When I read Susan and Marian's excellent article, I was struck again by how much we're asking of our ESL students. Not only are these students struggling with content, organization, and mechanics--we're also inviting them to address a seemingly imaginary audience.
A couple of points really hit home for me:
1. How much a sense of audience can focus a student's (ESL or native speakers) choices concerning subject, content, style, and word choice. In this way, what seems at first like an added complication may offer clarity to student writers.
2. The challenge of moving into reader-based writing. For native speakers, it's often a matter of developing more intellectual sophistication, but it becomes more complicated when reader-based writing is not part of one's cultural background.
3. The importance of Writing Center tutors. Not only are we supportive readers, we also represent that vague audience. By revising text so we can more readily access it, ESL (and other) students are making their work more accessible to all their readers.
We've all been students. What do you remember about moving from writer-based to reader-based writing?
-- Frances
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As a speaker of a second language myself, (I like to think that I can speak a bit of French)I can sympathize with the ESL student. When I attempt to "think" in French, I find that I continue to internalize the process, whether I am trying to speak it or write it out on paper.
ReplyDeleteOne way I can suggest to help an ESL student find their "audience" is to have that student write the paper as if it were being told/explained/discussed to, or with a friend or family member. A friend or family member is someone we can all relate to and is more accessible in understanding than the vague term, "audience". It is also important to remind the student to pretend that their friend or family member does not know anything about the subject they are writing about and that each element needs to be explained in detail. Essentially, their chosen audience is clueless!
I remember when I first started being asked to write in reader-based perspective rather than writer-based. It was 8th grade and we were reading short stories and writing essay responses to some questions. Well, I didn't quite grasp the concept the first time and part of my paper was read aloud in class as an example of what not to do. I was very embarrassed. But this was a learning experience....I didn't make that mistake again. So I guess I am saying that I can sympathize with writers who are new to the concept. It can be a difficult transition.
ReplyDeleteI also see quite a few students who have a hard time acknowledging the audience as a scholarly audience. Often they use colloquial phrases within their academic papers without realizing that a distinction should be made.
I really found the RAFT model, which was introduced in this article, to be interesting and helpful. The acronym stands for Role of the writer, Audience, Format and Topic. The author suggested that to help students understand what it means to focus on the audience, a teacher or tutor may use the RAFT model to make creative exercises. The example that the author gave was to have the students write a paper as if their role were a fish in a stream talking to an audience of people picnicking near the stream on the topic of littering. I found this suggestion to be very interesting. I think that an exercise like this could really help both L1 and L2 writers to comprehend what it means to address their audience.
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ReplyDeleteI never really realized that ESL students are usually writing for a very vague audience. Maybe I should have figured that out by now but it hadn't sunk in yet! I found the tips for using more and varied readers to be helpful. Asking questions about if this were a different assignment how would it look?
ReplyDeleteI think that audience is a problem that L1 and L2 writers have. So many times students view the audience as their instructor and the instructor only.