ESL instruction in the University of Louisville Writing Center

On a campus that is becoming increasingly more diverse every year, the University Writing Center is a crucial resource for helping students that come from backgrounds where English is not the first language they have learned. It can be difficult for these students to adjust to a classroom setting, and they may find themselves being unable to keep up because the time it takes these students to complete assignments is significantly longer than Native English Speakers (NES) who fully understand the language. While the University of Louisville is working on making more resources available to help English as a Second Language (ESL) students in their language acquisition process, the University Writing Center is in an ongoing process of working through how to best support these writers. This blog presents some of the early findings of this process in informing consultants about some of the best practices that can aid in sessions with ESL students.

How do I start a session with an ESL writer?

Understanding expectations can always be a little difficult for first-time visitors to the writing center, but this can particularly be the case with ESL writers. In order to avoid any miscommunications at the beginning of the session, it is best to start where the student has an opportunity to explain a little bit about their situation and the aspects of writing they are struggling with. The consultant can also take the time to explain that sessions can run the whole 50 minutes if need be, but there is also no pressure to stay the whole time. Along with this, the consultant should make it clear that the University Writing Center operates differently than a classroom and that a consultant operates differently than a professor does.

Similarly, it might be helpful for the consultant to get some basic information from the writer regarding their history with the language, so that the consultant can be informed on how much experience the writer has. Gleaning this background information does not have to be incredibly extensive but, in the case of the consultant and writer establishing that there will be future repeat visits, it would be best to obtain as much background experience as possible. Dudley W. Reynolds in One on One with Second Language Writers (21) provides questions that could be useful for consultants: How much reading have you done in English? What is the longest text you have ever read in English? Did you have a chance to speak English outside of the classroom? Where and how often?Asking questions like these will inform the consultant on best possible practices to use with ESL students based on their prior experiences with the language.

What if a student really needs proofreading and grammar strategies?

At our center, many of our consultants feel a tension between the advice to focus on “global” concerns and to avoid too much attention to sentence-level grammar instruction. However, there are occasions where ESL students will come to the writing center requesting assistance for grammar and proofreading, as it is sometimes a common belief by these students that by fixing these lower level concerns, they are fixing global concerns as well. Though this is not the case, we are learning to be more flexible about our general approach that involves beginning with sentence-level concerns and then working to move these to a more general recognition of meaning. Because the English language is full of complexities that ESL students may not have been fully taught in their home countries, the consultant should allow for these lower-level issues to be fixed if it is the student’s wish.

In my own experience, an ESL writer came in for a session and she solely wanted to focus on local concerns. As soon as I tried to move to global concerns, she was immediately lost, and I could tell she was beginning to get more confused the more I talked. Therefore, in order to help keep the session productive as opposed to it being frustrating for her, I realized that I needed to just focus on the local concerns because those were the ideas that she could grasp the easiest.

We are learning, as consultants, to realize that this is okay, and that meeting the writer where they are is the most important part of any consultation.

Should I attempt to engage in a nondirective approach with ESL writers?

Most typically seen in Writing Center ethos is the practice of using nondirective consulting, which prefers that the consultant take a more hands-off approach to a session and instead prompts writers to think on their own about their writing. However, according to Young-Kyung Min in “When ‘Editing’ Becomes ‘Educating’ in ESL Tutoring Sessions” (24), this is not the best strategy for working with ESL writers, as they require a more hands-on approach that can help their language acquisition and composition processes. The question then arises as to just how directive a consultant should be in a session, if being directive in the first place is the best course of action.

Consultants cannot make the assumption that writing practices here in the States are common to those in other countries that ESL writers may have come from, where they may be more used to having instructors be explicit in their guidance. When a consultant tries to take a nondirective approach to a session with an ESL writer, it could possibly cause frustration for the writer because it may be unfamiliar for them to engage in a writing practice where they are not directly told how what and how to do something. Taking this directive approach will hopefully allow for writers to acquire knowledge of the language in a way that is beneficial and educational. If the writer is feeling more confident towards the end of a session about the topics covered, the consultant could then try a nondirective approach, but it should not be the main practice of working with ESL writers.

Conclusion

The amount of scholarship on ESL instruction, especially ESL instruction in the Writing Center, can be overwhelming to search through for answers to specific questions that consultants may have, especially those that are serving in a writing center for the first time. The goal of this blog was to provide answers to these common questions consultants might ask and provide them with resources and methods for helping their ESL writer in the best possible way. Though some of these methods and resources might not work for every ESL writer, it can inform the practices that consultants use when working in a writing center that caters to an incredibly rich and diverse population of students. Through these practices and resources, the consultant can be equipped with certain tools that will allow these ESL writers to embrace their past linguistic experiences with those that will set them up for success in their writing, in the classroom, and in their future.