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What this handout is virtually

When you enquire students writing in English as an additional language what they would like to work on, they will oft say that they'd similar you to check their grammer. "Checking the grammer" can feel uncomfortably close to proofreading and editing students' papers for them—which writing coaches know is strictly out of bounds. Unfortunately, multilingual writers accept been unfairly denied access to language feedback because of the very potent prohibition against editing, but the expert news is that we can still exist very helpful without compromising our principles.

This page provides a fleck of important historical context for the give-and-take and offers strategies for responding to the grammar-checking request in means that respect the pedagogical philosophies of the writing centre and the instructional needs of students writing in a strange language. The list of strategies is followed by excerpts of coaching sessions, with annotations that illustrate how some of the strategies piece of work in real conversations between writing coaches and multilingual writers.

1984: The triple whammy for multilingual writers

In 1984, several of the about influential texts in writing eye history were published. You volition probably recognize the start two because the vocabulary and the philosophy are still driving forces in today's writing centers:

1. Reigstad & McAndrew: Division of the writing process into "higher social club" and "lower guild" concerns, establishing a value-laden sequence of content and arrangement before grammar and punctuation.
2. North: Staunch declaration that writing centers were not centers for mechanical remediation and fault correction. "In a writing center, the object is to brand sure that writers, and non necessarily their texts, are what go changed past teaching…our job is to produce improve writers, non better writing" (p. 69).
3. Friedlander: Assertion that writing centers run into the needs of foreign students by focusing on mechanical remediation and error correction. The content of students' essays should exist discussed only as much as necessary for accurate mistake correction.

The writing process was divided, the writing center's territory was firmly staked, and the perceived needs of multilingual writers were placed squarely outside the parameters of the writing heart's mission, pedagogical philosophy, and standard process. No wonder we've struggled and so much!

In fairness to the scholars above, they meant to emphasize that writers should concentrate on developing their ideas before they worried about comma splices, and to emphasize that truly skilful writing involved the long-term evolution of a complex set of skills. These ideas are all the same so powerfully nowadays in writing centers today because they are so very true. Unfortunately, they had the unintended upshot of marginalizing discussions of judgement structure, word option, punctuation, and grammatical errors until very late in the writing process.

In truth, ideas can not exist separated from the language used to express them. Multilingual writers are advanced language learners who are working toward the command of a sophisticated range of vocabulary, sentence structures, discipline-specific expressions, idioms, etc. Multilingual writers are likewise developing writers, and so they do demand the same kind of process-oriented and "college social club" feedback that monolingual writers need. Quite often, though, their ability to develop the content of their essays is express by a lack of vocabulary or by difficulty with complex sentence structures. As coaches, yous tin support the development of writing skills by talking about language at whatever point in the writing procedure where it might be helpful.

It'southward practiced to discourage premature concern with nit-picky editing decisions, just it's great to encourage exploration of the right linguistic communication for expressing a great idea. Be flexible and be comfortable with the fluid, dorsum and along movement between discussing the ideas and the language.

What do you do when students say, "Simply check my grammer"?

1. Respond positively. ("Sure, we tin can have a expect at the language stuff…"). Lectures about how nosotros teach proofreading strategies or how we don't really do grammar in the writing center put students on the defensive when they have a legitimate need for feedback on their language use. Just say yes, and motion on to the next pace.
2. Elicit other concerns. ("What else would you like to talk about today? Are you notwithstanding working on the content?"). Students volition often identify quite a range of concerns with simple prompting at the beginning of the session, especially afterward they've been reassured that you lot'll help them identify bug with a linguistic communication they're still learning.
3. Ask for an overview. ("Tell me about what y'all're working on and where you are in the process."). Explaining their writing project (the assignment and the text then far) gives students the chance to produce "comprehensible output"—a risk to use the English language to express their thoughts clearly and to make themselves understood. Nosotros know that language learners are able to empathise a lot more than they are able to spontaneously produce in a foreign language, and it'due south really hard work to express circuitous thoughts sufficiently in a language that's not your own. Past request questions, by listening carefully, and by asking follow-upwards questions, yous tin help students work through the process of communicating clearly in English, and you can requite yourself a mental framework of the project that will exist helpful when linguistic communication questions arise in specific parts of the text.
4. Read the entire draft. You may observe grammatical errors on the first or second page, but go on reading. You'll get a sense of the student's consummate statement, and you'll have time to recognize more serious errors that may occur later in the paper.
5. Stop just for farthermost problems. Sometimes a sentence may be and so malformed that the thought is completely obscured. You can brand a note to come back to that bespeak afterwards, merely if you do determine to stop, ask a broad question and then mind carefully ("Tin can you tell me more than most this idea?"). Try to exist attuned especially to places where the student's linguistic communication employ is truly interfering with your ability to understand what they're trying to say. Clarifying these expressions takes priority over minor errors that don't really interfere with your understanding.
6. Recast the student's caption more grammatically. ("Let me see if I understand you lot correctly. You're maxim that…"). If y'all understood and explained correctly, the student can hear the thought expressed in grammatical English language and can brand annotation of it—they tin can add it to their English language language repertoire. However, if your recasting (your paraphrased explanation) doesn't match the educatee's intended meaning, or if you can reasonably offer ii different interpretations of the text, you can examine the passage more than closely to figure out why it was unclear. Then y'all tin can work together on correcting whatever is confusing nigh the student'southward original expressions. This back and forth process is called "negotiation of meaning" ("Is this what y'all mean?" "No, I mean this." "Oh, okay. We say it like this." "Oh, okay. Thanks.")
7. Provide "linguistic input"—language that students read and hear. This "input" might be bits of English that are new to them (like a new word or idiomatic expression), or it might exist familiar bits of English being used in ways they've never heard earlier. You are not usurping control if you brand language suggestions that convey the student'southward ideas. If y'all've listened advisedly enough that you know what they're trying to express, aid them out.
8. Use resources. Fifty-fifty if you know the grammer, introduce students to language resource they can use independently at other times.
9. Document the puzzles. If y'all encounter particularly interesting or confusing samples of language use, go on a re-create to share with your colleagues and mentors. It may serve as a useful grooming sample, so you lot're serving the customs well.

