Showing papers in "TESOL Quarterly in 1997"

Language, Identity, and the Ownership of English

Abstract: This article serves as the introduction to the special-topic issue of the TESOL Quarterly on Language and Identity. In the first section, I discuss my interest in language and identity, drawing on theorists who have been influential in my work. A short vignette illustrates the significant relationship among identity, language learning, and classroom teaching. In the second section, I examine the five articles in the issue, highlighting notable similarities and differences in conceptions of identity. I note, in particular, the different ways in which the authors frame identity: social identity, sociocultural identity, voice, cultural identity, and ethnic identity. I explore these differences with reference to the particular disciplines and research traditions of the authors and the different emphases of their research projects. In the final section, I draw on the issue as a whole to address a prevalent theme in many of the contributions: the ownership of English internationally. The central question addressed is the extent to which English belongs to White native speakers of standard English or to all the people who speak it, irrespective of linguistic and sociocultural history. I conclude with the hope that the issue will help address the current fragmentation in the literature on the relationship between language and identity and encourage further debate and research on a thought-provoking and important topic. Just as, at the level of relations between groups, a language is worth what those who speak it are worth, so too, at the level of interactions between individuals, speech always owes a major part of its value to the value of the person who utters it. (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 652)

The Influence of Teacher Commentary on Student Revision

Abstract: In this study, the author examined over 1,600 marginal and end comments written on 110 first drafts of papers by 47 advanced university ESL students, considering both the pragmatic goals for and the linguistic features of each comment. She then examined revised drafts of each paper to observe the influence of the first-draft commentary on the students' revisions and assess whether the changes made in response to the teacher's feedback actually improved the papers. A significant proportion of the comments appeared to lead to substantive student revision, and particular types and forms of commentary appeared to be more helpful than others. The results suggest several important implications for L2 writing instruction and for future studies on a vital but surprisingly neglected topic.

A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL

Abstract: This article presents four more-or-less independent reasons why TESOL educators should be cautious about adopting critical thinking pedagogies in their classrooms: (a) Critical thinking may be more on the order of a non-overt social practice than a well-defined and teachable pedagogical set of behaviors; (b) critical thinking can be and has been criticized for its exclusive and reductive character; (c) teaching thinking to nonnative speakers may be fraught with cultural problems; and, (d) once having been taught, thinking skills do not appear to transfer effectively beyond their narrow contexts of instruction. A more recently developed model of cognitive instruction, cognitive apprenticeship, is then briefly discussed as a possible alternative to more traditional thinking skills pedagogies. This thing we call “critical thinking” or “analysis” has strong cultural components. It is more than just a set of writing and thinking techniques—it is a voice, a stance, a relationship with texts and family members, friends, teachers, the media, even the history of one's country. This is why “critical analysis” is so hard for faculty members to talk about; because it is learned intuitively it is easy to recognize, like a face or a personality, but it is not so easily defined and is not at all simple to explain to someone who has been brought up differently. (Fox, 1994, p. 125)

The Negotiation of Teachers' Sociocultural Identities and Practices in Postsecondary EFL Classrooms.

Abstract: This article explores the complex interrelationships between language and culture, between teachers' sociocultural identities and teaching practices, and between their explicit discussions of culture and implicit modes of cultural transmission in their classes. A 6-month ethnographic study examined how teachers deal with institutional and curricular expectations regarding their teaching of (North American) culture in their EFL classrooms in a postsecondary institution in Japan. The study also explored the teachers' changing understandings of what constitutes culture and of how they viewed themselves in terms of their various social and cultural roles. Common themes included (a) the complexities and paradoxes associated with teachers' professional, social, political, and cultural identities and their (re)presentation of these in class; (b) their quest for interpersonal and intercultural connection in that EFL context; (c) their desire for educational (and personal) control in the face of contested cultural practices; and (d) disjunctures between teachers' implicit and explicit messages in relation to their cultural understandings and practices. We discuss these themes and make recommendations for teacher education purposes. We argue that the cultural underpinnings of language curricula and teaching must be examined further, particularly so in intercultural situations in which participants are negotiating their sociocultural identities as well as the curriculum.

