Transcript The Pilot wanted landing in Dallas.

Reading Written Accent: A
Working Session on Responding
to Second Language Writers
January 20th 2010
Questions Central to Today's Discussion
1. What do we already know about reading and
responding to NES writers that we can apply to
second language writers?
2. What is different about responding to second
language writers? What do we need to be more
aware of?
3. How do we read and evaluate second language
writing fairly as compared to that of native speakers
of English?
4. When and to what extent is responding to second
language errors helpful? What are the best practices
for doing so?
One Note:
• While some of our discussion today is
pertinent to all second language writers, the
main focus will be on international and
immigrant students. Generation 1.5 students
(students who were either born in the United
States to immigrant parents or who came to
the U.S. before or during their early teens)
have different needs, which would require a
somewhat different focus.
1) What do you look for when you
read writing done by native
English speakers? What do you
value most?
Ideas: Creative and Critical Thinking
Development of a significant central idea. Main and supporting ideas are
fully explored.
Claims are supported by evidence.
Sources are used appropriately and in meaningful ways.
There is an awareness of a real audience (thinking from multiple
perspectives, providing context for discussion, etc)
Tone and Voice are appropriate to academic writing (ex. Not angry)
Organization facilitates the reading
Sentence fluency doesn't distract from the reading
2) What do you already know about surface error
and native English speaking (NES) writers?
How and to what extent do you respond to
error? What else do you know?
1) There is a logic to student error. There are patterns, and there
is often a thought process behind error.
1) As student write about more complicated ideas, we often see an
increase in surface error as well.
1) Focusing too much attention on error often encourages students
not to take risks.
1) Most errors don't impede meaning very much.
1) Errors that carry race or class markers are often more commonly
viewed more negatively than other types of errors.
3) Now that we've discussed NES writers,
consider how working with second language
writers compares.
Similarities:
Second language writers have many of the same difficulties as NES
writers, including developing ideas, thinking about their audience,
and communicating effectively in writing.
Like NES writers, errors increase with the difficulty of the writing
assignment.
Our main focus should remain on the same global values
(interesting thinking, idea development, etc.) that we focus on with
NES writers.
As with NES writers, the majority of second language writing errors
don't detract from meaning.
Differences:
Second language writers who grew up in other countries and
in other school systems often have very different
understandings of what is valued in writing. Here are a few
examples.
Organization and Directness:
Ever since Robert Kaplan pointed out how culture often influences the way
writers present ideas, this has been one of the most intensely researched
(and debated) topics in second language writing. Teachers do not need
to try to familiarize themselves with all the literature on the subject.
What is valuable, however, is to recognize how culturally determined our
own notions of organization are.
U.S. writers (particularly academic writers) have an amazing patience and
even desire for explicitness. During their educations, American students
are routinely taught that it is better to be too repetitive than too subtle
(think about the 5 paragraph theme for an example). This is a rather
strange preference if one just thinks about reading for interest. As one
international student told me in an interview, “I just don't understand the
useful[ness] of a thesis. If I give my point at the beginning, why does
the person want to read?” Another international student complained to
me that she thought Americans “just repeated so many times their main
point. It gets so tiring.”
“One feature of some ESL writing that may be
disorienting is the lack of meta-discourse or signposts—
the transitional words and sentences that move readers
between ideas, and the structures that mark the
organization of a text. Even though a text may not have
an organization that is immediately recognizable, there
may be an organization at work. The trick is to identify
and piece together the logic that is not immediately
apparent to the reader by formulating questions with
the assumption that there is logic in it—by giving the
reader the benefit of the doubt."
Paul Kei Matsuda "Reading an ESL Writer's Text."
Reader/Writer Authority
The American academy is very reader-based in its view of
writing. In the U.S., almost all responsibility for meaning,
clarity, and even entertainment value rests plainly on the
shoulders of the writer. This is very different from most
other cultures where the writer has authority and readers
are expected to work hard to understand the writer’s
points. As an Ecuadorian named Maria told me, “Americans
don't [have] patience with things. Everything is fast food.
Time is money. Reading for Americans is just that same
way.”
