A course in advanced writing for Vietnamese students in an intensive program should be structured around the specific needs of the students enrolled. This is easy to arrange if there are a limited number of students, which has been shown to be the case at the AEC. Individualized instruction in the form of tutorials offers many advantages, given their need for scheduling flexibility due to commitments involving other ESL courses, university courses, employment and family responsibilities.
The history of Vietnamese students at the AEC has shown that these students have benefited most from tutorial or small group instruction rather than regular classroom instruction. This may be due in part to the fact that their refugee status and their subsequent residence here set them apart from the typical ESL student from abroad who has often studied English formally and does not have the depth of cultural knowledge of those who have lived in this country for several years. In a tutorial setting, students can concentrate on areas in English that are in marked contrast to the Vietnamese language and the individual's specific weaknesses, things which would not be as thoroughly covered in a regular ESL writing course. This is very important since errors which may have become ingrained may be difficult to overcome without considerable time and energy. Individual attention would help promote fast progress.
Another benefit of a tutorial is that both oral and listening skills can be included to reinforce writing skills. These students may often have considerably stronger listening and speaking skills since these skills were, in all probability, developed first. However, these skills may need to be refined before or as changes are made in writing. A tutorial can be helpful in providing this extensive practice and interrelationship of skills.
The tutorial setting also allows the instructor to develop a supportive relationship with the student. If the student is under various stresses which impede learning, the instructor can be helpful in a variety of ways, such as listening and making referrals to other university programs if necessary, helping the student understand the university system better, or helping the student improve study skills or reassess educational goals.
Individual students will come to the tutorial with their own unique background, learning style and expectations. Their American educational background may have included graduation from a U.S. high school or course work in a junior or community college, and they may feel that their English should be sufficient to enter the university. This fact may confuse or discourage the students and this discouragement, if not dealt with constructively, could hinder progress. In addition, within this educational background, students often learned English predominantly in a natural setting, which developed their listening and speaking skills. There are many advantages to learning English this way, but the instructor should realize that students may have less knowledge of grammar terminology than students who have studied English more formally. In addition, there may be gaps or fossilized errors that have not prevented communication in informal settings but which do not stand up to the rigors of an undergraduate or graduate degree program.
The students may also have unrealistic schedules for making reasonable progress in English. They may be working at a job, even a full-time one, and have many other responsibilities. Determined to make progress toward their degree, and sometimes due to the constraints of financial support they are receiving, they may also be enrolled in regular university courses. Unless schedules can be changed, there may be little time or energy left for concentrated English study. They may also have unrealistic expectations of the progress that can be made with English in a given amount of time. If there are many fossilized errors and limited time to devote to English study, progress may be difficult.
The students may have health problems which may be due in part to unrealistic expectations and scheduling, and the stress inherent in being a refugee adjusting to a new culture. The instructor should take the initiative in finding out quickly about any attendance and progress-related problems and try to understand and assist the student.
It should not be assumed that all advanced Vietnamese students will come to a tutorial with these obstacles to progress. However, if some are present, the instructor can work with the student to set and meet realistic goals. In the case of these advanced students, they have chosen to overcome the obstacles of learning English to pursue a degree, and for most this can be a realistic expectation. They have overcome many obstacles in their past, and coming out of that past, are seeking a better life through more education. For this they should be commended. The instructor and student should work together diligently on language skills to make these educational goals attainable.
In order for an instructor to work well in a tutorial setting with these students, the instructor needs a sensitivity to their background. In addition, the ability to nurture, encourage and respect the students is vital. Very strong knowledge of English and pedagogy and some insight into the language contrasts between English and Vietnamese should be the foundation. The instructor should be able to analyze errors, explain them clearly and concisely, and plan strategies for the student to make visible progress toward elimination of those errors.
Students would meet once a week with their instructor. If these advanced students have the necessary study skills, motivation and discipline, this should be adequate for progress in a 16-week fall or spring semester. In addition, scheduling conflicts and funding for the course may make this necessary. Of course, considerable work would be done between weekly sessions. With some students, the instructor may need to meet more than once a week at the beginning of the semester to insure a good start. If schedules permit, meeting with more than one student at a time may be a solution to the opposing pulls of funding constraints and the needs of some students for more concentrated work at the beginning of the semester.
