Handling Their Writing Errors Qin Riley, PhD San Jacinto College - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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

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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

• ther than English

L1 – first language L2 – second language

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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

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Academic Goals

Master's 4-yr college 2-yr college & certificate

Education Levels

Master's 4-yr college some college high school

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.

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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

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Source: Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Munoz, 2006; Urzua, 2013

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

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Source: Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Munoz, 2006; Urzua, 2013

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

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Source: Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Munoz, 2006.

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.

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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

• nline.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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).

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Focused CF vs. Unfocused CF

Teachers select specific error types for correction (Farris, 2006). Students pay more intensive attention to a single error (Ellis, 2009). Likely to lead to understanding the nature of the error (Sheen, 2007).

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Teachers correct all errors, addressing a wide range of errors (Ellis, 2009). Overwhelming to students and teachers as well (Farrokhi, 2012) Likely to lead to confusion and frustration (Farris, 2006)

Treatable Errors vs. Untreatable Errors

Rule-Based Errors Organization Grammar Sentence structure Mechanics

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Non-Rule-Based Errors Idiomatic usage Collocation Inappropriate word choices Culture-related Articles <debatable>

Source: Bitchener, Young, & Cameron, 2005; Farris, 2006; Leki, Cumming, Silva, 2008; Urzua, 2013

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

• verwhelming 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”]

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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

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Further Readings

Ferris, D. (2006). Does error feedback help student writers? New evidence on short- and long-term effects

• f 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

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Questions?

Contact Info

Qin.Riley@sjcd.edu 281-484-1900 x 3750

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