Before I came to graduate school, I had the opportunity to work in an environment where the majority of employees were native Spanish speakers, and most did not speak a great deal of English. Although communication could sometimes be difficult, like when I constantly mispronounced dólare (meaning “dollar”) so that it sounded like dolor (which means to be in pain), for the most part we were able to understand each other’s meanings. As we all grew more confident with language, I learned that their grasp of English and my grasp of Spanish allowed us to describe or assess situations in unique ways, much like the examples in Jay Jordan’s article, “Second Language Users and Emerging English Design.”
In his article, Jay Jordan discusses the importance of working with Second Language Users (referred to as L2 users) rather than simply “reinforcing efficiency” in the classroom (325). Through a series of examples, Jordan illustrates the valid thoughts and viewpoints offered by L2 users in the classroom, and how one should see L2 students not as students who “leverage their positions as outsiders,” but as students who offer “subtle but arguably valuable” insights in the classroom. He argues that “it is possible to continue to address the needs of L2 users while at the same time slowing down to develop the field’s sense of what these language users already do well” (311).
Jordan writes that the increasing enrollment of L2 users in the university is in danger of creating a hostile linguistic environment (i.e. a group of “native” English speakers against those who are familiar with English as a second language) and a attitude of competition, where one type of language familiarity is privileged over the other. He writes that this spirit of competition is completely antithetical to the creation of a humane world. Instead, Jordan quotes Jessica Enoch, who writes that students (and educators) should endeavor to “immerse themselves in the various sides of the debate to learn how each side is made and remade through linguistic choice” (313). Jordan also references Kenneth Burke, who writes that “one does not merely want to outwit the opponent, or to study him, one wants to be affected by him, in some degree incorporate him, so act that his ways can help perfect one’s own- in brief, to learn from him” (313).
Jordan’s vision is a nice one; that of educators working with and incorporating traditions and voices from all levels of language uses. However, I feel as though Jordan is essentially skirting the elephant in the room, which is that occasionally, it can be hard to “slow down” one’s class for the sake of a few students. The examples he mentions in his article show L2 students who seem extremely confident with using English in a classroom setting, but those examples are not often the case. Sometimes difficulty with language can translate into difficulty with active participation, or with writing assignments (and this may be simply because students are not confident using English, or come from cultural backgrounds where contributing in class is not encouraged). After all, the English language is a fickle mistress**. There are constantly changing meanings and cultural assumptions behind certain words that some speakers are not immediately able to grasp. I think that it will be our challenge as teachers to find a way to engage these students using both our knowledge and their knowledge of English, while not catering exclusively to their needs to the point where we exclude all other students.
*I tried googling “snappy title about English” and then various variations on “quotes about studying English.” It didn’t really pan out.
**For the record, I tried to find an appropriate picture…but a search only came up with a picture of “Pretty Woman”, a burger, a fireman carrying an unconscious woman, and a man cutting a pie. Thank you again google.
Impossible Things Before Breakfast 
I agree with you that in creating an ESL-friendly environment in our classrooms that we should not ignore the needs of native English speakers. Like you and Jordan point out, teachers should see L2 students as valuable to the class, but the class should not be centered on just them. Also, all students bring some sort of diversity to the class, and many students have some sort of challenge to overcome to succeed in academia. Thus, we should aim to create classes where all students feel that they can contribute and where any challenges students face are addressed appropriately, whether they be L1 or L2 speakers. Also, as Jordan discusses, many of our students may be L1 speakers, but they may speak different English dialects. We also need to view them as enriching to our classroom environments and find ways to help them value their own dialects while understanding academic discourse.
That was exactly my concern with Jordan’s piece: it makes high demands on teachers for a nebulous “It will make the world more humane!!!!!” outcome. I’m not against ESL or foreign languages. I took four years of Spanish in high school, and I lived in Oklahoma, which is pretty much North Texas, which is pretty much North Mexico. There was a lot of Spanish spoken in Tulsa, north of a certain point.
That’s another thing that concerns me: ESL students come from a variety of backgrounds. The problems of a primarily Spanish-speaking but still third generation American national are vastly different than that of a Spanish national enrolling at Stanford for its engineering program. The amount of approaches needed grow for each new student you add – and that’s on top of teaching English as a first language to people.
Jordan makes a fantastic case for what Matsuda does not want: let’s just leave it the linguists.
You make a really good point about how difficult and problematic “slowing down” the classroom and giving more attention to some students over others can be. I’ve often been in classes that were heavily structured around the notion of catering to the “lowest common denominator” (I put that in quotes because it’s a phrase I would never use myself since it really only looks at English language and composition as a skill to be acquired rather than preexisting components of a student’s knowledge) and a lot of the class can suffer because teachers feel that they shouldn’t present the students with challenging material as it wouldn’t be fair to all. I don’t really have any answers, but I do think that L2/ESL learning is something that composition teachers should be aware of, even if they don’t have non-native English speakers in their classrooms. If anything, it’ll serve as a strong reminder to the teacher that a classroom is a diverse space and that we need to think about how our pedagogical approaches can best cater to that type of environment.