Taking a deeper look at types of ESL writers.

As an international student and someone who speaks more than one language, I have always concerned myself with how second language writers from other countries cope with receiving an education in a language that they are not completely comfortable in. I remember when I first started taking this class I wanted to be an ESL tutor because of my vast experience with people of other cultures and languages. Obviously this is a logical choice for me, but after our discussion about ESL students and Dr. Grove's in-class presentation about the different types of approaches that exist when it comes to tutoring second langauge writers, I realized that it would be a good idea to try to understand a specific type of ESL writer. What kinds of ESL writers do we see the most at the University of Richmond? Do they exhibit similar behaviors and request help in similar areas? Do they tend to be from a specific part of the world? What langauges do they generally speak? All of these questions came to my head when I was trying to explore the possibilities associated with how I would try to become an "expert" in understanding a particular type of ESL writer.

Obviously these answers are very hard to obtain unless you actually work at the Writing Center, so I asked my girlfriend Chanel who currently works at the ESL center in the new International Education building. When I posed these same questions to her, she immediately answered that about 90% of the ESL students that come in to see her are oriental students. Oriental is a broad definition, but at the University of Richmond, most of the oriental students are from China. There are a few Japanese and Korean students as well, but Chanel was telling me that she has the exchange and four-year students from China come see her on a regular basis. I was not surprised about this, considering that the largest portion of UR's international student population comes from China. So I set about the task of trying to figure out what makes oriental students unique in the way they understand writing in English and what kinds of issues they have with writing. Perhaps the most comprehensive answer to my question about oriental ESL students came in the form of an article by Xiaomin Cai titled "Behavioral Characteristics of Oriental ESL Students in the Writing Center."

http://www.writinglabnewsletter.org/archives/v18/18-8.pdf

This article was published in the Writing Lab Newsletter and discusses the types of behaviors exhibited by oriental students when they approach the writing center to seek help with their writing. Based on the article and some of my own observations of oriental students, it seems that they exhibit a similar set of characteristics in their writing and during the consultations. I think that learning to understand these similarities and preparing for oriental students in the writing center will significantly improve the preparation that writing consultants have when dealing with these sometimes challenging consultations. The following list represents some of the characteristics that should be kept in mind when consulting with oriental students:

1. The concept of individualism vs. collectivism: Oriental writers have a strong sense of the nonself, which means they tend to understand the power of collaboration as a group versus the traditional Western belief in strong individualism and personal ownership of ideas and assets. For this reason, it sometimes is the case that oriental student writers will have difficulty citing sources or sometimes not cite sources at all. This is not because they wish to steal the ideas of others, but rather because they do not understand the strict adherence to individual intellectual property that Americans pride themselves with.

2. An impersonal relationship with the consultant or teacher is most often desired by the oriental student. Western cultures understand the relationship between student and teacher to be very formal and to-the-point, but oriental students will want their teachers or consultants to like them and vice versa. It is important to understand that small talk or conversation with oriental students will be very beneficial to the consultation, as they will most likely feel more comfortable with the consultant and be more prepared to discuss the paper in question.

3. Oriental students tend to be very polite even if they have disagreements with what the consultant is saying. This can pose a very difficult issue when the consultant is trying to constructively criticize a piece of writing and gets the sense that the writer is agreeing with everything they are saying, even though they might disagree. This concept of "saving face" is culturally very important in oriental cultures, and it is something that consultants should be aware of when consulting with oriental student writers.

4. Oriental students generally come from backgrounds where strict hierarchies exist and the values they inherit tend to come from external influences. In contrast, western cultures tend to place emphasis on developing individual freedom and allowing people to grow independently and develop their own axioms and beliefs. For this reason, oriental students might benefit from positive reinforcement because they will base a lot of their learning and opinion on the consultant's or teacher's comments or beliefs. Instructions should be clear and straightforward, and in this sense the writing consultant becomes much more of a teacher than a tutor.

College Mentoring Program Session II.

