Teaching multilingual learners in Canadian writing-intensive classrooms: Pedagogy, binaries, and conflicting identities

Journal of Second Language Writing 40 (2018) 32–43

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Journal of Second Language Writing journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jslw

Teaching multilingual learners in Canadian writing-intensive classrooms: Pedagogy, binaries, and conflicting identities☆

T

⁎

Steve Marshalla, , Jennifer Walsh Marrb a b

Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada University of British Columbia, Vantage College, 6363 Agronomy Rd #2001, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada

AR TI CLE I NF O

AB S T R A CT

Keywords: Multilingualism Plurilingualism English as an additional language Composition Second language writing Writing intensive learning Writing across the curriculum Writing in the disciplines Linguistic diversit Canada Pedagogy Professional identities

In this article, we attempt to bring new analytic lenses (Canadian, European, from applied linguistics and sociolinguistics) to the fields of composition and second language writing in North America. Specifically, we focus on the challenges that linguistic diversity poses to instructors teaching Writing Intensive (WI) classes at West Coast University (WCU) in Vancouver, Canada. First, we highlight aspects of the rich and varied multi-/plurilingualism of students at the university. We then look at how writing to learn, a cornerstone of Writing Intensive Learning, can present particular challenges to multilingual students who write in English as an additional language and who may lack the necessary proficiency in academic literacy to learn through writing. We present excerpts from interviews with eight WI instructors from different disciplines at the university, in which they describe their understandings of multilingualism, pedagogical responses to linguistic diversity in their classes, and perceptions of their roles as WI instructors. In their responses, participants described a number of pedagogical dilemmas, conceptual binaries, and conflicting professional identities. In our conclusion, we highlight an institutional backdrop that challenges the professional identities of WI instructors, and close by considering the implications of our findings at institutional level and in the writing-intensive classroom.

1. Introduction Numerous studies have addressed the challenges faced by students writing in English as an additional language (EAL) across the disciplines in North American higher education, primarily in the United States. Fewer studies have focused on Canada, and specifically on EAL students taking writing intensive courses that require them to learn through writing. The site of our study is West Coast University (WCU) in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.1 The university has approximately 20% international students and an even larger number of multilingual domestic students. According to a recent undergraduate survey at the university, over 40% of respondents self-identified as speakers of English as an additional language (EAL). At WCU, all undergraduate students are required to take a minimum of two writing intensive (WI) courses during their studies to graduate, one lower division and one upper division. The focus of writing intensive pedagogy at the university is on both learning to write and writing to learn, which will be defined below. For the latter, students need the necessary academic literacy skills (notably, in reading and writing advanced texts) to engage meaningfully with course content through writing. In this sense, the presence of large

☆ We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article, whose comments and recommendations allowed us to improve our analysis and add scope to the literature we reviewed. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Marshall), [email protected] (J.W. Marr). 1 To preserve anonymity, we have used a pseudonym for the university and changed the names of individuals, courses, and faculties as necessary.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2018.01.002 Received 30 September 2017; Received in revised form 10 January 2018; Accepted 10 January 2018 1060-3743/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Journal of Second Language Writing 40 (2018) 32–43

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numbers of multilingual students who speak and write English as an additional language in WI classes can present challenges for students and instructors alike. Today, at WCU instructors find themselves negotiating the tensions between learning to write and writing to learn in linguistically-diverse classes, looking for teaching approaches to match the needs of the students enrolled in their classes as well as the courses’ pedagogical aims. In writing this article, we aim to bring some new analytic lenses (Canadian, European, from applied linguistics and sociolinguistics) to the fields of composition and second language writing in North America, which have traditionally been dominated by writing experts, many doing research in the United States. Our focus is on the dilemmas and challenges that WI course instructors face responding to linguistically-diverse classes made up large numbers of EAL students. Many of these students are international or domestic students, typically perceived as “linguistically underprepared” (Hirsch, 2014, p. 155), not the idealized native speakers (Leung, Harris, & Rampton, 1997) of English who may benefit most readily from learning through writing (Marshall, 2009). In this study, we refer to idealized learners with reference to students who have English as their first/and or dominant language and who may benefit most from learning through writing. However, we recognize that academic discourse, in this case academic English in different disciplinary contexts, is a new language for all students when they start post-secondary education regardless of their linguistic background (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1994). That said, the challenge is much greater for students whose first, second, or other language is not English, and who use languages other than English in most of their daily lives. In this respect, the cornerstone of WIL pedagogy – learning through writing, or writing to learn (see below) – often presents additional challenges to such students. In our study, we carried out semi-structured interviews with eight faculty members teaching writing-intensive learning courses across the disciplines. Interviewees were asked about their knowledge of WCU’s pre-WI foundational academic literacy course AL099, and gave their views on a broad range of issues related to the multilingual students taking their writing-intensive courses: [i] how instructors understood multilingualism as a concept (their own and their students’); [ii] how they responded pedagogically to the presence of large numbers of multilingual students in their classes; and [iii] how they perceived their role as a WI course instructor. These three questions became the focus of our study. Instructors described numerous pedagogical dilemmas, conceptual binaries, and conflicting professional identities. We found that instructors tended to construct the multilingualism of their students around traditional binary paradigms (native speaker/ESL, first language/second language, domestic student/international student, fluent and competent speaker/one who is lacking). We argue that, as a result of increased social and linguistic diversity, such binaries are becoming ever-increasingly blurred and less relevant. We conclude by highlighting an institutional backdrop that challenges instructors’ stable professional identities, before briefly considering the implications of our findings at institutional level and in the writing-intensive classroom. 2. WAC, WID, second language writing Our analysis involves making connections between research and pedagogy in the fields of multi-/plurilingualism, and second language writing, composition studies, applied linguistics, rhetoric, and linguistics (Silva & Leki, 2004). Many studies have looked at curriculum, pedagogy, and ESL/L2 students in Writing in the Disciplines (WID) and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) contexts in the United States. In Silva (1993), the author presents a comprehensive synthesis of research on L1 and L2 writing, focusing on the distinct nature of second language writing. With a similar focus, Cox (2014) highlights frameworks for comparing L1 and L2 writing: L2 writing from a difference-as-deficit stance, a difference-accommodated stance, and a difference-as-resource stance (Canagarajah, 2002). With regard to the dichotomy between WAC and WID, Carter, Ferzli, and Wiebe (2007) describe a WAC focus on writing to learn as opposed to a WID focus on learning to write. Cox further describes the need for alliances to be made between WAC program leaders and groups working with L2 learners. She highlights the challenge of persuading faculty members “not only to infuse their pedagogy with writing, an already challenging task in some cases, but also to create linguistically and culturally inclusive classrooms” (p. 301). Equally, the division of labor (Matsuda, 1999) between WAC and TESOL and the development of global curriculum through WAC-TESOL collaborations is analyzed in Siczek and Shapiro (2014). Focusing on genre research with specific reference to Canada, Gentil (2011) highlights the potential of a biliteracy perspective as a way of understanding how multilingual writers develop their genre expertise in more than one language. A point of note regarding genre(s) is the fact that many students at WCU take lower division WI courses outside of the disciplines in which they will major, meaning that their engagement in the related discourse community can be short lived (Leki & Carson, 1994). With a specific focus on ESL writers’ coping strategies across the disciplines, Leki (1995) examines the experiences of five ESL visa students in the “struggle to survive the demands of disciplinary courses” (p. 235). Evidently, linguistic diversity can serve both to enrich and complicate course design and is full of complexities (Habib & Zawacki, 2011; Leki, 1995). At WCU, an added challenge many students face is applying the generic knowledge they learn at foundational/EAP level to the specific contexts of disciplinary writing (Leki & Carson, 1997) in their first lower division WI course. 3. Multilingual students in an urban university Two aspects of multilingualism in Metro Vancouver are of particular relevance to our study. According to national statistics available at the time of the study, just under half of the population spoke an immigrant language at home, for example, Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Tagalog, Korean, and Farsi (Statistics Canada, 2011). Of added interest, the diasporic concentration of speech communities in the city means that immigrant languages are also regularly used outside of the home. In many areas of the city, over 85% of inhabitants use a language other than English at home, as well as in their daily lives (Statistics Canada, 2011). These characteristics of the city’s multilingualism are evident in the linguistically-diverse classrooms at WCU. First, many classes 33

