About+Writing

=About Writing=

//This page synthesizes research from the literature on Writing Centers re: working with non-native speakers of English, however, the principles and strategies it outlines are also likely to provide high school teachers with significant insight re: ways to improve their ability to help such students experience success in academic settings.//

//". . . students who arrive at the center already aware, sometimes painfully so, that their meanings are contested and that their words are populated with competing, contradictory voices . . . Even alone, these students write with and against a cacophony of voices, collaborating not with another person but with the Otherness of their words////."// Welch, Nancy. (1993, Fall). From silence to noise: The writing center as critical exile. //The Writing Center Journal, 14//(1), 3-15.


 * CONTEXT**


 * The number of non-native speakers of English (NNS) is increasing, but few Writing Centers offer special courses for these students or training that equips staff to work more effectively with them.**

Ø An increasing number of NNS comprise the clientele of the Writing Centers surveyed (as many as 70% of the clients in close to 1/3 of the Writing Centers surveyed), yet only 8 of 75 centers had staff with formal training in working with NNS writers, and 28% of the centers offered no training of any kind (formal or informal) (Powers & Nelson, p. 121)

Ø Writing consultants need to understand more about the role English plays in the world today, more about academic audiences for writing, and more about writing pedagogy and techniques in order to provide effective assistance to clients who are non-native speakers of English (Thonus, 1993, p. 14).

Ø High staff turnover makes the need for training continual (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 128)

Ø Although many non-native speakers of English have passed TOEFL tests, few have ever received any explicit instruction in writing, and most are not equipped with the skills required to produce effective academic writing (Thonus, 1993, pp. 13-15)

Ø Few Writing Centers (only 13% of 75 graduate institutions in the U.S.) provide writing courses specifically for non-native speakers of English (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 119)

Ø Writing Centers have three levels of developmental readiness for reform: an awareness of the need to adapt to non-native speakers of English, the development of effective teaching strategies, and the dissemination of those strategies (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 129)

Ø Writing Centers should begin to transform the perception that writing centers are "sentence scrubbers" for non-native speakers of English (Thonus, 1993, p. 13)

Ø Overall help could include greater emphasis and understanding of Writing Center purpose, research writing, and writing process; more knowledge of ESL writing; and more interdisciplinary staff and training. (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. ?)

Ø Learning to consult is a hands-on, experiential endeavor (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 130)


 * Cultural perspectives strongly influence the writing approaches, behaviors, processes, and strategies of non-native speakers of English.**

Ø Educated speakers of other languages bring the patterns and rhetoric of their 1st language to American academic writing (Powers, p. 41)

Ø Non-native speakers of English also bring the perspectives of their various cultures to their writing, such as the idea that only gifted individuals can write well, that leading a reader explicitly from one idea to the next is an insult, or that arguments should be clearly delineated (Thonus, 1993, p. 21).

Ø Non-native speakers of English may exhibit patterns of behavior that are grounded in differences in cultural perspectives, but may appear similar to students who are native speakers of English that we would label as lazy, teacher-dependent, or timid. The differing roots of these problems require that we use different consulting approaches to address them (Powers, p. 44)

Ø Contrastive rhetoric is one way to improve understanding of the different cultural perspectives that undergird writing (Thonus, 1993, p. 19).


 * Approaches and strategies that are typically successful in supporting native speakers (NS) of English may not meet the needs of non-native speakers of English.**

Ø Writing Centers tend to be Socratic and non-directive in their approach to consulting (Powers, p. 42). This emphasis is the result of a number of trends including: attempts to avoid plagiarism, a commitment to focusing on the writer instead of the writing, a belief in discovery learning, and the wish to avoid the "appropriation" of a client's texts (Clark, 2001, p. 33-34).

Ø Collaborative techniques depend on shared background and assumptions, so they often fail or work differently with non-native speakers of English (Powers, pp. 40-41)

Ø Intuiting and solving problems that surface in the writing of native speakers of English is often easy b/c they are often grounded in predictable experiences with writing and writing instruction. This is not true for NNS, many of whom have had no explicit instruction in writing (Powers, p. 41; Thonus, 1993, p. 13-15)

Ø Non-native writers of English are less likely to understand and be able to convey the expectations of their advisors/disciplines to Writing Center Staff (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 120)

Ø Learning to consult is a hands-on, experiential endeavor (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 130)


 * PERSPECTIVES & PRINCIPLES**

Ø English is quickly becoming an “international language,” and this is causing a number of different “Englishes” to emerge (Thonus, 1993)

Ø Both non-native speakers of English and native speakers of English are likely to be outsiders when it comes to the academic discourse communities in which they are learning to participate (Thonus, 1993, p. 22).

Ø Instructors cannot agree on expectations for the work of non-native speakers of English (Thonus, 1993, p. 15).

