Linda Bryson
rbuzzb19@idt.net
Department of Applied Linguistics &
ESL
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia USA
2. Sandra Ishikawsa. Ojective measurement of low-proficiency EFL narrative writing
3. Elizabeth Riddle. The meaning and discourse function of the past tense in English
5. Ruth Spack. The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language: A longitudinal case study
Tucker, A. (1995). Decoding ESL: International students in the American college classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton /Cook Publishers, Inc.
This book discusses how ESL college students in the academic literature/composition classroom use various learning styles in their reading and writing. Tucker uses the research of contrastive rhetoric to help explain why ESL students choose certain learning strategies to read and write in the ESL classroom. Each chapter is a case study of one of her students and the progress he/she makes throughout English 105, a required course. Included are issues relating to learner motivation, composition and grammatical issues, more specifically, how to handle error correction, classroom techniques and syllabus design. The study follows five individual students and their struggle as they begin to understand how to use correct English grammar and form and at the same time retain their own individual approach and cultural diversity that brings such richness to the ESL students' compositions.
Chapter four interested me the most. Titled "A Greek Writer's Idiolect (What is not an ESL error?)", the chapter traces the various assignments of a Greek student named Koula. She writes three pasttime narrative assignments: an autobiography, a comtemporary fable and a defense of a common stereotype concerning some group with which she was affiliated. She also kept a journal. All three assignments were designed to improve grammar and form in specific ways. For instance, when working with narrative, the present perfect and the past tenses were stressed; with fables, the conditional tenses were key. Tucker discusses the techniques she used for revision. One-on-one sessions with the student play a key role in revising her papers. Even though Koula was aware of the correct form and how it works to clarify and specify a point, Tucker suggests that this particular ESL student had trouble conforming to the conventions of English grammar because "Koula was convinced that the agenda of the English composition classroom--not just the intermittent concern with personal anecdote, but the recognition of the reader's need for clarification of structure and theses--was somehow different from that promulgated in her native country, and therefore arbitrary" (p.111). She, Koula, "seemed to perceive them (the Greek and English discourse styles) as antithetical, and to regard the act of accomodating one system as a disloyalty to the other." Tucker goes on to state that while these cultural differences do exist, they should not be the key issue. "One of the goals of the composition classroom should be to highlight cultural diversity...but not at the expense of communicative function" (p.111).
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At the time of publication, Amy Tucker was an associate professor of English at Queens College of the City University of New York. She taught writing and American literature and directed the college's ESL Composition Program for ten years.
Two of the articles that she used in chapter four of the book interest me as follow-up reading:
Kleinmann, H. (1977). Avoidance behavior in adult second language acquisition. Language Learning, 27(1), 93-107.
Wenden, A. (1986). Helping language learners think about learning English. Language Teaching Journal, 40(1), 3-12.
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This statement, to me, says exactly what Tucker wants the ESL teacher to realize when he/she is teaching form and grammar in the composition classroom. That is, seek out the strategy used by the ESL learner that produced the incorrect form and try to teach different strategies or adapt the learner's existing ones so they will be able to make more correct choices.
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2. How to take a more holistic viewpoint when grading assignments and tests--Thinking about why this error was made, not necessarily that it was made.
3. Importance of choosing topic and assignments for composition--Using the ESL learner's literature as part of the syllabus.
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Ishikawa, S. (1995). Objective measurement of low-proficiency EFL narrative writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 4(1), 51-69.
This article discusses the long term results of teaching narrative writing using two different methods. Two classes of freshmen at a Japanese women's college were used for the study. The classes, which consisted of 28 and 29 students alphabetically assigned, met for 90 minutes a week, had the same teacher, and used the same textbook. It was the homework assignments that were the variable in the study. Both classes were given the same picture story which was between five and eight pictures long. One class, the "Q" (question) class, was also given a series of questions which named the characters in the story. They were to use the questions as the starting point for their stories. While the other class, the "N" (narrative) class, was asked to write the story without actually giving them any specific information about the story. These students were free to write as much as they wanted to about the story. There was a pretest given to both groups at the beginning of the term using the same directions for both groups. They were each to write a story using a ten frame story board without naming any characters (to force them to cope with reference). Then six stories were assigned during the term using the "Q" type teaching and the "N" type teaching. Three months later, a post test, which was the exact same test as the pretest, was given. Results were then calculated on the basis of these two tests.
