This paper has introduced some of the problems Vietnamese advanced ESL writing students face and has also presented solutions in the form of a course design. In the first section, historical background of the involuntary migration of the refugees was given. As part of their acculturation to this society, it was pointed out that one of our challenges is helping college-bound Vietnamese students assimilate into the American higher-educational system. Developing their English proficiency to meet the demands of university work is vital. More attention needs to be focused on their specific language needs in ESL programs such as that at the Applied English Center.
In the second chapter, factors which would enable an ESL professional to better understand the cultural adjustment and educational and language background of these students were reviewed. The effect of physical and mental health on cultural adjustment and ESL classroom performance was pointed out. Then, differences in Vietnamese and American classroom atmosphere and learning styles were presented. Their language background was illustrated through an informal contrastive analysis of a limited number of Vietnamese and English structures which show marked differences. These included suffixes, tense, be sentences, negation and articles.
Section Three focused more narrowly on implementation of an advanced writing course for Vietnamese students at the AEC. First, enrollment and placement information was presented, and the conclusion was drawn that Vietnamese students at the AEC have almost exclusively been placed at the advanced level, that their greatest area of weakness has been in writing skill, and that they have benefited most from tutorial or small group instruction. This was followed by an assessment of their advanced-level compositions. With the sole exception of negation, all of the areas of contrast presented in Section Two were found to be problems for these students in their writing. Examples to illustrate these areas and also the areas of sentence boundaries and spelling were taken from the test compositions. Finally, based on the history of Vietnamese students at the AEC and the assessment of their writing samples, a tutorial course was designed. This course focused on the student's specific writing problems, both through written and oral/aural approaches, and on the relationship between the instructor and student.
In large university ESL programs such as that at the AEC, there will always be students who have special language needs which can be most effectively met outside of regular classroom instruction. In addition to Vietnamese refugees, other Southeast Asian refugee students may benefit from a similar approach, tailored to their specific language weaknesses and level of instruction. There may be students from a variety of cultural and language backgrounds, who, for personal, social or academic reasons, would benefit from a form of instruction not currently offered in the ESL program. In order to effectively implement a special course or program for these students, it is important to research language and cultural differences. Then an assessment of their past performance and current situation in the ESL program and their specific language weaknesses should be made. Such a process has been used in this research paper, which, it is hoped, may serve as a model for other ESL professionals to design and implement special courses for students of other language/cultural backgrounds.
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Background | Purpose of Study | Outline of Research | Review of the Literature |
Developing the Course | Assessment of Writing Samples | Course Design |
Table of Contents for Issue 1 | Front Cover of the Journal of English Grammar on the Web