Wrapping Up

Week 2:

There was an incredible amount of online resources available for tutors and students alike.

However, not every link was particularly useful. There was a good amount of filtering to do. I guess this reiterates the fact that students and teachers both have to do their research carefully

Week 3:

I was initially had a very critical and unforgiving approach towards grammar. I believed that writing a grammatically intact sentence was the key to writing well; an incorrect sentence forces the reader to piece together the information. But after class discussion I realized that this can be a very boring and disillusioning learning process. Students who have good critical thinking skills and better-than average reading ability often get unfairly lumped into remedial English. Consequently, they don't learn new skills that will help them grow as a student so they are stuck in a never ending loop. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. This blog was also interesting for me because I was unaware of the fact that there was a preexisting debate regarding grammar. My assumption was that all teachers generally took an approach similar to mine. The material was useful to me in more ways than one.

Week 4:

I liked the reading that was about responding to student errors. It was a good guide to serve as a base. I didn't think all of the points in the reading were as useful as others. I just listed my favorites.

When responding to errors, tutors and teachers should:

1.     Be selective in marking errors

2.     They should prioritize the most serious errors

3.     Frequently occurring errors should be addressed quickly

4.     Consider the student's: level of proficiency, attitude, and goals

5.     Consider errors that have been recently discussed in class

6.     Decide when to start marking errors

Week 5:

I think a student's ability to distinguish between spoken and written English is largely dependent on the amount of reading and writing they have done in class. Readings help give students examples of sentence structure and a sense of academic voice. Compared to spoken English, academic writing can be "weird" and foreign because many words like "nevertheless" are rarely used in spoken English. Additionally, essay writing is a skill that improves with practice, but if students have never written an academic paper, they are not going to be familiar with the five paragraph essay structure. Students who have a strong sense of voice and oral fluency will have strengths that can help them in class. Teachers who are aware of such strengths and weaknesses will be able to effective adjust and address the issues that students may have.

Week 6:

The reading was focused on a debate regarding students' "right" to their language. Some argued that notion that students even had a "right" was a misconception because it was simply a term that had been invented to make students feel as if they had rights to begin with.

Others argued it was important because students come from a variety of backgrounds and often need a sense of community and identity.

This week's readings could potentially benefit teachers and tutors alike because it emphasizes the variety of needs students are going to have. Not every student will be coming into schools with adequate reading and writing skills. It should help teachers stay attentive and flexible for students.

Week 7:

There weren't any blogs for this week. We talked about AAVE papers and student needs. These students can present a unique challenge because they usually have a very strong oral proficiency but struggle to write academically. They may be resistant to any suggestions or change because their oral and written voice is a part of their identity.

Week 8:

The idea of ear learners and eye learners is interesting. I thought it was important to note that the reading specifically mentions that ESL student writers do not have inferior cognitive capabilities when compared to other postsecondary students. Many ESL students are not "basic writers" because their educational background has provided them with substantial grammar and reading skills. They just need more practice with academic prose and content organization.

Week 9:

The readings were about the experiences and studies about several students who had to go through school as a non-native speaker. The differences were startling. The students who were not put into ESL classes had some struggles but later thrived because they were able to rise to the challenge. The students who were put into remedial English were grouped together and unable to socialize with native speakers. As a result, they were unable to improve and move beyond ESL. It was interesting to note that the amount of parent involvement seemed to correlate with student success. An important detail to remember was that parent involvement doesn't mean that the parents are not interested. They are often unable to schedule meetings because they are too busy working.

Week 10:

Placing students in classes based on their writing samples was very difficult. Some students had one or two mistakes that seemed relatively easy to fix but they were repeating errors. I couldn’t decide whether the errors repeated because the student hadn’t proofread their work or because they were unfamiliar with grammatical concepts like subject verb agreement. Another group of students that were difficult to place were the students that wrote with very informal voice. Some seemed to be aware of academic prose but they had elements of informal voice as well. Some samples made it particularly challenging because there wasn't enough material to make an informed decision. It gave me an idea regarding how difficult it is to place students accordingly. It made me wonder if the diagnostic writing samples should give students more time to write.

Week 11:

The case studies that were most interesting to read were the ones that focused on the process rather than others than simply described individual sessions. The amount of detail provided was useful but it didn't seem to tie back to anything useful for the tutor. Reading excessive amounts of descriptions quickly became tiring.

Reading the case studies helped me organize my own case study in terms of what parts of our experience to highlight. Because my students were relatively advanced, there wasn’t a great deal for me to talk about. I decided the best thing for me to talk about would be my original plan of action, and then my adjusted approach.

My group noted that it was important to emphasize what others could learn from our case studies.