitioners in the
U.S. In Alien Winds, individual lessons and activities in the resource
manuals are quoted as if they were mandated procedures that every
teacher is compelled to follow. And Passage articles written by
536 TESOL QUARTERLY

teachers and other staff members are cited as though the authors
were articulating policy decisions from the State Department.
(Similarly, Tollefson cites curricula or activities intended for only
beginning-level students and states or implies that the activities are
required of “all of the refugees, regardless of their previous
education or work experience” [p. 79]. ) In this way, Tollefson gives
the impression that the ORTP has a central, rigid, lesson-by-lesson
syllabus that every teacher must follow. In fact, a reader looking
over the resource manuals and issues of Passage would be
impressed by the diversity of professional viewpoints encouraged
within the instruction in the Overseas Refugee Training Program.
Whole language approaches for literacy instruction, cooperative
learning, peer teacher coaching, problem posing, and the natural
approach, as well as more conventional methods, all have their
advocates within the program—reflecting the lively diversity of
opinions in our field in general.
Attempting to show the lack of professionalism in the ESL
program, Tollefson states that the Overseas Refugee Training
Program is negligent for not having involved more members of
TESOL’S Executive and Editorial Boards. This kind of involvement
is not the function of those groups, and the suggestion can mislead
the non-ESL professional who might believe that any large ESL
program would normally seek the services of board members.
Alien Winds fails to document the ORTP’S use of highly respected
professionals in the field as consultants. Although their consultancies
have necessarily been brief (most for 2 or 3 weeks), many of their
training sessions have been videotaped so that staff even years later
can benefit from taped lectures, discussions, and demonstration
classes. Among the consultants to the processing center programs
have been John R. Boyd, Mary Ann Boyd, John L. D. Clark, JoAnn
Crandall, Carolyn Graham, Else Hamayan, Wayne Haverson,
Michael H. Long, Rebecca L. Oxford, K. Lynn Savage, Lydia Stack,
Carole Urzúa, and Nina Wallerstein. If the goal of the overseas
program is to keep the staff uninformed and the ESL classes
substandard, as is claimed, it has chosen counterproductive means
of doing so.
CULTURAL ORIENTATION
Although involving students in determining course content is a
fairly recent development in ESL classes, this participatory
approach has always been a part of Cultural Orientation classes. In
a 1985 handbook for teacher trainers in the overseas program
(Resnich, 1985), the section dealing with Cultural Orientation
THE FORUM 537

strongly encourages teachers to find out from their own students
what they want and need to learn. The handbook states that such a
needs assessment “will generally produce a remarkably clear and
insightful statement of what [the students] want to learn about. It
also serves as an early indication to them that their participation is
encouraged and that their interests and opinions are valued”
(p. 349). In “Needs Assessment and Learner-developed Objectives
in Cultural Orientation,” an article in Passage, Vernon (1985)
describes how teachers can implement this approach.
Tollefson fails to recognize the learner-centered aspect of
Cultural Orientation, claiming that the program not only ignores
refugees’ interests and opinions, but actually seeks to replace their
own beliefs with new ones. According to Alien Winds, one of the
many similarities between turn-of-the-century Americanization
programs and the ORTP is the shared assumption that “refugees
must give up their cultural traditions” (p. 76) as part of the process
of becoming “American.”
Those who are familiar with both the Americanization movement
and the ORTP, however, are much more likely to be struck by the
differences between the two than their similarities. In the ORTP,
native language and culture are regarded as sources of strength and
bridges to the new language and culture, rather than as impedi-
ments. Staff know that resettled refugees who maintain a
connection to their own cultures in the U.S. tend to do better in
school and at work, and have fewer mental health problems than
those who attempt to sever ties with their past (Rumbaut & Ima,
1987; Caplan, Whitmore, & Choy, 1989).
Indeed, the generalization that refugees must maintain (rather
than give up) their cultural traditions would be closer to the aims of
the ORTP. In teacher training, teacher resources, and instructional
practices in numerous Cultural Orientation (CO) lessons on “pre-
serving your culture,” and in native language literacy classes for
nonliterate adult refugees, the ORTP treats the refugees’ native lan-
guages and cultures as sources of strength.
The program has made a notably strong effort in this area with
younger refugees, who are often the first to reject their own cultures
and languages, particularly since many have spent years in refugee
camps and lack education about their own heritage. Since 1986, the
program for 12- to 16-year-old refugees has included a survey
course on the cultures of Indochina, using a curriculum developed
by a group of concerned refugees (Lambrecht, 1987).
In Cultural Orientation classes, not only the content of instruction
but the process itself shows a respect for cultural heritage. A guiding
principle in ESL as well as CO instruction has always been that
538 TESOL QUARTERLY

lessons should progress from the familiar to the unfamiliar (Center
for Applied Linguistics, 1982). In Cultural Orientation classes, this
means that teachers generally address a given topic by asking
students about their own cultures. It is only after the refugees’ own
cultural viewpoint has been affirmed that U.S. viewpoints are
presented as a comparison and contrast.
At the same time that the program encourages refugees to
preserve their native languages and cultures, it also recognizes that
pressures to conform are real. Refugees learn that although there is
an ideal of celebrating cultural diversity in the U. S., this ideal is not
embraced by all. (Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982; Hixon,
1987). Thus, many Cultural Orientation lessons are similar to those
that new Peace Corps volunteers receive to help them understand
how their behavior is likely to be understood in a new culture, what
the consequences of that behavior may be, and how they can
develop strategies to deal with cross-cultural conflicts.
What the program hopes will be the final outcome of this process
is a bicultural sophistication, an ideal described in a 1986 Passage
article:
Traditional beliefs and values are preserved, while new values and
practices necessary to function in the new society are acquired. With a
bicultural approach, the individual is able to function either in American
society or within his or her own ethnic group. This type of adjustment is
considered quite compatible with a pluralistic society like the U.S.
(Corey, 1986, p. 42)
Remarkably, Tollefson cites this article as proof of the program’s
attempts to divest refugees of their cultures.
CONCLUSION
The unique constraints under which the Overseas Refugee
Training Program operates, together with developments in the
fields of ESL and cross-cultural training, the changes in back-
grounds among various refugee groups, and a range of political,
social, and economic forces—domestic and international—have all
affected this training program. A scholarly analysis of their impact
would make for a thought-provoking, informative study. In fact, an
analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the training program
could be a positive contribution to the program’s evolution as well
as to the field of refugee education. It is disappointing that Alien
Winds proves to be a one-sided polemic rather than a balanced
assessment.
THE FORUM 539

REFERENCES
Baker, R. P., & North, D. S. (1984). The 1975 refugees: Their first five
years in America. Washington, DC: New TransCentury Foundation.
Caplan, N. (1990). Boat people prove their worth. The Wall Street Journal,
August 1, 1990. p. A14.
Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Bui, Q. L. (1985). Southeast Asian self-
sufficiency study (Contract No. HHS-100-81-0064). Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee
Resettlement.
Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Choy, M. H. (1989). The boat people and
achievement in America: A study of family life, hard work, and cultural
values. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
Center for Applied Linguistics. (1982). Cultural orientation resource
manual (Vol. 1). Manila, Philippines: Author.
Center for Applied Linguistics. (1985). English as a second language,
revised competencies. Washington, DC: Author.
Cohon, J. D. (1980, March). Can TESOL teachers address the mental
health concerns of the Indochinese refugees? Paper presented at the 14th
Annual TESOL Convention, San Francisco, CA.
Corey, K. (1986). The cultural assimilation of Indochinese refugees.
Passage: A ]ournal of Refugee Education, 2 (3), 41-43.
Hixon, A. (1987). Examining attitudes and stereotypes through video.
Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, 3 (l), 16-18.
International Catholic Migration Commission. (1987). Work orientation
(level CDE) curriculum. Morong, Bataan, The Philippines: Author.
Kharde, L. S., & Corey, K. (1986). Competencies revisited: Revising the
overseas ESL curriculum. Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education,
2 (2), 43-49.
Lambrecht, R. (1987). Developing a survey course in Indochinese culture
for PASS students. Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, 3 (l), 23-26.
Levine, K. (1982). Becoming American [Videotape]. Seattle, WA: Iris
Films and Video.
Office of Refugee Resettlement. (1981). Report to the Congress: Refugee
resettlement program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.
Human Services.
Human Services.
Pihl, C. (1990). Report on Southeast Asian refugee camps. For your
information, No. 93, 5-10 [Newsletter]. New York: Lutheran Immigra-
tion and Refugee Service.
Reznich, C. (1985). Teaching teachers: An introduction to supervision and
teacher training. Brattleboro, VT: The Experiment in International
Living.
540 TESOL QUARTERLY

