Understanding ESOL Students and Effectively Handling Their Writing Errors Qin Riley, PhD San Jacinto College South Summer Literacy Institute 2015
Overview Characteristics of our ESOL students Types of errors they make in their writing Effective feedback to their writing errors Qin Riley 8/4/2015 2
Who Are Our ESOL Students? On Handout A, check YES, NO, or Not Sure, based on your experience. Terminology ESOL students – Students whose native language is other than English L1 – first language L2 – second language Qin Riley 3 8/4/2015
ESOL Students in San Jac Of 72 ESOL students I taught in Fall 2014: Age: 17-67 ( average 25 ) Country of origin: 23 Gender: 45.6% male 54.4% female Native languages: 14 Education Levels Academic Goals Master's Master's 4-yr college 4-yr college some college 2-yr college & high school certificate Qin Riley 4 8/4/2015
What L2 Research Shows Adult English language learners (ELLs) – the fastest growing population segment in education More than 25 million adults with limited English proficiency (LEP) – 81% growth from 1990 A wide spectrum of differences in their backgrounds: education / literacy level /goals /age / native language / L1 proficiency / social-economic status / immigration status / family responsibility Source: National Center for ESL Literacy Education, 2003; U.S. Census Bureau, 2011. Qin Riley 5 8/4/2015
About L2 Writing L2 writing development is a gradual, non- linear, and complex process. Years of study and practice and many factors involved Not all skills develop simultaneously Positive and negative influence from L1 Even advanced L2 writers still have “accents” in writing Source: Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Munoz, 2006; Urzua, 2013 Qin Riley 6 8/4/2015
About L2 Writers L2 writers show cultural differences and rhetorical differences. Less emphasis on “originality” Writers vs. readers are responsible for communicating meaning Writing style: explicit in U.S., implicit in other languages Source: Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Munoz, 2006; Urzua, 2013 Qin Riley 7 8/4/2015
Errors ESOL Students Tend to Make ORGANIZATION ISSUES Less cohesion devices Unfocused paragraph Lack of support for the topic sentence Unclear progression of ideas Poor elaboration and lack of crucial explanation Source: Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Munoz, 2006. Qin Riley 8 8/4/2015
Examples of Students’ Writing Ex: Today most of the accidents that happen are due to texting while driving. Every person has a cell phone. The drivers have to pull over if they need to text or make a phone call. The government should issue a strict law and high price tickets for that, so the drivers can realize that is a dangerous thing and they must avoid it. Ex: Finally, perhaps the most striking difference between city lifestyle and country lifestyle is entertainment. For whatever reason, city people have much more places for entertainment than country people do. In the country, there are not a lot of places for entertainment. Qin Riley 9 8/4/2015
Errors ESOL Students Tend to Make GRAMMAR & SENTENCE ISSUES Comma splice Ex: As you can see, our lives are very important, everybody must follow the laws. Run-on sentence Ex: One of the latest types of class is called hybrid 50 percent of the time is in the classroom and 50 percent online. Qin Riley 10 8/4/2015
Errors ESOL Students Tend to Make GRAMMAR & SENTENCE ISSUES (cont.) Fragment Ex: Almost all colleges provide online classes. Although the majority of ESOL students prefer to take face-to- face classes. Subject-verb agreement Ex: Lack of sleep lead to memory loss. Qin Riley 11 8/4/2015
Errors ESOL Students Tend to Make GRAMMAR & SENTENCE ISSUES (cont.) Double verbs Ex: Drunk driving is one of the most common causes for car accidents happen these days. Wrong form of a word Ex: The number of dead and injure increases every year. Qin Riley 12 8/4/2015
Errors ESOL Students Tend to Make GRAMMAR & SENTENCE ISSUES Omitting an article Ex: Sleep is important factor to help recharge your body after a long working day. Mechanics (punctuation & capitalization) Ex: Living in the united states, is very difficult because of several factors. Qin Riley 13 8/4/2015
How Should We Provide Corrective Feedback (CF)? On Handout B, check Agree or Disagree on different ways to provide corrective feedback (CF) to ESOL students’ writing. Qin Riley 14 8/4/2015
L2 Research: Negative Views on CF Does not increase accuracy or fluency (Kepner, 1991) Not only useless but also harmful to student attitudes (Truscott, 1996) Student progress is enhanced by writing practice alone (Semke, 1984). Qin Riley 15 8/4/2015
L2 Research: Positive Views on CF Improves accuracy over time (Farris, 2006) Students uniformly voiced that CF is beneficial to their writing (Leki, 1991). Metalinguistic CF is effective for the short-term and long-term, but time consuming (Sheen, 2007). Qin Riley 16 8/4/2015
Focused CF vs. Unfocused CF Teachers select Teachers correct all specific error types for errors, addressing a correction (Farris, wide range of errors 2006). (Ellis, 2009). Students pay more Overwhelming to intensive attention to students and a single error (Ellis, teachers as well 2009). (Farrokhi, 2012) Likely to lead to Likely to lead to understanding the confusion and nature of the error frustration (Farris, (Sheen, 2007). 2006) Qin Riley 17 8/4/2015
Treatable Errors vs. Untreatable Errors Non-Rule-Based Errors Rule-Based Errors Idiomatic usage Organization Collocation Grammar Inappropriate word Sentence structure choices Mechanics Culture-related Articles <debatable> Source: Bitchener, Young, & Cameron, 2005; Farris, 2006; Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Urzua, 2013 Qin Riley 18 8/4/2015
Best Practices on L2 Written Corrective Feedback Provide focused feedback on rule-based error types (treatable) but only a few at a time (e.g., sentence structure, organization, comma usage) Leave other errors uncommented upon – less overwhelming for students and teachers. Offer implicit CF for reoccurring/known errors [“Where is the subject?” “What verb tense should you use here?” “lack of explanation”] Qin Riley 19 8/4/2015
Promote L2 Writing Skills with Other Activities Allow free writing with no grading, e.g., journal. This helps students build fluency without fear of being evaluated. (Farris, 2006) Free voluntary reading in L2 promotes L2 written development (Leki, Cumming, & Silva, 2008) Provide mini lessons on major errors to raise attention. Offer in-class group correction activities to target common errors Qin Riley 20 8/4/2015
Further Readings Ferris, D. (2006). Does error feedback help student writers? New evidence on short- and long-term effects of written error correction in K. Hyland and F. Hyland (eds.). Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leki, I., Cumming, A., & Silva, T. (2008). A Synthesis of Research on Second Language Writing in English . New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Sheen, Y. (2007). The effect of focused written corrective feedback and language aptitude on ESL learners’ acquisition of articles. TESOL Quarterly 41 : 255 – 283. doi: 10.1002/j.1545-7249.2007.tb00059.x Qin Riley 21 8/4/2015
Questions? Contact Info Qin.Riley@sjcd.edu 281-484-1900 x 3750 Qin Riley 22 8/4/2015
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