What if students really hateful, "Simply check my grammer"?

In that location does come a time writers are ready to concentrate strictly on their grammer. They're satisfied with everything else, and as writers, you know that'due south a happy place to exist. Unremarkably nosotros teach proofreading strategies to native speakers at this stage. We tin can practice this with multilingual writers also, simply nosotros also take to adapt our strategies to accommodate their status as language learners. These suggestions are meant to assist you with that aligning.

In that location's a potent misconception that there will exist "patterns of fault"—certain types of errors that occur repeatedly in the text. Sometimes that does happen, but more oftentimes, there volition just exist one or two instances of 20 five unlike kinds of error. That'south okay. Yous tin can yet exploit the educational value of an error, having confidence that students will try to apply what they acquire to their subsequent writing.

Two things to note: Get-go, fifty-fifty though the strategies listed beneath concentrate more on straight proofreading and grammer checking, remember that yous can also utilise all of the strategies listed in a higher place for correcting the grammar by clarifying the intended meaning. 2nd, when you do find an mistake, you tin ask, "How practise you normally proofread for this kind of error?" or say to the educatee, "Let's attempt to discover a few more examples of this construction, just to double-check them." Look for right and incorrect examples considering nosotros demand our successes reinforced also! It'south a smashing opportunity to assess the student's proofreading skills and exercise some strategy edifice.

Recollect of these strategies as being listed in the order they should exist used in, but feel comfortable to experiment with the order, depending on the student, the writing project, and your own judgment. Play with them to see how each strategy helps heighten the students' learning feel.

1. Ask students to identify specific feedback targets ("Show me what you're not certain about."). You can inquire a variety of questions: why they're not certain about that sentence, if they can think of other ways to limited the idea, what rules they know about the particular grammar structure, if they checked a reference book, if they can show y'all the page so you can look at the rules together, etc. In other words, you tin learn a lot about the students' idea processes that volition be helpful in working with each of them. One caution: be sensitive to how much fourth dimension you lot're spending on these questions. It tin be frustrating to students if every single error is interrogated at length, equally you can imagine. Idioms and prepositions are neat candidates for a coach'southward quick corrections because they're so idiosyncratic. Structures that follow a prepare of rules more than systematically, like verb tense or gerunds vs. participles, are good candidates for more than questioning. (Locate the grammar references in the Writing Center if you didn't empathize "gerunds vs. participles"!)
2. Enquire where they struggled to make language choices. Sometimes they really exercise believe they've written everything in correct English, so they tin't point to a sentence they think might be incorrect. If you ask them to testify you where they had to work at it, you accept a risk to interrogate their determination-making process ("Why was this a difficult choice? How else were you thinking of saying it? What made you choose this way?") and to either congratulate them and reinforce a right choice, or to correct them and peradventure teach them a trick for making the correct option next time (a mnemonic device, a great page in your favorite reference volume, etc.).
3. Identify "high gravity" errors–errors that truly interfered with your comprehension. Work with the student to figure out how/why the sentence construction or discussion choice is obscuring their intended meaning. When they've explained their idea plenty that you understand it, offering them the language they need to express their thought grammatically.
4. Movement on to repeated errors. Ask questions about their choices or their general cognition (e.1000., "Why did you choose this verb tense?" or "What do you know about verb tenses?"). Inquire the student if they have a favorite grammar resource and/or share your ain favorite grammar resource. Work through correcting the fault together, helping the educatee understand and apply the rules. Find a couple more examples of the same kind of mistake and let the student use the resource to attempt correcting the mistakes. When they feel confident that they tin find and correct that type of error, motility on to another.
5. Give prepositions away similar candy. Introduce students to "learner's dictionaries," which include information well-nigh give-and-take + preposition combinations, simply experience comfortable freely offering upwards these important little words. Learning to use "upward" correctly in one sentence will non ensure that students will use it correctly in another sentence in the same style that learning about other structures will, and this little act of kindness tin can aid students stay more engaged with the rest of the process.

The strategies in action

These transcripts are excerpted from sessions with second language writers. They have been annotated to explain a bit well-nigh what was happening, what the students were trying to accomplish, what the coaches were trying to accomplish, and to illustrate a few of the concepts and strategies listed above. Read each excerpt without reading the comments, but to become the flow of the chat. Read them once again, looking at each of the marginal comments every bit y'all reflect on the information on this folio.

Resources

See our English language Language Resources folio for several learner'due south dictionaries and other language learning resources and strategies.

You tin find very articulate explanations of grammar structures and an Excellent collection of idioms and phrasal verbs, which ESL students usually struggle with, at UsingEnglish.com.

References

Friedlander, A. (1984). Coming together the needs of foreign students in the writing center. In Grand. A. Olson (Ed.) Writing centers: Theory and administration (pp. 206-214). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

N, South. (1984). The thought of a writing centre. College English, 46, 433-446.

Reigstad, T. J., & McAndrew, D. A. (1984). Grooming tutors for writing conferences. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English language.

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You may reproduce it for not-commercial utilize if you employ the unabridged handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of Northward Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Source: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/just-check-my-grammar/

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