Rumbaut, R. G. (1985). Mental health and the refugee experience: A
comparative study of Southeast Asian refugees. In T. C. Owan (Ed.),
Southeast Asian mental health: Treatment, prevention, services, training,
and research (pp. 433-486). Washington, DC: National Institute of
Mental Health.
Rumbaut, R. G., & Ima, K. (1987). The adaptation of Southeast Asian
refugee youth: Comparative study. Washington, DC: Government
Printing Office.
Snyder, S. (1990, March). ESL literacy: What’s working, why and how. In
M. Adkins (Chair), Refugee concerns interest section academic session.
Colloquium presented at the 24th Annual TESOL Convention, San
Francisco, CA.
Tollefson, J. W. (1985, December). Research on refugee resettlement:
Implications for instructional programs. TESOL Quarterly, 19 (4),
753-764.
Tollefson, J. W. (1989). Alien winds: The reeducation of America’s
Indochinese refugees. New York: Praeger.
Trillin, C. (1980, March 24). U.S. journal: Fairfield, Iowa. The New
Yorker, 56, 83-100.
United Community Planning Corporation. (1982). Needs assessment of
Southeast Asian refugee population in Massachusetts. Boston: Author.
Vernon, A. (1985). Needs assessment and learner-developed objectives in
Cultural Orientation. Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, 1 (2),
60-62.
Wachman, R. (1985). A quiet revolution in language teaching at Bataan.
Passage: A Journal of Refugee Education, l (l), 57-59.
Westermeyer, J. (1985). Mental health of Southeast Asian refugees:
Observations over two decades from Laos and the United States. In
T. C. Owan (Ed.), Southeast Asian mental health: Treatment,
prevention, services, training, and research (pp. 433-486). Washington,
DC: National Institute of Mental Health.
The Reader Responds. . .
ELSA AUERBACH
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Although Ranard and Gilzow’s response is primarily directed

toward Tollefson’s book rather than my review, I would like to
make a few remarks.
Regarding the issue of verification of documentation: While the
task of the reviewer is to evaluate documentation rather than check
facts, I did in fact consult a number of experts about the accuracy
of Tollefson’s claims. These included refugees themselves (students
who had lived in the camps), and Southeast Asia scholars (colleagues
THE FORUM 541

at the University of Massachusetts Joiner Center for the Study of
War and its Social Consequences, as well as Chuong Hoang Chung,
perhaps the leading Vietnamese researcher on issues of language
use and language education for Southeast Asians in the U.S.). In
each case, the response was overwhelmingly supportive of claims
made in Alien Winds. From the refugees’ perspectives, the accounts
of life in the camps were accurate; the scholars were satisfied not
only with the documentation, but with the analysis. My sense is that
Ranard and Gilzow’s real concern is not with documentation (if
anything Alien Winds is overdocumented), but with the analysis.
Regarding the issue of bias: I readily acknowledge that my
review was sympathetic, although not wholly uncritical (in fact,
Tollefson thanks me because of my critical reading of an earlier
version of his book at the request of a publisher); one responsibility
of reviewers is to call attention to work they feel makes a
contribution to the field. Moreover, as I argued in the review, we all
bring our own ideological biases to our work and this is not
negative. The only dishonesty comes when we fail to make these
perspectives explicit or when we promote a particular perspective
under the guise of objectivity. The tone of Ranard and Gilzow’s
response is testimony to the force of their own bias, indicating that
they manifest the same subjectivity of which they accuse Tollefson.
In fact, showing that education is a terrain of contestation for
different ideologies is precisely one of the contributions of Alien
Winds. The kind of critique and countercritique of which this
exchange is an example underlies the shifts in paradigm that move
the field forward.
Finally, I want to address informal feedback I have received to
the effect that Alien Winds and my review have caused pain among
those who have dedicated years of their lives to improving refugee
education. I do not believe it was the aim of the book and it was
certainly not the aim of the review to condemn or discredit
individual efforts and contributions. Perhaps neither the book nor
the review went far enough in exploring the relationship between
individual acts and their aggregate impact, between intentions and
outcomes, and I certainly regret any pain this may have caused. At
the same time, I feel that one message of the book is that as
educators we need to examine how our work fits into and
contributes to a larger picture. To the extent that Alien Winds has
caused this kind of critical self-examination, it has made a
contribution.
542 TESOL QUARTERLY

Response to Ranard and Gilzow. . .
The Economics and Ideology of Overseas Refugee Education
JAMES W. TOLLEFSON
In her review of my book about the United States overseas

refugee processing centers, Alien Winds: The Reeducation of
America’s Indochinese Refugees, Auerbach concluded that it
“should be required reading for all ESL educators.” In response to
this review, Ranard and Gilzow, two staff members of the Center
for Applied Linguistics who have held posts in the refugee program
since the early 1980s, outline their criticisms of the book.
Ranard and Gilzow’s decision to limit their comments to the
educational component of the Overseas Refugee Training Program
(ORTP) indicates the wide gap between their perspective and
mine. The fundamental aim of Alien Winds is to analyze the ORTP
within its social and political context. Separating pedagogical
matters from political and economic issues or from the circumstan-
ces of refugees’ daily lives in the overseas centers presents an
incomplete picture of the ORTP and of the analysis presented in
Alien Winds.
The two major issues that Ranard and Gilzow ignore are (1) the
causes of refugee migration, and (2) the ideology of the ORTP. I
will argue that the failure to address these issues fundamentally
undermines Ranard and Gilzow’s position that current U.S. refugee
policy should be supported; then I will turn to some of their specific
criticisms of my book.
REFUGEE MIGRATION
In the twentieth century, the migration of people for political and
economic reasons has become a permanent feature of the global
political economy, with structural roots that encourage, even
require migration. Immediately after the Second World War,
migration to North America, Australia, and Europe had two main
functions (see Sassen-Koob, 1988; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). One
was to provide a large, cheap pool of labor for the many new jobs
being created by the rapid industrial expansion and accumulation of
capital. The second function of migration was to provide labor for
the most difficult and unpleasant industrial and service jobs, which
THE FORUM 543

were no longer being filled by native-born workers (with the
exception of certain ethnic minorities such as African Americans in
the U.S. and Aboriginal people in Australia). In the view of policy
makers in the U.S. and elsewhere, immigrants who did not speak
English or other dominant languages were particularly suitable for
these purposes because the language barrier that separated them
from native-born workers made it difficult for them to gain political
rights and to benefit from improving economic conditions enjoyed
by the rest of the population (Muller & Espenshade, 1985;
Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981).
During the 1970s, immigration began to have a new function in
North America, Western Europe, and Australia (Jiobu, 1988;
Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). Industrial expansion based on the
importation of labor had slowed considerably, and jobs were
beginning to be exported from industrial countries to the “Third
World.” This process of economic restructuring increased the
probability of “boom and bust” swings in local economies, which
threatened the prosperity of the working and middle classes.
Therefore a buffer was needed—a group that would absorb
periodic increases in unemployment and other consequences of
economic restructuring. Immigrants were perfectly suited for this
purpose. As a largely disenfranchised and politically weak group,
their dissatisfaction could not easily be translated into political
action, and therefore, unlike working class and middle class people,
they would not threaten the dominant power structure.
In order for immigrants to continue to fulfill these functions,
they must remain politically and economically marginalized. Alien
Winds argues that the ORTP contributes to the labor policy
objective of marginalizing migrants in order to maintain the
important functions they serve in the changing economy—as
cheap labor for new industries and as an economic buffer for po-
litically more powerful groups. This goal is expressed in federal
language policies declaring the official purpose of refugee
education to be the teaching of survival English for entry-level
employment (Office of Refugee Resettlement, 1984; also see
Haines, 1988), which means English that is sufficient only for
marginal employment in the peripheral economy (i. e., in
temporary and part-time jobs, which have few benefits and little
opportunity for advancement, and which are the first to be
eliminated in slow economic times).
It is not sufficient to argue, as do Ranard and Gilzow, that entry-
level employment is “appropriate” for refugees with limited skills.
It would be entirely possible to offer, for instance, extended ESL
544 TESOL QUARTERLY

