David Kime [#3], On tutoring multilingual writers

When reading Chapter 4 in the Bedford Guide, I didn't feel like their suggestions or ideas differed between tutoring non-native English speakers and native English speakers. In fact, when working with ESL students, I would think that you would not necessarily aim to tutor them differently. As the chapter suggests, a greater deal of patience may be required, and some tools may need further explanation of some sort. What's desired is, as the chapter quotes of Phyillis Brooks, 

"There is a tradition of foreign languages and of English as a second language, a long tradition of the native informant: a sympathetic person who is literate and speaks well in his or her own language and can produce correct forms for students to imitate, or can suggest better forms for sentences than the student has tried, unsuccessfully, to produce." 

When I read this, I aligned it with the overall goal for the writing tutor -- sympathetic, literate, and can produce qualities to imitate -- regardless of who they are working with. 

That said, I do understand that many multilingual students may not have the same kind of confidence as a native English speaker when writing for English academia, or, rather, their lack of confidence may be in different areas. I can imagine that many of them feel like they struggle to express their ideas clearly, or communicate effectively with readers, or simply write "a well-organized, supported paper." I say this only from experience of having worked with multilingual students as an instructor and as an advisor. Many of those students, while concerned with many of the linguistic skills of the survey, seemed so only in as much as it affected their rhetorical abilities. Perfecting the language wasn't as pertinent as perfecting their voice and their communication. 

Comments

  1. Sean TylerSeptember 15, 2020 at 8:32 PM

    This really matches up with my experience of working with L2 writers. They often have really well organized papers and just need some small tweaks to help with sentence clarity and some empathetic support.

    ReplyDelete

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