This week reading is all about ESL writers: their characteristics, difficulties in language learning, and stuffs like that. There are some points that I find particularly interesting.

Ilona Leki said, in Before the Conversation: A Sketch of Some Possible Backgrounds, Experiences, and Attitudes Among ESL Students Visiting a Writing Center, writing tutors at the center might feel “less confident of their own ability to respond to the writing of L2 students than they feel in their dealings with domestic students, whose strongest language is English and with whom they likely share more of their cultural, education, linguistic, and literacy background” (1). Well, I feel the opposite given to the fact that English is not my native language. At the writing center, I feel reluctant to help when an American brings in his/her paper. I know it is not good to appear unconfident or not-so-confident in front of your client, but I can’t help. For me, I can understand ESL text better than NES one. Generally, NES text has lots of idiomatic expressions. From what I have read so far, I think ESL writers follow some types of grammar rules, though they may have used them incorrectly. In contrast, I feel that American students, at least some freshman, construct sentences based on their intuition or how they would say it orally. They use many informal words, some of which are sometimes considered non-academic in my country. After all, my assumption is based on several examinations of ESL and NES texts only.

So far, I have only worked with 4 students, 3 of which were American. My first client was an American freshman. Her paper was an argumentative essay. I had to read it twice before I could finally grasp what she was writing about. It was rather confusing at first as I was not sure on how to start. But thing finally went okay as we worked through the paper. I suggested some points to make her argument stronger. My second client was a part-time middle-aged student. Her paper was very organized so I found it pretty easy to comprehend what she was trying to convey in her paper. I helped her with the punctuation. My approach was all against the minimalist tutoring. I just pointed out where I thought there was an error; however, the good thing was that the client would not just agree with me. There were some points that we disagreed with each other. I would try to reason my idea and so did she. Sometimes, we didn’t reach an agreement so she just left marks with that items for further discussion with her professor. I enjoyed talking with her but I did not know if she felt the same way.

Interestingly, I got chance to work with a student from Mexico today. In fact, she was my closed friend, thus the atmosphere was less professional. With this student, I got lots of chance to experiment those theories we discussed in class. When working on mechanical problems, I think the non-directive approach probably wouldn’t work with ESL students because it is difficult for them to find their own mistakes. As Theresa Jinling Tseng said international students do not possess “native English speakers intuition about what sounds right”. “They need corrections that are pointed out explicitly for the problems that they cannot fall back on their own intuitions to fix” (23). On the other hand, I used lots of non-directive strategies when it came to the development of ideas and organization of her paper. I made her explain what message she was trying to convey. Then we would read her written work together. Upon spotting something not clear enough, I would make her explain me more about her ideas. Then I just let her work on elaborating those parts herself, with some occasional interventions from me. After the session, she said that she liked working with me better because with the tutor she previously got help from just helped her “fix the mechanical problems” while I helped more with the development and organization of her ideas. Hopefully, I am on the right path.

Work Cited:
Leki, Ilona. "Before the Conversation: A Sketch of Some Possible Backgrounds, Experiences, and Attitudes Among ESL Students Visiting a Writing Center." ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. 2nd ed. Eds. Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth. Boynton/Cook: Portsmouth, NH, 2009. 1-17.

Tseng, Theresa Jiinling. “Theoretical Perspecitves on Learning a Second Language”. ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors. 2nd ed. Eds. Shanti Bruce and Ben Rafoth. Boynton/Cook: Portsmouth, NH, 2009. 18-32