and employment training for refugees. This is not done, however,
because refugees with additional skills are not needed in the new
economy. For the same reason, those refugees who have technical
skills do not receive special education and assistance to help them
gain jobs in which they may use their skills. Alien Winds does not
argue, as Ranard and Gilzow claim, that a great many refugees are
highly skilled, but rather that those who have skills are tracked into
the same educational program in the overseas centers as those with
little or no previous education, due to the dictates of U.S.
migration and labor policy. Similarly, some federal and state
agencies have made it difficult for professional refugees to be
recertified. As noted in Refugee Reports, medical professionals in
particular face an array of bureaucratic barriers to their efforts to
work in their professions (Staff, 1988). These practices reflect the
overall policy of preparing refugees only for limited occupational
categories. This policy is also one reason why domestic ESL
programs for refugees are chronically underfunded; restricted
funding means that programs can offer only a narrow range of
curricular options for relatively short periods. In claiming that I
hold staff members in the overseas centers responsible for this
situation, Ranard and Gilzow inaccurately summarize Alien
Winds. The book consistently argues that policy makers use large-
scale migration and poorly funded educational programs as
mechanisms for achieving labor policy objectives. Teachers are
not responsible for these policies.
Nevertheless, it is crucial that those of us who are ESL
professionals examine the function of ESL programs within a
political-economic system that creates and sustains massive
migration of Southeast Asian refugees and other groups. The fact
that Ranard and Gilzow, as well as other supporters of current
refugee policies, do not confront the reasons for migration and for
current low funding levels for educational programs, perpetuates
contemporary ideologies concerning refugees. This is the second
fundamental issue addressed in Alien Winds.
IDEOLOGY IN THE ORTP

ldeology refers to (often unconscious) assumptions about the
world that come to be seen as “common sense,” and thus are
typically not the focus of critical discussion and debate. (For a more
detailed discussion of ideology, see Giddens, 1987; Tollefson, 1991).
Assumptions that become widely accepted as common sense tend
to sustain existing power relationships. As ideologies become
institutionalized, they tend to reinforce privilege and grant that
THE FORUM 545

privilege legitimacy as a “natural” condition of society. For
instance, the policy of requiring everyone to learn a single
dominant language is widely seen as a commonsense solution to
linguistic inequality. The argument is simple: If refugees and other
linguistic minorities learn English, they will not suffer economi-
cally and politically. This view grants privilege to those who speak
English, it ignores the economic and political forces that deny
adequate language education to refugees and immigrants, and it
excludes language from the list of structural categories (such as
race and gender) that are protected by legislation against
discrimination.
Similarly, the argument that entry-level jobs are appropriate for
refugees precludes increased funding for educational programs,
ignores U.S. responsibility for creating and sustaining refugee
movements, and provides a rationale for blaming refugees for their
plight: When they “fail” to acquire English despite refugee language
programs, or when they “fail” to get better jobs despite learning the
language to a degree defined as satisfactory by policy makers, then
they can be held responsible for their own economic circumstances.
Thus Alien Winds examines numerous examples of policy makers
blaming refugees and the voluntary agencies that assist them for
their high rates of unemployment and use of public assistance. This
perspective was successfully used during the Reagan administration
as a rationale for reducing funding for refugee education and public
assistance.
Alien Winds argues that the ORTP takes an ideological stance that
helps to sustain existing economic inequalities by insisting that it
offers refugees a mechanism for “upward mobility” (despite
evidence to the contrary, discussed below). The effect of Ranard
and Gilzow’s claim that refugees who complete the program are
“climb[ing] out of poverty” is to support this ideology. Their
commentary perpetuates this ideology in other ways as well. For
instance, they repeat the official claim that the purpose of the
ORTP is to “meet the needs” of refugees rather than of the U.S.
economy. They support efforts in the ORTP to teach refugees the
meaning and value of “job mobility,” which is often a euphemism
for the pattern of employment and unemployment experienced by
individuals in the peripheral economy. And they depict the ORTP
as a benevolent system designed to help refugees, rather than as
part of a larger political-economic system that displaces them from
their homes and then provides education suitable only for long-term
peripheral employment.
Because they do not examine the social and political context of
the educational program, Ranard and Gilzow fail to address the
546 TESOL QUARTERLY

central issue in Alien Winds, which is not a “conspiracy,” but rather
the relationship of the educational program to migration and labor
policy. In order to understand this relationship, we must ask: Why
are there refugees? Whose interests encourage refugee movements
in Southeast Asia and refugee resettlement in the U. S.? How does
the educational program serve those interests? What is the public
image of the program and how is that image created and
maintained? What ideological assumptions underlie the content of
the educational program? These are the questions Alien Winds
seeks to answer. In doing so, the book argues that it is misleading
and pedagogically ineffective to ignore the political and economic
roots of refugee movements and to seek educational solutions to
problems that are fundamentally economic and political.
Thus Alien Winds shows that the ORTP is driven by a U.S.
foreign policy that creates and sustains large-scale refugee
movements in Southeast Asia, and by a labor/migration policy that
channels refugees and immigrants into poorly paid jobs in the
peripheral economy. Nowhere does Alien Winds suggest a
conspiracy of officials in the educational program. In fact, Alien
Winds argues exactly the opposite—that the policies and programs
adopted for refugees result from institutional structures and
ideologies rather than from the preferences of people employed in
the ORTP or the interests of refugees.
A full analysis of the ideology of the ORTP, presented in Alien
Winds, is beyond the scope of this forum. However, an example of
its impact on the language used to describe resettlement may be
useful. Ranard and Gilzow correctly note that Alien Winds does not
always clearly distinguish “entry-level” from “minimum-wage”
jobs. Yet they ignore the more fundamental issue: Entry level is an
ideological term implying upward mobility through the image of an
economic system which, once “entered,” will steadily lead to
improved economic circumstances. But in fact certain minorities in
the U. S., including many refugees, permanently hold low-paid jobs.
For them, entry level is a euphemism for poorly paid.
The question of whether entry-level jobs provide an initial step
toward improving refugees’ economic circumstances is the first of
several specific disagreements with Alien Winds that Ranard and
Gilzow outline. Due to space limitations, I will only deal with their
four major criticisms of Alien Winds Ranard and Gilzow claim that
the book inaccurately portrays refugees’ economic circumstances in
the U. S.; misleadingly depicts U.S. control and conditions in the
overseas camps; misstates the purpose of the ORTP; and unfairly
describes the professional role of ORTP staff.
THE FORUM 547

ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN
REFUGEES IN THE U.S.
Ranard and Gilzow dispute the bleak picture of resettlement in
which many refugee households suffer long-term economic crisis
because members are trapped in dead-end jobs in the peripheral
economy. As evidence that refugees are climbing out of poverty in
impressive numbers, Ranard and Gilzow cite Caplan, Whitmore,
and Choy (1989). This study does indeed report that refugees’
poverty rate gradually decreases over time. But the study, based
upon interviews and questionnaires given to 1,384 refugee
households at five locations in the U.S. in 1981 and 1984, also reports
other key findings:
1. Most households with incomes above the poverty line ($800 per
month for a family of four at the time of the study) reached this
level through a combination of wages from two or more adults
and cash assistance and other forms of public assistance
payments. Over 50% of the adults lived in groups of extended
families and unrelated individuals who pooled resources to
survive. Only 25% of the households received no form of public
assistance.
2. Over 42% of the employable adult refugees were unemployed.
3. Those who were employed improved their average salary by a
total of less than 3% over the 4-year period of the study. As
Caplan, Whitmore, and Choy point out, “In such a limited job
market as the refugees found themselves, individual initiative to
advance could not move the household ahead economically, in
either a comparative or an absolute sense” (p. 55).
4. Employed refugees were overwhelmingly in low-paying jobs in
the peripheral economy that offered very little opportunity for
economic improvement. Caplan, Whitmore, and Choy conclude:
As defined by SEI [Socio-Economic Index] scores, the overwhelming
majority (71 percent) of those refugees in the labor force held low-status
jobs. Slightly more than one-half (55 percent) were also employed in the
periphery of the economy rather than in the core economic sector (45
percent). Thus in the main, the refugees tended to hold low-level, low-
paying, dead-end jobs. (pp. 55-56)
Alien Winds cites 13 other studies of refugee resettlement that
support similar conclusions about refugees’ economic circumstan-
ces in the U.S.
Ranard and Gilzow’s argument that refugees are “clirnb[ing] out
of poverty,” as well as their optimistic view of Caplan, Whitmore,
548 TESOL QUARTERLY

and Choy’s research, is an example of an unstated ideology. As
evidence of refugees’ economic progress, Ranard and Gilzow state
that the 30% rate of poverty among refugees in the U.S. more than
four years (found by Caplan, Whitmore, and Bui [1985]) “is not
very different from rates for other U.S. minorities.” In fact, Caplan,
Whitmore, and Bui noted that a 30% poverty rate is roughly equal
not to minorities generally, but specifically to the rate for African
Americans and Latinos, two groups who have served for many
years as cheap labor and as economic buffers for politically more
powerful groups (see Jaynes and Williams, 1989; Jiobu, 1988).
Ranard and Gilzow’s argument is that a comparison of Southeast
Asian and African American/Latino poverty rates is appropriate,
and that an equivalent poverty rate for these groups is an indication
of moderately successful refugee resettlement. The belief that
refugees are doing well when they live in large groups with multiple
wage earners and others who share public assistance payments does
not apply to members of dominant groups in the U.S. This is
precisely the point of Alien Winds: Policy and ideology underlying
the ORTP ensure that refugees serve the same economic functions
as African Americans and Latinos.
U.S. CONTROL AND CONDITIONS IN THE OVERSEAS CENTERS

