Aron Rivas

In “The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition” by Paul Kei

Matsuda, Matsuda begins with the concept of unidirectional English monolingualism, which
supports the idea of students being taught a dominant variety of English to avoid errors in their
writing. He continues by stating that following this concept would require that all teachers know
how to teach the dominant English variety to students that may have learned a different variety.
Furthermore, it would push for an English-only environment that would undermine many
students whose first language isn't English. This would lead to certain students to feel left out
and cause some either drop out or feel like they are not good enough.
Matsuda acknowledges that some professors go the extra mile to develop their courses in
a way that tackles the language differences, but not enough do and he blames it on the myth of
linguistic homogeneity, which is “the tacit and widespread acceptance of the dominant image of
composition students as native speakers of a privileged variety of English” (638). Matsuda states
that it is this myth that he wants to bring awareness to as he believes it is the root of the problem,
that second language writers are not fully recognized in composition classes.
Matsuda continues by talking about how it's normal for teachers to create an image of
their students based on their experiences. This can become problematic when the images the
teachers create do not accurately represent the student. This can lead to an increased difficulty
for the teacher to recognize the issues and how to solve them. Matsuda gives the example that
most teachers of composition courses create images of their students where each of them are
expected to be native speakers of a privileged English. Matsuda points out a common occurrence
between a teacher and a second language student where the student struggles in the course due
not being a native speaker of a privilege English and is then told by the teacher to either
proofread or sends the student to the writing center. This sort of relationship, Matsuda points out,
makes the student accountable for what they haven't learned.
He then jumps into the history of how language differences were kept out of the higher
education system. He points out how schools would blatantly not admit certain students and if
they did, the schools would provide little to no support and blame the student for not being
prepared. The system started to change when many international students came to study in the
U.S. through government-sponsored programs. Many of the institutions began to create courses
to specifically help international students with the language differences but the courses were
eventually canceled. Later on, institutions created separate English courses to prepare students
for their composition courses, many of them found success. Matsuda concludes his essay by
stating that teachers need to consider composition courses as multilingual in order for all students
to succeed.