Hearing the Silences: Engaging in Rhetorical Listening in the ESL/ELL Composition Classroom

Authors

  • Janice Cools University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Keywords:

Silence, ESL, Teaching Composition

Abstract

This paper contributes to a recent revisionist body of scholarship on silence in the classroom. I discuss my attempts to listen to the silences in my ESL writing classroom in order to answer the question of why some students remained silent. I explain the approach I took to answering this question, designing an assignment geared at uncovering students’ perspectives on silence in the classroom. I document some of the changes I made, based on what I learnt both about my students and about me, as I read through their responses. Overall, in this essay I suggest through an ethnographic approach, that there are many benefits to be gained when one listens to the silences in the classroom. I end however by noting some of the limitations in using silence as a pedagogical tool, especially when applied in a Caribbean second language context in Puerto Rico.

Author Biography

Janice Cools, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Janice Cools is an Assistant Professor at UPRM. In addition to teaching a variety of writing courses in the US and the Caribbean, she has served in administrative capacities as a Writing Program Administrator at UWI, and a lead faculty member for a Bill and Melinda Gates grant at her former institution. Her research interests include Pedagogical practices in First Year Writing, Technical Communication and Masculinities, especially Caribbean and African American masculinities. Dr. Cools has presented at Writing Conferences in the US and Puerto Rico, is a co-author of a Writing Across the Curriculum Caribbean reader and has forthcoming article on Oral Presentations in the Writing Classroom. She has also published in the field of Men’s Studies.
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Published

2018-07-09

Issue

Vol. 46 No. 2 (2017): Summer/Fall 2017

Section

Articles

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