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have large numbers, often a majority, of EAL students, which inevitably impacts teaching and learning. Moreover, the diasporic nature of settlement and multilingual communication in the city manifests itself in hybrid translanguaging practices (García, 2009; Lewis, Jones, & Baker, 2012; Li & Zhu, 2013) in the corridors and classrooms of the university, where students frequently communicate in multiple languages, switch languages with classmates, and mix languages in the same interaction, all depending on preestablished norms with other interlocutors as well as shared/individual interpretations about what is normal and appropriate in different settings and with different instructors. Certainly, when students engage in hybrid translanguaging practices their language use is far removed from historical understandings of bi- and multilingualism, which emphasize high degrees of competence, or native speaker level competence, in separate languages (cf. Bloomfield, 1933; Haugen, 1953; Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981; Weinreich, 1953). Indeed, it could be argued that traditional conceptualizations of native speaker competence in separate codes still form the basis of many institutional discourses around multilingualism in higher education in North America, according to which many multilingual students seem to be lacking, and which encourages deficit/remedial views of multilingual learners. Today, however, there is common recognition that multi/plurilingualism involves hybridity and varying degrees of competence between and within languages (Auer, 2007; Dewaele, Baetens Beardsmore, Housen, & Li, 2003; Gajo, 2014; García, 2009; Grosjean, 1984; Grosjean, 2015; Heller, 2006; Kachru, 1994; Lüdi & Py, 1982/2013; Marshall & Moore, 2013). A number of studies have analyzed the nature of the multilingualism and the learning needs of students in higher education institutions in Metro Vancouver. The complex nature of students’ multilingual and multiliterate practices has been documented by Marshall, Hayashi, and Yeung (2012), while Lee and Marshall (2012) connected multilingual student interviewees’ responses to the reproduction/challenging of powerful social and institutional monolingualist discourses. Accordingly, we see our students’ multilingualism as socially and discursively constructed around group membership (Bailey, 2007); not inherent or fixed (Block, 2007; Norton, 2000); hybrid, and negotiated between languages and identities (Hall, 1992); and performative (Butler, 1993), with individuals and groups reproducing hegemonic constructions of identity through the repetition of their enactment, and in terms of both constraint and the agentive refashioning of futures (Pennycook, 2007). In Marshall and Moore (2013), the authors analyzed how plurilingual university students perform their languages, literacies, and multilingual competence in and around their studies. Students utilized their multi-/plurilingual competence by interconnecting linguistic and cultural repertoires in language ecologies, exercising their agency as learners along life paths and social trajectories, and performing according to both constraints and opportunities in educational contexts (Beacco & Byram, 2007; Conteh & Meier, 2014; Coste et al., 2009; Gajo, 2014; Grommes & Hu, 2014; Piccardo & Puozzo Capron, 2015). We thus view students’ multilingualism as a “potential resource rather than necessarily a barrier to language and content learning” (Lin, 2013, p. 522), as they shuttle between languages and discourses in their classes (Canagarajah, 2011). We suggest that by employing a multi-/plurilingual lens in their teaching and learning, teachers can challenge discourses of deficit, (in)competence, and open up spaces for a plurality of languages and cultures in their classes. 4. Writing intensive learning at WCU West Coast University’s undergraduate curriculum requires all students to take lower and upper division courses designated as ‘Writing-Intensive’ (WI) to graduate. After much debate, Writing-Intensive Learning was chosen as the pedagogical approach to enable WCU’s students to become competent writers in their academic disciplines and their future professions. This was despite fears that the inclusion of writing to learn and learning to write activities would reduce the focus on disciplinary content, a factor also mentioned in Strachan (2008). According to the WCU undergraduate curriculum, WI courses are required to fulfill the following conditions:

