This is well-traveled territory, but I do appreciate author Karen Gocsik's clear breakdown of some of the common issues we face when working with international students.
I also liked the points she made about other ways of looking at writing and research. Many of us share the American cultural bias to get straight to the point, make it short and sweet. It makes me wonder what we're missing by axing digressions. How much subtlety are we sacrificing?
What other aspects of this article piqued your interest?
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I really appreciated this article because the author just did not reiterate the point that there are differences between native and nonnative English speakers and we need to be sensitive to those differences. She noted examples of problems and gave concrete solutions for addressing those issues. The author's comments on the first two (articles and prepositions) of her top ten most common errors were the most helpful for me.
ReplyDeleteI never knew any of the rules for article usage and prepositions are so difficult because they are quite idiomatic and arbitrary. I think brushing up on my basic grammar knowledge along with maintaining a higher level of open-mindedness toward "non-American" writing will help me to better tutor ELS students in the future.
Attending a private school for 7years, at which I had grammar class every year, has provided me with a solid knowledge of grammar rules. Because of this background I understand that sometimes when it is very easy to see that there is an error, it is very complicated to explain why. Often, I can see and error and I know why it is wrong but I don't know if I should attempt to explain complicated rules. I wonder if that would just confuse the tutee more. Most of the time with native English speakers, I can read the sentence and ask "does that seem right to you?" The student will usually catch the error without my explanation. ESL students, however, do not always see a mistake.
ReplyDeleteAs the author said, I know that I cannot just make the correction. If I did this, the student wouldn't learn anything, but how much explanation is too much. The author said to avoid saying "we just don't say it that way," but what if the actual reason would require a lengthy complicated explanation? This has been one of my biggest qualms. I usually try to just simplify the explanation as much as possible, but the student often still seems confused. Any comments or advice?
I agree with Cassie about trying to simplify the explanations because the rules can be confusing, even for native speakers. I agree with John about reviewing grammar since it has been a long time since I have done that in depth.
ReplyDeleteThe article pointed out one thing that I never really thought about, that different cultures have different styles of writing. I did not know that the Eastern way of writing does not really come out and say what the topic is, while here in the West, we do. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if their way of writing is better since they seem to put their trust into the reader to actually get it without being told.
If only ideas could be shared here like they are in other countries! We could get rid of APA and MLA!!! I wish! I am just kidding, but this does make a valid point that we have to be careful and make sure that ESL students, as well as native speakers, are not plagiarizing.
I really enjoyed this article and I definitely learned a lot of good tips from it.
Cassie made an excellent point in regards to the differences between guiding/leading ESL students and native speakers to grammatical errors. You are right, Cassie, if you ask a native speaker student "does that seem right to you?" the student will identify the error immediately. Grammar errors lead to incomprehensive/unintelligible sentences and sentence meaning, problems with paragraph and essay organization, problems with expressing ideas and meaning, and problems with taking into account the audience, among others.
ReplyDeleteIn other words (in less words), grammar is closely related to everything involved in writing, including fluency, organization, detail, expressing ideas/arguments, etc.
This is why I have given those complicated grammar explanations to the ESL students I have had the opportunity to tutor that I thought needed them, and most of them do. For instance, once I gave a "mini lesson" to an ESL student on the USAGE and meaning of simple present and present progressive. In another occasion I tried to explain the complicated concept/grammatical structure of prepositions to a student whose first language does not have prepositions. Without prepositions in a paragraph, in English, are we able to effectively express as close as possible what we want to express? Even a part of speech, as simple and sometimes insignificant/small like articles, if used ineffectively/inappropriately can change the meaning of a sentence; for instance, "the red table" versus "a red table."
However, I am in trouble for doing this...
Cassie, you asked for advice. As an ESL student I can assure you that if the ESL student "wants" to learn/reach a high level of proficiency in English, he or she will learn/reach that level.
It seems to me that the errors that we can most easily help students with in the writing center are actually those that concern the "rhetorical conventions" addressed in the article. These conventions, at least as I envision them, are much easier to explain than the finer points of grammar (especially the complex rules of articles and prepostions). These conventions are related to correct pragmatic use of language. Understanding how essays are organized will help a student understand the organization (and, therefore, meaning) of course lectures and the organization (and, therefore, meaning)of course readings. Academic reading/writing/and speaking tend to all follow the same rhetorical patterns. The vocabulary and textual features that commonly come with these patterns in one mode of communciation are also found in the other modes.
ReplyDeleteI love the line in the article about "try to show them how beautiful a simple, balanced sentence can be." Ahhh, yes. Simple. Balanced. This is what I try to do in my writing classes. I provide a template for students to follow. I try to make it as simple as ... 1, 2, 3 for the students to write what I expect them to write. Once the students are adept at "coloring within the lines," so to speak, then they can be more creative. I also provide these more creative moments in class--poetry, music, conversation.
You also have to realize that very few of our students at Madonna are at the advanced stage. My "advanced" students in ESL 3130 are, maybe, intermediate, at best. It is great to attempt to explain article/prepositions/and more to ESL students, but please take into account the level of language learning that they are at and what their teachers want them to do. I really don't think missing articles are that big of a deal. I don't even think spelling errors are that important. There is even a growing school of thought within English language teaching that says the -s at the end of regular 3rd-person singualar verbs is unimportant. I'm not sure I would go that far, but what I do think is important is communication. Because of this I will always focus on the higher-order concerns over the lower-order concerns in tutoring sessions because I feel in the long-run these skills will serve students better. The results of research studies have demonstrated that even advanced--nearly native-like--English language learners still make errors in articles, prepostions, and phrasal verbs. Believe me, it's not because no one tried to explain these points to them. They are just really hard to internalize.
Fatima, I'm sorry to hear you are "in trouble" for talking about grammar with the students you see in the Writing Center. I would think those students would leave a session with you thinking you are an exceptionally well-spoken individual with a great compassion for learners. Actually, a year ago or so, Prof. Kimball made it very clear to all ESL instructors that we were supposed to make grammar a very important component of all of our courses. We needed to make sure that students had the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences in written and spoken communication. That being said, however, for communicative purposes, I think its safe to say that syntax or word order errors are the grammatical errors that impede the most in communication. These are usually caused, however, by students translating from their native language. They are, for example, writing English while using Korean syntax. These are the kind of grammar errors that are the most important to help the students notice. This can usually be accomplished by pointing out the effects this translating is having on what they say or write in English.
I liked the comment about talking with the writer about his/her first language. I know that a knowledge of the language they are coming from really helps with tutoring. When I tutor a student that uses ASL, I have the background knowledge in lingusitics and I can explain, "Well, in ASL we do it this way, the way do to it in English is like this." What can be really frusturating is the concepts that English has that ASL does not have. How do you explain a concept in a language that does not have that concept? This can be really hard when I'm tutoring in ASL because I am signing with the student in his/her first language and to explain an English concept in their first language can be difficult. I'm so glad my sign language courses offered oppurtunites to practice doing just that.
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