The findings showed that the "N" class improved their correctness level more than the class that worked with the questions. While both classes improved over the course of the study, the "N" class improved on seven different measures while the "Q" class only improved on one measure. The significant improvements for the narrative group included T-units (the shortest unit to which a sentence can be reduced containing one independent clause and whatever dependent clauses are attached to it) and error-free clauses per composition, error free clauses per T-unit and total words in error-free clauses. The study concluded that students, even at low levels, can improve correctness in writing by being forced to deal with the larger picture, not as some composition teachers have assumed "that students cannot produce larger forms without mastering elements" (p. 64).
The second half of the article deals with the best method to measure improvement in low proficiency EFL writers. Since their writing level is so low, the conventional T-unit is difficult to use as a tool of measurement and often does not clearly show the improvement of the students.The data is then re-analyzed using a z score (basically how each individual performed compared to the class mean). The author concludes that this method, while showing the same general results, is a more precise method for pinpointing an individual's improvement, rather than the class as a whole.
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At the time of publication, Sandra Ishikawa taught at Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
One of her references interested me as follow-up reading.
Hunt, K. W. (1966). Sentence structures used by superior students in grades four and twelve, and by adults (Report No. CRP-5-0313). Tallahassee: Florida State University, (Eric Document reproduction Service No. ED 010 047).
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The following quotation shows how important it is to teach grammar in "chunks" rather than the more traditional way:
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2. Spiral my teaching, especially when teaching reading and composition, as these disciplines show authentic blocks of grammar, not individual pieces: thereby, it becomes easier to reintroduce forms at different levels as whole pieces.
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Riddle, E. (1986). The meaning and discourse function of the past tense in English. TESOL Quarterly, 20(2), 267-286.
This article is a discussion of the use and meaning of the past tense (including the verbs that are past aspect) and attempts to explain why the ESL learner has such difficulty in using these verbs correctly. Riddle begins with a definition of the past tense, saying that it is simply means "true before speech time, and that completion is not part of its denotative meaning" (p.267). She goes on to explain the common assumptions and uses of the past in the completive sense. Then discusses the past tense in direct discourse with various examples, including those of past association as well as the past as background information. She describes the past in indirect discourse in regard to tense harmony and current revelence, stating that "the best generalization is that the present tense occurs in a reported speech clause embedded under a past tense verb if the situation described there is of current relevence to the speaker" (p. 274). Past verb tenses are often chosen then to demonstrate the speaker's (writer's) point of view or his/her purpose in the communcation. In summing up the meaning of the past tense she says that "the final arbiter [of verb choice] is the context" (p.277).
The second half of the article discusses some of the stumbling blocks for ESL students when they are learning the past tense. She concludes through various examples that a) the student's interlanguage plays an important role in the correct use of the past time verbs and b) surface level constraints, rather than context, play the primary role in determining which past tense the ESL student will choose to use. Teaching activities are included to help ESL students improve their understanding of the use of the past tense in English.
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Elizabeth Riddle, at the time of publication taught linguistics, ESL and TESL methods at Ball State University, Muncie Indiana where she was an Assistant Professor of English. Her primary areas of research were pragmatics and functional grammar.
This article interested me from her references.
McGilvray, J. (1974a). A proposal for the semantics of tenses in English, Unpublished manuscript, McGill University, Montreal.
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When she is describing the activities and how to present them she says,
This quotation reinforces my belief that authentic materials from all walks of life are an important tool in the classroom when you are teaching narrative reading or writing.
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2.Use all types of examples to help ESL students understand the uses of the past in English. don't limit myself to simply the one discourse type I'm teaching.
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Bensoussan, M. (1990). EFL reading as seen through translation and discourse analysis: Narrative vs. expository texts. English for Specific Purposes, 9, 49-66.