• provide students with opportunities to use writing as a way of learning the content of the course and be taught to write in the forms that are typical of the discipline and/or profession • employ examples of writing within the discipline as a means of instruction about typical modes of writing in that discipline • provide students with detailed feedback to their writing to help them improve the quality of their writing • build revision into the process of writing for formal assignments • assess a minimum of 50% of the course grade on written work for which students receive feedback An important distinction can be made between Writing to Learn and Learning to Write, a distinction that in the context of WCU does not neatly apply to their respective connections with WAC and WID as described earlier (Carter et al., 2007). At WCU, we note a much more fluid manifestation of pedagogical practices in the WI courses, perhaps a result of the linguistic diversity at the university and the need for flexibility on the part of instructors, many of whom do not primarily self-identify as writing instructors. 4.1. Writing to learn (learning through writing) Writing to Learn suggests that writing is used primarily as a tool for learning and engaging with course content. Writing thus becomes a main mode of learning, with instructors integrating low stakes writing activities, which carry few or no marks, into the syllabus and classes to encourage students to generate ideas and enhance the learning of course content (Strachan, 2008). Accordingly, the focus is more on the cognitive and generative learning processes that the activities stimulate rather than writing as texts or products to be assessed (see Bean, 2011, for 25 ideas for incorporating exploratory writing into courses). Nonetheless, high stakes 34

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writing often remains the traditional means of measuring and assessing a final written product, usually in activities that carry a high percentage of the overall marks for a course. 4.2. Learning to write Another focus of WIL pedagogy is learning to write, that is, allowing students to become better writers through explicit instruction in disciplinary writing, through feedback, and through writing more. Along these lines, by receiving explicit instruction in writing, students can hopefully become more proficient writers, and graduate with the necessary skills to write proficiently within their academic and professional disciplines. We found that the WI courses we studied at WCU balanced writing to learn and learning to write in different ways, depending on course-specific factors such as the make-up of the class, the year of study, and the preferences and ideologies of the instructor. 4.3. Writing to learn and EAL writers Some EAL learners who lack the advanced skills required to understand and respond to a text may struggle to reap the putative generative-cognitive benefits of WIL pedagogy; or in the case of a learner with a functional division of repertoire (Spolsky, 1998), they may be able to read and understand, while being less able to write effectively – or the reverse. Instructors face a number of dilemmas when responding to such situations. Should they make a special effort to help specific EAL students in a class? In a class made up mostly of EAL learners needing additional help, should instructors change the curriculum to meet the needs of this group at the expense of other groups? Does adjusting teaching and learning in this way always entail helping one group at the expense of others? If instructors do change their teaching to facilitate the learning of EAL students, do they run the risk of reducing the focus on disciplinary content? And if they choose the latter route but lack professional training in language teaching and curriculum development, how should instructors go about this task? As will be seen in the upcoming analysis of data, addressing these questions goes beyond classroom pedagogy and management, touching on broader issues that range from understandings of multilingualism and linguistic competence to asserting professional identities. 5. The study Data are presented from a two-stage study. In Stage 1, six WI course instructors in the Faculties of Arts, Business, and Health Sciences were interviewed over a six-month period. In Stage 2, two additional instructors in Applied Sciences were interviewed to develop themes that had emerged from Stage 1. Interviewees included sessional instructors (paid per course), and limited term and continuing lecturers (teaching stream). Importantly, due to the perception that teaching WI courses involves onerous marking of students’ writing, WI courses are often allocated to sessional instructors, lecturers, and junior faculty members (see LaFrance’s, 2015, discussion of the lack of tenure-track faculty appointments in writing courses). Potential interviewees were contacted through personal networks, either via asking departmental administrators for names of WI instructors or by contacting instructors whom we knew directly. After the project received ethics approval, and participants expressed interest in participating, they met with interviewers, read study details, asked any questions they had, then signed consent forms. All those who volunteered to participate gave consent and were interviewed. One ethical issue that required careful attention was confidentiality and anonymity. Interviewees were informed that the names of individuals, courses, departments, faculties, and the institution would be changed as required. Additionally, prior to disseminating our findings, we shared findings and sought approval from six of the eight interviewees. Interviews in Stage 1 were carried out by Author 2 (Walsh Marr) alone, and in Stage 2 by Author 1 (Marshall) and one or two co-researchers. Interviews took place at a time and place of the participants’ choosing. At times, the interviews shifted from specific questions and answers to more open conversations. We thus recognize that the data we gathered in the semi-structured interviews were interactive and co-constructed, in professional, intersubjective conversations, or “inter-views” (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009, p.3). Interviewees received a copy of the interview questions a few moments before the interviews began, which focused on the following: knowledge of the pre-WI course AL099, academic communication in class, perceptions of languages other than English as assets, strategies to deal with linguistic diversity, and balancing writing to learn and learning to write. Interviews were transcribed and coded, first by grouping the responses to each question into single documents, then by searching for emerging Table 1 Participants. Name

Stage

Faculty

Ives Sam Robin Jamie Pat Morgan Steph Mani

1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2

Arts Health Sciences Business Health Sciences Business Business Applied Sciences Applied Sciences

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themes that could provide answers to our questions. In Table 1 below, we list the participants and the faculties in which they work, and whether they took part in Stage 1 or Stage 2 of the project. 6. Data analysis The following section is structured around four key themes that emerged as we analyzed the data for answers to our questions: addressing multilingualism, addressing the native/non-native speaker binary, other languages in class, and role as a WI instructor. Within each theme, sub-themes are presented where relevant. We have selected responses that we feel to be of most relevance to our research questions. 6.1. Multilingualism: definitions and assets In this section, we present interviewees’ responses to questions about their understandings of multilingualism and issues related to linguistic diversity in their classrooms.