Control of the Overseas Centers
Ranard and Gilzow state that the processing centers are operated
by host country governments (the Philippines and Thailand) and
the United Nations, rather than by the U.S. Indeed, the
organizational charts for the centers list UN and local officials as
operational directors, a system established when the centers were
first created in 1979-80 as international holding centers for refugees
awaiting resettlement in many countries. Since that time, however,
the main Philippine center has become overwhelmingly a U.S.
operation, with tiny programs for a few refugees to be resettled
elsewhere vastly outnumbered by the program serving up to 20,000
refugees bound for the U.S. As a result of their overwhelming
dominance in financial and staffing matters, U.S. agencies and
officials have come to control camp policy. The fiction that the
centers are not U.S. run is maintained, however, in part because it
helps to obscure funding sources and to provide a mechanism for
U.S. officials to deny responsibility for what happens in them. In a
1989 report to Congress on its visit to the Philippine center, the
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) pointed out that
“the cost of running the PRPC [Philippine Refugee Processing
Center] is obscured through the fiction that the camp is an
THE FORUM 549

international camp” (p. vii). The VVAF called for a Congressional
investigation into the funding of the Philippine center and whether
U.S. officials are using the requirement that refugees spend 6
months in the center as a mechanism for keeping refugee
admissions below Congressionally authorized levels.
Conditions in the Overseas Centers

Apparently believing that conditions in the U.S. centers are
satisfactory, Ranard and Gilzow quote a visitor who called them
“country-clubs” compared to first-asylum camps. And certainly the
conditions in the U.S. centers are better than those in the Hong
Kong prisons and the Thai-Cambodian border camps, where
refugees denied resettlement are subject to particularly brutal
treatment. All supporters of human rights should express outrage
over the mistreatment and denial of basic standards of human
decency, which are institutionalized in those locations (see Amnesty
International, 1990; Bui, 1990; U.S. Committee for Refugees, 1985,
1986, 1987).
Yet the brutal treatment accorded refugees elsewhere does not
absolve U.S. officials of responsibility for providing humane
conditions in the U.S. processing centers. Although Ranard and
Gilzow claim that Alien Winds does not take into account recent
changes, current analyses confirm that conditions remain
unacceptable. In the report on its 1989 visit to the Philippine center,
the VVAF pointed out that refugees “live in atrocious conditions,
where there is insufficient food and water, where they are crowded
into billets constructed of asbestos, with people unrelated or
[un]known to them, and where their daily lives are regulated by
coercion and fear” (Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,
1989, p. vi). Macdonald (1990) contrasts the relatively good living
conditions for staff with those for refugees, and describes poor
sanitation, shortages of water and food, overcrowding and lack of
privacy in refugees’ living areas.
In her description of the process of coercion to which refugees
are subject in the Philippine camp, Mortland (1987) points out that
administrators believe refugees fortunate to be there rather than in
the first-asylum camps, and that they should therefore follow
precisely the detailed rules and procedures prescribed for them.
Ranard and Gilzow’s commentary participates in the (recreation of
this ideology, and does not address the unsanitary and unsafe
conditions, the atmosphere of coercion and fear in which refugees
must live, the pervasive denial of human rights, and the failure of
camp officials to rectify these conditions.
550 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE PURPOSE OF REFUGEE EDUCATION
Ranard and Gilzow criticize my claim that the ORTP seeks to
transform refugees’ identities. However, this is the explicit goal
repeated to refugees in program materials and by program officials.
For instance, the administration building in the Philippine center
includes a display board that states:
Refugee transformation, the primary goal of the PRPC operations, is
achieved through a psycho-social recuperative process involving the
critical phases of adaptation, capability building, and disengagement
which result in changing a displaced person into an individual well-
equipped for life in his country of final destination.
Based upon her anthropological study of the Philippine ORTP,
Mortland (1987) concluded that “the central myth at the
[Philippine] processing center is that when refugees finish their
stay, they have been transformed—that they will go to the new
country and ‘become Americans’—that the transformation process
will allow them to be successful in the promised land” (p. 400).
Similarly, the VVAF report concluded that “the pervasive
philosophy of the PRPC [Philippine Refugee Processing Center] is
clear: Indochinese refugees need to be transformed in order to
survive in America” (Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,
1989, p. 20; also see Knudsen, 1983).
In its claim that the ORTP seeks to transform refugees, Alien
Winds is not controversial. The important issue is the impact of
Ranard and Gilzow’s denial of what is obvious to observers and to
refugees. The acknowledgment of the ideology of Americanization
that underlies the ORTP is the first step toward public discussion
and debate of this ideology. Is the current approach to refugee
education the most effective, given refugees’ long-term economic
problems in the U. S.? Does the ORTP serve refugees’ interests?
What other approaches might be considered, besides “transform-
ing” refugees? In addressing these questions, Alien Winds argues
that the ORTP ideology of Americanization does not serve refugees’
long-term economic, cultural, or political interests.
THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONALS IN THE

OVERSEAS CENTERS
Ranard and Gilzow claim that Alien Winds presents a “conspiracy
theory of poor instruction.” Nowhere does Alien Winds present
such a view. Rather, its critique of the ORTP staff focuses on the
ideology of camp life among the expatriate U.S. administration.
In an analysis of the role of expatriate administrators in refugee
THE FORUM 551

assistance programs, Cromwell (1988) examines the hierarchy of
refugee camps, where expatriates are in charge of host country
staff, who themselves are in charge of refugees. By virtue of their
high status within the camp, expatriates develop an intense loyalty
not to the host country or to the refugees, but instead to the
expatriate administration and to an “expatriate peer group
ideology” (p. 299), which views host country nationals and refugees
alike as inefficient, backward, ignorant, and corrupt. Cromwell
argues that this implicit and unstated ideology blocks initiative and
critical analysis by expatriate staff.
Alien Winds describes U.S. refugee camps as “company towns” in
which staff members are isolated far from home in an atmosphere
of conformity and, for those who may disagree with current
practices, the constant threat of isolation. This atmosphere is
sustained in part by a rhetoric of “diversity,” which claims that
professional debate is welcomed. Indeed, this is the picture that
Ranard and Gilzow present of professional life in the camps. Yet, as
McDonald has pointed out in her analysis of the PASS (Preparation
for American Secondary Schools) program in the Philippine center:
Staff with the confidence to ask questions, or to question policy are
generally labeled as trouble makers, in the best bureaucratic tradition,
and suffer from intense pressure to conform. The rigid hierarchical
structure is a particularly effective device for preventing change from
below. (p. 15)
Analyses of the ORTP simply do not support Ranard and Gilzow’s
claim that the ORTP has been flexible, innovative, and effective in
its educational administration, curriculum, and prescribed teaching
practices.
CONCLUSION
Ranard and Gilzow depict Alien Winds as a distorted view of the
ORTP, a “one-sided polemic” rather than a scholarly analysis. Apart
from a federally funded study (RMC Research Corporation, 1984),
which found no evidence that the ORTP improves refugees’
employability in the U. S., there are four other independent analyses
of the overseas centers: Knudsen (1983), Mortland (1987), Vietnam
Veterans of America Foundation (1989), and Macdonald (1990).
Within the context of these analyses, all of which document serious
problems in the ORTP, Alien Winds presents mainstream views (for
a review of related studies, see Tollefson, 1989).
Ranard and Gilzow’s comments provide no evidence justifying
continued support of current policies, which create and sustain
552 TESOL QUARTERLY

refugee movements and lead to long-term economic crisis for
hundreds of thousands of refugee households in the U.S. In its
failure to examine the full context and impact of the ORTP, Ranard
and Gilzow’s commentary ignores virtually all of Alien Winds,
including: its historical analysis of refugee movements and U.S.
refugee policy in Southeast Asia since 1954; its detailed examination
of the ideology of refugee education; its analysis of U.S. immigrant
education since 1880; its examination of the political interests of
agencies responsible for refugee resettlement and education; its
description of human rights violations in the. U.S. centers, such as
arrest and imprisonment of refugees without the right to confront
their accusers or to be presumed innocent until proven guilty; and
its account of serious health and safety problems, including the
continued use of asbestos for walls and roofs in refugee housing and
classrooms.
Approximately 20,000 refugees remain at the U.S. centers in
Thailand and the Philippines. They continue to live in deplorable
conditions and to attend an educational program whose purpose is
determined by labor/migration policies requiring that refugees be
channeled into low-paying jobs in the peripheral economy. These
statements do not deny the remarkable individual efforts of staff
members in the camps who seek to provide effective instruction
within an educational administration that blocks most professional
discussion and debate. The solution to the continuing economic,
social, and personal challenges refugees face in the U.S. depends
upon major shifts in U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia, changes
in labor and migration policy in the U. S., and increased support for
programs that provide refugees and other migrants with the
language, education, and employment skills they need. The political
effort to change U.S. refugee education policy continues. The
foundation for this effort must be a clear-sighted analysis of the
causes and consequences of current policies for the lives of nearly 1
million resettled Indochinese living in the United States today.
REFERENCES
Amnesty International. (1990). Memorandum to the Governments of Hong
Kong and the United Kingdom regarding the protection of Vietnamese
asylum seekers in Hong Kong. New York: Author.
Bui, D. D. (1990). Hong Kong—the other story: The situation of
Vietnamese women and children in Hong Kong’s detention centres.
Washington, DC: Indochina Resource Action Center.
THE FORUM 553

Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Bui, Q. L. (1985). Southeast Asian refugee
self-sufficiency study (Report prepared by the Institute for Social
Research, University of Michigan). Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Caplan, N., Whitmore, J. K., & Choy, M. H. (1989). The boat people and
achievement in America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Cromwell, G. (1988). Note on the role of expatriate administration in
agency-assisted refugee programmed. Journal of Refugee Studies, 1,
297-307.
Giddens, A. (1987). Social theory and modern sociology. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Haines, D. W. (1988). The pursuit of English and self-sufficiency:
Dilemmas in assessing refugee programme effects. Journal of Refugee
Studies, 1, 195-213.
Jaynes, G. D., & Williams, R. M. (Eds.). (1989). A common destiny: Blacks
and American society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Jiobu, R. M. (1988). Ethnicity and assimilation. Albany: State University of
New York Press.
Knudsen, J. C. (1983). Boat people in transit: Vietnamese in refugee camps
in the Philippines, Hongkong and Japan (Occasional Paper No. 31,
Migration Studies Project). Bergen, Norway: University of Bergen.
Macdonald, J. (1990). Almost freedom, almost American: An ethnographic
study of the Philippine Refugee Processing Center. U n p u b l i s h e d
doctoral dissertation, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New
York.
Mortland, C. A. (1987). Transforming refugees in refugee camps. Urban
Anthropology, 16, 375-404.
Muller, T., & Espenshade, T. J. (1985). The fourth wave: California’s
newest immigrants. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Office of Refugee Resettlement. (1984). Statement of program goals,
priorities and standards for state administered refugee resettlement
programs. Kansas City, MO: Author.
RMC Research Corporation. (1984). The effects of pre-entry training on
the resettlement of Indochinese refugees (Report prepared for the U.S.
Department of State, Bureau for Refugee Programs). Hampton, NH:
Author.
Sassen-Koob, S. (1988). The new labour demand: Conditions for the
absorption of immigrant workers in the United States. In C. Stahl (Ed.),
International migration today, (Vol. 2, pp. 81-104). Paris: UNESCO.
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education of
minorities. Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Staff. (1988, January 22). Hurdles bar path to continuing medical practice
for refugee physicians. Refugee Reports, pp. 1-7.
Tollefson, J. W. (1989). Educating for employment in programs for
Southeast Asian refugees: A review of research. TESOL Quarterly,
23 (2), 337-343.
554 TESOL QUARTERLY

Tollefson, J. W. (1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language
policy in the community. London: Longman.
U.S. Committee for Refugees. (1985). Cambodians in Thailand: People on
the edge. Washington, DC: American Council for Nationalities Service.
U.S. Committee for Refugees. (1986). Refugees from Laos: In harm’s way.
Washington, DC: American Council for Nationalities Service.
U.S. Committee for Refugees. (1987). Uncertain harbors: The plight of
Vietnamese boat people. Washington, DC: American Council for
Nationalities Service.
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. (1989). Report on the
Amerasian issue. Washington, DC: Author.
Comments on Martha C. Bennington

and Aileen L. Young’s
“Approacbes to Faculty Evaluation for ESL”
A Reader Reacts. . .
ALASTAIR PENNYCOOK
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
I have just received a letter informing me that my employers “will

be doing an evaluation of [my] class on . . . the second to last class
meeting.” Someone (whom I do not know) will, I am told, “come to
[my] class within the first 15 minutes of the start time. He or she will
hand out the evaluation slips to [my] students, wait until they are
completed, collect the slips and then return them to our office.”
Fortunately, I am assured that I will “receive a report of the evalu-
ation in due course,” although I have so far heard nothing from last
semester’s evaluation. I have been given no curriculum, no set
materials, nothing beyond some advice on books I might want to
use and the time and location of the classes, and yet I gather the
outcome of this evaluation will play a major role in deciding
whether I will be rehired next semester. This, I suggest, will ring a
familiar bell with many other practicing ESL teachers.
The most important question that I wish to raise here is whether,
in light of my current situation, I should welcome the recent article
by Martha Pennington and Aileen Young (Vol. .23, No. 4, December
1989) with its numerous suggestions for improving ESL faculty
evaluation. Despite the fact that the wider range of options that
these researchers offer might improve the type of evaluation to
THE FORUM 555

which I am to be subjected, I feel that I must ultimately take
exception to their article. While they commendably draw on a
broader educational literature than is usually the case for ESL
research, they nevertheless fail to explore still broader but more
significant questions concerning the politics of education and eval-
uation.
In this brief response to their article, then, I would like to broaden
the discussion of teacher evaluation to include issues that are
crucially absent from their article. I would also like to try to locate
this discussion in a yet broader context. Editors, operating within
difficult constraints, work in mysterious ways—by juxtaposition.
Stephen Gaies’ placement of Peirce’s (1989) article close to Davies’
(1989), and Sandra Silberstein’s placement of my own (Pennycook,
1989) next to Pennington and Young’s point to an important division
within applied linguistics, which I think needs emphasis.
First, however, Pennington and Young’s article. Most disconcert-
ing is the lack of discussion of why we are being evaluated, and who
is evaluating whom. The overall concern of the authors appears to
be to describe “methods for teacher evaluation” (p. 619) in order to
“further the goals of the profession” (p. 643). To the extent that the
authors leave unexamined questions concerning the development of
yet more “methods” (in this instance for evaluation), the power
relationship between evaluator and evaluated, the unspecified
“goals” of evaluation, and the implications of an appeal to the
notion of “the profession,” this description of methods for evalua-
tion runs the risk of becoming reactionary. As I argued in my own
article, there has been a growing incursion of technical rationality
into all domains of human investigation, an incursion that not only
limits the possibilities of other modes of thought, but also has
serious implications in terms of social control and regulation.
Foucault (1979) has greatly helped our understanding hereof how,
in evaluation, modes of societal surveillance combine the
techniques of an observing hierarchy and those of normalizing
judgment. The belief that improvement can be brought about by
the correct application of rational organization is what Marcuse
(1964) came to criticize as “one dimensional.” It is a view that
disregards all notions of the political in social life.
While my own discussion centred on the implications of the
construction and prescription of a concept of Method, my argument
that we have witnessed a deskilling of teachers and greater
institutional control over classroom practice may be more pertinent
to the question of teacher evaluation. It is essential that we explore
the cultural politics of teacher education, for, as Popkewitz (1987)
puts it, “the behaviors, patterns of language, and actions used in
556 TESOL QUARTERLY

