Case Study with Midge

For the purposes of this case study I will refer to my student as Midge.

Midge is a non-native speaker of English. She is from a small town in Iran. She is not a student but works at the University, and has recently enrolled in a writing course. She enrolled in the Writing center because her professional capacity, she needs to write several emails a day, sometimes to her superiors, other times to faculty members, students, etc. She also needs to conduct surveys and studies, and solicit data for the same, all of which rely on a fairly precise grasp of the nuances of the language.

Some pedagogical issues that recur during my time with Midge (although she’s shown remarkable progress in a short amount of time, due to her energy, enthusiasm and willingness to learn) are:

(a) She writes in a very formal tone, which in this country could be interpreted as obsequious, and

(b) she uses lots of words, so that sometimes the meaning or intent gets confused. 

For these reasons, it takes some effort to figure out what she wants to say and then have her practice saying/writing it more succinctly and, in some cases with less formality. 

I believe these issues (“issues” in America, anyway) might stem from her cultural background. She is from the Middle East where I assume language is more formally written. I think any country, pretty much, is more formal than the US! And her command over English isn’t so good that she can condense her thoughts into a pithy email.

Midge’s strengths are definitely her willingness to learn, her very organized way of processing information and her capacity to listen once and absorb the lesson. Her weaknesses would be her lack of confidence, her hesitant tone in emails, and her overuse of words. I told her once that I’d seen on a teeshirt the following saying: “Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man,” — she laughed for about 10 minutes at that. And she got the message! Subsequent emails were more direct and asked more boldly for what was needed.

With Midge my strategy was to first listen to her carefully, see who the communication was aimed at and then what needed to be conveyed. She had a tendency to just go ahead and write the email, thinking as she wrote, which made emails long, wordy and confusing. I asked her to pull back and first jot down bullet points of what the email had to say. Once she had the 2-3 bullet points, we went over them, eliminating redundancies. Then she crafted an opening and conclusion around them and modified the bullets into sentences. 

She found that getting her thoughts down in bullet points, without the stress of needing to worry about the language, allowed her to be more succinct and clear about what she wanted to say. She has already shown great improvement, and gotten praise from her boss as well, for the quality of her emails. This is due to her ability to process and implement what she’s learning quickly. 

My question for the class as I continue working with her would be: How to instill confidence in a non-native speaker? This may seem like a small issue at first, but I believe it to be a key factor in professional development. I have seen firsthand how hesitancy holds people back from reaching their professional goals. In some other countries, you work hard and when it is your turn, you get promoted. However in this country entrepreneurship and boldness are rewarded — you have to ask for what you want. It might seem rude or insubordinate in other countries, not so here. My wish for my highly qualified, intelligent and empathetic student is for  her to embody that confidence, even if she makes grammatical mistakes here or there. How can I best teach that so she can reach her full potential? Thank you for reading and for any thoughts you might have!