What to expect of their writing and some helpful approaches

1. Working with ESL Students in the University What to expect of their writing and some helpful approaches David Hoffman and Robert Troyer May 19, 2008

2. Connors and Lundsford (1988) Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research Introduction: Native speaker errors in writing

3. Introduction: An ESL text’s list of “most common” writing errors from Writing Talk, fifth edition (2009) A. Winkler and J. R. McCuen-Metherell Pearson Prentice Hall ESL focus?

4. Vann, Meyer, Lawrenz (1984) Error Gravity: A Study of Faculty Opinion of ESL Errors Word Order it-Deletion Tense Relative clauses Word Choice Sub-Verb Agreem Pronoun Agreem Preposition Spelling-2 Comma Splice Article Spelling-1 Introduction: ESL students’ errors in writing

5. Introduction: ESL students’ errors in writing Arani (1993) Inconsistencies in Error Production by Non-Native English Speakers and in Error Gravity Judgment by Native Speakers

6. Introduction: Misconceptions about differences in writing from Writing Talk, fifth edition (2009) A. Winkler and J. R. McCuen-Metherell Pearson Prentice Hall In this list, where are Prepositions, Articles Word Order, It-Deletion Plurality, Conjunctions/transitions? Misconceptions exist about the differences between ESL students’ writing and native speaker students’ writing. Our approach to ESL student writing needs to be informed by an understanding of the unique challenges that these students face.

7. Our Purpose • to inform you about some of the ways that your ESL students’ writing will differ from that of your native speakers Our Belief • approaching ESL students’ writing with awareness and understanding will lead to more positive outcomes for you and the students

8. Outline • Interpersonal Communication • Global vs. Local Issues • Global Issues • Local Issues • Conclusion • Q & A

9. Interpersonal Communication • Expect differences in eye contact, verbosity, and social distance • Be aware and take your cues from the student • Respect differences without drawing attention to them • Expect variation between individuals from the same country

10. Global vs. Local Issues • Approaching an ESL paper • Read once before marking mistakes • Determine the most important issues • Balance Global vs. Local • Global: Content and Organization • Local: Sentence level Style

11. Global: Genre and Rhetoric • Schema / frame / script theory • What text genres do American students grow up with and practice in school? • narrative (text and graphic), • expository prose (academic topics, processes, lab reports), • poetry, persuasion, news-style reporting, business/professional letters, informal journal writing • novel / hybrid genres • Expect that international students don’t have experience with all of these genres, so provide examples.

12. Global: Rhetorical Differences • Within a genre, rhetorical strategies are culturally determined • Contrastive Rhetoric: Kaplan (1966) • ESL students may not be familiar with the rhetorical structure of American academic writing • Introductions, Organizing and the writing process, Conclusions, when to use fact / opinion / outside sources • Logic is culturally determined • Paragraph structure (whole to part / part to whole)

13. Robert Kaplan, 1966 Analysis of the paragraph and sentence organizational structures of ESL student essays. His diagram below has been criticized for several reasons, and Kaplan, himself, later called it his “doodles.” English Semitic Oriental Romance Russian

14. More recent contrastive rhetoric studies Genre mode type writer / language / country Literary analysis exposition academic article German (L1) English (L1) English (L2, L1 Germ) Business correspondence email English (L1) English (L2, L1 Japan) 3rd Grade narrative one paragraph English (L1) assignment Arabic (L1) English (L2, L1 Arab) Univ. Writing persuasive 2-page essay English (L1), American course assign. English (L2, L1 Finnish)

15. Influences on a writer’s Rhetorical Structure schema History: Ostler, Kaplan, Crismore Culture: Kaplan, Soter, Connor & Lauer, Li School and Teachers: Folman and Sarig, Reid, Scarcella, Eggington, Holyoak & Piper, Heath, McCreedy Parents and Family: Heath, Clancy Peers: McCreedy, Eder, Williams, Fordham For advanced writers Discourse Community: Swales

16. specific topic more general fact definition of term thesis examples Global: Rhetorical Differences Example: introduction to a problem-solution paper about industrial pollution Humans today are beginning to hear more and more on the problem about industrial pollution. The world population is growing very fast. Unfortunately, modern industry is making the air, the soil, and the water dirty, which we call pollution. Many people, therefore, see pollution as only part of a larger and more complex problem. Whatever its underlying reasons, there is no doubt that much of the pollution could be controlled if companies, individuals and governments would make more efforts. For instance, there is an obvious need to control litter and waste, which everyone can help to do by cutting out excess consumption and careless disposal of the products we use in our daily lives.

