A Glance at Canagarajah's Chapter

Echoing postmodernist movements in composition studies in general which call for pedagogies that are more tolerant and accepting to deviations and alternatives, Canagarajah (2002) too sees the need to address the discomfort experienced by ESOL students in their English classroom as a result of how they are positioned by power, ideology, identity and culture. In this chapter Canagarajah specifically elaborate on what critical academic writing means to multilingual students in ESOL contexts. Upon discussing a number of existing perspectives he then moves on to suggest the perspectives from which he believes ESOL students’ disadvantages can be seen and addressed.

Caragarajah speaks of the decisions (including my self when teaching in ESL contexts) that teachers have to make when choosing the kind of instruction appropriate for their ESL class. Teachers have to consider various aspects such as background knowledge, cultural values, intecultural rhetorical styles, socioeconomic factors, and many others if they want their teaching to be 'critical enough' that no student, as the result, is disadvanted.

While I agree with this postmodernist view and with Canagarajah's main points, I had trouble following the threads of his discussions; constantly wondering whether he is talking about critical academic writing per se or it is more about critical teaching of academic writing. Most of the time, he seems to be speaking to teachers and rarely students - which confirms my doubt that this is not even about academic writing at all, but more about pedagogies (at least up to this point in the book). In addition, Canagarajah seems to assume that composition as a field has already made up their mind that 'writing as social' is the most prevalent perspective ignoring that debate for and against other perspectives is still out there (e.g. Elbow's individual/free writing). What Canagarajah could have done better is explain briefly or in length why he chose one perspective over another that he think suites ESOL contexts.

Overall, I believe the ideas are interesting and do help teachers especially 'native speaking teachers' to understand what really goes on beneath the still water of ESOL.