EFL Writing

The articles by You and Lei this week made me consider the differences in writing instruction in ESL and EFL. Most of my thoughts are going to take the form of tangential questions, as that’s what I was left with when I finished reading. Are the goals for the two contexts the same? Although they may be, I think it’s important to remember in our discussion that they also may not be; that is, the EFL classroom may have different, more local, goals and different teaching styles than the ESL class. Then again, students in an EFL writing course may eventually want to continue on to grad studies or even job-hunting in an English-speaking country like the US. So is it the job of EFL writing classes to teach students as if they were in a US classroom? Is that practical?

In You’s short report, he mentions a study done by Zhan Ju on student and teacher attitudes toward process pedagogy (255). He also opens his book chapter by explaining that “English writing instruction in non-English dominant countries has showed great interest in adapting Anglo-American norms of writing and writing pedagogies for the local contexts” (188). So I’m wondering—is it reasonable to try to export pedagogies? If they are established in one context and culture, what should we be wary of when we try to adapt them to another context?

As far as actual writing instruction in EFL contexts goes, should the EFL context be more accepting of non-Western rhetorics and styles? Or, especially in China, where these articles focus, are the English writing classes actually more rigid? (Does it depend on whether they’ve imported a Western pedagogy? Back to the above questions…) It was difficult to draw conclusions to those questions from the studies done by You and Lei, as that wasn’t the focus of either of their articles, but these seem to be relevant questions which underlie their work.