Political and Sociocultural Differences:
Often, Americans assume that good writing is critical of
society and institutions. The individual is expected to voice
opinions that run counter to one's government, culture, and
social hierarchies. Consider how uncomfortable (and even
dangerous) this can feel to some students at first. One
student I talked to from Malawi failed her first essay in
America when she was asked to critique a local school
lunch program for her nutrition class. She feared being
critical of what she saw as a government institution and
thus did very poorly on the assignment.
Plagiarism:
The Western intellectual tradition emphasizes individuality and
originality. Thus, to steal another person's ideas or language is
the very worst academic crime. In other academic traditions,
particularly those that emphasize communality, the relationship
with sources is often be very different.
Even after students learn about plagiarism, they will often make
mistakes. As Mary M. Dossin points out in "Using Others' Words:
Quoting, Summarizing, and Documenting Sources," paraphrasing
and summarizing are among the most difficult language skills for
students to learn. She reminds us that students not only need to
understand the meaning of all the words and ideas in the source
text, they also need to detect subtle traces of the author's tone
and perspective, as well as come up with their own unique
linguistic substitutions. Those skills are quite difficult for NES
writers and substantially more difficult for second language
writers.
Surface Error:
While people sometimes want polished, native-sounding prose from
their second language writers, that expectation doesn't
acknowledge the complexity of learning another language. Many
second language errors are based on advanced memorization of
grammatical and lexical information that take years of practice to
improve. The Foreign Service estimates it takes approximately
2,300 hours of instruction to become fluent in another language.
By way of comparison, consider that a student taking a Japanese
language class at Western receives approximately 50 hours of
instruction per term.
Consider some of the following common second language errors.
Do you know the rule? How long would it take to memorize every
instance of that error to achieve native sounding English?
Common Errors in ESL
Writing
Common Errors in ESL Writing
We did a lot of researches on the
subject.
Rule: Count vs. Not Count nouns
Every noun in English is either countable
or not countable. There are some
general rules (liquids are not countable,
nor are abstract nouns like advice,
anger, love, intelligence, etc.).
However, many nouns just have to be
memorized. Corn is not countable,
while peas are. Rice is not countable,
but noodles are.
The Pilot wanted landing in Dallas.
To + Infinitive vs. Gerund
• Let’s stop smoking vs. Let’s stop to
smoke
Verb + gerund : Avoid, postpone, put
off, suggest, tolerate, etc.
Verb + infinitive: Agree, decide, manage,
plan, promise, refuse, want, etc.
She has cutted class several times this
week.
Mistake in conjugating the past
participle.
• There are 5 verb forms in English:
present, past, present participle, past
participle, and –s form.
• Conjugating the past participle for
irregular verbs is very difficult for ESL
students. Ex. buy, bought, bought vs.
give, gave, given
Lucinda got so angry with Jim that
she called down their wedding. I
can’t believe she canceled it.
Phrasal verbs
• Phrasal verbs are just like vocabulary
the student must learn. There are no
rules for which preposition will follow
the verb.
• Ex. Turn in, turn out, turn down, turn
around, turn over, turn on, turn off.
He brought her a yellow, beautiful
rose.
Cumulative Adjective order
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Article (a, an, the, those, these, my, your)
Quantifier (none, some, ten)
Opinion (ugly, pretty, delicious, yucky, happy)
Size (big, small)
Shape (round, square, long)
Condition (broken, sagging, wrinkled)
Age (old, young, new)
Color (red, blue)
Nationality (American, Chinese)
Religion (Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim)
Material (silk, chocolate)
NOUN being described
clause or phrase - follows the noun
Some customers were aggressive. I
couldn’t understand why were they
like that.
Embedded Question form
• In English, subjects and verbs switch
place when the sentence is formed as a
question.
• He is hot. Is he hot?
• In Embedded Questions, the order
reverts back to statement form.
Three thousand employees were
laying off by the company.
Passive Voice Error
• Passive Voice is created by conjugating
“to be” in the appropriate tense and
then using the past participle of the
verb.
• Ex. Wayne paid the bill. It was paid.
• Wayne hasn’t paid his bills this month.
The bills haven’t been paid.
If you would want, I’ll tell him we
need more time.
Conditional forms
• Factual: “If water cools to 32 degrees,
it freezes.”
• Predictive: “If you practice, your game
will improve.”
