In my previous post, I shared the story of my children and me to illustrate the complex and multi-dimensional diversity underlying our ethnic identity that appears homogeneous but is not. I also noted that I always felt to the depth of my bones the difference between the way my children use English and the way I do. When I think of my children’s accuracy and my fluency in English, I see the most critical differences between us relate to the onset of language and the environments in which we grew up.
By onset of language, I mean the time when one starts learning or using a language. For my children, their onset of English is when they moved to Northern Virginia at the age of two and eight months respectively. For me, oh gosh, it was not until I started my middle school.
I learned English as a foreign language when I was in a 7th grade, but it was not until 26 when I really started to use English because I worked in Singapore, a country that designates English as its official language (Click here to see the nations where English is an official language). Then, I moved to Northern Virginia in my 30s with my family. Indeed, there IS a huge gap in both time and space between when my children and I began to experience English, though we are ethnically categorized as Asian Americans.
Speaking of the temporal and spatial difference in one’s experience with language, I want to share the stories of three Mason students I am studying for my research project. They represent different language backgrounds typical of Gen Z or zoomers, a generation born between 1997 and 2012. This generation is also called digital natives who have grown up with access to internet and mobile technology device, where English has been serving as a global language. At the same time, this generation outside the U.S. are the beneficiaries of the internationalization of Education that offers English-medium instruction across the subjects taught by teachers from English speaking nations.
Consequently, their onset of language development in English begins much earlier before they either migrated to the U.S. with their families or moved to the U.S. for their college education. Now, let’s take a quick glimpse into the three students I am working with.
Jenna is a freshman in Government and Int’l Affairs and was born and grew up in Northern Virigina. Guided by her parent’s belief in the value of their home language, Jenna attended elementary and middle school that provide official bilingual education in Spanish and English. Hence, as her parent wished, she is now a fluent bilingual user of English and Spanish.
Susan is a sophomore pursuing a degree in Computer Science at Mason. She attended a small, private, religiously affiliated high school in Pennsylvania. Prior to her arrival from Asia, she went to elementary and middle school in her home country whose curriculum was based on IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) that prepared students to succeed in a British curriculum in high school. Susan is also a fluent bilingual user of English and Vietnamese.
Josh is a junior majoring in Cyber security program and transferred from NOVA. He came to the U.S. four years ago from Nigeria, where the official language is English. He has spoken both English and Orkrika, his local language, from the moment he was born. So did his family and members in his local community in Nigeria. He is a fluent writer in English and says he has been enjoying writing in English since he was an elementary student in his home country.
Writing fluency of linguistically diverse students
The onset of English in these three students is either at their birth or in their childhood: they have used English throughout their lives or in their entire education career before coming to Mason. When I asked them how confident they feel about their writing, all of them said they do in general. This confidence is common for Gen Z students who tend to have well-developed writing fluency in general, regardless of their language backgrounds, due to the onset of English language and their exposure to English-immersive environments.
By writing fluency, I refer to writer’s ability to quickly and easily express themselves in a way that’s also easy for their audience to comprehend. While fluency might mean increased confidence, it does not necessarily mean that their writing is error-free.
As a writing instructor, I feel that it is important to embrace this confidence and writing fluency in our classrooms because they play an important role when students develop and experiment with ideas.
Writing with fluency to writing to learn
To embrace our students’ fluency, we can provide opportunities for students to exercise it in our classrooms through low-stakes writing to learn activities. When writing fluency is outweighed by writing accuracy, such as when we focus more on correctness in their writing, students may miss the important opportunities to fully engage in their idea development through writing.
At the same time, through low-stakes, writing-to-learn activities in classrooms, we are more likely to 1) promote linguistically diverse students’ writing fluency, 2) provide a space that honors the fluidity of language use in their writing, and 3) prepare them to practice writing with accuracy, which I will discuss in an upcoming post.
In the next post, we will delve into the writing fluency of students with diverse language backgrounds and how their fluency can be facilitated through writing-to-learn activities. I hope our discussion helps us continue reflecting on the questions of how to embrace the linguistic super-diversity of Mason’s student body in our teaching with writing.