In order to reach the goal of being able to write successfully for academic purposes, extensive writing and rewriting is necessary. The main format of writing would be paragraphs and essays, whose form, as shown on the test compositions, the students already have a working knowledge of. Each assignment would be written and then analyzed. Some assignments could be analyzed together in the tutorial session while others could be marked by the instructor with a correction code or corrected orally on a cassette tape. Using a variety of these techniques would help the student approach the written work from several perspectives. The student would make all necessary corrections and rewrite the assignments. In this way, the student would have a finished product that would contain the correct forms.
In the process of writing and rewriting, and the feedback from the instructor this involves, considerable time may be spent in grammar explanation, drill and remedial grammar exercises. If the student does not have a strong background in traditional grammar terminology, or is more confused than aided by it, this grammar-related work may proceed without it. An experienced instructor would be able to draw from a variety of sources to meet these grammar needs. Background in the contrasts between the two languages would be a helpful basis.
In addition to the writing, rewriting and grammar-based work, developing skill at using a reference grammar book as a source to turn to when working independently is important. The student should be encouraged to seek out the specific areas that are being dealt with. This will help give the student greater independence in writing and provide an additional source of grammar explanation.
Proofreading is another such valuable skill. The student should be encouraged to concentrate on proofreading carefully for certain areas of difficulty in his/her or others' writing. Proofreading, if done successfully, will help change habits and reinforce the correct structures. The student's ability in proofreading may also give the instructor knowledge as to what areas of weakness still remain.
The tutorial is also an ideal setting for oral production skills. In conversing, brainstorming essay topics or discussing corrections and revisions for a composition, the instructor can ascertain what structures the student can produce orally. Attention can also be given to aural discrimination to see if the student can actually hear and process a structure or suffix.
While all of these aspects of the tutorial are important, the student will work the most effectively if the work is relevant and interesting. To help keep interest up, students should have input into the writing topics, some of which they may choose from their field of study. Building success into every session, even if only a small gain is shown, will also help to keep motivation and interest up.
Of foremost importance is good diagnosis of the problems to be worked on. To do this, several samples of writing should be obtained which elicit several possible structures and a wide range of vocabulary. From these, a numerical tabulation of errors may be helpful or a global look may indicate a major area to begin working on first. In addition to looking for grammatical weaknesses in the writing samples, it is important to look for the absence of structures which would seem appropriate in those circumstances. It is important to determine if the student feels uncomfortable with these structures or is unsure of where to effectively use them in a composition.
In addition to the teacher's numerical tabulation, the student can be instrumental in setting out a course of study. The student probably knows (all too well) areas that need to be worked on. If the student suggests an area that he/she wants to confront first, this motivation and interest will help facilitate progress.
After a considerable amount of diagnostic work and discussion with the student has been done, if one or more areas of weakness are pronounced, it may be best to concentrate on those first. However, it must be noted that each area of weakness will interplay with other elements in a sentence. It is not possible to deal with these areas in total isolation, but by focusing on one major area, the student and instructor can more easily see progress. Suggestions for the major areas of suffixes, articles, tense, be sentences, sentence boundaries and spelling follow.
Vietnamese, a language whose words are invariable in form, is in sharp contrast to English, with its wide variety of inflectional and derivational suffixes. Although there was some confusion with the possessive 's and comparative and superlative forms, the suffix -s, as illustrated by the errors on the test compositions, caused considerable difficulty for these advanced students (LINK TO ASSESSMENT). In many cases, this suffix was omitted. As mentioned earlier, the Vietnamese language does not contain the [s] sound at the end of words, which makes this suffix difficult for them to pronounce and discern in others' speech. In addition, since leaving out this suffix often does not make the meaning of a sentence unintelligible, these students may have been communicating without this suffix and have made its omission a part of their speech and writing and may therefore be resistant to changing this ingrained pattern.
