The Benefits of Learning English - Case Study Example

Running Head: MY DIFFICULTIES AND EXPERIENCES My Difficulties and Experiences in Writing and Literacy with Second Language BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE DATE HERE My Difficulties and Experiences in Writing and Literacy with Second Language Introduction Learning English as a second language is a difficult process. However, since it is the dominant language all across the world, it is highly beneficial to adopt principles of writing and literacy in order to gain power and influence in society. Power is directly gained and expressed through the exercise of discourse. Being able to adapt to the prevailing norms and values established through English language is important to gain this power. It is founded on the basis of social constructivism that states social groups build knowledge in the effort of communicating to one another which, in turn, builds a collaboration of shared meanings and shared cultural artifacts (Poerksen, 2004). Therefore, as a student of the English language, it is highly important to build strong social connections with others who are native speakers in order to find one’s place in society and achieve power. Outside of the benefits of learning ESL, I sustained many challenges related to comprehension of literacy and writing. Upon reflection, many of these challenges included educator teaching style, my own personal learning styles, personal motivation, and frustration when communicating with native English speakers. In this narrative, I will illustrate many of the challenges that I experienced when learning English and compare this to theoretical literature on ESL studies to determine whether my experiences were unique or aligned with the experiences of other ESL students. Interactions with Native Speakers and Educators It is common for ESL students to have difficulty in the process of engaging with other native speakers in the educational environment. Many ESL students will actually avoid social interactions with those who speak English natively due to ongoing embarrassment related to their poor usage of English. Native speaking students in the classroom have high knowledge of popular culture related to the social environment and ESL students often do not have this knowledge which tends to restrict building social conversations. Therefore discourse is usually related to academic-related discussions which do not build richness of knowledge related to domestic culture (Troyna, 1993). Therefore, ESL students will often not participate and prefer to work in isolation due to their poor writing and literacy skills. Poerksen (2004) iterated how power is built through the positive discourse that occurs between social actors in a society which builds shared meanings and norms that help one find a sense of identity in society. In my personal experiences, I had considerable trouble with writing English and felt many of the same embarrassments and frustrations which reduced the level of positive interactions with native-speaking students. I too would withdraw from classroom participation and was concerned about group-working since I was concerned that I would be exposing my lack of writing competency. Rather than working collaboratively with native speakers, I would ask trusted family members and friends to aid in practice of reading different stories and rehearsing sentences and their structures, which is identified by August (2007) as being helpful in building oral and written proficiency in English. I often felt that withdrawal from classroom participation and socialization muted my voice and limited my ability to comprehend written English. As Martin Luther King, Jr. suggested, “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high place of dignity and discipline” (King, 1963, p.1). Hailing from a collectivist culture, the opinion of group members is very important and determines much decision-making. Additionally, loss of face (reputation) is very undesirable (Cheung, Cheung, Zhang, Leung, Leong & Yeh, 2008). Therefore, these values were embedded at the cultural level, which was different from native speaking students who were more risky in their social activities, and I discovered that I was limiting my social power by clinging to my differing cultural values. Discourse between native students and myself was, therefore, restricting my ability to gain social influence that is so important in global society. I viewed native students as authorities who could use language to show their social dominance. Therefore, in some respects, I was intimidated especially when my writing skills were going to be exposed to the social group. Native students’ abilities to use language effectively created a type of inherent animosity which, in the long-term, actually made me resist their power. This is a phenomenon that is common according to Given (2008). Therefore, my lack of competency in writing and literacy had both social and psychological consequences which, in reflection, slowed the process of understanding the complexity of the English language. It is through interaction with others, rather than working in isolation, that individuals are able to achieve knowledge (Stover, 2004). If I had been more focused on building positive discourse between myself and the native students, they likely would have been understanding of my limitations in literacy and writing and provided support. However, I found that my cultural background played a very large role in why my motivations to participate were challenged and frustrating, causing me to resist their social power