Ø Consulting benefits non-native speakers of English by providing individualized, developmental help with specific writing issues, from cultural informants and liaisons (Powers & Nelson, 1995, p. 130)

Ø The opportunity to conference individually about content and writing process, and the individual attention that accompanies this, may be more important than any particular conferencing technique in helping writers to progress (Clark, 2001, p. 46).

Ø One-on-one conferencing may encourage consultants to engage in authentic listening and to acknowledge that although power differentials may exist, learning can be mutual (Clark, 2001, p. 46).

Ø Conferencing does not necessarily ensure the negotiation of meaning (Thonus, 1993, p. 20).

Ø Directiveness is multifaceted, falls on a continuum, and may include any behavior or technique that influences the direction of the conference (such as contributing ideas, correcting, or speaking) (Clark, 2001, p. 35).

Ø Consultants perceive their interactions with clients to be much less directive than the clients do, and poor writers view the consultant's contributions as being much more significant than average or good writers (Clark, 2001, pp. 44-45).

Ø Sentence and discourse level errors are generally perceived by professors as more serious than those at the local level (i.e., articles). While academic rank or amount of contact with non-native speaking writers of English does not seem to influence these perceptions, older professors and professors of physical science and mathematics tend to be less tolerant of errors than those from the social sciences, education, the humanities, and the biological sciences (Vann, et. al, 1984).

Ø Non-native speakers of English ask for sentence-level help at almost 2x the frequency of NS writers—consultants with clients who are working on highly technical, research-based writing tend to default to sentence-level concerns (Powers & Nelson, 1995, pp. 123-124; Thonus, 1993, pp. 15-16)

Ø Because clients may not have a well-developed “inner editor,” having them read aloud with the assumption that they can “edit by ear” may not be as effective as if the consultant reads aloud to the client (Powers, p. 43)


 * STRATEGIES**


 * FOCUS ON THE WRITER** (negotiation of meaning and the process approach) (Thonus, 1993, p. 16):

Ø **//Support the negotiation of meaning//** by asking the client questions that give them opportunities to verbalize their thinking and take responsibility for their writing (Powers, p. 45; Thonus, 1993, p. 20), and by building relationships with clients (Thonus, 1993, p. 21).

Ø **//Carefully scaffold even simple tasks//** like summarizing (Thonus, 1993, p. 22)


 * FOCUS ON THE READER** (English for academic purposes and discourse communities) (Thonus, 1993, p. 16)

Ø **//Read aloud//** for the client, drawing the client’s attention to errors by the use of emphasis, repetition, and tone of voice (Powers, p. 43)

Ø **//Emphasize audience//** [i.e., the expectation that writers will use scholarly sources "as background and support" for their own original ideas (Thonus, 1993, p. 21), and the ways in which decisions about the writing will affect readers (Powers, p. 45)]

Ø **//Introduce genre and stylistic conventions and//** **//sketch structures//** to provide clients with a toolbox filled with the schema they need to produce academic writing (Powers, p. 45-46; Thonus, 1993, p. 21)


 * FOCUS ON FORM** (controlled composition and contrastive rhetoric) (Thonus, 1993, p. 16)

Ø **//Address discourse and sentence level errors before giving attention to more local errors like articles//** (Vann, 1984)

Ø **//Teach generic transitional phrases//** (Thonus, 1993, p. 22)

Ø **//Provide vocabulary options//** (making lists of synonyms and helping the client to compare and contrast their meanings builds schema for the client) (Powers, p. 45)


 * BIBLIOGRAPHY**

Clark, Irene. (2001). Perspectives on the directive/non-directive continuum in the writing center. //The Writing Center Journal// 21:fall/winter: 33-58. http://136.165.114.52/wcj22.1/22.1_Clark.pdf

Powers, Judith. (1993, Spring). [|Rethinking writing center conferencing strategies for the ESL writer]. //The Writing Center Journal, (13)//2, 39-48. In Robert Barnett and Jacob Blumner (Eds.) //The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice//. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 368-375.

Powers, Judith, & Jane Nelson. (1995). [|L2 writers and the writing center: A national survey of writing center conferencing at graduate institutions]. //Journal of// //Second Language Writing, (4),// 113-31.

Thonus, Terese. 1993. Tutors as Teachers: Assisting ESL/EFL Students in the Writing Center. //Writing// //Center// //Journal// 13: 13-26. http://136.165.114.52/wcj13.2/WCJ13.2_Thonus.pdf Also available: http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/asc/writingcenter/tutors/assets/WCJ13.2_Thonus.pdf

Vann, Robert J., Daisy E. Meyer, & Frederick O. Lorenz. 1984. Error Gravity: A Study of Faculty Opinion of ESL Errors. //TESOL Quarterly// 18: 427-40. http://www.jstor.org/view/00398322/ap060071/06a00050/0

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