It's good to have Dr. Nuray in our class today. It was very engaging and, in a way, surprising. Dr. Grove started by speaking out loud in Turkish. For a moment we were all startled and confused. I personally found it funny. She continued speaking in Turkish while giving out hand gestures. We had to rely on the latter to glint a hint of what she wanted us to do. Later we learned how to exchange greetings in Turkish. It was quite fun, but Dr. Grove later explained, in English, that the feelings we had at the beginning of class was exactly what most ESL student experienced here: confusion, being overwhelmed, being alienated. That were the first and most difficult challenges for them.
Later, Dr. Grove moved on to answer our questions. The first two issues were priority and grammar. What Dr. Grove revealed to us proved to be one of the most unorthodox practices we had heard so far. She explained that for ESL student, we were not simply writing consultants, but also teachers. We were the only ones who could tell them that they were now in America, and that that fact elicited a new way of writing that they would have to learn. Therefore we needed to be more directive. We should not use suggestions. It will further confused students since they would not know what the options were. It made a lot of sense, but it clearly moved away from the textbook instructions of being suggestive. What works for native speakers clearly do not work for ESL speakers then.
The rest of the class was devoted to watching an interview video Dr. Grove made. It described in detail the problems of ESL speakers and how we should best address it. Overall it was very instructive. It shed lots of light on my understanding of ESL speakers, and of myself.
Classes like these were so educational. I wish we will have more of these.
Long, thanks for this post--I have been very sick so I was unable to attend class and hear Dr. Grove speak but you summed up nicely what she talked about and how she made some of her points. I think the point you mentioned--that writing consultants are more helpful to ESL students by just being direct--is very important. I think we all make "suggestions" in a way to be less authoritative but more so to be polite. Clarifying that this practice actually confuses ESL students is good to know.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the video was great! It was very enlightening. I thought that the guy who went on about how confusing the phrase "What's up?!" is! Poor guy!
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