As far as cultural preferences go, I suppose I would just prefer to work with someone who is tolerant. I intend to inform my ESL students of the expectations that professors have here and what would most likely please them. However, I want to avoid robbing students of their creativity by making them fit perfectly into the American writing category. They are not just Americans; they have other backgrounds and another culture. This culture cannot be ignored in their life; it will cause them to feel like part of their self is being restricted. Therefore, I feel like I should not restrict their writing from showing their cultural heritage. I would like my ESL students to also be tolerant of my suggestions and be interested in learning about American culture. If they can at least consider my suggestions and try to understand that I only mean to benefit them, we'll get along just fine.
So, here's a confession of a big mistake I made: I had an ESL student who had written a paper, and it was obvious that he had uses outside sources, and even told me so. However, I did not find a works cited page or any in-text citations. I barely mentioned this issue. I thought maybe he was going to work on it later. I simply said, as we were wrapping up the session, "It looks good! Just look at those issues we talked about and work on your works cited and you should be finished." I know I always save my works cited for last. However, I heard one of the ESL students mention in the video we watched in class that they did not have to worry about citations. Here, they are very, very important! After I heard this, I could have died! I wonder if he even knew that he needed to include citations! I will not be making that mistake again though.
I think the hardest thing I struggle with in ESL papers is the different structure. I am a slave to the standard structure of our papers, and straying from it just about drives me crazy. I find that ESL essays often have a quite different structure. Before we watched that video in class, I would often suggest outlining to help the student restructure the paper. I had one student who had some adversary to this, which I always try to welcome. I gave him my suggestions, but I told him in the end it is his call on whether or not he wanted to make the changes. He thanked me, but informed me this is how he wanted his paper to be structured. I understand his decision better after seeing that video.
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way to fail stephanie you ruined him forever! i'm just kidding, hopefully he realizes that he needs a works cited paper. maybe there will be a peer review in class or something.
ReplyDeletei feel like such an outcast in the writing center because i never seem to get the same clients that everyone else talks about. You mentioned that you've had some experience with the ESL students not wanting to conform to your suggested "american" structure of writing. in my experience the ESL students are much more open to accepting my suggestions that my NES students. Perhaps it is our stubborn western civilization minds. However, i think you handled that particular situtation very well. you did your job. you informed him of the typical structure of an essay and he chose not to take your advice. What he does after he leaves is not the tutor's responsiblity. although i sometimes wonder why some people even come to the writing center because they seem to neglect many of the ideas given to them.
From the way you answered your first question, I think I may have answered it wrong! I thought we were supposed to answer what kind of cultural material we like to read, but that's not the case. Let me say in that case that I really like working with the Asian students. They are very patient and sweet and interested in learning.
ReplyDeleteAs we discussed in class, I don't think the plagiarism issue is one to freak out about. One note I do want to make, though, is to be careful about telling a client, "This looks good!" We have to remember that we aren't there to evaluate the essay. We can compliment the writer on specific things - "I think your thesis statement is much clearer now" - but blanket praise like, "That's a really good essay," is likely to be interpreted by the client as, "And now I'm going to get an A!" when that really isn't what we mean.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad about having cultural preferences for writing. We all do, and we tend not to realize they are culturally constructed until we interrogate them. Now that you know this about yourself and other cultures' writing styles, you can be more culturally sensitive. That will help you both in the sessions where clients are adversarial about your suggestions and the sessions Erin describes where the ESL client is totally open to anything you suggest - because in either case, you have to be careful not to appropriate too much of the client's paper.