• Defining multilingualism The first excerpts are responses to a question asking participants how they understood the term “multilingual.” As multilingualism was the term we were using as researchers, we felt it would be useful to learn the extent to which our participants shared our understandings of the term, or not, and to look for links to their other responses. Ives: Multilingual is, I would say it’s going to be someone who, not fluency, reasonably understood, but probably fluency in more than one language.2 Sam: I would think that it is someone who speaks more than one language, and, perhaps reads and writes in more than one language. Ives and Sam show that they are informed by somewhat traditional conceptualizations of multilingualism, emphasizing fluency in separate languages (Ives) as well as competence in skill areas such as reading and writing (Sam). Another interviewee, Robin, offered a more complex picture of multilingualism when describing students at the university: Robin: Lots of our students don’t have English as a first language, sometimes it’s a third language; we’ve got students with fourth languages … because we get students from all over the place … It’s really hard to put them into one category, because they come with their own degrees of skills with English as a language, depending on where they studied, how much they’ve been immersed in English, and that largely will depend on, where they went to school, where they’re from. Robin’s description shows awareness of the complexities of the urban multilingualism that is part of students’ lives. Robin’s definition moves beyond an ESL categorization of multilingual students, by recognizing that English can be more than a second language in some cases. Robin further problematizes the idea that multilingual students can fit into neat categories, ending with an awareness of the social construction of students’ multilingual practices with an emphasis on students’ backgrounds informing their linguistic repertoires. Together, the factors raised by Robin illustrate a broad understanding of multilingualism that highlights the problems of categorization and recognizes cognitive and social factors, including competence in different skill areas. Two key factors related to our earlier discussion of multilingualism and multi-/plurilingual competence are, nonetheless, absent in the excerpts above: the translanguaging practices that students practice in their daily lives, and a focus on multilingualism as a potential resource (Lin, 2013).

• An asset for the class The assets that multilingual learners can bring to classes did, nonetheless, come up in response to one interview question, What assets do your EAL students bring to a WI course?, as the following excerpts from Jamie and Morgan illustrate: Jamie: I think particularly because I tend to teach on ethical issues that span international borders, that when they can be encouraged to participate, that they act as a wider extent of experience, especially with global issues. So, they might be able to talk to, if they grew up abroad, that they can speak to those perspectives and experiences, which I think is fantastic. Morgan: Broader perspective, a different perspective, from their own backgrounds. Often good research skills. Um, a lot of times it’s perspective. Being able to look at things from a different way. A lot of times research skills. Jamie and Morgan highlight the global experience, good research skills, and alternative analytical lenses that their EAL students bring to their classes: not only multilingualism but also multi-/transculturalism. The responses present another side to more deficitoriented views on multilingual learners, whose assets and expertise instructors and classmates often fail to recognize (Leki, 2001). 2

In the interview transcripts, two periods [..] indicates a pause of two seconds or more, and three periods […] indicates ellipsis.

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• Struggling with academic communication Morgan also described the struggles that EAL students face with regard to academic communication in class: Morgan: It’s grammar tenses, articles, articles are very difficult, spelling, understanding the question, and when you don’t understand the question or the issue or the case then again, coming for feedback, trying to find out what is the actual issue … I give some short twenty-five minute writing quizzes, basically, and, most of the EAL students find that more difficult than the native speaker students. In the above excerpt, Morgan emphasizes EAL students’ lack of linguistic competence and production, weighing their competence again against a native speaker “ideal” learner. In another example with a similar focus, Robin tells the story of a student who had particular difficulties making himself understood in writing and speaking: Robin: You know, I had a guy, I had this guy in my class last semester … we were sitting here, the two of us, trying to decipher what he had written on a diagnostic piece of writing, and we sat there for twenty minutes the two of us, just trying to, like, the phrases he’d used in the sentence … I stared at that thing for twenty minutes and there was nothing, yeah … And, I mean, that, I think that’s a pretty good representation of the level of language a lot of our students have, which is a huge concern to us, because not only what we’re trying to, the level we’re trying to get them to, so that they can be employed if they want to be employed, but it also means if they’re in my class, they’ve done a WI class at a lower level already. So, this guy has already got his WI, lower WI credit, and I’m like how, how does that happen? Robin vividly describes the struggle that one student faced communicating through writing, wondering how such a student can make it as far as an upper level WI course. Robin also brings up the issue of employability, linking his understanding of additional language learners’ writing within this genre to academic and professional contexts (Tardy, 2006). Of further interest, but outside the scope of this article, is how students who are struggling navigate writing pathways at the university, perhaps favouring online courses or WI courses in certain subject areas based on the belief that they will be easier to pass. In this sense, their practices in and around W classes can be understood as very high stakes performances upon which futures depend.

