Treatment of Error in Multilingual Student Writing

1. Treatment of Error in Multilingual Student Writing Florida International University Wednesday, June 20, 2012 Dr. Dana Ferris (drferris@ucdavis.edu) Professor, University Writing Program, UC Davis

2. Workshop Schedule 1-1:45: Introductory discussion & presentation (“Sources of Error”) 1:45-2:15: Breakout discussion (20 min.); Whole group debrief (10 min.) 2:15-2:30: Break 2:30-3:15: Presentation (“Treatment of Error: Options & Strategies”) 3:15-3:45: Small group activities 3:45-4:00 Whole group debrief 4-4:30: Reflections & Discussion; looking ahead

3. Opening Discussion • Do you remember receiving corrective feedback (on language errors) from a teacher on your own writing? (This could be an English teacher, a teacher in another subject, or even a foreign language teacher.) How did you feel about receiving it, and did you think it was effective? • Imagine that you have a set of student papers to respond to or grade. Would you mark or correct language errors on those papers? If yes, what would be your purpose for doing so? If no, why not? • If you have provided error feedback to student writers before, can you describe your approach or strategy for doing so? Be as specific as you can. • If you have provided error feedback to student writers before, how do you feel about your efforts? Was it time well spent? Why or why not?

4. Understanding “Error”—Sources & Severity • Why do L2 writers make errors? • What kinds of errors do they make? • How serious are these errors, and how should we factor them into our assessment of their writing?

5. A Quick Definition “Error”: • Errors are morphological, syntactic, and lexical forms which deviate from rules of the target language, violating the expectations of literate adult native speakers. (Ferris, 2011, Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing, p. 3)

6. What Errors are Not • “How I would say this if I were writing it” • Example: “…students try and make their essays sound fancy but end up making them confusing.” • …try to make… • …try and make…

7. Sources of L2 Error • L1 interference: • The movie that I saw it was very sad. • Is very cold in Minnesota in the winter. • L2 interlanguage: • I leaved my phone at home this morning. • I didn’t walked to school today. • Production constraints—”mistakes” vs. “errors” • “Mistakes”: time, attention, poor strategies • “Errors”: lack/incomplete knowledge of structure/rule

8. More on L2 Error: SLA Research • Errors can fossilize: learners fail to progress with certain structures • For adult learners, feedback (correction) and attention (noticing) are necessary for continued improvement

9. Types of Error (handout) Two Notes: • Not much overlap between the lists • Some ML writers (especially Generation 1.5) will make errors from both lists

10. Severity of Errors: Three Factors • Global vs. Local Errors • Global errors interfere with communication • Local errors are noticeable (and maybe distracting) but rarely impede reader comprehension

11. Severity of Errors: Three Factors 2. Stigmatizing Errors • Signal “ESL” status • May distract/annoy “real world” readers

12. Severity of Errors: Three Factors 3. Frequent Errors • May indicate lack of understanding/awareness of rule • BUT consider also “obligatory context”—how many times did the writer use the structure correctly?

13. Case Study:Email to Writing Program I have a student from Turkey. She speaks English beautifully and writes well except for one thing: Turkish has no articles and I cannot explain the article rules to her (these seem really hard to codify, I'm afraid). So she leaves them out. Not good. I'm appending a paragraph she wrote. (There's also a little subject-verb disagreement, which is minor compared to the article issues.)Are there any resources from the [writing program] where a writing professional might be able to sit down with her for an hour and talk about this? (Engineering Professor)

14. Student Text (handout) • Considering the three factors we just discussed (serious, stigmatizing, frequent), how would you characterize this student writer’s errors? • Is it really true that the writer “leaves articles out”? • Considering the “sources of error” we just discussed (interference, interlanguage, production constraints), do you have any guesses about why the student made these particular errors? • All things considered, is the professor being too negative toward this student?