teacher education contain codes of culture that have implications
for fundamental issues of power in American society” (p. 26).
Historical analyses of teaching (e.g., Apple, 1986) have clearly
shown that, as teaching moved from a predominantly male to a
predominantly female occupation, and as teacher education
became ensconsed in universities and colleges, an ever greater
degree of control came to be exerted over the growing body of
women teachers. Evaluation has started to play an increasingly
important role in that control, especially within the context of the
conservative cries for standardized curricula, accountability, and
more educational responsiveness to “market forces.” Popkewitz
(1984) argues that unless we place evaluation “within an adequate
political theory of context, evaluation remains solely a symbolic
canopy that legitimates occupational and institutional authority and
control” (p. 179).
Pennington and Young’s reliance on a normative concept of “the
goals of the profession” (p. 643) also requires comment. It is
important to see the concept of “professionalism” within both the
overall context of the increasing specialization and fragmentation of
modern, industrial life, and the conservative call for accountability.
The “ideology of professionalism” in teaching constitutes a means
of masking the structural basis of class, race, gender, and other
inequalities in our society (Ginsberg, 1987). As Densmore (1987)
argues, we must challenge any teacher education that encourages
the ideology of professionalism. I am not arguing against all teacher
evaluation, though I would like to see a greater emphasis on teacher
autonomy and greater encouragement of teachers’ own explorations
of the cultural politics of their classrooms and schools. But I think it
is dangerous to move towards developing more and “better”
methods of teacher evaluation without exploring the implications. I
think Zeichner (1983) has expressed this most usefully:
It is hoped that future debate in teacher education will be more
concerned with the question of which educational, moral and political
commitments ought to guide our work in the field rather than with the
practice of merely dwelling on which procedures and organizational
arrangements will most effectively help us realize tacit and often
unexamined ends. Only after we have begun to resolve some of these
necessarily prior questions related to ends should we concentrate on the
resolution of more instrumental issues related to effectively accomplish-
ing our goals. (p. 8)
Finally I would like to suggest the connections I see between, on
the one hand, Davies (1989) and Pennington and Young, and, on the
other, Peirce (1989) and my own work (Pennycook, 1989). I do not
intend to enter the structuralist/poststructuralist debate because I
THE FORUM 557

feel Peirce’s (1990) own reply to Dubois’ challenge in the TESOL
Quarterly Forum Section has more than adequately covered this
ground. Rather, I would like to suggest that what Davies’ and
Pennington and Young’s work shares is an apparent acceptance of
society as it is. Neither article problematizes its area of study in
social or political terms. One leaves us with methods to make
teacher evaluation more effective without questioning the goals and
politics of evaluation; the other compares English as an international
language with interlanguage (why?) without raising a vast range of
cultural and political issues in the global spread of English.
Furthermore, both articles operate with many of the standard
assumptions of modernism: the stress on evaluation and efficiency,
and the dichotomies between language and culture, universality and
relativism, and society and the psychological/individual. They
seem reluctant to admit to constraints on the rational unity of the
individual, implying that we can all make free choices unclouded
by societal, political, cultural, or ideological conditions.
To suggest that such assumptions are no longer acceptable may
seem harsh since the predominant positivist paradigm of applied
linguistics has allowed no space for such issues. What Peirce and I
have been trying to do, however, through our use of post-
structuralist and postmodernist views of language, discourse, and
knowledge, is to show the reactionary implications of concepts such
as communicative competence and methods, and to find new ways
of exploring questions around language teaching that allow us to
develop ethical and political stances in our work that reflect our
views on an inequitably structured world.
REFERENCES
Apple, M. (1986). Teachers and texts: A political economy of class and
gender relations in education. New York Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Davies, A. (1989). Is international English an interlanguage? TESOL
Quarterly, 23 (3), 447-467.
Densmore, K. (1987). Professionalism, proletarianization and teacher
work. In T. S. Popkewitz (Ed.), Critical studies in teacher education: Its
folklore, theory and practice (pp. 130-160). London: The Falmer Press.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. N e w
York: Vintage.
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Ginsburg, M. (1987). Reproduction, contradiction and conceptions of
professionalism: The case of pre-service teachers. In T. S. Popkewitz
(Ed.), Critical studies in teacher education: Its folklore, theory and
practice (pp. 86-129). London: The Falmer Press.
Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man. Boston: Beacon Press.
Peirce, B. N. (1989). Toward a pedagogy of possibility in the teaching of
English internationally. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (3), 401-420.
Peirce, B. N. (1990). Comments on “Toward a pedagogy of possibility in
the teaching of English internationally: Peoples English in South Africa”:
The author responds. TESOL Quarterly, 24 (l), 105-111.
Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and
the politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (4), 589-618.
Popkewitz, T. S. (1984). Paradigm and ideology in educational research.
London: The Falmer Press.
Popkewitz, T. S. (1987). Ideology and social formation in teacher
education. In T. S. Popkewitz (Ed.), Critical studies in teacher
education: Its folklore, theory and practice (pp. 2-33). London: The
Falmer Press.
Zeichner, K. (1983). Alternative paradigms of teacher education. Journal
of Teacher Education, 34 (l), 3-9.
Response to Pennycook. . .
The Political Economy of Information in TESOL
MARTHA C. PENNINGTON
University of Hawaii at Manoa
In The Political Economy of Information, Schiller (1988) argues

that the value of information derives not “from its inherent
attributes as a resource,” but rather “stems uniquely from its
transformation into a commodity—a resource socially revalued and
redefined through progressive historical application of wage labor
and the market to its production and exchange” (p. 41). Through
this capitalizing process, not only English, but also discourse about
English, about the teaching of English, and about a variety of
attendant matters involving teachers and learners have become
salable commodities whose value is determined by economic forces
such as the law of supply and demand. As in the case of other
commodities; scarcity or inaccessibility of information to the
average consumer drives up its value and, by projection, the value
of anyone who possesses it. Moreover, as all those who work on
THE FORUM 559

Madison Avenue are aware, one’s stock can also be enhanced by
trading in a well-promoted commodity that accrues a certain
glamour value as a result of its perception as chic or stylish.
According to this economic line of reasoning, one can assume that
Pennycook’s fashionably postmodern response to Pennington and
Young will be accorded a “reasonable” market value by all those
scholars who perceive his ideas to be new or unique. However attrac-
tive or important those ideas may be, Pennycook errs in assuming
that he is in possession of all of the valid information and the only
(politically correct) point of view on matters that he addresses. These
assumptions cause him to draw unwarranted conclusions and to state
his case quite boldly: In his response, he employs the word
dangerously in connection with the Pennington and Young article on
evaluation, implying that our work could be damaging to the field of
TESOL. Considering this highly negative implication of Pennycook’s
response, I feel that it is imperative for me to clarify our intentions
and to respond to his charges point by point.
I take exception to Pennycook’s inference that Aileen Young and
I are on the wrong side of “an important division within applied lin-
guistics,” that we accept “many of the standard assumptions of
modernism: the stress on evaluation and efficiency, and the
dichotomies between language and culture, universality and
relativism, and society and the psychological/individual,” and are
“reluctant to admit to restraints on the rational unity of the
individual, on the ability of the individual to make free choices
unclouded by societal, political, cultural or ideological conditions.”
I do not think that Pennycook can infer our acceptance of certain
assumptions of modernism or our reluctance to admit the restraints
placed on individuals based on our text. Though these concepts and
issues were not in fact the terms of the discussion in the original
TESOL Quarterly article, I welcome the chance to expound upon
them as the terms of Pennycook’s response.
First, it seems that Pennycook takes a much narrower view of
evaluation than we have taken in our article, conceptualizing
evaluation as a form of “top-down” social control of teachers by
outside authorities. While this is a common view of what the term
evaluation means in an educational context—and indeed, the view
that we expected many readers of our article to have at the outset—
we clearly were trying to broaden this perspective to one that
incorporates peer review and self-evaluation and in which evalua-
tion is seen as an essentially formative and long-term process of
developing the potentials of individual teachers. We are strong
advocates of reflective practice and, as we stated in our article,
560 TESOL QUARTERLY

believe that “training in self-evaluation should be considered an
essential component of professional education that will help to
ensure the long-term career development of confident and
responsible faculty members who are able and willing to (a)
evaluate input on their professional skills and behavior, and (b)
expand competencies and alter teaching approach as circumstances
dictate” (p. 640; for further elaboration, see Pennington, 1990a).
Secondly, it is not accurate to claim that there is a “lack of discus-
sion of why we are being evaluated, and who is evaluating whom. ”
The general purposes of faculty evaluation are addressed at the be-
ginning and the end of the article, and the specific purposes of each
form of evaluation reviewed are explicitly addressed. There is, more-
over, considerable discussion of who is, and in our view ought to be,
evaluating whom. To clarify this point, we strongly advocate an eval-
uation system for every language program in which teachers are
themselves centrally involved in developing and implementing the
standards, the criteria, and the mechanisms by which evaluation is
conducted. Indeed, I would myself claim, on the basis of my own
experience and the related experience described by Sashkin (1986),
that teacher participation in all aspects of the management of a lan-
guage program is essential not only to the health of the program, but
also, quite literally, to the psychological and physical health of the
teachers themselves. I would therefore go beyond a recommendation
of teacher participation to an insistence on such participation,
following Sashkin (1986), as an ethical imperative.
At the same time, in my view it must be recognized that the
faculty, though central to the functioning of a language program, is
not the only constituency whose values must be considered in
assessing a program’s degree of success in achieving its goals:
In evaluating the worth or success of a language program, value must be
defined relative to the needs and desires of all of the groups who make
up or interact with the program. These groups include the administra-
tion of the school or other body in which the program is housed; the
program’s own administration; its faculty its students; and the parents,
sponsors, and external agencies which are concerned with the success of
the program and its students. (Brown & Pennington, in press)
Where a successful evaluation system is defined as one that effects
positive change, “the degree of involvement in the evaluation
process of parties affected by it will in large measure determine the
success of the evaluation system” (Brown & Pennington, in press).
As noted by Darling-Hammond, Wise, and Pease (1983): “Effective
change requires a process of mutual adaptation in which [par-
ticipants] at all levels can shape policies to meet their needs—one in
THE FORUM 561