6.2. Addressing the native/non-native binary: identification and idealization The idea of a clear distinction between an L1 and an L2 student, or native/non-native, domestic/international, is evident not only in the literature (Cox, 2014; Habib & Zawacki, 2011; Leki, 2001; Leki, Cumming, & Silva, 2010; Silva, 1993) but was also present in interviewees’ conceptualizations of classroom practice. As mentioned earlier, the conceptualization of a target native speaker in WIL pedagogy is closely related to the idea that students will benefit from learning through writing, first by generating ideas and engaging with them, and then by becoming better writers through a more immersive writing environment. While discussing strategies to deal with linguistically diverse students, Morgan referred to a native speaker advantage as follows: Morgan: Native speakers generally have an easier time in that class … simply because they’re not hindered by grammar issues, spelling issues, all those things come into play in our class. They, students face deductions on every kind of assignment where they’re making even paragraphing mistakes, spelling, grammar. It can be any kinds of those mistakes. In the excerpt above, Morgan’s description of a native speaker advantage is based on the view that native speakers are less hindered by technical aspects of language use, adding that students are penalized on assignments when they make such errors. In the two responses, we can see the native/non-native speaker binary embedded in practice and perception. The penalizing of ‘nonnative speaker’ errors, in a roundabout way, illustrates the targeted learner of WIL pedagogy in Morgan’s eyes – an idealized native speaker of English – thus exemplifying the institutional prevalence of the native/non-native speaker binary. Moreover, associating such errors in a general sense with non-native speakers, as opposed to native speakers, has been described by authors such as Lüdi and Py (1982/ 2013) as being based on an erroneous assumption that errors are the results of being bilingual; in a similar vein, Habib and Zawacki (2011) demonstrate that many L2 errors are also made by L1 students. And as stated by Canagarajah (2011) in his discussion of multilingual learners in writing to learn classes, linguistic deviation should not always be seen as an error, as in some cases presumed errors may also be choices made by writers for communicative purposes. The native/non-native speaker binary itself, moreover, should be called into question within the contexts of a university such as WCU, where it is more of a blurred continuum than a grouping of mutually-exclusive opposites. For example, many multilingual students who speak languages other than English in classes may be erroneously identified as non-native speakers or ESL when in fact English may be their first or dominant language, or they may have been born in Anglophone Canada and have English as a joint first language. Equally, many so-called native speakers of English at WCU are multilingual, speaking other languages to varying degrees of competence, having studied other languages prior to post-secondary, or having attended French immersion elementary and secondary schools, where up to 10% of British Columbia’s school-aged students study at some stage (Statistics on French Education in BC, 2017). With regard to assumptions and (mis)identifications about L2 learners, Leung et al. (1997) emphasized the need for educators to address the actual (rather than presumed) language use, ethnicity, and culture of bilingual learners, citing a mismatch between the realities of urban multilingualism and the classification of students’ language identities and backgrounds in educational institutions. 37

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6.3. Other languages in class When discussing how they responded in terms of pedagogy to the linguistic diversity in their classes, interviewees brought up two themes of particular interest: students speaking languages other than English in class, and how linguistic diversity might affect group work. In the following excerpts, Pat and Morgan offer different perspectives on the use of languages other than English in class: Pat: Um, yeah, I have a bias, I have a bias that I feel that if you’re learning a language, English, that you should be speaking it in the classroom. Because I’m not teaching English as a second language. Morgan: I might speak to the students, especially early on, you know, if I hear them speaking Mandarin, I might join in [speaking Mandarin] during a break, or after class and just, you know, sort of, trying to get them so that they feel comfortable with me. Pat’s response is based on an assumption that students who speak a language other than English in class are learning English in the class, which of course many multilingual students are not, particularly if they were born in Canada or came at a young age and did all or part of their schooling locally. For such students, it is normal to use a language other than English to communicate and work together on collaborative tasks using other languages (Marshall & Moore, 2013). From this perspective, Pat’s statement “I’m not teaching English as a second language” could be read as implying that students using languages other than English in class require ESL instruction, illustrating a homogenizing of heterogeneous groups of “other” learners as described above by Coste, de Pietro, and Moore (2012). In the second of the two excerpts, Morgan, a speaker of Mandarin as an additional language, presents a different approach, describing engaging students in Mandarin in class or during the break to make them feel more comfortable with the class, opening up spaces for a plurality of languages and cultures in and around teaching (Marshall & Moore, 2013).

• Working in groups Having described a personal bias against the use of languages other than English in class, Pat then discussed the dilemmas that come with setting up group work in linguistically-diverse classes. In the following excerpt, Pat describes organizing students into groups according to perceived competence as writers: Pat: So, we don’t, we don’t have an A writer with a C, or a D writer. So, one of the things that happens particularly for students who have other languages and may not have mastered the English language very well is they really struggle because they’re just with each other. And that causes some difficulties because they’re, I think for them it’s very frustrating; they’re trying to learn, and yet they’re learning from each other, who has much the same level of English. And it’s challenging … it’s been so unfair for the students who’ve been doing really well, and what we found was the students who really didn’t have the capacity to pass the course were passing because they were in groups that were much stronger. Pat presents a paradoxical picture of [i] organizing groups in class according to writing performance, while at the same time highlighting the problem of weaker writers struggling to improve because [ii] “they’re just with each other.” While it could be assumed that the solution to [ii] (students’ inability to improve) would be to stop [i] (grouping them with fellow weak writers), for Pat this would raise issues of fairness: it would be unfair to stronger students who would be grouped with weaker ones. This brings us back to our earlier question: does adapting teaching and learning to accommodate EAL students who may be struggling always entail helping one group at the expense of others? Would it not be possible instead to have students of different levels studying in the same group and assess each student in an appropriate way? Could it also be possible that the A student would have something to learn from the C or D student despite the language differences? Robin also described problems that come with group assignments in class: Robin: By allowing the students to take WI courses at the upper level, with that level of language skill, we, and then we put them in groups, we put the responsibility on their partners. … I just had a group in here a couple of weeks ago, where it was two native speakers and one non-native speaker; he was working his butt off, but, you know, the bottom line is you can’t use anything that he’s producing; he can’t contribute to the group, and his language skills were so, um, problematic, he couldn’t even follow basic directions in an email to find Tim Hortons.3 He wandered around a building for, I don’t know how long, and he was too afraid to ask somebody for directions; he couldn’t find Tim Horton’s. Robin’s interview response reverts back to earlier binaries of native versus non-native speaker while at the same time describing real problems that students and instructors alike face when working in linguistically-diverse groups. Of interest here is the focus on linguistic (in)competence between native and non-native speaker as the key factor, and in this case it would seem, a factor that overrides the additional assets mentioned earlier by Jamie and Morgan: the research skills and worldviews that multilingual students would bring to a group project. Robin goes on to mention the strain that such situations can put on students: Robin: All students in such groups are put under enormous strain: academically, socially, and psychologically. The university does not train undergrads to navigate this dilemma. It does not train faculty to help students navigate this dilemma. In this second excerpt from Robin, we can see the multiple levels of pressure that students can endure, regardless of background.