Through the use of translation, this article compares the problems EFL learners may have in understanding the narrative form of English writing with the problems encountered in expository texts. The study involves two groups of students from Haifa Universtiy. One hundred and five students in the advanced EFL reading comprehension course were asked to translate an expository text, ("Paranoia") into their native language, Hebrew, and 60 first year students enrolled in the same class during a different academic year were asked to translate a narrative text (an excerpt from "Bernice Bobs her Hair" by F. Scott Fitzgerald) into their native languages, Hebrew or Arabic.The translations were then analysed on two major levels. The macrolevel concerning units of meaning that involved more than one sentence, and the microlevel concerning the structures of the text were used to evaluate the translations by the two judges/scorers. Back translations were made following the original translations, so the reasearchers could understand more accurately the intended meaning of the student. Several charts are included showing exactly where the errors occured in regard to such categories as vocabulary and expressions, pronoun agreement and cohesion.
Through the extensive use of graphs which plot the exact errors of the two groups, it was shown that the narrative translations contained more instances of deviations than the expository text in several categories including vocabualry and expression and pronoun agreement. Within the pronoun agreement category there were further differences. Pronoun agreement errors were fewest among the Hebrew translations (92 occurrences), while among the Arabic translations it was most frequent (259 occurrences). The author concludes that her findings indicate that "differences among types of text or discourse should be accounted for in research on reading comprehension" (p. 62).
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Marsha Bensoussan was head of the Department of Foreign Languages at Haifa University in Isreal at the time of publication. Her fields of interest were reading comprehension, testing, discourse ayalysis and translation.
One article that Bensoussan uses as a reference and is an excellent follow-up to this study is:
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This quotation shows me how useful this method of translation could be in the classroom. If you have the proper native speakers to backtranslate, one can easily see exactly where the problems of grammar may lie.
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2. Re-think grammar-translation as a way to show the various uses of English verb phrases.
3. Consider comparing texts to teach differences in grammatical forms: e.g. narrative passage and scientific journal.
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Spack, Ruth. (1997). The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language: A longitudinal case study. Written Communication,14(1), 3-62.
This rather lengthy article studies the progress of one Japanese student, Yuko, over a three year period at a liberal arts college in the United States. It traces her progress as she learns competence in academic written English. The data includes interviews with the student and two of her political science professors, classroom observations and texts from 10 courses (including political science, sociology and economics) in three separate disciplines—including the student’s work with comments and the course materials. The study also includes a complete history of her knowledge and awareness of English as a foreign language from early childhood to the present. Although Yuko returned to Japan discouraged, with thoughts of not returning to the U.S., following her freshman year because "of her perceived lack of background knowledge (e.g. in U. S. History) and consequent inability to grasp argumentative discourse in English," (p.5) she does return to the U.S., but changes her major from International Relations to Economics, a discipline requiring fewer reading courses.
While the readings continued to be difficult, Yuko was concerned with her grammar. She thought she wrote "bad" papers because two friends had told her papers were ungrammatical and not written the way a native speaker would. Also, the professors, in their course guidelines, had made it clear that "no errors (in grammar) would be accepted." (p. 15) However, when questioned on how he handled errors on ESL students papers, the professor said that "he is very understanding about second language error, but that "there are things you keep from students." "(p. 15) No wonder Yuko was somewhat confused when she received a B+, on what she thought was a grammatically incorrect paper.
The study concludes with some suggestions on how we can help these students get a better handle on written discourse in American college courses. Some of these are:
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At the time of publication, Ruth Spack directed the ESL composition program in the English department at Tufts University. She was researching the identity and representation of ESL learners in turn-of-the-century schools.
These two articles from her references looked like good follow-up articles.
Rosenthal, J. (1992). A successful transition: A bridge program between ESL and the mainstream classroom. College Teaching, 40, 63-66.
Seidman, I. E. (1994). Writing as a means of learning. College ESL, 4, 1-11.
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I like this spirit. It is important to remember that ultimately, it is the student who is the one who must take charge of their own success.
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Using Grammar in Past Time Narrative