ESL Students In Mainstream Classes

Similarities between ESL Students and Native Speakers

Teachers who have taught only native speakers (NS) of English are sometimes uncertain of the best way to work with the English as a Second Language (ESL) students who come into their classes. While training in teaching ESL can offer much to help these students, teachers without this specialized training can also find much in their own backgrounds that will be useful, especially if they have composition experience or training. Most students who are placed into classes with native speakers should be reading and writing English at a reasonably advanced level, so teaching these ESL students will be similar in many ways to teaching native speakers. A mixed class of ESL and NS students will benefit from explicit and detailed instruction in different aspects of writing, using exercises designed not to drill for rote practice, but to elicit student understanding of the principles that have been explained. Academic writing is a new language for many students, native speakers as well as ESL. Here are some points of similarity between the two groups:

Placement:: Like native speakers, ESL students will have varying degrees of proficiency in reading and writing, and will not benefit from a reading and writing course if they are not placed correctly. Both NS and ESL students who are frustrated by reading and writing assignments that are too difficult may appear to be uncooperative, or may try to use inappropriate assistance.
Academic writing:: Both NS and ESL students may have little or no experience with the kind of academic writing required in college courses, especially if they were not educated in college preparatory program in the United States.
Vocabulary:: The development of a more academic vocabulary is also necessary for both ESL and NS students, and one of the best ways to accomplish this is through reading. Both kinds of students should be encouraged to read widely: newspapers, novels, and magazines are a few sources in print; online reading can help encourage speed and develop vocabulary, so suggesting links to interesting sites of any kind can help your students in their vocabulary development. Additionally, teachers may want to require that students keep a journal of their outside readings. A vocabulary notebook or journal section is good; class lists online can be interesting, too.
Revision:: The revision process is one of the keys to improvement in writing for both groups of students. ESL students, like native speakers, need to be encouraged not to spend too much energy in premature editing tasks. Sometimes a list of tasks in order or a flow chart can be useful, or you may want to explain why early editing may not be the most efficient use of time. Instead, provide some suggestions for more global revision tasks, such as organization and development, or attention to audience.
Conferencing:: Both ESL and NS students who are learning a new way of writing, especially academic English, can benefit from one-on-one conferences with the instructor. The conferences need not be lengthy; two-to-five minute mini-conferences on specific points (thesis sentences, development of paragraphs, editing issues) can allow time for each student to interact with the instructor in a class period, and can give the other students time to respond to the suggestions or plan their questions, or to work in groups or pairs.
Editing:: ESL and native speaker students will have many editing problems in common. Sentence boundary problems (fragments, comma splices, run-on sentences) and word ending problems (plurals and possessives, verb tense, etc.) are very common for both groups at this level of writing. Handbooks, online help, and writing centers are sources of assistance; you will probably have to spend some time in conferences, but accumulating a file of explanations and exercises will shorten this time in the long run.
Avoiding plagiarism:: The appropriate use and citation of other writers’ work is often unfamiliar to NS and ESL students who have not been taught in college preparatory English classes. In addition to explaining the details of HOW to document, you should probably devote a few minutes to explaining WHY documentation is essential (a good handout or textbook or online reference can save time here, too).

Differences between ESL and Native Speaker Students

Much as ESL students may have in common with native speakers, they also have some significant differences. Cultural attitudes, different rhetorical models, and special sentence level problems continue to affect ESL writing even at higher levels.