which both the participants and the policy are transformed by the
convergence of internal and external reference points” (p. 17).
In his paper on method, Pennycook (1989) argues that there is no
such thing as “disinterested” information and that education is
always situated in a social and political context. As argued by
Schiller (1988, p. 41), “information itself is conditioned and
structured by the social institutions and relations in which it is
embedded.” Moreover, as noted by Schaef and Fassel (1988):
Full personal participation results in a totally different kind of
knowledge and information from that which is gathered abstractly and
objectively by someone else. This kind of information in turn affects the
organization differently from the information of nonparticipatory
management. (p. 16)
For these reasons, I have long been of the opinion that it is critical
for teachers to take active responsibility for the development of the
information, and the social institutions and relations within which it
is embedded, that underlie all aspects of the educational process—
from designing curriculum and materials to deciding the terms of
evaluation of students, of language programs, and of the teachers
who work in them (see Pennington, 1989a, 1989b; Brown &
Pennington, in press). Thus, Pennycook and I are in complete
agreement with Giroux’s vision of teachers as “transformative
intellectuals,” that is, as Pennycook (1989, p. 613) quotes Giroux and
McLaren (1989, p. xxiii):
as professionals who are able and willing to reflect upon the ideological
principles that inform [our] practice, who connect pedagogical theory
and practice to wider social issues, and who work together to share
ideas, exercise power over the conditions of [our] labor, and embody in
[our] teaching a vision of a better and more humane life.
Contrary to Pennycooks implication, the Pennington and Young
article did not in fact stress evaluation and efficiency; nowhere did
we state or imply that the purpose of faculty evaluation was or
should be tied to efficiency. In fact, I personally believe that
efficiency is overemphasized by many ESL administrators, who
focus too much on completing paperwork and not enough on the
much more important but “inefficient” interpersonal side of their
job (Pennington, 1985). For example, Reasor (1981) found that most
ESL administrators assessed their own style as separated—an
inappropriately isolative orientation that I believe stems from
insecurity and lack of knowledge about how to function as a
program director. Unfortunately, some ESL administrators assume
a bureaucratic rather than a facilitative role for themselves: rather
than focusing on the welfare of their employees, they focus on
562 TESOL QUARTERLY

getting the job done; rather than focusing on building an
organization, they focus on the “bottom line.” Disturbingly, when
former teachers become program directors, the learner-centered
orientation for managing a classroom does not always transfer to an
employee-centered orientation for managing a program.
The suggestion by Pennycook of TESOL as a field dominated by
male administrators controlling female instructors may be less the
case than it was in the past, at least in the United States. While
over two thirds of the respondents to two recent surveys of ESL
teachers—in which 80% of the responses came from U.S. pro-
grams—were female (Pennington & Riley, in press-a, in press-b),
another recent survey of ESL program directors in the U.S.
(Pennington & Xiao, 1990) derives a profile of the typical ESL
program director as likely to be female (58%), relatively young and
inexperienced in administration, as compared with a group of
university department chairs and non-ESL program directors.
As to the other dichotomies that Pennycook mentions in his
second-to-last paragraph, assuming that he meant these to apply to
the Pennington and Young article and not to the Davies (1989)
article, which he lumps together with ours on philosophical
grounds, I believe, as a matter of fact, that much too much has been
made in linguistics of the false dichotomization of universal and
relativistic principles, and that second language theorizing has
gotten a lot of “air play” out of faddish dichotomies such as learning
versus acquisition or transfer versus development—terms that are at
best unclear and at worst conceptually vacuous (for a discussion,
see Pennington, 1988). Moreover, I do not at all believe in
dichotomizing language and culture, or language and society; in
fact, it seems to me entirely unremarkable to say that language is a
sociocultural phenomenon and indeed cannot be defined except in
those terms (Pennington, 1990b). Finally, far from believing in any
dichotomy between society and the individual, or the social and the
psychological, I share the view that whatever is reflected on the
individual level in the way of functional or dysfunctional behavior
is reflected in the society, and vice versa (Schaef, 1987), and that
psychological theories of personality and of the behavior of
individuals can be applied quite directly to cultures and to the
behavior of groups (Kets de Vries & Miller, 1984), from
departments or institutions to much larger social groups. For this
reason, I believe strongly in the importance of individual action as
the impetus for social change and in freedom of choice as a basic
principle.
However, I do not agree that anyone can do anything in a
classroom and that I must accept it as “ESL teaching. ” I believe that
THE FORUM 563

there are certain approaches to instruction that achieve more valid
results in a given context than others and that there are certain
background characteristics that qualify one to be a member of the
ESL teaching profession. Moreover, as Pennycook would pre-
sumably agree, the students have a right to a voice in what happens
in the classroom. In other words, the students have rights and claims
on information that may not be consistent with what the person
charged with teaching them makes available, and they also have the
right to exercise freedom of choice and individual action to effect
change to satisfy their own perceived needs.
Pennycook has maintained-and this is not at all a new idea—that
the construct of language teaching method is essentially incoherent.
At the same time, it seems clear that we do not yet have recognized
methods for teacher preparation or evaluation in ESL. This is not to
say that we should not keep trying to develop such methods. All
recognized academic pursuits are based on method; without
method, all research and practice within education is reduced to
“muddling through.” Pennycook, working within a deconstruction-
ist framework, argues that the very concept of method is
“reactionary” and outmoded, ignoring the fact that deconstruction-
ism is itself a highly disciplined method, as it must be to have gained
the credibility that it has within academia.
While Aileen Young and I may agree with Pennycook about the
need to empower ESL teachers, we may not agree with him that
professionalism. is basically a dirty word (though in fact Pennycook
is somewhat inconsistent here, in that he allows the term pro-
fessional to occur in a positive, “empowering” sense in the Giroux
and McLaren quotation above). While some denounce professional-
ism as promoting the informational sterility of groupthink and the
withholding of privileged information from the public (Ginsberg,
1988), the attribution of professional also “carries implications of
service, and of practitioner self-regulation” (Crookes, 1989, p. 45).
One of the biggest problems in our field—and one of the reasons
that TESOL still cannot command competitive salaries—is that it is
not in fact perceived as a coherent field or profession, with a
coherent set of practices and standards for those practices. As
Blaber and Tobash (1989) remark in connection with the TESOL
Committee on Professional Standards employment concerns
survey:
The consensus is that 1) until the field of TESOL is viewed as a
profession with unique characteristics, and 2) until TESOL professionals
are viewed as having comparable worth to peers and colleagues, it will
be difficult to resolve or even address many salary, security, and benefit
issues. (p. 4)
564 TESOL QUARTERLY

I submit that TESOL has a very long way to go towards being
recognized as a viable field rather than as an auxiliary service or
stop-gap form of employment. TESOL is still very much plagued
by the problem of untrained or minimally trained nonprofessionals
billing themselves as “ESL teachers”: there are still college students
going overseas and “teaching ESL” to help support themselves; still
community volunteers offering “ESL instruction” for free. On the
other side, there are still many people with PhDs and even MBAs
billing themselves as “ESL program directors” who know little if
anything about TESOL or about directing programs. As long as we
are willing to accept large numbers of such unqualified people in
the field, we will continue to have problems being respected and
rewarded for the specialized information we possess.
One of the areas of widespread dissatisfaction among teachers
within TESOL is low pay (Day, 1984; Blaber & Tobash, 1989;
Pennington & Riley, in press-a, in press-b). Three other often
mentioned areas of dissatisfaction are (a) lack of professional
recognition (Blaber & Tobash, 1989), (b) lack of opportunities for
advancement, and (c) dissatisfaction with administration in the
areas of supervision and implementation of organizational policies
and practices (Pennington & Riley, in press-a, in press-b). These
areas of dissatisfaction confirm the perception of ESL teaching as
having relatively low status within academia and even within the
TESOL field itself. The low status of ESL teaching is possibly one
of the reasons for the “rationalization” of the field that Pennycook
(1989) decries. It is also one of the reasons that Aileen Young and I
decided to do the faculty evaluation article. Our purpose was to
raise the level of awareness among TESOL administrators and
teachers of the formal and informal pitfalls inherent in the evalua-
tion of faculty, with the anticipated result that teachers and
administrators in functioning ESL programs would initiate an
examination and revision of the policies and procedures that affect
the lives and livelihood of teachers.
In publishing our article in the TESOL Quarterly, Aileen Young
and I hoped that the information it contained would empower those
in the field of TESOL to take more responsibility for faculty eval-
uation in their own individual contexts, to improve the account-
ability and the ethics of the profession on a local, program-specific
level. Since it does not appear to be a realistic option to dispense
with faculty evaluation in ESL, I believe that every ESL practitioner
must (a) learn about faculty evaluation; (b) contribute to ensuring
that the faculty evaluation process in their own context is conducted
in a professional manner, that is, competently and fairly; and (c) be
accountable for the results—as teachers in their classrooms, and as
THE FORUM 565

