When Would Be a Good Time to Chck Again

What this handout is almost

When you ask students writing in English as an boosted language what they would like to work on, they will often say that they'd like you to bank check their grammar. "Checking the grammar" tin experience uncomfortably shut to proofreading and editing students' papers for them—which writing coaches know is strictly out of bounds. Unfortunately, multilingual writers have been unfairly denied access to linguistic communication feedback because of the very strong prohibition against editing, simply the proficient news is that we tin yet exist very helpful without compromising our principles.

This page provides a bit of important historical context for the discussion and offers strategies for responding to the grammar-checking asking in ways that respect the pedagogical philosophies of the writing center and the instructional needs of students writing in a strange language. The list of strategies is followed by excerpts of coaching sessions, with annotations that illustrate how some of the strategies work in real conversations betwixt writing coaches and multilingual writers.

1984: The triple whammy for multilingual writers

In 1984, several of the most influential texts in writing eye history were published. You will probably recognize the kickoff two because the vocabulary and the philosophy are nevertheless driving forces in today's writing centers:

1. Reigstad & McAndrew: Division of the writing process into "higher order" and "lower social club" concerns, establishing a value-laden sequence of content and organisation before grammar and punctuation.
2. N: Staunch declaration that writing centers were not centers for mechanical remediation and error correction. "In a writing eye, the object is to make sure that writers, and not necessarily their texts, are what get changed by pedagogy…our chore is to produce ameliorate writers, non better writing" (p. 69).
3. Friedlander: Assertion that writing centers see the needs of strange students by focusing on mechanical remediation and error correction. The content of students' essays should be discussed only equally much as necessary for accurate error correction.

The writing procedure was divided, the writing center'southward territory was firmly staked, and the perceived needs of multilingual writers were placed squarely outside the parameters of the writing middle's mission, pedagogical philosophy, and standard procedure. No wonder we've struggled so much!

In fairness to the scholars above, they meant to emphasize that writers should concentrate on developing their ideas earlier they worried about comma splices, and to emphasize that truly expert writing involved the long-term development of a circuitous prepare of skills. These ideas are even so so powerfully present in writing centers today because they are then very true. Unfortunately, they had the unintended effect of marginalizing discussions of sentence structure, word choice, punctuation, and grammatical errors until very late in the writing process.

In truth, ideas can not be separated from the language used to limited them. Multilingual writers are advanced language learners who are working toward the command of a sophisticated range of vocabulary, judgement structures, subject field-specific expressions, idioms, etc. Multilingual writers are besides developing writers, so they exercise demand the same kind of procedure-oriented and "higher gild" feedback that monolingual writers demand. Quite often, though, their ability to develop the content of their essays is limited by a lack of vocabulary or past difficulty with circuitous judgement structures. As coaches, yous tin support the development of writing skills past talking about language at any betoken in the writing procedure where it might be helpful.

Information technology'southward good to discourage premature business concern with nit-picky editing decisions, simply information technology'southward great to encourage exploration of the correct linguistic communication for expressing a great idea. Be flexible and exist comfortable with the fluid, back and along movement between discussing the ideas and the language.

What do you exercise when students say, "Only check my grammar"?

1. Respond positively. ("Certain, we can take a look at the language stuff…"). Lectures about how we teach proofreading strategies or how we don't really do grammar in the writing center put students on the defensive when they have a legitimate need for feedback on their language use. Just say yes, and movement on to the next step.
2. Elicit other concerns. ("What else would y'all like to talk nearly today? Are you lot still working on the content?"). Students will often place quite a range of concerns with simple prompting at the commencement of the session, specially later they've been reassured that you'll help them identify problems with a linguistic communication they're still learning.
3. Ask for an overview. ("Tell me well-nigh what you're working on and where you are in the process."). Explaining their writing project (the assignment and the text so far) gives students the take chances to produce "comprehensible output"—a run a risk to use the English language language to limited their thoughts conspicuously and to make themselves understood. We know that language learners are able to understand a lot more than than they are able to spontaneously produce in a strange language, and information technology'due south really hard work to express complex thoughts sufficiently in a language that's not your own. By asking questions, by listening carefully, and by asking follow-upwards questions, you tin help students piece of work through the process of communicating conspicuously in English, and you tin can requite yourself a mental framework of the projection that will be helpful when language questions arise in specific parts of the text.
4. Read the entire draft. Yous may notice grammatical errors on the first or 2nd page, just keep reading. You'll get a sense of the educatee's complete argument, and you lot'll have fourth dimension to recognize more serious errors that may occur later in the paper.
5. Terminate just for extreme issues. Sometimes a sentence may be so malformed that the idea is completely obscured. Y'all tin can brand a annotation to come up back to that point later, but if you do determine to stop, ask a wide question and so listen carefully ("Can you tell me more nearly this thought?"). Try to be attuned especially to places where the student's linguistic communication utilize is truly interfering with your power to understand what they're trying to say. Clarifying these expressions takes priority over minor errors that don't really interfere with your understanding.
6. Recast the pupil's caption more grammatically. ("Allow me meet if I understand you lot correctly. You're proverb that…"). If you understood and explained correctly, the student can hear the thought expressed in grammatical English and tin can make note of it—they tin add together information technology to their English language repertoire. Even so, if your recasting (your paraphrased caption) doesn't match the pupil's intended meaning, or if you can reasonably offer two different interpretations of the text, you lot can examine the passage more closely to figure out why it was unclear. Then you can work together on correcting whatever is confusing virtually the student's original expressions. This back and along process is called "negotiation of significant" ("Is this what you mean?" "No, I mean this." "Oh, okay. We say it like this." "Oh, okay. Cheers.")
7. Provide "linguistic input"—language that students read and hear. This "input" might be bits of English language that are new to them (like a new word or idiomatic expression), or it might be familiar bits of English language beingness used in ways they've never heard before. Yous are not usurping control if you make linguistic communication suggestions that convey the student'due south ideas. If you've listened carefully enough that yous know what they're trying to express, assist them out.
8. Utilise resources. Fifty-fifty if you know the grammar, introduce students to language resources they tin can employ independently at other times.
9. Document the puzzles. If y'all see particularly interesting or confusing samples of language utilize, keep a copy to share with your colleagues and mentors. Information technology may serve as a useful training sample, so you're serving the community well.