The Idealised Native Speaker, Reified Ethnicities, and Classroom Realities

Abstract: TESOL practice in the schooling sector in England has implicitly assumed that ESL students are linguistic and social outsiders and that there is a neat one-to-one correspondence between ethnicity and language. This perspective has tended to conceptualise L2 learners as a linguistically diverse group (from non-English-speaking backgrounds) but with similar language learning needs. However, demographic and social changes in the past 30 years have rendered such assumptions inadequate and misleading, particularly in multiethnic urban areas. In this article we seek to (a) offer an alternative account of the classroom realities in contemporary multilingual schools where the linguistic profiles and language learning needs of ESL students are not easily understood in terms of fixed concepts of ethnicity and language; (b) draw on recent developments in cultural theory to clarify the shifting and changing relationship among ethnicity, social identity, and language use in the context of postcolonial diaspora; and (c) question the pedagogical relevance of the notion of native speaker and propose that instead TESOL professionals should be concerned with questions about language expertise, language inheritance, and language affiliation.

"Completely Different Worlds": EAP and the Writing Experiences of ESL Students in University Courses

Abstract: One source of information that should inform decisions about English for academic purposes (EAP) writing courses is students' experiences in those courses and beyond. A survey of ESL students in the U.S. (Leki & Carson, 1994) has indicated that they experience writing differently depending on the source of information drawn on in writing a text: general world knowledge or personal experience; a source text or texts used as a springboard for ideas; or a source text (or other external reality), the content of which the student must display knowledge. This article, based on interview data, reports on how ESL students experience writing under each of these conditions in their EAP writing classes and their academic content classes across the curriculum. The findings suggest that writing classes require students to demonstrate knowledge of a source text much less frequently than other academic courses do. We argue that EAP classes that limit students to writing without source texts or to writing without responsibility for the content of source texts miss the opportunity to engage L2 writing students in the kinds of interactions with text that promote linguistic and intellectual growth. To explain and understand any human social behavior … we need to know the meaning attached to it by the participants themselves. (Nielsen, 1990)

The Relative Contribution of L2 Language Proficiency and L1 Reading Ability to L2 Reading Performance: A Test of the Threshold Hypothesis in an EFL Context

Abstract: This study examines the contribution of L2 proficiency and L1 reading ability to L2 reading ability in terms of the threshold hypothesis of language proficiency. Two hypotheses were tested: (a) The contribution of L2 proficiency is greater than the contribution of L1 reading ability in predicting L2 reading ability, and (b) a threshold level of language proficiency exists such that learners with low levels of L2 proficiency will show little relationship between their L1 and L2 reading ability whereas learners with higher levels of L2 proficiency will show a positive relationship between their L1 and L2 reading performance. The participants were 809 Korean 3rd-year middle school and 1st-year high school students who exhibited a wide range of ability in reading both Korean and English and in their English proficiency. Scores from the three measures were subjected to descriptive, inferential, and correlational analyses. The results provided support for both hypotheses. Learners need to establish some knowledge of an L2 per se before they can successfully draw on their L1 reading ability to help with reading in the L2.

Do Reading and Interactive Vocabulary Instruction Make a Difference? An Empirical Study

Abstract: Many teachers give little or no classroom attention to vocabulary, assuming students will learn words incidentally. Although research demonstrates that vocabulary can be acquired indirectly through reading, the question remains: Does vocabulary instruction make a difference? This article reports on a pilot study of the combined effects of reading and interactive vocabulary instruction for U.S. postsecondary L2 students preparing for university entrance. A 10-week classroom-based study tested the hypothesis that L2 students exposed to a combination of regular periods of reading and interactive vocabulary instruction will show significant increases in their knowledge of the nontechnical terms that are used widely across academic fields. L2 students attending university-preparatory intensive English programs were divided into two groups: one received 3 hours a week of interactive vocabulary instruction plus an assignment to read self-selected materials; the other received the self-selected reading assignment only. The results of this study suggest that interactive vocabulary instruction accompanied by moderate amounts of self-selected and course-related reading led to gains in vocabulary knowledge; students' perceptions of how best to learn words corroborated these results. It is argued that teachers should give consideration to the effects of combining reading and interactive vocabulary instruction.

