The Writing Center and NonNative Speakers of English

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The Writing Center and Non-Native Speakers of
English

• Amy Spencer
• Director of the Academic Resource Center
• Ohio Dominican University

Ohio Writing Center Consortium February 16, 2007
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Q 1
What is the cultural / linguistic background of
your students?
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Q 2

• What frustrates you in your interactions w/ESOL
  writers?
• What are you seeing that you find difficult to
  deal with?

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Overview

• Challenges
• Cultural
• Linguistic
• Appropriate Responses

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Cultural

• Expectations of education
• Structure
• Teacher authority
• Understanding of time
• Monochronic
• Polychronic
• Student passively agreeable
• Well educated person quotes masters
• Rhetorical Patterns
• Usual culprit

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Cultural Rhetorical Patterns

• English
• Linear
• Semitic
• Parallel
• Oriental
• Indirect
• Romance
• Digressive

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English

• Linear
• Clearly stated thesis
• Developed step-by-step
• Topic sentence
• Support
• Support
• Periodic Reminders of the thesis
• Primarily uni-directional

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Semitic

• Parallel structure
• Redundant
• Wordy
• Takes too long to get to the point

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Parallel construction in Hebrew

• Give until the Lord,
• O ye sons of the mighty,
• Give unto the Lord
• glory and strength

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Oriental
Indirect
Confucius says..
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Romance Russian
Digression Extraneous material
Plus entirely different sentence structure
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• American Traffic Law as Compared with Traffic law
  in Switzerland
• At first glance the traffic law in United States
  appeared to me simpler than in Switzerland.
• The American towns in general have the
  disposition of a cross, and for a driver who
  knows how to situate himself between the four
  cardinal points, there is no problem to find his
  way. Each street has numbers going crescendo from
  the center of the town to the outside.
• There are many accidents in Switzerland, as
  everywhere else, and the average of mortality
  comparatively to the proportion of the countries
  is not better than in the United States. We have
  the problem of straight streets, not enough
  surveillance by policemen on the national roads,
  and alcohol. The country of delicious wines has
  made too many damages. (Kaplan, 19)

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Linguistic? Or Cultural?

• Most of what were calling linguistic errors are
  culturally based
• Cultural
• Disorganized / Rambling
• Repetitive
• Unoriginal/plagiarized
• Linguistic
• Grammatical errors

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Appropriate Responses

• 1 Do not assume shared expectations
• you are probably not starting on the same page
• Dont rely on tried and true methods that you
  use with native speakers of English

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MisMatch!

• Because collaborative techniques depend so
  heavily on shared basic assumptions or patterns,
  conferences that attempt merely to take the
  techniques we use with native-speaking writers
  and apply them to ESL writers may fail to assist
  the writers we intend to help (Powers 370).

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Uncomfortable!

• More intervention than considered appropriate
  with native-speaking writers
• Informant rather than collaborator
• Stay with student when possible
• Learn culture if possible
• Avoid assumptions of common ground

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New Approach

• Traditional conferencing strategies
• Share 5-paragraph background
• Read out loud to hear correct the problem
• Assumes a native ear
• For ESL student, shift to
• Analyze assignments to see exactly what is
  expected
• Think aloud composing
• Model process

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Information Gathering

• Explicit guidelines
• Communicate with faculty
• Gather information _at_ audience expectations
• Supply formats for presenting written responses
  to various academic audiences and inform students
  of what their audiences will expect in terms of
  presentation, evidence, phrasing, etc

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Pre-Writing

• May need assistance
• interpreting the background reading
• referring to the text appropriately
• Talk through the process
• Relate to syllabus (objectives)
• Discuss sample paper/paragraph

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Example Dr. Hall

• Character is ____________
• What makes you think so?
• Textual support
• Integrated
• Correctly cited

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What does Good Look Like?

• Provide sample essays
• Models of phrasing
• Emphasis on student intention
• What do YOU want to say?
• Sentence patterns
• 3 to 5 choices

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Provide Structure

• Basic organizational patterns
• Paragraph
• Checklist
• Transition (Known to New)
• Essay
• Always link to syllabus/expectations
• Reading
• Be aware that this may be the underlying problem

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Later Intervention

• Process approach is preferable
• But
• What to do with a done deal?
• Higher Order Concerns (remember rhetorical
  patterns!)

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Problems Possible Solutions

• Redundant?
• Mark all repetition
• Choose one (or combine)
• Disorganized?
• Write content of sentences in margin
• Rearrange to combine like items
• Add controlling idea (topic sentence)
• Awful Grammar?
• Probably Linguistic

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Grammatical Errors

• Transition
• Verb tense
• Active vs. Passive
• Participial adjectives
• Clauses
• Noun clausesslots
• Adjective clauses
• Reduced forms
• Articlescount vs. non-count

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Transition? Reference List (Rhetorical pattern
influence)

• Verb Tenses
  Reference Text
• ?Chart - Azar
• 
  - Murphy
• Active VS. Passive
• -ing VS. ed
• Articles count VS. non-count

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Summary Chart Of Verb Tenses
Azar, 1999
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Clauses (often related to fragments)

• slots
• subject / verb / (D.O.) / (I.O.)
• The boy / drove / the car
• The tall boy / recklessly drove / the car that he
  had stolen
• The unbelievably tall boy wearing a torn, black
  leather jacket and a broken pair of handcuffs.

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Adjective clauses

• reduced forms
• Remember the verb!
• Placement
• Touch the word it describes

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Relax

• Look for patterns
• One thing at a time
• Develop referral system