I just came out the second CMP session as part of our course requirements this semester. I was very pleased when I read my mentee's college paper, and the way he decided to write it reminded me a lot of how I wrote my college application essay back in 2007. He started out with a creative writing piece about how he wants to direct a particular movie that has impacted him from a novel he read. I think that having a personal story that shows creativity and passion is the best way to go about writing for a college admissions office, and I think my mentee really hit the nail on the head with his essay. After I edited the paper for grammar and some other content issues, we started talking about what he wants to do after highschool and what kinds of careers he was looking at to pursue. He mentioned that besides film directing he was interested in a career as a politician. One of his teachers had told him he had natural speaking skills and would be apt to pursue a career in politics. At the end of the session I gave him some advice about how to pursue his interests and what to look for in a college when applying for specific careers or programs. Perhaps the most important advice I gave him was not to go into college with a set plan about what he wanted to do, but rather to take different classes and explore a variety of interests to see if he finds something he truly enjoys.

Shadowing session 11/18/2010.

Today's session was just another day in the writing center. My consultant had a girl with an eight-page paper come in to get her ideas revised and the first draft edited. Her paper was on post-traumatic stress disorder, a subject matter that I have studied before in one of my English classes. It was obvious that the student had not sent her paper to the consultant prior to the session because he spent a lot of time looking over the paper and there was about a ten minute silence in the room. I think some writers underestimate the importance of sending the draft to their tutors in advance because it reduces the amount of time either party wastes on either waiting for the draft to be read or reading it for the first time. I remember in my freshman year I went to the writing center and forgot to send the consultant my draft the night before. When I came into the session the tutor took about twenty-five minutes to read my draft, and I feel like he did not give me as much advice as he could have given me had he read the draft the night before.

Shadowing session 11/12/2010.

Today's session was a bit quiet. My consultant was supposed to have two people come in today but one of the appointments had been made all the way back in September. Not surprisingly, the girl who made the appointment did not show up. Also, the student who was supposed to show up at 11:00 AM also did not show up. It seems to me that sometimes people make appointments at the writing center anticipating that they will need help on a future paper. However, this does not seem to be a very effective way of setting up an appointment because not only do you waste the consultants time but you also force yourself to receive help on a paper that you may not have needed any help on. In any case, it is always encouraged to come in for help even though the paper might be flawless, as a second opinion on the writing can never hurt.

Dr. Grove's visit.

Our class on Wednesday was a bit different from our regular classes. Dr. Grove immediately began the class speaking Turkish and I could tell that everyone, including me, was a bit startled by it. She went on for about 10 minutes trying to teach us basic Turkish and eventually switched to English. I thought it was an interesting way to show how people are uncomfortable in settings where a different language is spoken and they do not understand what is going on around them.

Dr. Grove explained to us the different kinds of international students on campus and the differing levels of English proficiency that they have. She also mentioned the correlation between TOEFL scores (or lack thereof) and how well students speak English, saying that although most students have very high TOEFL scores they do not speak or write English as well as they should based on these scores. It was interesting to hear her talk about what techniques we should use as writing consultants to help ESL students with their writing. Perhaps what struck me most is that she said we basically have to act as teachers and mentors rather than simply consultants. I do agree with the notion that we actually have to teach these students some basic grammar ideas and concepts, otherwise we cannot effectively do our job and help ESL students become better writers.

Shadowing 11/05/2010.

For this shadowing session the consultant I work with had two guys come in with an assignment for a business course. It just so happened that I had the same class as them and knew what the assignment was all about. I was able to help my consultant quite a bit because of this because I was able to explain to him the background behind the assignment and also what the teacher was looking. The two guys from my class were basically looking for a group reflection paper to be edited and so my consultant was a bit confused because he was not used to editing papers from business classes. Overall I think me and the consultant did a pretty good job of editing the paper and explaining to the writers what changes needed to be implemented. It was kind of strange that the paper was a group effort but only two of the six group members had actually shown up for the appointment...

Plan for Boys & Girls Club.

My plan for today is to go with the flow. I don't think a rigid outline is necessary as we are probably going to be dealing with lots of different questions and issues that we cannot anticipate and prepare for. I plan to help students primarily with technical aspects of the project (I've done this project twice already and know the fastest ways to insert audio and visuals into the project). I also will focus on making sure they understand how a story needs to be told in order to have the specific elements that are needed to make a good digital story. I am sure that because I've done this so often I will be able to help them with whatever questions or concerns they have. I might also make sure that there stories can adapt well to scripts that will be read out loud in order to create a story that has a clear beginning and end.