Race and the Identity of the Nonnative ESL Teacher

Abstract: * Although sociolinguists are aware that there is no intrinsic connection between race and language ability, my research indicates that some language learners assume that there is a connection. For a study in Toronto, Canada, in 1994, I interviewed five visible-minority female teachers' who were at that time teaching or had taught a class of male and female adult ESL students from different racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. The 2-hour, semistructured interviews consisted of 25 questions about the teachers' perceptions of their students' ideal ESL teacher. The teachers believed that some ESL students make the

The Myth of the Objective Transcript: Transcribing as a Situated Act

Abstract: * Transcribing is a tool commonly used by researchers, both those concerned with the study of language and those concerned with exploring other dimensions of everyday life through language. Underlying much of this work is the belief that it is possible to write talk down in an objective way. In this commentary, we argue that transcribing is a situated act within a study or program of research embedded in a conceptual ecology of a discipline (Green et al., 1996; Toulmin, 1990; Van Dijk, 1985a). Transcribing, therefore, is a political act that reflects a discipline's conventions as well as a researcher's conceptualization of a phenomenon, purposes for the research, theories guiding the data collection and analysis, and programmatic goals (Edwards, 1993; Ochs, 1979). Our own political act in writing this article is to construct the arguments that follow by drawing on sociolinguistic perspectives informed by cultural anthropology (Green & Dixon, 1993; Green & Harker, 1988). To illustrate the importance of this argument for the TESOL audience, we discuss two key issues: transcribing as an interpretive process and as a representational process. Central to these conceptualizations is the understanding that a transcript is a text that "re"-presents an event; it is not the event itself. Following this logic, what is re-presented is data constructed by a researcher for a particular purpose, not just talk written down.

Direct Approaches in L2 Instruction: A Turning Point in Communicative Language Teaching?

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses to rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-Cultural Aspects of Second-Language Writing

Abstract: Los estudios de retórica contrastiva se originan, en su versión contemporánea, en los planteamientos que R. B. Kaplan hiciera hace más de tres décadas• A partir de este trabajo fundacional, Connor informa de la situación actual de estos estudios y, al·mismo tiempo, aporta sus propias reflexiones. En el primer capítulo (\"Hacia una definición extendida de la retórica contrastiva\"), la autora establece la necesaria delimitación del problema y, con la debida consideración del aporte de Kaplan, anuncia los objetivos de su propio trabajo. Éstos son: discutir el valor atribuido a la retórica contrastiva como parte de los estudios del lenguaje, destacar algunas de sus implicaciones tanto para la investigación como para la enseñanza y, particularmente, definir la \"disciplina emergente de la retórica contrastiva\". La retórica contrastiva ha sido entendida, básicamente, (l(}mo \"un área de investigación en adquisición de segundas lenguas que identifica los problemas de composición de quienes escriben en una segunda lengua\" y que trata de explicar estos problemas con referencia a \"las estrategias retóricas de la primera lengua\" (p.S). Se requiere, sin embargo, de un modelo contrastivo que dé cuenta del escribir como una actividad transcultural en situaciones profesionales y académicas. Una teoría de la retórica contrastiva, sostiene Connor, necesita de la contribución de varias disciplinas y de otras teorías: lingüística, lingüística textual, teoría del relativismo lingüístico, retórica, estudio de tipos y géneros discursivos, estudio del uso de la lengua escrita y teoría de la traducción. Sobre la base de estos fundamentos, se discuten en este libro: a) las etapas iniciales de la retórica contrastiva (capítulos 2 y 3), b) sus interfaces con otras disciplinas (capítulos 4 a 8) y e) las implicaciones de la retórica contrastiva (capítulos 9 y lO). \"Los estudios en retórica contrastiva y la lingüística aplicada\" son el tema del capítulo 2. Connor ofrece una revisión diacrónica de la presencia del análisis contrastivo en la correspondiente retórica y, luego, una serie de comentarios sobre las actuales tendencias que, en el contexto de la lingüística aplicada, inciden en la retórica. Se revisan tres enfoques que son importantes en el ámbito de los estudios contrastivos y de transferencia: el análisis contrastivo, el análisis del error y los estudios de interlengua. Connor reconoce la contribución pedagógica de estos enfoques, si bien recoge también las críticas que se les han formulado. Destaca, a continuación, el hecho de que la retórica contrastiva no se hubiera apoyado en la investigación en interlengua. lo que \"puede haber sido una bendición\" en la medida en que, dejando de lado los recursos sintácticos inherentes al escribir, se ha preocupado más bien de la comparación de las estructuras discursivas propias de distintas culturas y géneros. Aunque reconoce la contribución de Kaplan al

The Rhetorical Construction of Multilingual Students.

