Borders and Barriers: A Model for a Local-Issues ESL Course

12 TESOL JOURNAL VOL. 11 NO. 2

Borders and Barriers: A Modelfor a Local-Issues ESL CourseRobert Weissberg and Melissa Lipoufski

course satisfies the first semester of the university’s basicwriting skills requirement. The IEP student population iscomposed of international (visa) students and local nonna-tive speakers of English from both sides of the border. IEPstudents are admitted to the university provisionally, withtheir eventual enrollment in a degree program contingentupon successful completion of the IEP. At the advancedlevel, they may combine their IEP studies with one or tworegular university courses, to the extent that their profi-ciency in English allows. Virtually all of these studentsmatriculate at the home institution.

Students range in age from 18-year-old freshmen tomidcareer professionals returning to college to pursuemaster’s and doctoral degrees. Their eventual academicmajors cover a range of fields, including agriculture exten-sion education, electrical engineering, physics, and com-puter science. About half the students come from LatinAmerica (primarily Mexico); other geographic areas repre-sented include Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The IEPchose to pilot the sustained-content course in an intermedi-ate-level class (computer-based Test of English as a ForeignLanguage [TOEFL] scores ranging from 150 to 180)because most students at that level have not yet beguncourse work at the university but are sufficiently fluent inEnglish to handle the authentic texts they would berequired to read.

The Locale as Academic ContentThe new curriculum was designed to provide students with“multiple . . . opportunities . . . to interact with authentic,contextualized, linguistically challenging materials in acommunicative and academic context,” which Kasper(2000, p. 4) claims is a necessary requirement for sus-tained-content L2 instruction. The IEP faculty also wantedto create opportunities for transformative pedagogy andcritical thinking (Pally, 1997; Wink, 2000). The instruc-tional goal was to raise the average student’s receptive andproductive English language skills to a low advanced(minimum TOEFL 173) academic level so as to preparethem for part-time university study the following semester.

Kasper (2000) notes that a sustained-content curricu-lum in ESL is of necessity an English for academic pur-poses (EAP) curriculum. But for what sort of academicpurpose? How is one to select a single subject-matter areathat will attract and maintain the interest of all students inthe course over a full semester? One solution is to adopt a

An intensive English program (IEP) that holds to atraditional discrete-skills curriculum model runsthe risk of underpreparing its graduates for the

complex, integrated language tasks that their regularacademic work will demand of them (Stoller, 1999). This isespecially true for students at the college level, who areexpected to marshal a multitude of language and studyskills in order to deal with higher order cognitive tasks,such as summarizing and critiquing readings, synthesizingmaterials from various sources, evaluating others’ ideas, andapplying theoretical concepts to solving discipline-specificproblems (Blanton, 1995; Pally, 2000).

Sustained-content schemes such as adjunct, sheltered,and theme-based course designs (Murphy & Stoller, 2001;Pally, 2000) offer attractive alternatives to the traditionalfour-skills approach. Yet whatever flaws there may be in askills-based curriculum, there are undeniable pragmaticbenefits as well. Not only are most ESL textbooks aimed atdeveloping particular language skills, or pairs of skills, butstudents and many instructors are often more comfortablewith courses that are labeled grammar, academic writing,and listening and note taking than with courses that arebuilt around content areas that may or may not be interest-ing or appropriate for everyone in the class.

A compromise scheme is to move gradually toward acontent-based approach to academic language trainingwithout completely overturning the existing program.Stoller’s (1999) description of a hybrid IEP curriculum, inwhich skill courses revolve around a core content element,is one such possibility. This article describes a variation onStoller’s hybrid concept: not the creation of a new corecourse to provide the content for the program, but theconversion of an existing skill course into a sustained-content module. The curricular area selected was readingand vocabulary. The overarching theme was “The Border,”which was selected initially for its relevance to local issuesin the community, the county, and the state. This articledescribes a pilot curriculum project and a general model forbringing theme-based instruction to an IEP through the useof the local area and its issues as the instructional content.

