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.