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

Toward a Model of Transculturation

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses to rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

The identity of the nonnative ESL teacher: On the power and status of nonnative ESL teachers

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of English language teaching. For this issue, we asked two educators to discuss the following question: What is the identity of the nonnative ESL teacher?

“It's Not the English Thing”: Bringing Reading Research Into the ESL Classroom

Abstract: Recent L2 reading research suggests that readers' metacognitive awareness of their reading processes and strategies enhances proficiency. This article presents a retrospective account of an undergraduate ESL reading course that takes the implications of this research one step further by bringing the research process directly into the ESL classroom: In this course, students were trained to investigate their own reading as part of the pedagogical process and invited to apply what they discovered to their reading. The article presents an overview of the course design and pedagogical processes, the ways students were involved in inquiry, and their findings. Students' voices are integrated throughout the article as they reflect on changes in their strategies, conceptions, awareness, and feelings about reading in English. Their findings are corroborated by evidence from pre- and postcourse interviews, think-aloud protocols, and comprehension tests. Taken together, these findings suggest that transferring L2 research tools into the hands of learners and inviting them to reflect critically on their own reading can not only increase their metacognitive awareness and control in L2 reading but also significantly increase their enjoyment of English reading.

ESL/EFL Dichotomy Today: Language Politics or Pragmatics?

Abstract: In this article, I situate the two most widely used acronyms, ESL and EFL, in their historical-structural contexts, examine their denotative consistency, evaluate the credibility and validity of their individual and contrastive statuses, and suggest a taxonomic reorientation. I argue that these labels, which are more the products of history and demography than of linguistic reality and which the professional and commercial interests of the English language teaching enterprise have nurtured and promoted, are becoming reified in professional discourse, unconcerned with the realities of the changing role of English in today's world. I demonstrate the referential vagueness and denotative variations of the label ESL by tracing its genealogy and by detailing the great ecological and implicative differences between two of its major current interpretations. I also present contexts of situational overlaps that obscure the current basis for an ESL/EFL distinction. Finally, I recommend a taxonomic nomenclature with a more realistic sociolinguistic base and a more appropriate applied linguistic motivation.

Language Socialization Practices and Cultural Identity: Case Studies of Mexican-Descent Families in California and Texas

Abstract: This article explores the relationship between language and cultural identity as manifested in the language socialization practices of four Mexican-descent families: two in northern California and two in south Texas. The analysis considers both the patterns of meaning suggested by the use of Spanish and English in the speech and literacy performances of four focal children as well as family and dominant societal ideologies concerning the symbolic importance of the two languages, the way language learning occurs, and the role of schooling—all frameworks in which the children's linguistic behaviors were embedded. All four focal children defined themselves in terms of allegiance to their Mexican or Mexican American cultural heritage. However, the families were oriented differently to the Spanish language as a vehicle for affirmation of this commonly articulated group identity. The differences are emblematic of stances taken in a larger cultural and political debate over the terms of Latino participation in U.S. society. Parents in all of the families endorsed Spanish maintenance and spoke of the language as an important aspect of their sense of cultural identity. Only two of the families, however, pursued aggressive home maintenance strategies. Of the other two families, one used a protocol combining some Spanish use in the home with instruction from Spanish-speaking relatives, whereas the family that had moved most fully into the middle class was the least successful in the intergenerational transmission of Spanish, despite a commitment to cultural maintenance.