In working with the -s suffix, if the advanced student shows real difficulty with it, training might begin with pronunciation . The instructor should note if the student uses the suffix in speech, and in which environments it is used. This may be done with a short taped segment of conversation between the instructor and student or a read passage. To determine whether the student is able to hear and process the suffix, the instructor can give the student pairs of words, phrases or sentences, one with an -s suffix and one without, as in the pair buy the books/buy the book and have the student indicate which one he/she heard. This practice could continue until the student begins to achieve more accuracy in discernment over longer and longer phrases and sentences. The -s suffix could also be omitted from a passage and while the instructor read the passage, the student could supply the necessary -s suffix. Short dictation exercises could also be used. In these ways, the students should develop a greater awareness of the -s suffix.
For many students, this extra work on oral/aural skills may not be necessary, but even for students who have fairly good language habits concerning its use, oral/aural work can supplement written work to help overcome persistent habits. In writing, after the need for this suffix in its various environments is understood, developing skills for proofreading for -s may be helpful. In the beginning of the course, these errors could all be marked with a correction code or on a cassette tape, whereas when the student has developed greater proficiency, the number of such errors could be stated for each composition and the student would be responsible for carefully proofreading to find these errors. The instructor should also acknowledge when the student uses this suffix correctly.
Derivational suffixes also pose a problem for these students (LINK TO ASSESSMENT). Vietnamese does not have as sharp a distinction between word forms as English. To develop an awareness of the clues given as to word form by the suffixes of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, these students could keep a word form chart from the beginning of the semester, which would follow the traditional format as shown below.
| Nouns | Verbs | Adjectives | Adverbs |
| industry | industrialize | industrial | industrially |
| responsibility response | respond | responsible | responsibly |
Words which the students had used both correctly and incorrectly could be added alphabetically in their correct form to the chart. In this way, the student could expand vocabulary and begin to see word form clues provided by suffixes such as -ness, -ment for nouns or the often used adverb ending of -ly. These advanced students will already have formulated many differences in their minds between these word forms but this would provide a systematic way to view these distinctions. These words should not remain solely on the chart but should be used in a variety of sentences, both oral and written. The chart should contain words the student used or could use as more effective word choices in the compositions or words from the student's field of study. This would make the chart much more personally relevant.
Articles may be an ongoing learning process throughout the semester. Our complex article system is difficult to lay out as one set of patterns to assimilate quickly. These advanced students, however, already have some existing framework for article usage, some of which may need to be altered and other parts added to (LINK TO ASSESSMENT). It is initially important to try to discover with the student what system or lack of system the student is relying on. From here, there may be a struggle to change existing incorrect patterns. To begin, from the diagnostic work, the aspect of article usage (such as incorrectly using the with a generic noun, or the omission of a/an) that causes the most problem can be focused on first. In addition to writing practice and the feedback from it, extra remedial exercises and supplementation may be necessary. This may include exercises in which the student first tries to discriminate between contexts where a/an is necessary or unnecessary. A passage can be given in which the student must make these decisions and insert a/an or "X" (to denote unnecessary) in blanks. The same type of exercise can be done for the use of the. After the definite and indefinite articles have been isolated and the student has gained greater proficiency, sentences or passages with all articles deleted can provide greater challenge and a test of mastery of article use in various environments.
Since Vietnamese has no tense system or grammatical device which corresponds to our system, mastery of our system will take continued effort. It should first be determined if the student has a knowledge of the grammar terminology used to refer to the tenses. If the student does not have a strong knowledge of this, while introducing it, a pictorial representation of the tenses, such as the well-known one by Azar (1981), may be helpful. For students who have become very confused with the grammar terminology, it may be possible to work solely with these pictorial representations. These representations should help the student develop greater awareness of the time relationships that are expressed in our system. Since the analysis of the test compositions indicated that the students had a much greater knowledge of the form of these tenses than their use in context (LINK TO ASSESSMENT), tense work should proceed in context.
