Our Guides for Helping International Students Learn English
General Suggestions
| 1. | Talk slowly and clearly. |
| 2. | Let the student see your mouth. |
| 3. | Avoid slang, jokes, and humor; new language learners probably will not understand anyway. Explain the idioms you do use. |
| 4. | Be CONVENTIONAL in your language, actions, and dress. Many international students come from societies that value 19th-century behavior. |
| 5. | Remember that learning a language is a process: students will not complete that process in one tutoring session, or ten, or twenty. Recognize that you cannot help them “fix” everything and master English in one session. |
| 6. | Do not be upset if some Asian people avoid eye contact. In particular, be careful about eye contact with Asian people of the opposite sex, since they may consider that behavior extremely intimate, aggressive, or forward. |
| 7. | Sit down first and then let the international student position him/herself at a distance that is comfortable for him/her. |
| 8. | Do not be surprised if students from some areas are confrontational and argumentative; and do not allow them to push you around. |
| 9. | Use the Raimes handbook, Keys for Writers, with English Language Learners (ELL). As a long-time ELL teacher with extensive experience, Raimes explains the mysteries and commonplaces of English clearly. |
| 10. | Refer to the American Heritage Dictionary for clear definitions and pictures.
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General Strategies for Writing
| 1. | Validate the places where you understand the student’s writing; avoid focusing just on the the places where you do not. If you have had to communicate in a second language, you know well the pleasure when your listener signals understanding and the frustration when s/he understands nothing. |
| 2. | Often reading the international student’s paper aloud to her/him helps more than having her/him read to you. Many ELL students can “hear” problems in English better than they can see them because they are concentrating so much on correct pronunciation when they read. |
| 3. | Foreground your role as a tour guide of spoken and written English. For example, you might say, “In academic written English, we say this . . . or use this construction . . . , but in spoken English we say what you wrote.” This approach can help both of you remember that you should offer assistance as a guide to the conventions and rules of both spoken and written English. |
| 4. | Many native speakers of English have difficulty understanding what their instructors have written in the margins of their papers. For ELL learners, reading teacher assignments and comments may present an enormous barrier. Make sure that ELL students understand teacher comments by having them paraphrase what they think the teacher means or is asking them to do. |
| 5. | Studies show that remembering information exchanged orally in a second language is much more difficult than remembering in the first language. Thus you need to make sure that ELL students leave the tutorial with some “aids” to help them remember what you have done in the tutoring session–notes, a handout, an outline. Or have the student take notes him/herself to remember the tutorial. |
| 6. | If the student has very limited language facility, urge him/her to brainstorm in his/her first language. Then generate long lists of words and phrases in English that relate to the topic. The more words and phrases generated, the fewer the student will have to retrieve when s/he is actually composing sentences and paragraphs. However, warn students against composing in their first language and translating to English, as this strategy increases the frequency and seriousness of confused word order, unclear meaning, and unconventional organization. |
| 7. | Have students draw visual organizational charts (boxes to fill with words, pictures, or designs) to plot the sequence of the paper. Then transfer the words and phrases previously generated to each box (or create a separate page for each box) so that they have the words to use already collected in front of them and somewhat sequenced and organized into a pattern for presenting their ideas. |
| 8. | Remember that students cannot process vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraph structure, spelling, letter formation, thesis formation, etc., etc., at the same time, since these are different cognitive functions that they have not yet internalized. |
| 9. | Reinforce Western patterns of organization and argument that focus on making and supporting specific points and drawing and evaluating conclusions. Emphasize that even though indirectness may be valued in their society and directness considered extremely rude, Americans expect directness and linear organization as opposed to the indirect and the circular. |
| 10. | Identify patterns of error, which are both predictable and easy to recognize. Get a sense of how aware the student is of his/her own error patterns by having the student read some of the paper aloud and stop at an error. Students who read past errors need to work on error recognition as well as correction. Some students also read correctly their written errors without recognizing the difference between what they have written and what they read. |
| 11. | Focus on patterns of error, particularly the ones that most interfere with meaning or are the most distracting. The following list contains some of the most frequent ELL errors:
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| 12. | Encourage students to write short, simple, and compound sentences until they master English syntax enough to express their complex thoughts in complex sentences. |
| 13. | Identify places where the student has “done” English right and offer praise. |
| 14. | When meaning is unclear, ask the student to explain. Frequently the explanation is the language that should be used in the paper. Depending on the student’s writing proficiency, you may write the words for the student to avoid too much distraction from the job at hand. |
| 15. | If the student is struggling with vocabulary or structure that is beyond his/her own capability, offer several choices and let him/her select according to what s/he wants to convey to the reader. |
*Special note: Many of these approaches and techniques are effective with LD and AD/HD students, as well as native speakers. In addition, other terms, such as ENL, may be used to refer to English language learners.
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Questions
If you have any questions, please contact the Writing Center.