Do EFL Teachers Have Careers

Abstract: The terms career and profession are increasingly common in discussions of EFL/ESL teaching. Yet little is known about the working lives of teachers in this field. It is time to gather empirical data on teachers' lives in various contexts and to examine whether in fact these lives can best be conceptualized in terms of careers and profession or whether other theoretical approaches might be more fruitful. The present article describes a study based upon life history interviews with 17 EFL teachers in Poland. In light of a range of substantive and theoretical problems with applying existing teacher career models to an EFL context, the study employed an innovative analysis based on the theory of language of Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin describes language as heteroglossic, or comprising multiple, competing discourses that are in ongoing, dynamic dialogue with one another. In the present study, the interview transcripts are treated as discourse, and the central question is: What discourses do teachers draw on in discursively constructing their lives? The analysis reveals that in teachers' discursive presentations of their lives, teachers' life-story narratives do not appear to be present. Rather, teachers' stories reflect dynamic and nonunitary identities that interact discursively in complex ways with a range of other discourses from the social, economic, and political context. The implications of this situation for the field of EFL/ESL are considered.

Theorizing Social Identity; What Do We Mean by Social Identity? Competing Frameworks, Competing Discourses

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly invites commentary on current trends or practices in the TESOL profession. It also welcomes responses or rebuttals to any articles or remarks published here in The Forum or elsewhere in the Quarterly.

Voices, Discourse, and Transition: In Search of New Categories in EAP

Abstract: In this article, the author argues that educators need to expand the repertoire of identity categories by which they describe and explain the complex and often contradictory stances that students take in the acquisition of academic literacy. This position is based on an analysis of biographical interviews with lst-year students in a South African university in a period of intense sociopolitical flux. The interviews depict the interaction of a wide range of discourses, both those from past out-ofschool contexts in which students were engaged and new universitybased ones. These interviews challenge the author to examine the discrepancy between the conventional categories by which students are identified and the way students describe themselves. She argues that this gap is in part sustained by critical literacy/discourse theory, which fails to attend adequately to the agency of individuals and the way they locate themselves in relation to discourses. It also assumes a coherent version of the "mainstream" to which students aspire, which is not borne out in the interviews. She concludes that it is important not to neglect the acting, reasoning individual if the range of identity markers is to be broadened in a joint process with students. T he context in which English is learnt and taught is receiving substantial attention in TESOL research. The approach to language teaching has widened outward from a focus on sentence structure as a

Approaches to Observation in Classroom Research: Observation from an Ecological Perspective.

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of qualitative and quantitative research. For this issue we asked two researchers to discuss their respective approaches to classroom observation in L2 research.

Identity and Intonation: Linking Dynamic Processes in an ESL Classroom

Abstract: M /y ongoing interest and inquiry in the area of ESL pronunciation has at times been an integral component in the contextualization of identity work in my classroom. This article provides an example of my efforts by examining what I judge to have been a particularly successful language lesson. What stands out most in this activity is how the foregrounding of social power and identity issues seemed to facilitate greater comprehension of sentence-level stress and intonation as strategic resources for (re)defining social relationships. Several direct and indirect factors contributed to the relative success of the activity and will be the focus of the various sections of the article. Finding ways to relate the sound system of English more closely and meaningfully to social interaction remains a formidable challenge for most classroom teachers. To begin, I offer a brief theoretical account of some key elements of ESL pronunciation that have helped me in this pursuit. As part of this discussion, I draw upon aspects of Halliday's (1985) sociocultural theory of language for pedagogy on identity and intonation. Several general advantages of Halliday's linguistic theory might be construed: the semantic and functional prominence accorded phonology; a systematic account of how social experience, interpersonal

Social Identity and Language: Theoretical and Methodological Issues.

Abstract: Language and Social Psychology, 6, 215-228. McNamara, T. F. (1987b). Language and social identity: Some Australian studies. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 10, 33-58. Ochs, E. (1993). Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 26, 287-306. Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 9-31. Pennycook, A. (1994). Incommensurable discourses? Applied Linguistics, 15, 115-138. Quinn, T.J., & McNamara, T. F. (1988). Issues in second-language learning: General and particular. Victoria, Australia: Deakin University. Tajfel, H. (1978). The social psychology of minorities (Minority Rights Group Report No. 38). London: Minority Rights Group. Reprinted in part in Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. London: Blackwell. Williams, G. (1992). Sociolinguistics: A sociological critique. London: Routledge.

