Blog Posting #3


How does the case study in “Crossing Cultures” bring to mind experiences you have had as a teacher of and/or a writer in a second (foreign) language? 

I haven’t had a tutoring experience like this yet; I had a student in my Rhetoric course last year who came to office hours to discuss her paper draft, and an important issue we had to deal with was cultural understandings of sexuality—we discussed cultural information so that I could get a better picture of the argument she would be making. The student was South Korean, and her paper discussed rhetoric used in public backlash against a celebrity’s social media postings. In our conversation, I decided to just ask her to explain what elements within these postings would be problematic in Korea, and then widened the scope to ask why, and then shifted the conversation to “how this is working”. If she had been in my enrollment tutoring, we could have had some good informal writing exercises to accomplish this.

Which transfer problems like these have you noticed in the writing of second language writers?

In the above example, I found that the student made some casual generalizing statements of “women in Korea do X, Y, Z” without elaborating on why or how this practice happened, and so much of our work within that focused on specificity/clarification, before then moving to the structural work of writing. We discussed how perceptions were operating within her culture and some culturally defined differences regarding sexuality that exist between South Korea and a Western culture like the United States.

Which of the rhetorical and linguistic features (from the Appendix list) do you think would be easier or more difficult for second language writers?

Depending on the student’s first language, sentence structure in English may be difficult, as well as writing for the audience.

Comments

  1. Mark RheaumeFebruary 10, 2020 at 4:01 PM

    I am sorry to say that I haven't yet had a chance to work with an ELL student--at least, not to the degree that I could comment on any strategies, experiences, or trends. It certainly is not by choice; rather, the opportunity simply hasn't arisen in my handful of years teaching.

    "Crossing Cultures" describes the discussion between a tutor and an ELL student as a two-way street, and I think that must be essential to a successful session. Our students are experts in other subjects and have a wealth of experience in other fields or interests. I'm excited to trade that knowledge in a way that empowers students, regardless of origin.

    I worry that some of the cultural delegation that's necessary to catch some students up to speed (mowing the farm vs. mowing the yard) also sets up a power dynamic between that tutor and their student. That is, it would be easy to fall into a relationship in which the tutor only issues a series of corrections.

    I'm excited to get more experience with ELL students!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bethanny SudibyoFebruary 10, 2020 at 4:12 PM

      Hi Mark,
      I think the idea of the two way street was also very interesting to me. When we have a session, there is indeed a power dynamic between tutor and student (like you mentioned). However, I think as tutors we also need to remember that while they are seeking help, we also need to be open to what they have to offer. When I talk about a certain phrase in Spanish, I would ask how it's normally said in English (because English is not my L1 either), and I always end up learning something new.

      Delete

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