L2 literacies in K-12

The desperation of the situation of L2 learners in middle and high schools, as presented by Leki, Cumming, and Silva, was disturbing. They described many situations that were clearly not conducive to L2 learning, such as isolated ESL classrooms and classes that focused so intently on grammatical knowledge that other content was forgotten—and I found myself thinking of my own rural Michigan high school, where almost every single student spoke English as a first language. I remember one Hispanic student whose family arrived to the community when he was about 16. The school didn’t have any ESL program or teacher, and so the student was simply put into classes with other 16-year-old students and given one or two supplementary class periods with the school’s guidance counselor, where presumably, he was getting language lessons. The more I learn about L2 studies, the more surprised I am that there is not some ESL training or preparation required for all teachers in the US. Leki, et al. point out that they found that “…there is an amazing failure of awareness on the part of, particularly monolingual, mainstream teachers and, more to the point, of administrators, of what is involved in learning a language and of how they might make their classes more accessible to English language learners” (25).

Perhaps it is because of the chosen focus of Wallace’s article, but the children she converses with do not seem to experience such strong problems as described by Leki. There are hints of complex, perhaps even conflicting, identities (especially in the case of Suresh, who seems intent on proving that he’s English through his tastes, his abilities, and his style). However, Wallace’s study does not show a strong separation of those students from the mainstream—though the students might have experienced it, her conversational transcripts don’t show this. One factor that can be identified in this short article as perhaps accounting for the ease and openness of conversation is the context of the Literacy Hour. Wallace herself concludes, “What seems important is to offer access to texts that mediate in different kinds of identity expression” (78).

So, is the right kind of literacy training or class lacking in the many schools and settings that Leki and her colleagues describe? Are the programs lacking an engaging focus on reading, and/or the kinds of texts that students will be able to relate to? Should middle and high school L2/ESL writing be approached in the same way we’ve been discussing college-level writing, or do the age difference and educational culture difference (between high school and college) necessitate a different pedagogy?