Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Choi Article Response
Choi Article Response
Choi Article Response
C&T 491
6/17/2019
While reading “In Search of a New Paradigm for Teaching English as an International Language”
by Suresh Canagarajah, I was particularly interested in his comments on the importance of the
intersection of multi-lingual and native speakers. There is a benefit for both parties as the
multi-lingual students learn about the “expectations and norms of native speakers,”(p.777)
while the native speakers gain insights by trying the negotiate meaning and recognize their own
“translingual competence” as they tap into their L2s they have learned in EFL classes and while
studying abroad. However, I am a bit skeptical that the sharing is fair for the multi-lingual
students. I presume that multi-lingual students are living in the native speaker’s home country
and that there are a countless opportunities for them to interact with native speakers and learn
the norms. On the other hand, opportunities for native speakers to contact native L2 speakers
in their home country are much more difficult to come by. So, I think there is a chance that the
multi-lingual students may be taken advantage of. While studying dual language bilingual
programs with native speaking English speakers and bi-lingual Spanish speakers, there were
cases of the Latino students not receiving the same benefit as their white counterparts,
furthering the achievement between them and peers. So, I think these relationships should be
Question from the Canagarajah article: I wonder if it’s more effective to learn an L2 with other
about if the washback was beneficial to students. I think it’s clear that it’s an inefficient system,
and a resonating statement from the reading is that “the most serious problem is that the KSAT
does not include speaking and writing components, thus leading to very little, if any, teaching of
speaking and writing at high school”(p.41). So, students and teachers neglect productive skills in
high school because it’s not covered on the tests. In trying to explain why Koreans maintain this
testing culture, Choi puts forth a number of different reasons. Historically, education has
always been the path up the social ladder for lower and middle classes, and Korean parents will
spent a lot of money to make sure their succeed on standardized tests, no matter how
However, one area that I feel that is not discussed enough is the psychological strain on the
students. An incredible amount of money is spent and pressure is put upon them by their
parents for them to excel on these tests. There are many stories in the news of teenagers
committing suicide due to school stress, and in fact South Korea has one of the highest suicide
rates in the world. This and the competitive culture is the reason why I have no interest in
raising my children here. So, we can talk about how inefficient the testing process is, but I feel
Question from Choi paper: This paper was written in 2008, I wonder if TOEFL still is the