II. Best Classroom Practices for Working with ESL/Multicultural Writers

Allow ESL students time

Composing in a non-native language is very demanding. Students might need help analyzing an assignment, or unpacking the cultural context that native English speakers have readily at hand. Moreover, ESL students might need to read material before writing, which for some is a very slow and laborious process. If possible, provide students with an assignment early enough that they have time to draft and revise. ESL students need time.

Provide "Live" Feedback for Revision

A responder's comments are less likely to be ignored, and the responder's time more fruitful, if the comments facilitate revision rather than exist in defense of a final grade. If comments are provided on drafts allowing students to revise, rather than provided on a dead text with a final grade, then the process is more likely to make better writers. (See Addendum for "Revision and Peer Response Strategies for Writing Intensive Course" for suggestion on integrating the revision process into curriculum.)

Avoid marking all errors

While both faculty and students might believe that their job is complete only if all errors are marked, more is to be gained from limited and selective marking. Some ESL students insist that all errors are marked on all writing, and well-meaning faculty mark all errors to help students improve, but research shows that marking all errors does not improve student performance in subsequent writing tasks.

One error might be repeated several times in one essay, and by marking each manifestation of one error, the teacher not only does the work for students, but also can frustrate students with a wall of marks that makes it appear that there are more kinds of errors, when there might be only a few. Since ESL students make large numbers of sentence-level errors and may need special guidance with unfamiliar rhetorical patterns, commentary can easily become overwhelming. Also, it is more effective to mark a rule-driven error pattern once, model one correction, and ask the student to find similar errors.

Leki recommends that readers attend to what are stigmatizing errors first: "Stigmatizing errors are good candidates [for attention], since these are often the same ones made by native speakers and have traditionally been associated with lack of education: formal conventions of appearance (setting appropriate margins, for example), subject-verb agreements, the occasional misuse of forms that native speakers also misuse (theirselves for themselves), or sentence boundary errors. If these types of errors cause irritation or stigmatize students, they should probably not be left to fade out of a student's interlanguage at their own speed" (130).

Give Feedback to Content First

Students need to believe that their readers are as interested in what they have to say as much as or more than they are concerned with sentence-level correctness. It is therefore effective to first give feedback on content. This is not to say that a responder must ignore errors, but rather that there should be clear cues that the reader is engaging with the writer's ideas. After responding to content, a responder can address the most salient errors, but it is best to make limited and prioritized comments on errors.

Make Global and Local Distinctions

It is more effective to address the errors that affect meaning, and to distinguish between "local" and "global" errors. Local errors are those which disturb only a small portion of a text-a missing article, for example, or an incorrect preposition. A global error has a greater effect on understanding and might be, for that reason, considered more "serious" or more appropriate for correction. Global errors may involve incorrect lexical choices but they usually disturb syntax.

Example:

English language use much people.
There are two local errors (the English language and many people) and one global error, the order of the words.

If both the local errors are corrected (The English language use many people), the sentence is still difficult to understand; if just the global error is corrected (Much people use English language), the sentence is more acceptable. It seems reasonable that if only some errors are to be corrected, they should be the ones that create the greatest potential for misunderstanding. (Example from Burt and Kiparsky in Leki)

Use Peer Responding

Peer groups, when guided and managed, can be very effective for helping writers learn to be critical of their own work. With helpful guidance, such as Peer Response Guides and Rubrics, ESL students can learn to provide helpful responses to others' writing, and to critique their own. (See "Revision and Peer Response Strategies for Writing Intensive Courses.")

Not Bad But Different

Make comments that reflect awareness of different rhetorical traditions. Students will be more receptive to comments if it is clear that their writing is judged as not "bad," but rather "different."

Provide Written Assignments and Instructions

ESL students need hard copy of assignments because ability can vary in listening skills. Students can spend so much cognitive effort trying to understand the assignment if given verbally, that what gets written can be inaccurate and incomplete.

Complement Written Feedback with Conferences When Possible

Oral conferences can be very effective to complement written feedback on ESL students' writing, but professors need to be aware that non-native students might say, out of politeness, that they understand what their professors are saying. Also, some ESL students are unaccustomed to the availability of professors for conferences, and are not familiar with the give-and-take of dialogue expected in a conference, as they are accustomed to more formal and distant educators. Professors may need to explain the purpose of office hours.

Be aware of political differences

It is easy to assume others' understanding of the belief and value systems that drive our choices. However, it is important and effective to make cultural contexts explicit, and to not assume non-native students understand the cultural and political contexts that native speakers more readily understand.

Make Assignment Expectations and Assumptions Explicit

ESL students find it helpful if professors do more than provide rules and conventions. It is helpful to explain the assumptions behind the conventions, in the context of an awareness of different rhetorics and conventions that may drive students' writing choices.
Providing and explaining models of specific kinds of writing can be very effective.

Consider Reader Expectations

As much as faculty and ESL students desire and work toward error-free writing, this is an unrealistic expectation. ESL students can become very fluent writers in English, but they may never become indistinguishable from a native speaker. Some researchers encourage faculty to evaluate their expectations of what ESL students can realistically accomplish. Many who research and teach in the ESL field are asking for readers to have reasonable expectations of ESL proficiency, suggesting that it is the readers who need to learn to read differently.