Strategies for ESOL Writers

1. Strategies for ESOL Writers Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program Melanie Lorek Justina Oliveira

2. Roadmap • Challenges ESOL students face • Strategies to help ESOL students • Create a positive learning environment • Create assignments that help (ESOL) students succeed • Use effective teaching strategies and approaches • Reduce the language load • Potentially allow use of native language in some contexts

3. Issues You May Have Encountered: • Limited lecture comprehension • Limited class participation • Reluctance to use office hours • Saying they understand something when it’s clear they don’t • Writing that doesn’t meet expectations (strangely organized, lacking expected elements, etc.) • Odd vocabulary usage • Grammatical errors (either minor or serious) • Potential plagiarism • Poor test performance

4. Exercise • Write a paragraph or two explaining what your profession does(e.g., Architecture, Law) following these three rules: • All adjectives have to be followed by a verb. • All prepositions must be placed at the beginning of the sentence. • All pronouns must be placed at the end of the sentence.

5. Traditional Writing Assignments Ask Students to:

6. Challenges Students are Faced with When Entering College Stuck between 2 differing teaching philosophies (Moussu, 2013) • 1. Instructor feedback often focuses on grammar (lower order concerns)  Told to go to Writing Center to “fix” this • 2. Writing Centers often have philosophy to focus on global understanding and critical thinking of texts

7. Strategies to Help ESOL Students: • Create a positive learning environment • Create assignments that help (ESOL) students succeed • Use effective teaching strategies and approaches • Reduce the language load • Potentially allow use of native language in some contexts

8. Strategy#1: Create a positive learning environment • Express interest in their homes and communities, their primary languages and cultures • Pronounce students’ names correctly • Gather information about your students that aids in understanding their point of view/experiences

9. Strategy#1: Create a positive learning environment • Provide support outside of classroom • Discussion about cultural norms in learning, teaching environments, etc. • Acknowledge students are experts in their own language

10. Strategy #2: Creating assignments that help (ESOL) students succeed • Provide detailed assignments - clear expectations • Provide examples (models of good student work) • Allow for discussion of students’ ideas (one-on-one or with students) • Scaffold & require a draft

11. Strategy #2: Creating assignments that help (ESOL) students succeed • Respond thoughtfully and respectfully • Activities/assignments that allow students to draw on their prior knowledge & life experience • Microthemes, Exploratory Essays, Reflection Papers • Expect and accept written accents • Correct serious patterns of errors, but not all errors • Teach citation very carefully

12. Strategy#3: Use effective teaching strategies/approaches • Communicate with students individually • Avoid limiting student efforts solely to verbal performance • Allow students to record lectures • Provide an outline of your lecture • Post lecture notes

13. Strategy#3: Use effective teaching strategies/approaches Consider varying teaching styles: • Implement self- (journal writing), peer, & teacher assessment regarding feedback to writing (Birjandi & Tamjid, 2012) • Reciprocal teaching: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting strategies during reading improve students’ writing (Ghorbani, Gangeraj, & Alavi, 2013)

14. Strategy#4: Reduce the language load • Break up complex sentences into smaller sentences • Point out difficult words and define them • Offer various sources on one topic with varying levels of linguistic difficulty • Consider using visuals along with your lecture or readings

15. Strategy#5: Allowing use of native language • Using native language during idea generation, initial phases of assignments, critical thinking stages (Huh, Lee, & Lee, 2013) • These stages are cognitively demanding & stressful • Unrealistic to ask ESL students to solely use & think in English (Cohen, 1998) • Allow students to use readings in their native language for initial stages of brainstorming

16. Activity 2 – last section of handout

17. References • Birjandi, P., & Tamjid, N.H. (2012). The role of self-, peer and teacher assessment in promoting Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 37, 513-533. • Cohen, A.D. (1998). Strategies in learning and using a second language. New York: Longman. • Ghorbani, M.R., Gangeraj, A.A., & Alavi, S.Z. (2013). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension strategies improves EFL learners’ writing ability. Current Issues in Education, 16, 1-12. • Huh, M-H., Lee, Y-S., Lee, N. (2013). Mediation through the first language during the second language writing: A sociocultural approach. English Teaching, 68, 69-84. • Moussu, L. (2013). Let’s talk! ESL students’ needs and writing centre philosophy. TESL Canada Journal, 30, 55-68. • https://writingcenter.unc.edu/faculty-resources/tips-on-teaching-esl-students/tips-on-teaching-esl-students/ • http://faculty.weber.edu/mtungmala/Hybrid4270/Articles/MeetNeeds.pdf