[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-598109-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":73,"doc-detail-598109-en":122},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":66,"head_meta":68,"extra_data":70,"updated_unix":72},105,"en","hearing-the-silences-engaging-in-rhetorical-listening-in-the-eslell-composition-classroom","Hearing the Silences - Engaging in Rhetorical Listening in the ESL/ELL Composition Classroom","","Explores why ESL/ELL writing students remain verbally silent and how that silence functions in classroom discourse. Grounded in the author’s experience teaching an Advanced English (3211) honors writing course at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayaguez, the work frames silence through literary themes and rhetorical listening. It reviews scholarship that treats silence as meaningful pedagogy and contrasts it with explanations relying heavily on foreign language anxiety, detailing how different types of silence require closer instructional attention.",{"@graph":14,"@context":65},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/hearing-the-silences-engaging-in-rhetorical-listening-in-the-eslell-composition-classroom/598109/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/hearing-the-silences-engaging-in-rhetorical-listening-in-the-eslell-composition-classroom/598109.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Indoniesian Boy","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-03","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",10,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"How does the author view scholarship on silence in ESL/ELL contexts?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"Some revisionist scholars argue teachers should listen to silences and interpret their meaning with students, offering strategies for silence as a pedagogical tool. In contrast, much ESL/ELL scholarship over-relies on foreign language anxiety to explain silence, which the author positions as incomplete.","Answer","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":67,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":69,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":71,"site_id":7},598109,1792166303,{"code":4,"msg":74,"data":75},"success",[76,80,84,88,93,98,103,107,112,115,118],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":77,"show_sort_weight":78,"slug":79},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":81,"show_sort_weight":82,"slug":83},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":89,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":90,"show_sort_weight":91,"slug":92},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":94,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":95,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":97},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":99,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":104,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":106},8,30,"research-report",{"id":108,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":109,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":111},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":113,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":114},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":55,"slug":117},"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":121},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":74,"data":123},{"doc_id":71,"user_id":124,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":125,"doc_module":4,"category_id":104,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":126,"file_id":127,"file_url":128,"file_type":129,"file_size":130,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":131,"language":132,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":133,"faqs":134,"seo_title":135,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":136,"read_time":137,"preview_page_count":4},962090760608,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Hearing the Silences: Engaging in Rhetorical Listening in the ESL/ELL Composition Classroom  \nJanice Cools  \nThe University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez  \nFor as long as I’ve taught in Higher Education, I have always had a persistent question, one which I am certain many other instructors have reflected on – why are students silent in class? By silence, I refer to those who do not participate verbally in discussions or ask questions, those who attend classes and by the end of semester leave without having said a word. I’ve always wanted to understand the culture of silent students in my writing classrooms but had never directly tackled the issue beyond informally asking a few students over the years why they were silent.“Why silence?” was a question that resurfaced when I started teaching Advanced English (3211), a first-year honors writing class in the English Department at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (UPRM), in the fall of 2014. One of the reasons this question resurfaced was because of the variations in the sections that I taught. Try as I might, it seemed I could not turn my 12:30 section into the vibrant students in my 10:30 section. A steady few verbally participated in discussions, but many did not. When I tried to draw out some quiet students by calling on them, they behaved like deer caught in the headlights. They simply did not speak.  \nConfronting Silence  \nWhy silence? The question at the back of mind was further compounded by some of what we were discussing in class. While putting our syllabus together for the Fall 2014 semester and  \ngrouping stories, my husband (who also taught some sections of the course) and I realized we had three literary texts which explored silence as a theme. These were Ursula Le Guin ’s “The Silence of the Asonu,” Judith Ortiz Cofer’s “Silent Dancing,” an essay from her book Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance, and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Silence: A Fable.”  \nOne of our objectives in the course was to have students analyze literary works through critical thinking strategies of interpretation and evaluation. In class, we discussed how the humans/tourists who visit the Asonu planet in Le Guin’s short story privilege excessive speech, overlooking the benefits of silence. The visitors assume the Asonu are silent because they are either hiding “great wisdom,” or are “dumb.” They fail to recognize that silence may be a rhetorical choice that the Asonu make. In analyzing the second text on silence, we noted that Cofer’s “Silent Dancing” focuses on cultural silencing and its negative effects on Puerto Ricans who had migrated from Puerto Rico to the US during the late 50s and early 60s. When evaluating Edgar Allan Poe ’s “Silence: A Fable,” our third story, it was clear that one of the themes in the“fable” was that human beings fear silence, especially because it forces them towards introspection. Our classroom discussions of these texts led me to a deeper interest in silence. I became interested in research on student silence in the classroom, seeing this as an entry point into my age-old question of why silence.  \nMy teaching experience thus far had been in the English-speaking Caribbean and the US, where I had also had silent students. However, my interest in student silence in Puerto Rico was not just about the topic of silence, but also how student silence operated in a Spanish speaking culture, an environment that was new to me. Unlike many of the Advanced instructors, my  \nSpanish was very limited. While there was a language difference between me and my students, there were also similarities. I could identify with moving between languages. Like them, I grew up on a Caribbean Island—Saint Lucia, and, like them, I moved between two languages—standard British English, a legacy left to us by our former colonial power—the British, and French Creole, a remnant of our ownership by the French.  \nListening to Scholarship on Silence  \nBy the Fall of 2015, the beginning of my second year of teach","cbCaijRMspBzlknh","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijRMspBzlknh","pdf",438025,27,"English","# Background and Research Question\n## Initial Teaching Experience\n## Course Texts on Silence\n# Listening to Scholarship on Silence\n## Revisionist Approaches\n## Foreign Language Anxiety Explanations\n# Implications for Classroom Practice","[{\"question\":\"How does the author view scholarship on silence in ESL/ELL contexts?\",\"answer\":\"Some revisionist scholars argue teachers should listen to silences and interpret their meaning with students, offering strategies for silence as a pedagogical tool. In contrast, much ESL/ELL scholarship over-relies on foreign language anxiety to explain silence, which the author positions as incomplete.\"}]","Hearing the Silences - Engaging in Rhetorical Listening in the ESL/ELL Composition Classroom | PDF",1792086304,68]