Monica Charris
ENG 5070
Dr. Sally Chandler
The ESL Student and the Writing Center
The ability to write a well- developed professional essay in college is a technique that requires practice and an openness to change. These professional essays rely on the professor’s expectations but can be defined as expository writings that include scholarly data or research justifying a hypothetical opinion of the student. The culture of writing at Kean University validates the grade given to the student. For this reason, an APA format of writing with academic vocabulary and a logical organization is required in many of these essays (Kean University ESL Program Scoring Guide 2006). While in college, many students attend Writing Centers to aid in the refining of writing skills in order to fulfill the expectations of their professors and college philosophies. In these writing centers, students of diverse backgrounds and academic abilities have found the necessary assistance needed to create acceptable college essays. ESL students may require more help in the Writing Center then traditional English writers. This has required writing centers to change their methods of instruction drastically throughout the years. ESL students have benefited from this change because strategies have been modified to better service their needs.
The demographics of ESL students at Kean University has grown in number since the Fall of 2006. In the Fall of 2006, the Hispanics population of students was10.8% and has steadily increased to 11.8% up to the Fall of 2009 (Student Profiles). The increase in the Hispanic numbers has led to a change in how typical students write. ESL students demonstrate different needs than a typical native English speaker. This is dependent on the prior experience the student has had learning English and the academic level of education.
Many ESL students have acknowledged that seeking help of a Writing Center is important to refining their writing college techniques (Bruce & Rafoth 2009). All ESL students do not write the same. Some students have issues of codeswitching the home language with the target language. Other ESL students may have issues that start from incorrect sentence structures to having no idea how an English essay should be organized. More and more Hispanics students have requested assistance in Writing Center to help with these issues. In order to better help ESL students, a tutor should observe and decide what kind of writer the learner is. There are 3 characteristics of an ESL student, a United States ESL High School graduate, an International/ Visa college professional and International Graduate student.
The first characteristic group is an undergraduate ESL student whose home language is not English but has attended ESL classes in a US high school. These individuals have issues that involve grammar (Bruce & Rafoth 2009). These students may be proficient in speaking and listening in the target language of English but have not applied proper English grammar and vocabulary usage in their writing. Their writing skills demonstrate a merging of both Spanish and English writing aptitudes (Bruce & Rafoth 2009). Writing tutors can service these students through the use of the Rhetorical Approach which walks the learner through each step of the writing process ( Brisk & Harrington 2007) This type of scaffolding support, ensures that the process of writing is understood by the writer. Simply correcting the ESL student’s essay may seem an easier route to take but facilitating in organizing proper English grammar foundations and focusing on self correcting strategies will give the learner a wealth of power in their writing. The next subgroup is the International/Visa college student who has attended college in another country that is not the US.
International /Visa students are individuals that do not intend to stay in the United States and have chosen to complete their college degree here. These students have a good work ethic, are very proud of their home language and have the flexibility of operating their home language with the target language (Bruce & Rafoth 2009). These professionals are academically successful and have acquired the basic rules of writing in their home language. These students have less grammar concerns but demonstrate a difficulty in developing ideas and concepts in the English language. These students have cultivated an “ear” for grammar but still may lack the instinctive correctness that many native English writer have (Writing Matters #6 2010). To aid these students, writing center tutors can concentrate on the content of the essay and move towards grammar correctness within the frame work of the writing. This method of coaching will promote learning and independence in the ESL student’s writing style. The last groups of ESL students are professionals that have completed an undergraduate degree in their home country and are pursuing a graduate level of study.
International Graduate Students are less likely to attend Writing Centers. They seek the direct assistance of advisors, professors and academically equivalent peers. They are very concern with the structure and formatting of their essays. They write and rewrite in order to achieve a sense of perfection (Bruce & Rafoth 2009). When these students do come to a Writing Center, they basically know exactly what they need help in. The most effective way the Writing Center can service these students is by using their strengths and academic excellence in self correcting their essays. In this way, Kean ESL students can experience a positive understanding of the writing process in the Writing Center.
When I started my studies in 2000, the Writing Lab was a place where students were forced to go if they had difficulty in writing. A great amount of these students in the writing lab were ESL students. The student would hand the tutor their essay, the tutor would red pen the paper with correct grammar structures and send the student off on their way. I belonged to the first sub group of ESL students that attended a US high school but lacked the proper English grammar and vocabulary abilities to compose a college level paper. I had many ideas but had difficulty translating it into the English language. This therapist style of teaching writing did not help in my writing abilities. On the contrary, it made my writing reliant on what the tutors at the writing center deemed as correct. I lacked self esteem in my own writing capability. After several poor grades and lack of creativity, I learned to rely more on outside tutors and work collogues to improve my writing skills. Kean’s Writing Center has changed since I was forced to attend.
The Kean University Writing Center has a more proactive approach to teaching. Tutoring sessions are no longer teacher directed but instead student centered. Tutors do not take ownership of the writer’s essay. They facilitate in self correcting and support writers in understanding the writing process (McAndrew & Reigstad 2001). All students and especially ESL students have benefited from this method of teaching.
Bibliography
1. Brisk & Harrington (2007). Literacy and Bilingualism A Handbook for All Teachers.Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. London. Pgs.66-68
2. Bruce & Raforth (2009). ESL Writiers A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. Boynton/Cook. Portsmouth, NH. Pgs 4-10
3. McAndrew & Reigstad (2001). Tutoring writing A practical Guide for Conferences. Boynton/Cook. Portsmouth, NH. Pgs.11-14
4. Kean University ESL Program Scoring Guide. (web).Writing @ Kean. Retrieved September 29, 2010, from www.kean.edu 07/25/2006.
5. Student profile. (web).Office of Institutional Research, Kean University. Retrieved September 27, 2010, from http://ir.kean.edu/irhome 2010.
6. Writing Matter #6. (web). Manoa Writing Program. Retrieved October 4, 2010, from www.mwp.hawaii.edu/resourses/wm6.htm 2010.
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