The Students and the LocaleThe IEP described here is located at a midsized land grantuniversity in the southwestern United States, approximately1 hour from the Mexican border. All IEP courses at theuniversity carry credit, and the advanced IEP writing

13VOL. 11 NO. 2 TESOL JOURNAL

local area-studies approach. In this approach, the curriculumfor the pilot program was organized around the issues andproblems confronting people who live, work, and study inthe desert southwest border region (see Mangelsdorf, 1997,for another treatment of the border and borderlands ascontent in a college writing course). This theme was toserve as a discussion forum for students coming from thelocal area and as an orientation for newcomers to thephysical, economic, and social environment of the re-gion—a kind of sheltered Border Issues 101.

Choosing the local area as the basis for sustained-course content has another advantage: It can provide anoverarching thematic umbrella (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche,1989) able to accommodate a variety of related topicssuitable for academic language practice. In this case,adopting local issues made it possible to select and developinstructional materials on topics related to a number ofacademic disciplines, such as minority-owned smallbusinesses, migrant labor, and labor unions (business andeconomics); civil rights and equal protection (politicalscience and government); immigration and crime (sociol-ogy); bilingualism and biliteracy (education); and realestate development, industrial development, and waterpolicy (urban planning). There was also room under thecurricular umbrella for more traditional cultural topics,such as customs and holidays observed on both sides of theborder (Figure 1).

Finally, local-area studies is not only a content arearich in academically related topics; it also carries thepotential for metaphoric extension into wider frames ofreference. The key to extending the local theme is toidentify an underlying metaphor or symbol that representssome crucial aspect of the locale. “The border” is anexcellent example. Borders function metaphorically asabrupt transition points. They also function as obstacles aswell as points of contact. Along the U.S.-Mexico border,

for example, people confront obstacles due to ethnicprejudice, economic disparity, and negative attitudes towardlanguage. In the IEP pilot curriculum, the thematic um-brella was expanded to include these topics as well as moreobvious issues, such as drug trafficking or working condi-tions in the maquiladoras (U.S.-owned assembly plants inMexico that employ Mexican workers). Ultimately, thetheme was expanded to “Borders and Barriers,” and materi-als focused on the stories of people and ideas crossing theformer and overcoming the latter.

Once the general theme/metaphor of the sustained-content module is determined, one must decide how large achunk of the remaining curriculum (if any) to link it with.In keeping with the gradualist approach adopted by theIEP, the faculty decided to link the content module to justone of the other skill courses in the IEP. The grammar classwas an obvious choice because the textbook used there(Werner, Church, & Baker, 1996) employs a sequence ofcontent-based topics (e.g., education, urban life, business,jobs) throughout the chapters. These topics fit easily underthe borders and barriers umbrella and helped determine thesequence of topics within the content module. Thus, thegrammar class ran parallel to the new module, providingsome overlap in topics but remaining an independentelement within the IEP curriculum (Ellis, 2002).

It is helpful for students to have an overview of thegeneral theme from the outset of the course. Therefore theyreceived an introductory handout on the first day of thereading/vocabulary course to acquaint them with the two-part theme of crossing borders and overcoming barriers andto give them a hint of the scope of the theme, including itssocial and psychological extensions through metaphor. Thehandout also indicated the topically linked chapters in thestudents’ grammar textbook (Figure 2).

Opening the UmbrellaTo help establish and elaborate the borders and barrierstheme, the course started with John Sayles’s 1996 film“Lone Star,” which depicts life in a small bicultural-bilingual community on the Texas-Mexico border. Thestory line shifts dramatically between past and present,depicting the complexities and richness of the region andits people, introducing many aspects of the borders andbarriers umbrella theme—immigration (legal and illegal),bilingualism and biculturalism, ethnic conflict, and eco-nomic disparity. It also touches on universal issues thatextend beyond the southwest border region: sexism,intergenerational conflict within families, hypocrisy, moral-ity, democracy, and political corruption.