3

Tim Horton’s is a popular Canadian coffee shop.

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The interview excerpts indicate that students and instructors need training on how to deal with such challenges, especially in contexts where multilingual students are constructed by others as less capable and less valuable (Leki, 2001). 6.4. Role as a WI instructor In discussions related to how interviewees dealt with students whose level of academic English may not allow them to benefit fully from learning through writing, a number of participants brought their role as WI instructors into the discussion. In order to gain a sense of how instructors may be going about teaching writing in a WI course, we first asked them how they themselves learned academic writing. The following three excerpts are responses that are representative of the interviewees as a group: Robin: Academic writing? I, I would imagine I learned that in, you know, I probably learned academic writing through osmosis. Sam: Um, through osmosis, which I think most, most graduate and PhD students do. I do really believe that most of us have an intuitive way of learning. Pat: Trial and error. Nobody told me how to do it. The three responses reveal that these three WI instructors, who are tasked with employing WIL pedagogy in linguistically-diverse classes have no formal background in being taught how to write, a factor also mentioned by Strachan (2008); instead, they cite osmosis, and trial and error.

• I’m not here to teach them writing; this is a WI course In the following excerpts, Sam, Ives, and Pat responded to a question about how instructors were dealing with EAL students in need of extra assistance, which raised issues about whether a WI instructor is a teacher of disciplinary content or of writing: Sam: they [instructors and TAs] all do definitely struggle, with students and English as an additional language. You know what, it’s not even just that. They’ll say, why don’t these kids know how to critically think? And I’m not here to teach them writing. … Umm, yeah, I talked to her [a colleague] in the hall about it; she’d come to me because she was having difficulties and I said, “Well, I’m really not here for the students to teach them, you know, to tutor them in writing. You should be going to the Student Learning Centre.” Ives: Some of the faculty complain about why on earth can’t our students write, because I think the WI course is too tough to teach students how to write, how to put a sentence together, how to write a paragraph, something that really that isn’t the purpose of the WI courses. Pat: I bring them in here and we talk and we look for resources for them, and, I don’t have, I can’t do anything with them myself because this is a WI course; that’s not my expertise. Sam first states that instructors and teaching assistants face challenges when teaching EAL students in WI courses, also citing instructors who complain about “kids” who don’t know how to think critically. Sam then cites an unnamed instructor who states, “And I’m not here to teach them writing.” This brings our analysis to another key binary that relates to teaching linguistically-diverse WI courses: language versus content, or teaching writing versus teaching content. This binary between teaching content and teaching writing relates to Carter et al.’ (2007) discussion of the tensions between writing to learn in WID approaches and learning to write from WAC pedagogies, as well as Strachan’s (2008) and Carter’s (2007) acknowledgment of instructors’ fears that the inclusion of writing to learn and learning to write activities in courses across the disciplines would shift the focus away from content in the curriculum. In this case, the writing component of the course is not considered by Sam to be content. The content is the disciplinaryspecific knowledge that is taught through the separate “non-content skill” of writing. In this regard, Sam matches Carter’s (2007) definition of faculty in the disciplines who conceive writing as “generalizable to all disciplines and therefore distinct from disciplinary knowledge” (p. 385). For Sam, writing is a skill that a WI instructor does not need to teach explicitly; instead, it is a generic skill to be taught by someone in the Student Learning Centre. In other words, Sam saw the writing in writing to learn as a skill or vehicle for learning course content, but did not see it as the instructor’s role to take the lead on learning to write if it involved explicit teaching of writing skills. Ives and Pat echo Sam’s image of the WI course teacher. Ives states that teaching the specifics of writing sentences and paragraphs is not the purpose of the WI course while Pat describes being able to meet students and discuss their work with them but not going beyond that for two reasons: “this is a WI course” and “it’s not my expertise.” Together, these excerpts reveal the complexities that lie within the binaries of writing to learn versus learning to write, teaching content versus teaching writing, and instructors’ roles within the institution. Each instructor leans much more towards students learning course content through writing than spending time in class or outside (in office hours, for example) teaching students the mechanics of writing sentences and paragraphs. Accordingly, the WI instructor’s role is firmly grounded in the teaching of discipline-specific content, reflecting Strachan’s (2008) observation that, “professors did not see themselves as writing teachers; they were teaching their subject with written work as a means of assisting and assessing student learning” (p. 8). When ideal, or idealized, learners are replaced by non-idealized multilingual students with English as an additional language who struggle to learn through writing, instructors are faced with the dilemma of how to respond. Perhaps, the responses above stating that it is not the role of the WI course or the WI instructor to teach students how to write could be seen as a reflection of instructors’ own 39

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backgrounds of learning how to write through osmosis, lacking formal professional training in teaching disciplinary content through writing, and struggling to apply their understandings to the linguistically-diverse WI class, in which a broad range of cognitive, psychological, and socio-cultural/linguistic factors come together in students’ learning. However, on an ideological level, it is also grounded in teacher identity: WI course instructors as teachers of the knowledge of their discipline, writing as separate knowledge, and the student who needs to adapt.