17. Global: Rhetorical Differences Example: paragraph transitions First of all it is very easy… Second, people’s emotions will be… Third, the ability to think is… Fourth, bad for health, such as… A note on conclusions: Often they are entirely a summary of the main ideas of the paper (even if the paper is only two pages).

18. Global: Rhetorical Differences • Using and documenting outside sources • Expectations of student writers in other countries • Also related to local issues of sentence structure, vocabulary, and punctuation • Online searching practices • Reading ability

19. Local:3 Levels of Understanding • World Englishes paradigm (Smith 1992) • Intelligibility: word/utterance recognition “sounds like an English word” • Comprehensibility: word/utterance meaning “I know what that word represents” • Interpretability: word/utterance purpose “I understand what is intended by that word”

20. Application to ESL Writing • Intelligibility • At the phrase level, everything is in English. • Spelling is close to correct. • The words used are actual words in English. • It can be read in English. • Comprehensibility • At the phrase level, the elements combine to produce meaningful chunks of information. • The words work together in typical English fashion.

21. Application to ESL Writing • Interpretability • At the phrase level, the elements are coherent and produce a transference of meaning from the writer to the reader in English. • All components work together to bring meaning out from the words.

22. Examples 1. The cows drought dead forever kill water. intelligibleyescomprehensiblenointerpretableno 2. I went home and the sandwich is alone. intelligibleyescomprehensibleyesinterpretableno 3. Yesterday, I bought some shoes and today my feet hurt. intelligibleyescomprehensibleyesinterpretableyes

23. Standard Written English Standard Written English Non-SWE: Informal register Non-SWE: Informal register English Local: ESL Grammar • Typical American students’ grammar • ESL students’ grammar Interlanguage: English lexis influenced by L1 grammar and pragmatics (as well as learners’ guesses about English)

24. Local: Articles and Determiners one, many, some, etc. a, an, the • Usage is obvious to native speakers, but rarely effects comprehensibility or interpretability Examples In author’s opinion, key point is to improve the educational research. … because we are foreigner who came from other country and have different culture.

25. Local: Prepositions • Semantic functions • Phrasal verbs make up, get over, ran into, showed up, etc. On her way to the office, she ran into a friend. • Variations are extremely difficult to learn • Correct students, but don’t judge harshly

26. e . y Local: Word Forms Example Many students consideration how to choosing words but lacking sufficiently knowledgeable of vocabularies in contextual. Inflectional affixes -s, -ies (plurality) -ing (pres participle) -’s (possession) -s (poss pronoun) -ed (past tense) Derivational affixes -ation (verb to noun) -ly (adjective to adverb) -able (noun to adjective) -ual (noun to adjective) un- (opposite), non- (not)

27. Local: Word Forms Examples Some crimes, such as hi jack and rob are conducted using Airsoft guns. hijacking and robbery It accurately point_ that lots of farmlandslosing is one factor which led to foodlacking around the world. points out, farmland, loss, a lack of food (or food shortage)

28. Local: Subject-Verb Agreement • Simple mistakes Example If the customer break the contract or mess with the... • More complicated Example But this time when one instrument played the melody line and the other two instruments as accompaniment part the sound heard very harmonious. • We can’t ignore verb semantics and clause meaning.

29. Local: Punctuation • Nearly always correct: periods, commas with lists, apostrophes • Sometimes correct: commas with coordinating conjunctions, introductory phrases, and non-restrictive modifiers; hyphens • Rarely used: semi-colons, dashes • Frequent mistakes: quotation mark direction, periods with quotes and parentheses, overuse of colons

30. Local: Sentence Structure • ESL sentence spectrum from short, simple sentences to out-of-control sentences Example Smoking cigarettes has harmful effects. It will cause many kinds of cancers. The components of cigarettes have many carcinogenic matters. Those carcinogenic matters are all in the smoke of the cigarettes. Example Proven energy resources per capita are only 135 tons of standard coal equivalents to the world average of 264 tons of standard coal with 51 per cent, of which, China’s per capita coal proven reserves of 147 tons, 208 tons of the world average of 70%.

31. Local: Conjunctions / Transitions • Coordinating (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) • Occasional incorrect and/but choice • Subordinating (if, when, though, as, because, etc.) • Occasional wrong choice • Conjunctive adverbs (however, therefore, thus, etc.) • Frequent wrong choice • Frequent overuse

32. Local: Word Choice • Too informal • Too general or too specific • Absolutes • Not PC • Close but no cigar • Non-idiomatic / wrong collocation

33. Local: Word Choice Examples First of all, it is very easy for everyone to get the mental illness such as autism and the blahs. Computers are everything in our lives. First draft title: More Sex More Abortions Second draft title: Minor Pregnancy

34. Q & A • Can we assess ESL students’ writing with the same standards as native speakers’ writing?

35. End