The film served as a topical and lexical springboard forthe class to begin dealing critically with the sustained-content theme (Fluitt-Dupuy, 2001). Students were askedto identify thematic content in the film that fell under theborders and barriers umbrella. This provided an opportu-nity to begin building the vocabulary needed to discuss andwrite about related topics to be introduced and developedFigure 1. Sustained-content theme and related topics.


later in the module. Students were asked to identify animportant aspect of the film that they felt fit into orexpanded on the general theme (e.g., interethnic relationswithin the community). Later, in order to involve studentspersonally with the theme, they were asked to interviewone another to discover how the topics introduced in thefilm related to their partners’ past experiences and to issuesin their countries of origin. This activity also helpedstudents to see how local issues can be viewed from a moregeneralized, universal level.

Teaching Without a TextbookIn a local-area studies curriculum, the traditional ESLreading textbook is replaced by a portfolio consisting ofauthentic readings from local sources, student-generatedword banks, and the students’ own writings. The teacher-provided readings in our case consisted of short to me-dium-length articles (500–800 words) collected from localcity newspapers, the campus paper, and a nearby metro-politan daily. The reading level of these selections wasjudged to be appropriate for intermediate-level university

ESL students—challenging in terms of vocabulary, but notoverwhelmingly so. As important as mastering the vocabu-lary of the readings was the need to help students appreci-ate the full import of each selection within its local contextof the campus, community, or region as well as its applica-tion to the larger theme. This was done during pre- andpostreading discussions of each selection (see ReadingSeminars).

The readings dealt with a multitude of aspects relatedto life on the border—uncontrolled urban growth, financialproblems of minority farmers, an agricultural labor short-age, minority participation in the local economy, undocu-mented immigrant workers in local service industries, andchallenges facing local disabled people. An example readingselection taken from the campus newspaper appears inFigure 3.

Throughout the course, students were asked to con-tribute to the reading packet by searching available periodi-cals for additional articles they found to be of personalinterest and related to the overall theme. This practice gavestudents a way to expand and elaborate on the borders andbarriers theme, enriching it with their own areas of interest.

Borders and BarriersTheme-Related Vocabulary

boundary, limit, line, restrictions, margins, confines, frontier, edge, perimeter, blockade, barricade, obstruction,obstacle, periphery, frame, regulate, hurdle, defense, hindrance (Add more terms of your own as you learnthem.)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kinds of Borders and Barriersphysical, personal, social, cultural, figurative/metaphoric (Add more kinds of borders and barriers as you think ofthem.)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Local Topics(Local topics may be related to the campus, city, county, or the surrounding region. Add more topics as weencounter them in our readings.)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Education and Student Life (from Werner et al., Chapter 1)Learning English, Adjusting to College, Free Speech on Campus, Access for the Disabled, Bilingual Education(Add more topics of your own.)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Urban Life (from Werner et al., Chapter 2)Immigration, Development and Growth, Water Use, Desert Environment, Minority Businesses (Are there othertopics from this chapter?)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Business and Money (from Werner et al., Chapter 3)Small Business, Bank Loans, Diversity in the Work Force, Twin Plants (maquiladoras), Cross-Border Trade______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Jobs and Professions (from Werner et al., Chapter 4)Agriculture, Migrant Workers, Employment for the Disabled, Technology and Job Loss______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Figure 2. Initial handout for Borders and Barriers course.


Before distributing the student-found articles to the class,the texts were checked for length, appropriateness, andlexical load. Articles from newspapers (as opposed tomagazines) running no more that 550 words proved to bethe most successful with the intermediate-level students.

Practicing EAP Skills in ContextA sustained-content course offers many potential opportu-nities for students to strengthen the academic skills theywill need later in their regular college courses (Carson,2000; Pally, 2000). However, for this to occur, practiceactivities must be designed to reinforce individual languageskills and promote integrated use of several skills to accom-plish complex cognitive tasks. Skill practice in the bordersand barriers curriculum focused on activities appropriatefor intermediate-level, preuniversity students: vocabularydevelopment, reading and discussion (here called readingseminars), and source-based as well as expressive writingassignments.