• I don’t buy that separation In a Stage 2 interview, Steph was asked to comment on the responses of other participants who did not identify as teachers of language and writing skills in WI courses: Steve: One of the really interesting things we found with the responses of different instructors, some WI instructors said “I am not a writing teacher, I am a content teacher” and others said “I am a content teacher, not an ESL teacher” Where do you kind of fit into that, push and pull, within that triangle? Steph: I don’t. Because I don't buy the triangle. The reason I say that is, composition has a history of being providing service to other courses, and that is across North America. … I am quite happy to describe myself as I teach writing, I teach ESL, I teach communication, rhetoric, how texts are organized, how it's understood. That's my content. So, I don't buy that separation, so I don't think it's helpful…to be honest. Steph described having studied composition and rhetoric at graduate level, and sciences at undergraduate level. Perhaps, as a result, Steph offered a different view of a content-language binary. Steph also presented a lenient view on dealing with student errors, preferring to overlook them in favour of focusing on content (Leki et al., 2010). Steph’s response was notably different from those of Sam, Ives, and Pat. In many respects, we see Steph as representing an ideal WI instructor, an idealization of teaching and learning through writing at the university – that of a rounded WI instructor whom the university should aspire to hire but who is the exception rather than the norm.

• Positioning writing in the marketization of knowledge When an instructor faces the professional, pedagogical, and personal challenges that come with addressing the needs of EAL learners who are struggling in a class that employs WIL pedagogy, many inter-related personal, institutional, and pedagogical factors come to the fore as has been illustrated above. Nonetheless, underlying all of these factors is the increasing marketization of internationalized higher education in North America, in which pedagogical concerns can be over-ridden by financial ones. When asked about how he dealt with EAL students who struggle in class, Mani responded as follows: Mani: I feel very sad for those students, because I think they become the sort of cash cow for the university, and they're seen as a paycheque. And if we get more international students, they pay these differential tuition fees and now we can fund more programs, and I think the tension is if you're, if you see the student is bringing in money, then how many resources will you actually put into supporting them? And so, I think we have a moral obligation and if we bring students into university, and we tell them there is a threshold for English wherever that is, that should be a realistic threshold for success. Mani’s description of the students as cash cows, or a paycheque, for the university is particularly problematic at a university that proudly states that its student body includes approximately 20% international students. Being an international student at the university is determined by visa status; in other words, the international student has a student visa and is not a citizen or permanent resident of Canada. The pervasive discourse around this feature of internationalization is that it brings a valued diversity of viewpoints into classrooms, a discourse that was present to some extent in interviewees’ responses above. Yet another persistent, contradictory, less lauded discourse underlying this idealized discourse of international engagement relates to money. In describing such students as cash cows, Mani is referring to the fact that international undergraduate students at the university pay quadruple tuition for the same courses as domestic students, many of which may be taught by instructors who are struggling to deal with demographic and sociolinguistic changes (for a discussion of sustainability, internationalization of higher education, and the problem of the market with reference to Canadian institutions, see Ilieva, Beck, & Waterstone, 2014). The question arises, then, how much of that extra tuition is being allocated to supporting instructors to develop pedagogy and student learning? Mani suggests that the university has a moral obligation not only to support these students but also to set the threshold for entrance to the university at a level that relates to academic success: “I think we have a moral obligation and if we bring students into university, and we tell them there is a threshold for English wherever that is, that should be a realistic threshold for success.” 7. Conclusion We have presented data from interviews with eight instructors teaching writing intensive courses in different disciplines at West Coast University. On many occasions, the instructors we interviewed described multilingual/EAL writers who seemed to be struggling in the academy as they negotiate competing subject positions across disciplines characterized by different discourses (Canagarajah, 2004) and genres in terms of the forms and situations in which texts are written (Giltrow, 2002). Three questions guided our study: [i] how instructors understood multilingualism as a concept (their own and their students’); [ii] how they responded pedagogically to 40

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the presence of significant numbers of multilingual students in their classes; and [iii] how instructors perceived their role as a WI course instructor. We will bring together our findings around these questions and end by briefly considering the implications of our findings.

7.1. How instructors understood multilingualism as a concept (their own and their students’) As stated, we wanted to learn how the participants in the study understood the key concept with which we were working – multilingualism – a phenomenon that we understand to be individually, socially, and discursively constructed, related to group membership and identity, fluid rather than fixed, both discrete and hybrid, and performative (Bailey, 2007; Block, 2007; Butler, 1993; Hall, 1992; Norton, 2000; Pennycook, 2007). We were also curious (but recognized that establishing correlations would be near impossible in such a small study) as to whether we would be able to establish any connections between individuals’ understandings and their descriptions of classroom practices. Unable to draw any meaningful correlations, we did nonetheless find a general absence of complex understandings that moved beyond an L1/L2 binary, and which showed awareness of the complex, hybrid, translingual nature of students’ multilingual practices in and outside of classes, or which explicitly stressed multilingualism as an asset. Two exceptions were one Stage 1 interviewee (Robin), and the two instructors interviewed in the second stage of the study (Steph and Mani), both of whom had taken graduate/ professional applied language/writing studies, and who described multiple layers of complexity in their conceptualizations of multilingualism and the needs of multilingual students.