15. The Student Text As Graphical Processing Unit (GPU)has become more programmable, we  have been increasingly using it for data-parallel applications beyond traditional graphics, which require general-purpose computation. We achieve significant increasein the computational  performance of these applications by leveraging highly parallel  architectureof the GPU. Performance speedups provided by GPU computing makesGPUsuitable for data-parallel tasks, especially with time constraints such as real-time applications. GPU is also good fit for embedded systems which run data-parallel tasks, since it offers superior price-performance and power-performance. An affordable, embedded, low-powered GPU can be used to exploit theparallelism inherit in such tasks and can perform computations at a fraction of the power needed by traditional processors. It is common  for embedded systems to run multiple real-time tasks concurrently.  Although current programming modelof the GPU does not allow us to  multitask between disparate kernels, developing such techniques would further motivate the use of GPUin real-time embedded domains.

16. Analysis

17. Other Analysis Notes • Of the eight omissions, four are connected to the same phrase or acronym (GPU). Three other times, she correctly inserts an article before GPU. • She makes one subject-verb agreement error (“speedups…makes…). • She makes one word-choice error (“inherit”). • “Obligatory” contexts does not account for other noun phrase constructions where an article was not required and was (correctly) omitted. • Sentence structure is advanced and competent. • Technical and academic vocabulary use is skilled. • Paragraph is well structured and has good content.

18. Small Group Discussion: Sample Text(s) • What types of errors do you notice? • What might their sources be? • Considering the “severity” factors we looked at (global/local, stigmatizing, frequent), how serious do you think the errors in this paper are?

19. Whole Group Discussion How should L2 errors be factored into course grading/outcomes?

20. BREAK

21. Treatment of Error in ML Student Writing • Principles for Effective Error Feedback • Teaching Self-Editing Strategies

22. The Goal(s) of Error Treatment • Progress, not perfection • Increased student autonomy

23. Error Feedback: Issues, Questions, & Options • What is an error?   • What kinds of errors do ESL writers most typically make? • Which errors should be corrected? • When should errors be corrected? • How should errors be corrected? • How do we help students understand and apply error feedback? • How can teachers use time wisely and avoid burnout?

24. Which Errors? • Selective vs. comprehensive feedback • Individualizing feedback • Classroom instruction • Task requirements

25. The Teacher’s Dilemma When I don’t mark everything, I feel guilty

26. When to Correct? • Early/preliminary stages • Penultimate stages • Final/graded papers • Other writing tasks (homework, free-writes, blog posts, etc.)

27. How to Correct? • Direct vs. Indirect Feedback Direct: provides correction for the student Indirect: points out error but asks student to correct it

28. Feedback Options Original Text Portion: I never needed to worry about my parents because they knew everything and could go anywhere they want. 1. Direct Correction: …could go anywhere they wanted. 2. Error Location: … could go anywhere they want. VT 3. Error Code: …could go anywhere they want. 4. Error Symbol: …could go anywhere they want_^ _ 5. Verbal Cue: …could go anywhere they want. tense 6. Sample End Comment: As you revise, be sure to check your verbs to see if they need to be in past or present tense.

29. Direct or Indirect Feedback? • Student Preferences • Benefits • Possible Roles for Direct Feedback

30. Error Feedback:Latest Research Findings • Error feedback is most effective when it is limited/narrow in scope • Some instruction/metalinguistic explanation is (often) needed • Student application after feedback is critical

31. Alternatives to “Marking” • Computer tools • Color-coding • Error conferences

32. Summary: Conserving Energy & Avoiding Burnout • Set realistic goals for error feedback. • Do not feel that you must give written error feedback on every single paper students write. • As time goes on, require students to take increasing responsibility for their own progress.

33. Moving Students Toward Autonomy • Train students in self-editing and hold them accountable for doing it. • Provide less or less-explicit feedback as the course progresses. • Help them develop & apply linguistic knowledge to their writing. (See Ferris, 2011, Ch. 6) • Ask them to track and analyze their progress.

34. Training Students in Self-Editing • Discuss the importance of well-edited texts. • Teach/review proofreading/editing strategies. Editing mini-lesson 3. Hold regular peer-editing workshops. • Provide self-editing exercises before papers are due. • Require reflection/revision after papers are graded. Sample peer- and self-editing exercises

35. Workshop Activities • Discuss text excerpt • Discuss strategies

36. Dana’s Analysis

37. Closing Discussion • What issues or questions arose in examining the student text excerpt? • In the discussion of teaching strategies, what were 1-2 issues or ideas that seemed most interesting, promising, or troubling in your group?