• Unlikely Scenario: “If I had time, I
would visit Spain.”
• Events that did not happen: “If I had
saved my money, I could have bought
it.”
English are fond of sports.
Missing Article
• Articles are probably the most common
error and the hardest to learn. While
there are rules for definite and
indefinite articles, there are many
exceptions.
"ESL students can become very fluent writers of
English, but they may never become
indistinguishable from a native speaker, and it is
unclear why they should. A current movement
among ESL writing teachers is to argue that,
beyond a certain level of proficiency in English
writing, it is not the students' texts that need to
change; rather it is the native-speaking readers
and evaluators (particularly in educational
institutions) that need to learn to read more
broadly, with a more cosmopolitan and less
parochial eye."
Ilona Leki Understanding ESL Writers,
"Part of how we respond to students is based
on our own political attitude or ideology of
response towards the extent of acculturation—
how much and how quickly or even if teachers
thing second language and second dialect
students should assimilate culturally, socially,
and linguistically into the U.S. corporate and
academic mainstreams, and how much of their
cultural and language patterns they can and
should retain."
Carol Severino "The Sociopolitical Implications
of Response to Second-Language and SecondDialect Writing."
In “The Sociopolitical Implications of
Response to Second-Language and
Second-Dialect Writing,” Carol Severino
identifies three stances towards written
accent or dialect: The Assimilationist
stance, the Accomodationist stance,
and the Separatist stance.
• Assimilationist stance: The teacher
aims to help the ESL writer compose
“linear, thesis-statement and topicsentence-driven, error-free, idiomatic
academic English as soon as possible.
The goal is to smoothly blend or melt
into the desired discourse communities
and avoid social stigma by controlling
any features that…might mark a writer
as inadequately educated or lower
class.”
• Accomodationist stance: The goal is to help
the writer learn new discourse patterns
without completely losing the old, so that the
writer can maintain both their L1 and L2
linguistic and cultural identities. Differences
in this stance are just seen as differences.
The accomodationist often talks about codeswitching and aims to inform the student of
his or her linguistic choices.
• Separatist stance: The goal is to
support the writer in maintaining
separate linguistic and cultural
identities, and to advocate for NES
readers to read ESL texts generously
with more appreciation for multicultural
writing. The separatist reads to value
and preserve difference.
Teachers tend to move between these
stances depending on the situation. For
example, I tend to lean toward the
accomodationist stance when
conferencing with students and
responding to their writing, but I tend
to take a separatist stance when
grading.
What are best practices when it comes to
correcting second language writing?
• As when responding to native speakers of English,
it’s important to focus on global writing issues
(content, etc.), rather than only marking errors.
Second language writers need to know their ideas
are being communicated.
• Many teachers spend too long correcting surface
errors. In particular, it is generally not a good use of
time to edit a student’s final draft. If the student has
no chance to revise, editing marks will have little or
no effect on the student’s writing.
• Students learn more from self-editing their drafts,
rather than just copying the teacher's corrections
onto a new draft.
• A recent study (Ferris and Roberts' "Error Feedback
in L2 Writing Classes") found that students were able
to self-correct nearly 70% of errors that were
marked. This percentage was nearly identical
whether the errors were labeled or not. In other
words, circling an error is just as effective as a
lengthy (and time consuming) explanation of the
error.
Most of all, though, if you decide to mark
surface errors in a draft, be selective. It's no
use overwhelming a second language writer
with mark after mark. Instead, focus on errors
that 1) impede meaning, 2) seem like a larger
pattern the student might learn from, or 3) that
come at critical moments in the text.
A General Protocol for Reading Second Language Writing
1.
Read through the entire paper. If you get lost or confused,
read the passage out loud. If that doesn't help, try to identify
the source of your confusion. At what point did it start? Does
the next idea make sense?
2.
Identify what you think the author is trying to communicate
and the general strategy or organization the student has
chosen?
3.
Comment on what you think works well in the essay. Look for
both global strengths as well as passages that you think are
powerful.
4.
Make larger suggestions for revision. What things would
make the biggest difference for you as a reader?
5.
Skim through the essay to see whether or not there are
places you want the student to address surface error. Mark
those places quickly and be selective.