7.2. How instructors responded pedagogically to the presence of significant numbers of multilingual students in their classes The interview excerpts we have presented focused mainly on the challenges and dilemmas that both instructors and multilingual students face in WI classes. Our approach was guided by sub-questions about how far instructors might change or adapt their classroom practices to accommodate multilingual students who may be struggling, and whether such pedagogical responses can be made to support one group without disadvantaging another. The first finding to reiterate was that all but two of the interviewees lacked formal training that focused specifically on teaching writing and/or English language learners. In this regard, it would perhaps be less likely indeed that multi-/plurilingual pedagogies connecting students’ linguistic and cultural repertoires would be employed in their classes in ways that could embrace linguistic diversity as an asset rather than a hindrance to teaching (Beacco & Byram, 2007; Lin, 2013). Moreover, even if such pedagogies were viewed favourably, the strong focus on disciplinary content would make such approaches less likely in many contexts. In most cases, instructors viewed language and composition as skills rather than content, rejecting the need to teach language and composition explicitly as part of a WI course. The question arises, therefore, as to whether WIL pedagogy is compatible with non-idealized learners who may struggle to learn through writing. We would argue that the first stage of assisting EAL learners who may be struggling in a WI course would be to shift the focus during the multiple stages of the writing process away from language and sentence/paragraph structures to scaffolding content, organization, and development between drafts (Bean, 2011; Hirsch, 2014), prioritizing coherence and critical thinking. In this regard, Zamel (2004) has argued that writing-to-learn activities can indeed help EAL learners: What ESOL students need – multiple opportunities to use language and write-to-learn, course work that draws on and values what students already know, classroom exchanges and assignments that promote the acquisition of unfamiliar language (Zamel, 2004, p. 14). Equally, it has been suggested by Fishman & McCarthy (2004) that instructors should combine writing to learn approaches with student-to-student dialogue as an alternative to focusing on sentence structure and mechanics. We believe that these suggestions could be implemented in classes without a so-called “watering down” of disciplinary content and without helping certain groups at the expense of others.

7.3. How instructors perceived their role as a WI course instructor The assumption that instructors identify as writing intensive instructors is not a good starting point: many are sessional instructors, many lack explicit training, workload is heavy, support inconsistent, and in several courses teaching assistants play a major role. Moreover, we found that instructors’ professional identities were being affected and often challenged by perceptions of an institutional backdrop that prioritized increasing the number of international students and their tuition fees while playing catch up with regard to supporting these students. At the same time, the continued institutional positioning of WIL pedagogy as a cornerstone of the university’s curriculum, and the requirement for students to learn important disciplinary knowledge (and be assessed) through writing has served to destabilize professional identities where instructors teach classes that include EAL students who struggle. Within these conflicting discursive contexts, what is the role of the WI instructor? While two of the eight interviewees accepted that their role involved teaching writing and adapting pedagogies to address the changing classroom demographics, the majority were less compliant with adapting, arguing that teaching writing (particularly to EAL students) was not their role in the class, nor was it the purpose of a WI course. Students would have to adapt and seek additional help elsewhere. 41

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7.4. Concluding remarks and implications WIL pedagogy positions writing as a key tool through which learning and assessment occur. Yet it is essential to state that for many students writing in English as a second or additional language, learning through writing is different and can present additional challenges. In this regard, Hyland (2003) cites Silva’s 1993 review of 72 studies comparing research into first and second language writing, which found that “L2 writing is strategically, rhetorically, and linguistically different in important ways from L1 writing” (p. 31). Hyland goes on to state that these differences revolve around the following competences: grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic, and strategic (Canale & Swain, 1980). In this sense, the intensive writing in WIL pedagogy can in some ways disadvantage some EAL learners due its central role as the tool through which teaching, learning, and assessment take place. That is not to say, however, that flexible WIL pedagogy that balances writing to learn and learning to write in response to linguistic diversity and in ways that address all students’ needs cannot be successful. Instructors and students alike face challenges in linguistically-diverse writing intensive classes. Instructors may lack formal training in teaching writing to students for whom English is not the main or strongest language; they may consider themselves to be experts in the subject area rather than in writing and language learning; and they may be a sessional instructor or limited term lecturer who has been assigned to teach a course that colleagues in more stable positions may have turned down based on the view that the WI course entails more work. Some EAL students may delay enrolling in a WI course in the hope of improving their English and writing as much as possible beforehand; they may lack all of the necessary academic skills needed to benefit from learning through writing; and they may worry that a WI course will lower their GPA and thus their chances of graduating and finding a job. Put together, these factors can contribute to a learning environment that destabilizes instructors’ identities as well as some students’ perceptions of academic growth and success. Of course, many instructors and students meet these challenges with aplomb and success; for others, however, problems persist. Just as students need explicit instruction in their classes, instructors too require support and training to allow them to better bring together disciplinary content, writing, and understandings of the multilingual development of their students and the assets they bring to classes. 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Cox (Eds.). WAC and second language writers: Research towards linguistically and culturally inclusive programs and practices (pp. 329–346). Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearing House. Silva, T., & Leki, I. (2004). Family matters: The influence of applied linguistics and composition studies on second language writing studies—Past, present, and future. The Modern Language Journal, 88(1), 1–13. Silva, T. (1993). Toward an understanding of the distinct nature of L2 writing: The ESL research and its implications. TESOL Quarterly, 27(4), 657–677. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education of minorities. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Spolsky, B. (1998). Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Statistics Canada (2011). 2011 Census of population: Linguistic characteristics of Canadians. Retrieved from: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/12102. Statistics on French Education in BC, (2017). Retrieved from: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/ways-to-learn/french-programs/policiesfunding-and-statistics/statistics-on-french-education-in-bc. Strachan, W. (2008). Writing-Intensive: Becoming W-faculty in a new writing curriculum. Logan, Utah: University Press of Colorado. Tardy, C. M. (2006). Researching first and second language genre learning: A comparative review and a look ahead. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15(2), 79–101. Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in contact (reprinted in 1968). Mouton: The Hague (1953)). Zamel, V. (2004). Strangers in academia: The experiences of faculty and ESOL students across the curriculum. In V. Zamel, & R. Spack (Eds.). Crossing the curriculum. multilingual learners in college classrooms (pp. 3–17). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Steve Marshall is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He researches multilingualism and academic literacy across the disciplines. He is the author of the textbook Advance in Academic Writing (2017) Pearson/ERPI, and numerous academic publications. Jennifer Walsh Marr is a Lecturer at Vantage College, University of British Columbia. She teaches preparatory courses in English for Academic Purposes to international students and is involved in related curriculum development and research.

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