Vocabulary Development

The instructional focus of the original module had beenreading and vocabulary development, and that emphasiswas maintained after the course’s conversion to a thematic

curriculum. Developing a general academic vocabulary isone of the greatest challenges nonnative speaking studentsface in doing college course work (Carson, 2000). Toaddress the challenge directly, students were asked to buildpersonal word banks by choosing at least five new words oridiomatic expressions from each reading selection used inthe class. They were encouraged to use items from theirpersonal word banks in their seminars and writing assign-ments (see the following sections on Reading Seminars andAcademic Writing). Students organized their words byarticle topic and included either a definition or samplesentence for each word. Students who wished to do soincluded L1 translations for each entry.

In addition to individual word banks, the class as awhole may develop a common list of new words andexpressions from each article, including general academicand subject-specific words, which all students are respon-sible for on class tests and quizzes. Vocabulary review sheetsfeaturing traditional matching and fill-in exercises can beused.

Reading Seminars

Reading for academic purposes is essentially a matter ofaccessing information from texts for later incorporationinto oral and written work (Carson, 2000). In this model,students are asked to read a new article before each classmeeting and to be prepared for an in-class discussion.Prereading discussions may also take place in class on theday a new reading selection is handed out in order tostimulate interest in the topic and help students relate it totheir knowledge and experience. Students are encouragedto discuss events and conditions in their own countries thatthey think might relate to the topic of the new reading.

The postreading seminar class is facilitated by a studentdiscussion leader, who prepares a list of questions forconsideration by the whole group. Leaders are asked tofollow a three-level model in developing their discussionquestions (Figure 4). Preliminary questions deal with thefactual information presented in the article, such as themain idea(s) and supporting details. Second-level questionsdeal with motivations behind the event, the writer’s pointof view, if discernible, and students’ personal reactions tothe issue. Third-level questions ask students to makeconnections between the article and the general coursetheme. The discussion leaders also gain practice in conver-sation management skills—holding and yielding the floor,redirecting questions, summarizing orally, and handlingdisagreements (Madden & Rohlck, 1997).

Many of the articles used in the pilot project touchedon conflicts between groups along the U.S.-Mexico borderwith adversarial perspectives and economic interests (e.g.,farmers and migrant laborers; land developers and poorborder communities; ranchers and transient, undocu-mented immigrants). Discussions of these conflicts and theissues surrounding them led naturally to the organizationof in-class debates. Students divided into groups, researched

Figure 3. Sample reading selection (Newman, 2002; ©NMSU Round Up, 2002. Used with permission).


and presented position statements, argued for their pointsof view, and, at times, developed resolutions to the con-flicts. Students themselves drew up the rules and format forthese debates.

Academic Writing

Writing activities provide opportunities for students tointegrate and reinforce new vocabulary, syntactic andrhetorical patterns, and thematic content. Writing practicealso provides opportunities for acquisition of academiclanguage skills, such as using a dictionary, developinglibrary research strategies, taking notes, paraphrasing, citingoutside sources, synthesizing material from multiplesources, and integrating new information with one’s ownknowledge base and personal experiences (Blanton, 1995).

The students wrote article summaries; short, source-based papers integrating information from two or more ofthe articles; and reflection papers. Writing assignments canbe designed to help students further explore the issuesraised in the reading packet articles and follow-up discus-sions. For instance, it was through one such assignmentthat it became clear that the maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexico border are but one example of a worldwide phe-nomenon on borders that separate countries with widelydisparate economies and standards of living. Students fromYemen and South Korea explained that the same phenom-enon exists along the borders their countries share withSaudi Arabia and North Korea, respectively.

In reflection papers, students have the opportunity toreact in an intensely personal way to the content of earlierreadings and group discussions. In the final reflection paperassignment, students were given the option of writingabout any aspect of the borders/barriers theme that hadbeen discussed during the course; some students chose towrite about the theme itself, some chose to review newarticles and poetry, and some chose to write from personalexperience.

Reflection papers also serve as a valuable form offeedback for instructors and curriculum designers. Thefollowing samples from students’ final reflection papers givean indication of their reactions to the borders and barrierstheme. In this assignment, they were asked to evaluate themodule and comment on the relevance of the theme tothem personally (Figure 5).

