BiblioVault - Books about English as a Second Language

Images of English

A Cultural History of the Language

Richard W. Bailey

University of Michigan Press, 1993

Images of English demonstrates how people's opinions about the English language often reflect prejudice and hope, bigotry and pride, scorn and celebration. The book offers a fascinating perspective on attitudes toward the English language--the rise and fall of ideas that English is nearly perfect or tumbling into decline.

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Incidents in an Educational Life

A Memoir (of Sorts)

John M. Swales

University of Michigan Press, 2009

Incidents in an Educational Life chronicles the educational journey of John M. Swales. A leading scholar in the field of Applied Linguistics and its subfield of English for Specific Purposes, Swales has taught across the globe in places such as Italy, Sweden, Libya, the United Kingdom, and the University of Michigan. His memoir offers a rare glimpse into the professional journey of a prominent scholar and educator.

Incidents in an Educational Life explores the lessons Swales learned by teaching and by being taught. The story follows his gradual transformation from an English as a Second Language teacher to one of the leading international figures in his field, stopping along the way to tell the sometimes amusing, sometimes painful anecdotes that have made him the recognized educator he is today. His entertaining prose make this volume a must-read for anyone considering the field, or the many ways in which we all become teachers.

John M. Swales is one of the leading international scholars in the field of English for Specific Purposes. He retired in the summer of 2006 from the University of Michigan after teaching at multiple universities overseas. He is the co-author of the international bestseller Academic Writing for Graduate Students (3rd ed.).

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Inside Academic Writing

Understanding Audience and Becoming Part of an Academic Community

Grace Canseco

University of Michigan Press, 2010

Inside Academic Writing is designed to prepare students in any academic discipline for graduate-level writing. The text situates students within their writing communities by prioritizing the steps of learning; students are directed to use common threads of academic writing across disciplines. The goal of Inside Academic Writing is to give students the opportunity to write for a variety of audiences and to develop the knowledge necessary to recognize how to write for different audiences and purposes.

Inside Academic Writing allows students to examine basic assumptions about writing before they learn specific strategies for targeting the audience or mapping the flow of information. Through the material in this textbook, students will create a portfolio of writings that includes a biographical statement and a research interest essay—important pieces of writing that are rarely taught in courses. Other types of writing featured are a summary, a problem-solution text, a comparative structure paper, and a commentary.

Other textbooks prepare students for graduate writing, but Inside Academic Writing was designed to bridge the gap between non-academic writing and the writing required within an academic community, with one’s peers, colleagues, and field experts. In addition, Inside Academic Writing offers guidance on writing materials for grants, fellowships, conferences, and publication.

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Intercultural Skills in Action

An International Student's Guide to College and University Life in the U.S.

Darren LaScotte and Bethany Peters

University of Michigan Press, 2021

Despite the increasing diversification of U.S. higher education, without intentional curricular planning by faculty, international students may not experience intercultural interactions due to varying degrees of disinterest, discomfort, or anxiety—and the interactions they do have may be superficial. These challenges could be potentially mitigated by an intentional curriculum that complements and enhances English language instruction, such as Intercultural Skills in Action.

Although traditional ESL/EFL textbooks have primarily introduced cultural topics at a knowledge level only, this textbook is designed to create meaningful opportunities for students to reflect on and practice intercultural skills in ways that are relatable in their daily lives and that can lead to a more satisfying U.S. academic experience.

Each unit opens with a discovery activity that serves as a springboard for the unit and introduces the topic in an engaging way. Chapters feature academic content that builds expands knowledge of intercultural skills, plus opportunities for students to pause and reflect on how to apply what they are learning to their own intercultural experiences. The activities ask students to respond with short written reflections and practice oral skills through discussion in pairs and small groups. Each unit closes with an activity that requires students to use higher-order thinking skills to create, evaluate, and/or analyze cultural information gathered from college and university settings in the form of surveys, interviews, observations, or internet research and then report on what they have learned.

The intended audiences for this book are international students studying in Intensive English Programs, in university bridge or pathway programs, or at colleges and universities in the United States. It may also be used by new-student orientation programs or by student services offices that provide intercultural training for students, staff, and faculty who work with international students.

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The International Student's Guide to Writing a Research Paper

Janine Carlock, Maeve Eberhardt, Jaime Horst, Peter Kolenich

University of Michigan Press, 2017

The International Student’s Guide to Writing a Research Paper is a reference text for undergraduate students and those in ESL or bridge courses who are writing a research paper for the first time. This book is partly an update of Writing a Research Paper (by Lionel Menasche, 1998) and partly a companion to The ESL Writer’s Handbook.

Each section of the book includes a discrete task called a Building Block, which requires students to apply the skills learned toward the development of their own paper. This step-by-step approach allows students to construct knowledge as they become more familiar with the process, making writing a research paper a less intimidating task.

Special features:

This guide uses simple direct language for those for whom writing a research paper is new.
Most example writing is from international students in an ESL program or first-year writing class, including two sample papers—one in APA and one in MLA.
A section on responding to instructor feedback to provide students with the tools to read and understand comments and use them to improve the first draft.
A subsection dedicated to constructing clear and cohesive paragraphs and sentences.
The guide includes citation and style examples in MLA 8th edition.

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International Students in First-Year Writing

A Journey Through Socio-Academic Space

Megan M. Siczek

University of Michigan Press, 2018

The book explores the journey of 10 international students to better understand their experiences at a U.S. educational institution and how they constructed and revealed these experiences in this particular socio-academic space. The study features a series of three interviews during the semester that the participants were enrolled in a mainstream first-year writing course; their stories not only capture their experiences but reveal inspiring stories that “give voice” to students outside the dominant cultural and linguistic community.

This study raises questions about how to support international students:

In what ways can it inform our practices and policies relative to the internationalization of education and the development of global perspectives and competencies?
What does it reveal that could impact daily instruction of L2 writing, particularly when it comes to international students’ need to meet the expectations of “university-level writing” in U.S. institutions of higher education?
On an individual level, what can we learn from these students and about ourselves as a result of our interactions?

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Interrogating Privilege

Reflections of a Second Language Educator

Stephanie Vandrick

University of Michigan Press, 2013

Interrogating Privilege is a welcome combination of personal essays and academic research, blending theory, analysis, and narrative to explore the function and consequences of privilege in second language education.

While teachers’ focus on the learning process and class goals are quite important, there is not enough attention paid to the types of privilege—or lack thereof—that individuals bring to the classroom. Through chapters that can either stand alone or be read together, with topics such as gender, age, and colonialism (the author is the daughter of missionary parents) in second language teaching, this book seeks to address the experiences of teachers, scholars, and students as “whole persons” and to observe the workings of identity and privilege in the educational setting.

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