What if students really mean, "But check my grammar"?

At that place does come a time writers are ready to concentrate strictly on their grammar. They're satisfied with everything else, and as writers, you know that'due south a happy place to exist. Unremarkably we teach proofreading strategies to native speakers at this stage. Nosotros can do this with multilingual writers as well, but we too have to adjust our strategies to accommodate their condition as language learners. These suggestions are meant to assist you with that adjustment.

In that location'due south a strong misconception that at that place will be "patterns of error"—sure types of errors that occur repeatedly in the text. Sometimes that does happen, but more frequently, there will simply be i or two instances of twenty five different kinds of error. That's okay. You can however exploit the educational value of an error, having confidence that students will try to use what they larn to their subsequent writing.

Two things to note: First, even though the strategies listed below concentrate more on directly proofreading and grammar checking, call up that you can as well use all of the strategies listed above for correcting the grammar by clarifying the intended meaning. Second, when you lot do find an mistake, you can ask, "How do you normally proofread for this kind of fault?" or say to the pupil, "Let's attempt to observe a few more examples of this structure, just to double-check them." Look for correct and incorrect examples considering we need our successes reinforced as well! It's a great opportunity to assess the student's proofreading skills and do some strategy building.

Think of these strategies every bit existence listed in the society they should be used in, but experience comfortable to experiment with the club, depending on the student, the writing project, and your own judgment. Play with them to see how each strategy helps raise the students' learning experience.

1. Enquire students to identify specific feedback targets ("Show me what you're not sure about."). You tin enquire a variety of questions: why they're not sure near that judgement, if they can recall of other means to express the idea, what rules they know about the particular grammar structure, if they checked a reference book, if they tin can show y'all the page so y'all tin look at the rules together, etc. In other words, y'all tin can learn a lot near the students' thought processes that volition exist helpful in working with each of them. One circumspection: exist sensitive to how much time you lot're spending on these questions. It tin be frustrating to students if every single error is interrogated at length, every bit yous can imagine. Idioms and prepositions are neat candidates for a coach'south quick corrections considering they're then idiosyncratic. Structures that follow a set of rules more systematically, like verb tense or gerunds vs. participles, are skilful candidates for more questioning. (Locate the grammar references in the Writing Center if you didn't understand "gerunds vs. participles"!)
2. Enquire where they struggled to make linguistic communication choices. Sometimes they really practice believe they've written everything in correct English language, so they can't bespeak to a judgement they retrieve might be incorrect. If you lot inquire them to bear witness y'all where they had to work at it, you lot have a chance to interrogate their controlling procedure ("Why was this a hard choice? How else were you thinking of saying information technology? What made you lot choose this mode?") and to either congratulate them and reinforce a correct selection, or to correct them and mayhap teach them a play a trick on for making the right choice next fourth dimension (a mnemonic device, a groovy page in your favorite reference book, etc.).
3. Identify "high gravity" errors–errors that truly interfered with your comprehension. Piece of work with the student to figure out how/why the sentence structure or give-and-take choice is obscuring their intended pregnant. When they've explained their thought enough that you empathize it, offer them the language they need to express their thought grammatically.
4. Move on to repeated errors. Ask questions about their choices or their full general noesis (e.g., "Why did y'all cull this verb tense?" or "What do you know about verb tenses?"). Ask the pupil if they have a favorite grammar resource and/or share your ain favorite grammar resource. Work through correcting the error together, helping the student understand and employ the rules. Find a couple more than examples of the same kind of mistake and permit the student employ the resource to try correcting the mistakes. When they feel confident that they can find and correct that type of mistake, movement on to another.
5. Give prepositions away similar processed. Innovate students to "learner's dictionaries," which include information almost word + preposition combinations, simply feel comfortable freely offering up these of import petty words. Learning to use "up" correctly in 1 judgement will not ensure that students will utilize information technology correctly in some other sentence in the same way that learning about other structures will, and this little act of kindness tin help students stay more engaged with the residual of the process.

The strategies in action

These transcripts are excerpted from sessions with second language writers. They take been annotated to explain a bit about what was happening, what the students were trying to achieve, what the coaches were trying to achieve, and to illustrate a few of the concepts and strategies listed above. Read each extract without reading the comments, just to get the menstruum of the conversation. Read them again, looking at each of the marginal comments as you reflect on the data on this page.

Resources

See our English Language Resource page for several learner's dictionaries and other linguistic communication learning resources and strategies.

You can detect very articulate explanations of grammar structures and an Fantabulous drove of idioms and phrasal verbs, which ESL students usually struggle with, at UsingEnglish.com.

References

Friedlander, A. (1984). Meeting the needs of foreign students in the writing center. In K. A. Olson (Ed.) Writing centers: Theory and assistants (pp. 206-214). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

North, S. (1984). The idea of a writing center. College English, 46, 433-446.

Reigstad, T. J., & McAndrew, D. A. (1984). Training tutors for writing conferences. Urbana, IL: National Quango of Teachers of English.

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You may reproduce information technology for not-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Centre, University of Northward Carolina at Chapel Hill

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