Students’ overall reaction to the sustained-contentcourse and the reading packet used in the pilot programwas positive. Two of the initial concerns about the programhad been that authentic, unedited news stories would provetoo difficult for intermediate-level students, and thatarticles on local-area topics would be too parochial toattract their interest. Although some students noted intheir final reflection papers that the materials were chal-lenging, especially the large amount of new vocabulary theyhad to deal with, they felt the information itself was usefuland interesting.

Some students felt that the theme itself was complexand demanded a lot of thought, but they enjoyed readingabout local problems and discussing parallels in their ownexperiences. They felt it was useful to learn how to discusscontroversial issues in the dispassionate atmosphere of acollege classroom, with opportunities to agree and disagreepublicly while remaining courteous to classmates. In herfinal reflection paper, one student spoke about the exhilara-tion she felt in gaining the ability to think and speak aboutcritical, controversial issues in a new language: “I divide thecourse into two parts, in the beginning we were trying tofly, but in the end nobody could stop us.”

Enlarging the UmbrellaBased on the experiences in planning and instructing thecurriculum in this IEP module, and from students’ reac-tions to the pilot program, the IEP faculty believe that athematic, sustained-content module has promise wheninstituted as one component of an IEP curriculum, as itwas in the Borders and Barriers reading/vocabulary class.Thus, it may not be necessary to overhaul an entirecurriculum in order to bring meaningful content andsophisticated academic language practice into the ESLclassroom. The negative reactions and resistance Stoller(1999) warns against may be avoided if a gradualist orhybrid approach is taken, in which thematic content in onecomponent is loosely linked to topics in the textbook ofanother component.

To determine how far the thematic concept can be

Seminar Questions forPostreading Discussion

First Level (factual, text-based questions)• What happened?• Who was involved?• When did it happen?• Where did it happen?

Second Level (interpretive questions)• Why did this happen?• What could the consequences be?• How could it have been prevented?• How will people’s lives be affected?• How does the writer feel about it?• How do you feel about it?

Third Level (theme-based questions)• What kinds of borders, transitions, or barriers

did people confront in the article?• How successful were they in crossing/

overcoming them?• Have you or anyone you know ever

experienced anything like this?

Figure 4. Levels of discussion questions.


extended, the logical next step would be to bring a thirdarea of the curriculum under the thematic umbrella. Themost promising candidate in our case would be the aca-demic writing component. Basing academic writingassignments at least in part on topics developed in thereading and grammar classes would have two advantages.First, vocabulary and topics from the news stories could berecycled and reinforced as students write paragraphs, essays,short research papers, and other academic assignments ontheme-related topics. Second, the need to burden thereading class with a large number of writing assignments toaccomplish this objective would be reduced.

It is important to note that the local-area studiescontent and accompanying metaphor adopted in thissituation was particularly well suited to the geographicaland cultural setting at the university and, to some degree,was an obvious choice. It should not be inferred that asimilar theme would necessarily engage students’ imagina-tion in other locales. Obviously, not every IEP is locatedclose to an international boundary. Curriculum developersmust closely examine the issues confronting their owncommunities to determine the best thematic candidates foracademic language study. What can be generalized fromthis model is the notion that sustained content derivedfrom local issues is an appropriate context for the kind ofcritical EAP pedagogy called for by Pally (1997).

A final consideration is the extent to which sustainedcontent should be included in L2 curricula. The initialintent of this pilot program had been to reshape the entireIEP curriculum gradually, one skill course at a time, untilthe entire program was contained under the thematicumbrella of the reading module. This may, however, prove

to be a case of too much of a good thing. As Ellis (2002)notes concerning the attempt to combine grammar instruc-tion with communicative language practice, “skill integra-tion is not something that is achieved externally by thecurriculum designer (or teacher) but must be achievedinternally by the learners themselves” (p. 26).

It may be that the power of thematic content to engagestudents’ attention and hold their interest rests partially inits novelty; if the content becomes ubiquitous, that is, ifstudents were to encounter borders and barriers (or what-ever the theme might be) at every turn of every lesson,interest might soon wear thin. How much of an ESLcurriculum should be converted from a skills-based to acontent-based format must be determined by taking intoaccount the constraints, goals, and student population ofeach individual program.