Variety:: ESL students attend college for a variety of reasons; many plan to live in the United States, but many also plan to return to their own countries. Some areas may attract immigrants from one area of the world, while others may have international students from many different backgrounds; some students may come to regular English classes after completing an intensive English program; others may have moved to your area at a young age and attended high school in the United States. Students who have lived here for many years may speak very well and seem to fit in culturally, but may have problems in reading and writing very similar to those of native speaker students. Students who received most of their schooling in other countries may be accustomed to a very formal and demanding academic system, but even students who learned English in other countries may have been taught by teachers from the United States and may have learned a good bit about the academic culture of schools and colleges in this country. This range of diversity means that the teacher cannot make very many general assumptions about the characteristics of ESL students. You should try to get to know the ESL students as quickly as possible so that you can find the best way to work with each.
"Generation 1.5" or INTERNATIONAL?:: Students who have come here at college age are often called international students, distinguished from students who have come here at middle school age or earlier. Students who have come to the US at an early age are often called "Generation 1.5" students, because they are not native speakers (second generation of immigrants often are) but have been here long enough to have acquired some oral fluency and some cultural attitudes. You may find that Gen 1.5 students prefer to work in groups with native speakers, may speak more fluently than they write, and may need more encouragement to complete assignments. The Learning Center is an important resource for both groups, but international students may seek it out on their own while Gen 1.5 students may go only if require. But no generalizations are completely accurate--suit your guidance to the individual.
Attitudes toward school:: In many cultures, the teacher is regarded as an authority figure who must be shown the utmost respect and must never be bothered. This means that some international students will not realize that they should ask you for assistance if they are having difficulty. You may need to offer assistance, or even invite some students to your office hours if you can see that they have problems. In class, be willing to repeat difficult points and to give out assignments in writing whenever possible. Make students feel welcome in class. Students may be afraid that they will not be understood if they ask questions in class, or may be embarrassed to speak in front of a group. Be extremely careful not to embarrass them, and help the rest of the class learn that they can learn to listen more carefully. Model good interactions with ESL speakers for your native speakers--this may be one of the most important things you can teach.
Attitudes toward writing:: The purpose and the act of writing may vary widely from culture to culture, as may the idea of what constitutes good writing. While American academics may believe that good writing consists of the writer’s original thought, supported by reference to other clearly-identified writers, other cultures may expect writing to consist of reiteration of material from traditional scholarship, while yet others may be grounded primarily in oral traditions and may not see any well-defined purpose for writing. The direct statement of the thesis is one of the central lessons of many pre-academic composition courses in the United States, but in the writing traditions of many cultures, such a statement might be considered an insult to the reader’s intelligence, while indirectness may be prized. For this reason, the rhetorical sections of The User’s Guide offer clear explanations of why each part of the essay is considered important in academic writing in this culture, as well as offering a number of models in Chap. 25 to illustrate the principles and help the student form a mental schema of the writing valued in this culture.
Written versus oral language:: Students’ ability to read and write may be very different from their ability to speak and listen. A student who has been in this country since childhood or early teens may be able to converse fluently, but may never have developed accuracy in writing. Another student who learned English as a foreign language while living in another country may be able to comprehend and compose accurately, but may have difficulty with the spoken language. It’s important to evaluate the student’s ability in each medium, and not to assume that ability in one mode entails ability in the other.
Time:: Probably the greatest difference between the ESL writer and the native speaker is the amount of time required. Be ready to give ESL students extra time to complete assignments out of class, but do require some evidence that they are making progress. Beware of stereotypes! While many, even most ESL students are very hardworking and conscientious, immature or overly dependent people exist in every culture. We do not help students by allowing them to avoid work. Give assistance, time, and referral to resources, but be sure that you know that students are continuing to do as much as they can on their own. Ask your students how much time they are spending on each assignment to give you an idea of how demanding each task is for ESL students. ESL students may take much longer to read an assignment. Usually this is not a problem for homework, but can definitely be a problem in class. If the material is very difficult, it would probably be better to assign most reading as homework, at least for the first reading. If you usually assign a number of long readings, you might want to get a sense of how much time this really takes for the ESL student.
Revision:: ESL students will benefit strongly from being allowed to revise. Even if you do not use a portfolio grading system, you should be willing to look at drafts. Do not rewrite the paper for the students, however. Read over the paper and set revision goals. If organization is a problem, for example, you might look at a model of a well-organized paper, show the student how to make an outline or plan for writing, and help him/her generate a sample thesis and outline. Then the student should try to make a plan independently.
Editing:: Give students as much responsibility as possible for editing their own papers. Try underlining or circling errors without explaining them and asking the student to try to correct them before you give the correction. If the student can't make the correction, show the correct form. Explain the form if you can, since ESL students often have good understanding of grammar, but realize that many of the problems your students have will result from idioms or exceptions to rules. Sometimes there really is no rule-based explanation; most students understand that language is like that.
Focus on selected features:: Too much detailed input on every possible error will simply confuse your students. Tell your ESL students that you will focus first on the greatest problems and go on to others later, because these may be problems that interfere with a reader’s understanding of the writing or they may be so pervasive that they distract the reader.
Group work:: Both native speakers and ESL students may feel hesitant about working in groups with each other, and yet this is an excellent opportunity for both to learn about each other and acquire better listening and speaking skills. Suggest that they listen carefully and be willing to repeat statements more slowly. Keep an eye on the group, and end the group work if it is clear that the students cannot communicate. Clear instructions for structured responses probably work better than free-floating discussion groups. The section on working with groups in Chap. 12 may be helpful for students who are not used to group work.
Peer editing:: Working in pairs with native speakers may work well, since often the ESL student may be familiar with the rules and the native speaker with the idiomatic usage. Again, clear instructions (look for fragments, check documentation form, etc.) give the students guidance on what should be discussed. See suggestions on communication above. Chap. 12 also helps students with some basic principles of peer editing.
Writing Center:: If there are ESL tutors in the Writing Center, ESL students will benefit from spending time working on papers in a one-to-one format. If you have students with many sentence-level problems, you may want to require them to work in the Writing Center.
Grades:: Students may seem very anxious about their grades, and teachers sometimes feel pressured by this concern. Try to focus as much as possible on formative responses in early drafts of papers but let students know clearly what your standards are for the final graded product, whether it is a single paper or a portfolio. Models of acceptable responses to different assignments also help students evaluate their own progress.
ESL logs:: ESL students may also benefit from a log used to record new vocabulary, collocations, and idioms. In this log, new vocabulary items (either words not encountered before, like attenuate, or familiar words used in a new way, like satellite used to mean auxiliary) may be recorded along with their meanings, as may collocations (words commonly used together in a language—for example, tell a joke compared to say a prayer) and idioms (phrases whose meaning is not clear from the dictionary definition of the individual words, sometimes used metaphorically—for example, hold sway over, the whole enchilada, on a roll). Students who have taken ESL classes may already be familiar with such logs; others may need examples. Here is a sample sheet from a log, entering the examples given here:

Entry	Type of Entry	Part of Speech	Meaning	Used in Phrases
Attenuate	Vocabulary	Verb	weaken	Attenuate the power Attenuated voice
Satellite	Vocabulary	Noun or adjective	auxiliary or additional	Satellite program Satellite campus
Tell a joke	Collocation	Verb and object		Tell a joke Laugh at a joke Tell a story Tell the truth
Say a prayer	Collocation	Verb and object		Say hello Say what you mean Say it this way
Hold sway over	Idiom	Verb + prep	control, dominate	He held sway over the company They hold sway over the party

Using the log:: The log is useful as a reference for reading, but can also be used as a resource for writers. Ask students to experiment with using the items from the log in their own compositions, and look over the logs sometimes for suggestions to make. An online class log is an interesting project to develop, also.