The Moral Substrate of the Process-Product Debate in teaching ESL class

The final area of conflicting moral values in classroom pedagogy that I look at here is what is sometimes referred to as the process-product debate in writing instruction for college-level students. Some years ago, there was an exchange of views on the obligations of second-language writing teachers, in which two principal opposing positions were put forward. One side, which took its cue from research and theory in first-language writing (Elbow, 1973; Emig, 1971; Murray, 1982), argued that writing only had any meaning as expression, and that writing instructors should focus on encouraging writers to express their own views and ideas (Zamel, 1982, 1983). In essence, this movement aimed to give the students voice through writing. This approach is known as the process approach because among other things, it pays great attention to the writing process itself: the emergence over time of the writer’s ideas, using successive drafts, and seeing the expression of meaning as an emergent product of writing. The other camp argued that it is the primary duty of the college writing instructor to enable students to succeed in their chosen field by mastering its dominant discourses: that undergraduates in history, for example, need to learn to write like historians (Horowitz, 1986; Swales, 1987). This camp posited that the expectations of professors in the various disciplines are rather rigid, and that it is the job of writing instructors to train students in knowing these expectations and being able to meet them. There is relatively little room for personal freedom of expression, at least as far as form is concerned. Furthermore, in ELT such an approach is particularly needed, because students (e.g., ESL students in British or American universities) will have little prior exposure to the models their teachers expect and are in particular danger of getting it wrong and thus of suffering significant negative consequences. This approach is known as the product approach, since it focuses primarily on the formal qualities of the finished piece of writing. The process-product debate was first discussed some years ago in the ELT literature (Raimes, 1991). Yet the debate itself was never resolved, and it is still very much a central dynamic in the teaching of writing. I argue here that it is a moral dynamic, because the underlying opposition it represents is not merely a question of competing classroom methodologies but of values: of what is the good and right thing to do with and for one’s students. The process approach posits the value of voice, or of individual expression, as the most important thing (Taylor, 1992). Of course, teachers who adopt a process approach often emphasize the importance of considering one’s audience as one develops a piece of writing and of producing a formally acceptable piece of work at the end of the process. Nevertheless, the goal of the writing process is primarily to lead the writer to express her own ideas, tell her own stories, and give her own views. This approach values the voice of the student as a person and member of the community of the classroom and beyond who has interesting and valuable things to say. The product approach, however, also has the best interests of the students at heart. Individuals who favor this approach suggest that process teaching is overly idealistic and point out that in the real world, subject-matter teachers are less likely to be interested in the student’s voice and more interested in whether she can write in the ways expected in her discipline. This approach can also be said to be grounded in community—the discourse community of the discipline—and in a desire for the student to be able to participate in that community. Advocates of the product approach believe that the interests of the student are best served by enabling her to acquire the language of the academy in general and of particular domains in particular. Consider an interesting example that shows how one teacher resolved this tension. Xiao-ming Li (1999), a second-language writer of English, told the story of a piece of writing that she produced for a class with Don Murray, a legendary writing instructor at the University of New Hampshire, and then, at Murray’s prompting, successfully submitted to The Boston Globe newspaper. Li told of when she first gave her work to Professor Murray: As I handed in the paper at the end of the class, I was hoping that Murray would correct my writing, but he did nothing. The paper came back bare of any teacherly remarks, only his suggestion that I send it to The Boston Globe. That was not what I expected. I expected him to splash the paper with red ink, removing all signs of my foreign accent. I went to Murray’s office and insisted on him doing that, even insinuating that he would be seen as a delinquent professor if he did not correct my errors, which I knew were plentiful But Murray was equally adamant that he should not. What makes the piece interesting, he insisted, is your unique accent, a different perspective, and a different style and voice. And he asked why I should want to sound like a U.S. writer. He pointed out the best writers do not sound like others…. Unconvinced, I continued to pester Murray to go over my paper again and correct the errors. Finally, he changed a few articles and punctuation marks, but would do no more. In this example, the teacher takes an extreme position in terms of the dynamic mentioned earlier. What he is saying essentially is that Xiao-ming does not have to fit into existing conventions for writing; rather, the reverse is the case: The English language and its literature are enriched and expanded by her contribution. In essence, it is the same argument by which we would say that a writer writing in a dialect or regional variation of English is not writing “incorrect English” but rather is enriching the linguistic and literary culture of English. For myself, the more I think about this ar-gument the more I am convinced that Murray is right. Yet the argument is not always made in ELT and, even setting aside the matter of specific discourse conventions of disciplines, many teachers remain convinced that non-native speakers are unlikely either to make such a contribution or to be accepted in the way Murray accepted Xiao-ming Li as a writer. Thus, the two approaches outlined here are not merely competing sets of instructional practices; they represent opposing views of what is good and right for the student. The value of voice on the one side is balanced by the value of belonging on the other. My guess is that each individual teacher of writing will constantly weigh these values against each other in every different class. Certainly this is an opposition of which I am very conscious in my own teaching. At times, with particular students it seems to me that I focus on the expressive functions of writing; at others—for example, with the case of Hae-young, described in chapter 1—I decided that the student’s ability to understand and use the discourse conventions of the field is more important. In any event, as with the other moral dynamics I have examined in this book, the matter can never be simply resolved once and for all but must be recalculated at each step, with each new learner and each different emerging situation.