References

Blanton, L. (1995). Elephants and paradigms: Conversationsabout teaching L2 writing. College ESL, 5(1), 1–21.

Brinton, D., Snow, M., & Wesche, M. (1989). Content-basedsecond language instruction. New York: Newbury House.

Carson, J. (2000). Reading and writing for academic purposes. InM. Pally (Ed.), Sustained content teaching in academic ESL/EFL (pp. 19–34). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Ellis, R. (2002). The place of grammar instruction in the second/foreign language classroom. In E. Hinkel & S. Fotos (Eds.),New perspectives on grammar teaching in second languageclassrooms (pp. 17–34). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Fluitt-Dupuy, J. (2001). Teaching argumentative writing throughfilm. TESOL Journal, 10(4), 10–15.

You may choose any aspect or idea related to thetheme “Borders and Barriers” that we have discussed,read about, or seen in the film and relate it in some wayto your own life.

“Sometimes immigrants settle down and getgood conditions. On the other hand, a lot ofimmigrants suffer from several barriers. Firstkind of barrier is related to the physical barrierssuch as crossing the actual borders between twocountries, facing real problems with otherpeople and/or lacks to fund themselves forliving . . . . Another kind of obstacles andbarriers is the psychological ones that arerelated to some problems like discrimina-tion . . . . In my opinion, the second kind ofbarriers is the most distressed on this type ofpeople because it is more complicated . . . .”

“I think minorities still have many barriersand problems. They still have bad conditionsbecause of the discrimination against them in

hiring, raises and promotions in jobs. They stilldon’t have their real rights. So the challengesare persisting.”

“Most of the time when I think in borders andbarriers I don’t think only in the migrantpopulations. I also think in all the people thatfor some reasons still are living with bordersand barriers. I mentioned before that bordersand barriers exist in the mind and heart of thepeople that don’t believe that everyone has thesame rights as themselves.”

“These realities sound familiar to me, becauseall my life I have lived in the border region.Perhaps, I have been near a person that livedthis type of discrimination. I think my fatherwas one of these people, because he came to theUnited States in the 40s’ part of the “bracero”program . . . . Finally, I only want to add thatI’d like a world without borders and a moreegalitarian society.”

Figure 5. Student responses to the Borders and Barriers theme.


Kasper, L. (2000). Content-based college ESL instruction. Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Madden, C., & Rohlck, T. (1997). Discussion and interaction inthe academic community. Ann Arbor: University of MichiganPress.

Mangelsdorf, K. (1997). Students on the border. In C. Severino,J. Guerra, & J. Butler (Eds.), Writing in multiculturalsettings. New York: Modern Language Association.

Murphy, J. M., & Stoller, F. L. (Eds.). (2001). Sustained-contentlanguage teaching: An emerging definition [Special issue].TESOL Journal, 10(2/3).

Newman, D. (2002, February 7). NMSU makes math easy forblind students. The Round Up, p. A-1.

Pally, M. (1997). Critical thinking in ESL: An argument forsustained content. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6,293–311.

Pally, M. (2000). Sustaining interest/advancing learning: Sus-tained content-based instruction in ESL/EFL—theoreticalbackground and rationale. In M. Pally (Ed.), Sustainedcontent teaching in academic ESL/EFL: A practical approach(pp. 1–20). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Sayles, J. (Writer & Director). (1996). Lone star [Motionpicture]. United States: Castle Rock Entertainment

Stoller, F. (1999). Time for change: A hybrid curriculum for EAPprograms. TESOL Journal, 8(1), 9–13.

Werner, P., Church, M., & Baker, L. (1996). Interactions two: Acommunicative grammar (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.

Wink, J. (2000). Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world. NewYork: Longman.

Authors

Robert Weissberg is college associate professor at New Mexico StateUniversity, Las Cruces, in the United States, where he directs theInternational Intensive English Program and teaches courses in ESLand the MATESL program.

Melissa Lipoufski holds an MA in curriculum and instruction, witha specialization in TESOL. She teaches English and reading in theSpecial Education Department at the High School of Commerce, inSpringfield, Massachusetts, in the United States.

Documents

Borders and Barriers: A Model for a Local-Issues ESL Course