Instead of trying to focus on all of the tenses at once, after an overview or review of the tense system, the tenses that are shown from the diagnostic work to cause the most confusion should be worked on first. In all probability, these will be present, past and present perfect. Since the differences between present and past are fundamental, in addition to writing, oral work may increase the student's awareness of the tense differences. The instructor should first determine if the student distinguishes between these tenses in speech. This information could be most carefully analyzed from a short taped conversation between the instructor and student. Oral tense work should then supplement written work. Ways this can be done are through conversation between the instructor and student or in brainstorming a composition topic together or in producing an oral composition.
In working with tense, the student may offer valuable insight into why he/she used a particular tense in a particular context. Changes may need to be made in the student's conception of tense, but this will be easier to do when the student and instructor realize the student's existing framework. In the compositions, several examples of using a present tense form with a past time expression such as in 1984 or long time ago were found and it may be that some students felt that use of past tense would have been redundant. There may be other erroneous ideas about tense usage that can be corrected, or it may be realized that the student has no strong existing framework and is often guessing while writing.
Assigning a variety of composition topics which elicit the various tenses is important. It may be useful at some stages to have a composition topic which focuses on the use of one or two tenses, but generally, these students need as much work as possible with a variety of tense work in context. Working with tense will probably be an ongoing process during the semester but it is important to be sure that a strong framework is laid early. The students should then be able to build on this through experience in their compositions. Exposure to correct tense usage in speech and reading will also help them add to their knowledge.
Vietnamese la, which is the closest Vietnamese equivalent of be, is invariable in form. This is very different from the many forms of be, the most irregular verb in English. At this advanced level, these students probably know, at least at the cognitive level, the changes in form of be due to person and tense. However, the instructor should be absolutely sure of this fact by eliciting these forms. If this knowledge is present, but many errors involving be persist, the student has probably developed, through years of repetition, many incorrect patterns involving be verbs. Considerable practice and patience may be required to change existing habits. Oral drills may be necessary and desirable for oral facility in the be patterns, which could then be transferred to written work. In working with these changes in form, it is important not to work with be in isolation but help the student see its relationship to other elements in the sentence. As shown in the compositions, some of these other elements that students had difficulty with were the distinction between count and mass nouns and determining the actual subject of the sentence and whether it was singular or plural (LINK TO ASSESSMENT).
The errors involving incorrect sentence boundaries on the test compositions were shown to be strongly influenced by spoken language. In spoken language, which they may be more proficient in, we often do not make a pause between sentences which is always discernible to non-native speakers. Without these sentence boundaries in mind, students either punctuated two sentences with a comma instead of a period between them or omitted necessary punctuation (LINK TO ASSESSMENT). In working with these comma splices and run-on sentences, it may first be helpful to have the student begin by building sentences beginning with a simple subject and verb, such as She works. By expanding the sentence by adding various components such as one-word modifiers, modifying clauses and prepositional phrases, they can review the elements of a sentence. Learning more about the use of connectors and reviewing the conventions of punctuation are also necessary but much of this can be done while working on what the student has written. Gradually the student should distinguish between what constitutes a sentence and what constitutes more than a sentence and through experience learn many possible ways to correct run-on sentences and comma splices.
The spelling errors on the test compositions were not prevalent but they were interesting in the fact that they showed possible links between pronunciation and written transcription (LINK TO ASSESSMENT). Special attention should be paid to these possible links and keeping a running alphabetical list of misspelled words with their correct spelling will make it possible to see if patterns emerge as the list expands. Analyzing the list together and using a few minutes in the session to take a traditional spelling test, or to practice pronunciation, or to use the words in dictated sentences which stress the major focus of the lesson, will be useful for reviewing these words.
In a tutorial, with the support of a concerned and knowledgeable instructor, and with extensive writing, analysis, clarification, and rewriting, these students will have the opportunity to make substantial progress. Although we have concentrated solely on errors Vietnamese students make in writing, the student and instructor should bear in mind that the elimination of error is only one aspect of improving one's writing to meet the demands of university work. Organization, style and cohesiveness are additional aspects of good writing skill.
Background | Purpose of Study | Outline of Research | Review of the Literature |
Developing the Course | Assessment of Writing Samples | Conclusion and References
Table of Contents for Issue 1 | Front Cover of the Journal of English Grammar on the Web