administrators in their evaluations of teachers. Hawkins (1990)
contends that accountability to students and to curricular goals is a
central aspect of responsible teaching, while Fox (in press)
maintains that accountability, while rare in TESOL, is the hallmark
of responsible administrative behavior.
In closing this response to Pennycook, I would make a general
point about information and its power to effect change. One way to
confront the problems in TESOL is to attempt a radical
reconstruction of its constructs by examining it from a new
perspective, applying new concepts and styles of argumentation,
which, because of the nature of the enterprise, are likely to be
unfamiliar to those inside the field. While such an approach can
provide a valuable new perspective for identification and
description of problems, its potential impact—and especially its
utility in actually effecting change—within the field is limited when
the writer opts for “correct” ideology over clarity of message and
for abstraction over pragmatism, offering no immediate alterna-
tives to the repudiated practices, or solutions to the pressing
problems that practitioners are facing. A different and more
moderate approach is to offer an informed perspective on practices
in the attempt to work to improve those practices from within and
to develop solutions to existing problems. In the latter way of
proceeding, which is the one adopted in the Pennington and Young
article, one attempts to open up the field to scrutiny, to demystify
it, and to share with practitioners knowledge that was formerly
reserved for academics.
I submit that this latter way of operating, far from being a danger
to TESOL, produces more direct effects and, particularly, more
immediate improvements, to the field than the former approach,
which is informationally opaque or irrelevant to the majority of
practitioners. In attempting to clarify the nature of faculty evalua-
tion and to detail its inherent problems, Aileen Young and I hope
that we have succeeded in opening up dialogue with the TESOL
membership towards improved practices in TESOL, thereby
demonstrating the power and the value of the commodity of shared
information for building our profession.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This response was written by me and then read by Aileen Young, who provided
helpful editorial feedback and who is in complete agreement with all points. Ms.
Young’s affiliation was incorrectly identified in our original article. Aileen Young’s
affiliation should have been listed as the Hawaiian Mission Academy.
566 TESOL QUARTERLY

REFERENCES
Blaber, M., & Tobash, L. (1989). Report of employment concerns survey.
TESOL Newsletter, 23 (2), 4-5.
Brown, J. D., & Pennington, M. C. (in press). Developing effective evalu-
ation systems for language programs. In M. C. Pennington, Building
better language programs: Perspectives on evaluation in ESL.
Washington, DC: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs.
Crookes, G. (1989). Grassroots action to improve ESL programs.
University of Hawaii Working Papers in ESL, 8 (2), 45-61.
Darling-Hammond, L., Wise, A. E., & Pease, S. R. (1983). Teacher evalu-
ation in the organizational context: A review of the literature. Review of
Educational Research, 53, 285-328.
Day, R. R. (1984). Career aspects of graduate training in ESL. TESOL
Quarterly, 18 (1), 109-127.
Davies, A. (1989). Is international English an interlanguage? TESOL
Quarterly, 23 (3), 447-467.
Fox, R. P. (in press). Evaluating the ESL program director. In
M. C. Pennington, Building better language programs: Evaluation in
ESL. Washington, DC: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs.
Ginsberg, M. (1988). Contradictions in teacher education and society: A
critical analysis. London: The Falmer Press.
Giroux, H. A., & McLaren, P. (1989). Introduction to H. A. Giroux
& P. McLaren (Eds.), Critical pedagogy, the state, and cultural struggle
(pp. xi-xxxv). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Hawkins, B. W. (1990, March). Lesson planning as hypothesis formulation,
teaching as hypothesis testing. Paper presented at the 24th Annual
Conference of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. San
Francisco, CA.
Kets de Vries, M. F. R., & Miller, D. (1984). The neurotic organization.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Pennington, M. C. (1985). Effective administration of an ESL program. In
P. Larson, E. L. Judd, & D. S. Messerschmitt, (Eds.), On TESOL ’84
(pp. 301-316). Washington, DC: Teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages.
Pennington, M. C. (1988). In search of explanations for interlanguage
phenomena. University of Hawai’i Working Papers in English as a
Second Language, 7 (2), 41-74.
Pennington, M. C. (1989a). Directions for faculty evaluation in language
education. Language Culture and Curriculum, 2 (3), 167-193.
Pennington, M. C. (1989b). Faculty development for language programs.
In R. K. Johnson (Ed.), The second language curriculum (pp. 91-110).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pennington, M. C. (1990a). A professional development focus for the lan-
guage teaching practicum. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds. ), Second
language teacher education (pp. 132-151). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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Pennington, M. C. (1990b). American English phonology: A course for lan-
guage teachers. Unpublished manuscript. University of Hawaii at
Manoa, Department of English as a Second Language, Honolulu.
Pennington, M. C., & Riley, P. V. (in press-a). Measuring job satisfaction
in ESL using the Job Descriptive Index. Perspectives: Working Papers of
the Department of English, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong.
Pennington, M. C., & Riley, P. V. (in press-b). A survey of job satisfaction
in ESL: TESOL members respond to the Minnesota Satisfaction Ques-
tionnaire. University of Hawaii Working Paper in English as a Second
Language.
Pennington, M. C., & Xiao, Y. (1990). Defining the job of the ESL program
director: Results of a national survey. Unpublished manuscript.
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of English as a Second Lan-
guage, Honolulu.
Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and
the politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (4), 589-618.
Reasor, A. (1981). Administrative styles of English-as-second-language
administrators. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. American University,
Washington, DC.
Sashkin, M. (1986, Spring). Participative management remains an ethical
imperative. Organizational Dynamics, pp. 62-75.
Schaef, A. W. (1987). When society becomes an addict. San Francisco:
Harper & Row.
Schaef, A. W., & Fassel, D. (1988). The addictive organization. S a n
Francisco: Harper & Row.
Schiller, D. (1988). How to think about information. In V. Mosco
& J. Wasko (Eds.), The political economy of information. Madison, WI:
University of Wisconsin Press.
568 TESOL QUARTERLY

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TESOL QUARTERLY Volume 24, Number 3 ❑ Autumn 1990

A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

BOOK NOTICES 507

Crazy Idioms: A Conversational Idiom Book, Nina Weinstein (Eda Ashby)

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES

Information for Contributors 569

TESOL QUARTERLY 379

The diversity of interests represented among our readers continues to

Articles in this issue of the TESOL Quarterly challenge traditional

382 TESOL QUARTERLY

Also in this issue:

IN THIS ISSUE 383

Language Minority Education in

SARAH WARSHAUER FREEDMAN

British educational policies advocate placing language minority

Many parallels exist between the educational issues presented by

386 TESOL QUARTERLY

EVOLVING LANGUAGE POLICIES IN GREAT BRITAIN

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 387

388 TESOL QUARTERLY

DECISION FOR MAINSTREAMING

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 389

390 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 391

The Role of the Language Specialist in the

392 TESOL QUARTERLY

A British Mainstream Classroom at Work

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 393

394 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 395

CHANGING LANGUAGE POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES

396 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 397

398 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 399

400 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 401

All of these questions need to be addressed and seriously

402 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 403

404 TESOL QUARTERLY

LANGUAGE MINORITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN 405

Preparing ESL and Bilingual

With increased emphasis on integration of language and content-

EXPERIENTIALLY GROUNDED TEACHER PREPARATION

408 TESOL QUARTERLY

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 409

RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

410 TESOL QUARTERLY

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 411

PREPARATION OF ESL AND BILINGUAL LANGUAGE

412 TESOL QUARTERLY

A SPANISH IMMERSION COURSE FOR TEACHERS

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 413

414 TESOL QUARTERLY

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 415

Language Proficiency Data

416 TESOL QUARTERLY

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 417

418 TESOL QUARTERLY

PREPARING ESL AND BILINGUAL TEACHERS FOR CHANGING ROLES 419

420 TESOL QUARTERLY