created through English language proficiency. Additionally, my learning style was very different from native English students which caused problems with interactions, especially when working in groups. I tend to learn more hands-on rather than through auditory or visual aids. In the classroom, however, the educators tended to use more visual and auditory aids and did not provide opportunities for experiential learning. Literature on the subject of ESL indicates that an educator’s teaching style is highly influential in whether an ESL student is motivated and comprehends what is being taught (Wallace & Oxford, 1992; Griggs & Dunn, 1984). This held very true for me in the learning process. I found myself growing frustrated with educator teaching styles, but could not properly communicate these frustrations properly. I believe if the educator had provided role play opportunities or provided interactive study aids that I would have gained more confidence in the learning process and been more participative as a result. Therefore, because the teaching style was so different from my preferred learning style, I grew bored, was often inattentive, and had very low performance results in tests of my English competency, common outcomes of mismatched styles (Felder & Henriques, 1995). I did not feel that the educator was focusing properly on giving students the individual attention they needed, which also caused more personal resistance to the learning process. I was, therefore, deferring power to the educator rather than taking responsibility for self-directed learning and the process of challenging myself to become more literate in English. I followed the model of discourse offered by Royster (2006, p.1) who decided to “lift the veil between her own culture and that of mainstream society, deciding to speak even when feeling her voice was muted”. I realized that if I were to fully comprehend English literacy and writing and gain social influence, I would have to participate in more work group activities with non-native speakers. This improved my experiential learning of the English language and I began to understand many of the social norms and values of native speakers. In reflection, without lifting the proverbial veil of my own culture and that of the mainstream student population, I would be restricted in the level to which my English competency would improve. I realized that through writing and literacy, native English students built their social connections. However, the metaphors of social discourse were confusing and made it difficult for me to communicate properly. Martin (1993) recognizes the metaphor in social discussion as a means of building community. What conflicted my learning was that native students would use one symbol and then compare it to another symbol, both of which were foreign to me. Much of native students’ humor and friendship were built on these metaphors, which made the process of interacting with native students very difficult and frustrating. When I would make inquiries about what they were discussing, it appeared that the native students were dismissive and annoyed. Asking questions about what was being discussed or written reduced my social power because I did not fully understand the discourse. It took a great deal of personal motivation and discipline to continue to socialize in work groups with native students based on metaphoric discourse between the other students. Personal Motivational Challenges Ahmed (2010) offers that being happy is not only to be affected by some phenomenon, but that affect and the resulting happiness is contingent between the self and objects. When I first read Ahmed’s work, I was very confused with this rhetoric and found her work to be feminist or too philosophical. Not having excellent literacy skills, I first thought that my evaluations of Ahmed’s work were simply based on my lack of competency in English literacy. However, as I found myself growing more and more unhappy in the English language learning process, I started to explore more of her work and opinion. I began to recognize that I needed to take a categorization of all objects (including people) that were impacting my happiness levels that were leading to poor motivation to learn and collaborate. I recognized that my happiness was contingent, as identified by Ahmed, on the intimate contact with these objects. I realized that it was the content and discourse of the stories that we were exposed to in learning that were causing the most unhappiness. Therefore, frustrated with the teaching style of the educator, I changed the objects that I exposed myself to that had more engaging and interesting content and discourse. My happiness levels increased as a result of this new type of self-directed learning which, in turn, improved my motivation to learn the English language. While Foucault described power relationships by adopting language and discourse of another culture, Ahmed provided very quality philosophy about how to achieve happiness when happiness is dependent on objects and my personal relationships with these objects. Simply by changing the choice of literature (the object), I found improved literacy and comprehension in the written word. This is why I have to admit that I have aligned myself more with the theories provided by Ahmed. Ahmed referred to the notion of sticky objects, which are objects that emotions strongly adhere. I was viewing the literature-based materials in the English learning process as being oppressive sticky objects that were creating many negative emotions about my progress in writing and literacy. I think when