How does The Discovery of Competence approach fit
with or contradict "traditional" remedial courses?
Where
this approach most obviously veers away from “traditional” remedial courses is
in its insistence on writing as being a mode of language acquisition. If
language is acquired it cannot be taught, and the grammar lessons and distinct
mini-units on writing that so often show up in a remedial class have no place.
I have the sense that the authors shy away from grammar lessons entirely because the focus is heartily on writing as it develops naturally through
exposure and practice (similar to how a child’s natural cognitive development
cannot be rushed).
However,
I don’t mean to say that there’s nothing of value to be found in a traditional
remedial course (though the authors may mean to say that). Actually, I believe there IS a place for grammar instruction.
Many students want it and some can in fact benefit from lessons like finding
their subjects and verbs to be sure they agree, how to join sentences correctly
using FANBOYS, etc…especially if those lessons stem from the writing they
themselves have produced. I think it’s highly impractical to say that there
will never be any grammar instruction in a remedial course, which I suspect is
what the authors of The Discovery of
Competence are getting at.
Some
of the insights from this book could probably be worked into a more traditional
remedial course (I’m thinking of teachers here who are constrained by set
syllabi or SLOs from their departments). There must be room within a
traditional course to assign writing that is of use to students, that students
can see in context as being relevant either to their non-academic lives or to
their emergence as academic participants. The traditional remedial classroom
isn’t required to be all compare and contrast paragraphs and my summer
vacation essays, after all. Furthermore, the instructor can impact the trajectory of the course considerable by the way her or she responds to student writing--is writing error-ridden and in need of fixing or is it moving toward competency?
It does seem like the authors in Discovery of Competence are not providing a very clear curriculum, however that may come later. It is easy to attach to 'traditional' exercises like you mention, but interesting to me is how you would integrate that into their acquisition approach with your own past ESL and writing teaching experience...
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