On the Ethical Treatment of ESL Writers.

Abstract: E As ever-increasing numbers of nonnative speakers of English enroll in Ist-year writing classes in colleges and universities in North America, questions about how to deal with these students have become more frequent, important, and urgent. In an attempt to address some of these questions, researchers who focus on L2 writing have generated a fairly large body of scholarship and commentary on a great number of relevant theoretical and practical issues. However, I believe that one area that needs further exploration is the matter of the ethics (that is, a system or code of conduct) employed in the treatment of ESL writers. Therefore, I would like to present my thinking on this issue, which is based on the notion of respect, for it is my belief that an instructional program that does not respect its students is primed for failure and almost certain to engender resentment. In this article, I draw on my understanding of the existing L2 writing research as well as my own experience in teaching ESL writers and administering ESL writing programs. My aim is not to preach or to attempt to reveal any transcendent truths but to provoke thought and discussion.1 In my view, there are four basic ways in which ESL writers need to be respected: they need to be (a) understood, (b) placed in suitable learning contexts, (c) provided with appropriate instruction, and (d) evaluated fairly.

The Politics of Transcription. Transcribing Talk: Issues of Representation.

Abstract: The TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of qualitative and quantitative research. For this issue, we asked two researchers to discuss the politics of transcription in research in TESOL.

Undergraduates' Experiences with and Attitudes Toward International Teaching Assistants.

Abstract: Controversy continues to surround the instructional role of teaching assistants at large U.S. research universities who are not native speakers of English and who received their undergraduate training outside the U.S. Interactions between these international teaching assistants (ITAs) and their undergraduate students is sometimes threatened by miscommunication. The study described in this article adapted the Questionnaire About International Teaching Assistants (QUITA) survey instrument (Fox, 1992) to collect background information about undergraduates at one midwestern university, inquiring about their experiences with ITAs and their means for dealing with ITA problems and assessing their attitudes with respect to ITAs. The study examined the relationship between an attitude scale and 11 student background characteristics (e.g., year of enrollment, academic college, age, sex, size of hometown). In addition, focus-group interviews conducted with a subset of respondents explored their experiences and opinions relating to ITAs. The article compares the findings of this study with those of earlier research, including Fox's (1992) study, and recommends intervention strategies with undergraduates who are likely to encounter ITAs.

Behind Classroom Code Switching: Layering and Language Choice in L2 Learner Interaction

Abstract: This article examines the code switching that goes on during group work in language classes in which the learners share an L1. The author argues that the discourse produced in these circumstances is layered as a result of the participants' oscillating between a literal and a nonliteral frame (Goffman, 1974). Discourse produced in the literal frame is termed off-record and is concerned with negotiation between the learners. Discourse in the literal frame is on-record and is performed to be overheard by a referee (a potential L2 audience). The author suggests that the significance of language choice behaviour differs across these two levels, and teachers concerned with increasing the quantity and quality of L2 production in group work must take this difference into account.

Second Language Acquisition of Spoken and Written English: Acquiring the Skeptron

Abstract: Research in second language acquisition (SLA) has been dominated by questions regarding the psychological processes of language learning, with less concern for the wider social context, the power relations within the context, and their effect on the psychological variables. This article draws on Peirce's (1995) concept of investment, arguing that it can be usefully broken down into investment in discourses. It also draws on and extends Peirce's use of Bourdieu's (1991) notions of legitimate language, arguing that not only do subject positions, and thus the ability to claim the right to speak, change over time, but they can change within one encounter. To illustrate the importance of these concepts, I analyse the interaction between myself and a student in an interview, as a language learning situation, during which the power relationships shift significantly because of a change of topic (the skeptron changes hands). This shift occurs because of the wider political context and affects the nature of the interaction and thus SLA. The analysis of the interview data and pieces of writing also demonstrates the student's investment in prior discourses and the way they hinder and facilitate his acquisition of written academic discourse, as his approach to academic writing is powerfully shaped by the meanings and function writing had held for him as a political prisoner in an apartheid South Africa. The article includes a brief discussion of the implications for the L2 classroom.