it comes to ESL learning, we can learn a great deal from Ahmed as it helps us to understand ourselves and our own psychological motivations. I have come to find that gaining comprehension in writing and literacy is not just dependent on objects, but on the self. However, before one can improve their happiness and motivations, they must understand why these strong emotions are being attached to the phenomenon of sticky objects. Ahmed provides the foundation for self-exploration which helps us to understand the relationships with objects around us. This type of examination improves the motivation to learn and builds an environment that is more favorable and encouraging. Ahmed provides a foundation for gaining emotional intelligence and making positive changes to the learning environment that frustrate ESL students. Learners tend to orient their learning processes based on the backgrounds against which a learner sticks out. If there is a distorted perspective about one’s role in the background or in the world, it can lead to madness. As argued by Fradenburg (2011), when this type of distortion is created, it becomes difficult for a learner to fully understand their experiences. Upon thinking about this perspective, I found it was likely why I was growing more frustrated in the learning process. I was making comparisons to myself and to the native speaking students who were serving as the backgrounds that were leading to distortions about my own competency. When I began to evaluate different objects or situations, I found that I should actually be comparing myself to other ESL students and measuring my comprehension in writing and literacy based on more realistic backgrounds. The proficient native students had years of experience in building power through social discourse and had been taught English at an early age when cognitive comprehension is most simplistic. When I changed the backgrounds by which I was measuring myself, I became protected from growing frustrations and actually began to realize that my comprehension was quite decent. I think this is why we can learn much from Fradenburg’s work, as it helps us to make the right type of comparisons related to our learning experiences. It gives us a framework by which to evaluate progress as ESL students by not always using native speaking students as the model by which we determine whether we are succeeding in the learning process. Once I began to use a more rational background for comparison, my happiness levels increased and motivations to learn greatly improved. Conclusion As shown, my experiences in writing and literacy were challenging, but by examining the views of different authors on discourse, happiness, and ESL learning, I was able to create a more rewarding environment. Changing the criteria by which I judged my own progress, lifting the proverbial veil of cultural differences, and pushing myself to be more participative, the ESL learning process became more satisfying and worthwhile in terms of comprehension. Literature on the subject provided for more rational evaluations of my experiences which, in turn, improved long-term learning and motivation. References Ahmed, S. (2010). Affect Theory and Memory: Sara Ahmed’s “Happy Objects”. Retrieved April 26, 2014 from http://blogs.bgsu.edu/bfaye/2011/02/16/affect-theory-and-memory- sara-ahmeds-happy-objects/ August, D. (2007). The Development of Literacy in Second Language Learners, Starlight Consortium for EL Achievement. Retrieved April 25, 2014 from http://en.elresearch.org/issues/5 Cheung, F.M., Cheung, S.F., Zhang, J., Leung, K., Leong, F. & Yeh, K.H. (2008). Relevance for Openness as a Personality Dimension in Chinese culture, Journal of Cross- Cultural Psychology, 39(1), pp.81-108. Felder, R.M. & Henriques, E.R. (1995). Learning and Teaching Styles in Foreign and Second Language Education, Foreign Language Annals, 28(1) pp.21-31. Fradenburg, A. (2011). Frontline – The Liberal Arts of Psychoanalysis, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 39(4). Retrieved April 25, 2014 from http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/guilford-press/frontline-the-liberal- arts-of-psychoanalysis-6TwX4u0php Given, L.M. (2008). The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Sage Publications. Griggs, S.A. & Dunn, R.S. (1984). Selected Case Studies of the Learning Style Preferences of Gifted Students, Gifted Child Quarterly, 28(3), pp.115-119. King, M.L. (1963). I Have a Dream, American Rhetoric. Retrieved April 26, 2014 from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm Martin, J.R. (1993). Genre and Literacy: Modeling Context in Educational Linguistics, cited in D.R. Russell, Rethinking Genre in School and Society: An Activity Theory Analysis. Retrieved April 26, 2014 from http://www.public.iastate.edu/~drrussel/at&genre/at&genre.html Poerksen, B. (2004). The Uncertainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues introducing Constructivism. Exeter: Imprint-Academic. Royster, J.J. (2006). When the First Voice you Hear is not your Own, Thereforeiam. Retrieved April 25, 2014 from http://soithoughtso.blogspot.com/2006/04/when-first-voice-you- hear-is-not-your.html Stover, M. (2004). Making tacit knowledge explicit, Reference Services Review, 32(2), pp. 164-173. Troyna, B. (1993). Providing Support or Denying Access – The Experiences of Students Designated as ESL and SN in a Multi-Ethnic Secondary School, Educational Review, 45(1), pp.3-11. Wallace, B. & Oxford R.L. (1992). Disparity in Learning Styles and Teaching Styles in the ESL Classroom: Does this Mean War?, TESOL Journal, 1, pp.45-68. Read More