Hannah Furfaro
English 316
12/8/09
A Case for ESL Tutors: Comparing Conference Strategies of ESL Tutors Versus Native
Speaking Tutors in ESL Student Conferences
Writing centers’ goal of facilitating campus-wide tutoring sessions for students
in need have become increasingly popular on campuses nation wide. The place of the
writing center on campus varies, and each center develops its own ideology and
methodology on the “correct” way to approach writing tutoring. One debate that
continues to evolve within the realm of writing center tutoring focuses on the role of
teaching grammar versus composition strategies or traditionally “higher order” issues
(such as organization and argumentation). Rhetorical grammar instruction has come
under fire in recent years and is deemed by some academics as alienating and
incompatible with other tutoring techniques. The role of teaching grammar as a
meaningful way to approach students’ drafts is criticized as a fix-it approach; some
argue more comprehensive methods that identify argument weakness or confusing
organization structures should be a prerequisite for dealing with grammatical errors
(Harris and Silva 526).
In “Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar” Laura Micciche contends teaching
grammar is not as “mind-numbing” as some academics claim (716). Micciche
complicates traditional interpretations of grammar and claims teaching rhetorical
grammar is “as central to composition’s driving commitment to teach[ing] critical
thinking and cultural criticism,” (717). She says rhetorical choices are reflective of the
world the writer lives in and the connection between such grammatical choices and the
expressive purpose of any paper are inherently related. Rhetorical grammar should be
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chosen as a way to clearly reflect on and demonstrate relationships between ideas,
rather than a “systematic application” of rules, Micciche argues (721).
Theories on grammar instruction become more complicated in the context of
tutoring sessions held with ESL students. An ESL student is defined as “anyone whose
native language is not English, who is visiting the United States from another country
to study at college or university, and who is in the process of learning to write (and
speak) in English,” (Bruce and Rafoth, xiii). The debate on whether or not grammar
instruction should be a focal point in writing conferences between writing tutors and
their ESL tutees remains in flux based on multiple prevailing theories that disappear
and reappear throughout the history of research on tutoring ESL students. Although
many arguments seem to overlap with academics who address tutoring grammar in a
general context, the unique position of ESL students obscures contemporary beliefs on
how grammar should, or should not be taught.
Some academics argue against using generalized theories on teaching grammar
during writing center-tutoring sessions. Harris and Silva, in “Tutoring ESL Students:
Issues and Options” argue against previous methods of comparing native English
speakers rhetorical patterns with those of ESL students. They say such comparisons
and “cataloging of differences” in an attempt to deal with ESL students’ grammatical
errors is an underinclusive approach. Harris and Silva suggest that one way to avoid
comparisons that are not all encompassing is to identify common problems associated
with certain cultures (528). They caution against too broad of a homogenizing
approach and emphasize that all individuals will likely exhibit some errors that do not
conform to trends exhibited by native students or even students from a similar cultural
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background. In “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer,”
Judith Powers argues that because ESL students have a different knowledge base of
rhetorical skills than native speakers, strategies such as collaboration which are
typically successful in writing center conferences with native speakers, will likely fall
through in conferences with ESL students. “Since what these writers already know
about writing is based in those first-language rhetoric’s, it is likely that attempts to use
common collaborative strategies will backfire and lead them away from, not toward,
the solutions they seek” (370). She says that because many techniques used in native
speaker conferences rely on “shared assumptions” between the tutor and the tutee,
these solutions will fail with ESL students who do not yet inherently assume the same
things native speakers might assume (370).
ESL students have a tendency to want to understand the “rules” of English
which is often off-putting to native English speaking tutors who typically aim to focus
on “higher order” concerns (Harris and Silva, 530). They explain this based on nonnative speakers lack of intuition on what sounds correct in English; thus, many ESL
students become reliant on rules when they write and speak English. This reliance
often becomes noticeable in conferences with ESL students when the student engages
with the writing tutor as if the tutor was a copy editor rather than someone who can
aid the student with organization or thesis issues (Harris and Silva, 529). Harris and
Silva argue that tutors should prioritize rhetorical issues over linguistic errors. They
discuss the necessity of acknowledging what students do well in a paper instead of
focusing primarily on grammatical mistakes. Students should understand grammatical
errors are a “natural part of language learning” (530). Content, a generally considered
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higher order concern, should be prioritized over the lower order concern of
grammatical changes (Harris and Silva, 526).
Some academics say grammatical instruction is necessary for ESL students who
are still learning the nuances of a new language (Celce-Murcia, 465). Some academics
such as Marianne Celce-Murcia in “Grammar Pedagogy in Second and Foreign
Language Teaching,” suggest that grammatical instruction and “surface-level”
corrections make ESL students more confident about their finished product. Grammar
instruction in the context of ESL students could be viewed as giving students a
necessary set of tools to effectively communicate ideas in a language they are
unfamiliar with. In a study cited by Marianne Celce-Murcia, 40 percent of ESL students
at a university level were evaluated as having produced “fully acceptable” writing after
grammatical corrections, while those same essays were rated “unacceptable” by
university composition professors before the errors were corrected (465). CelceMurcia argues grammar should not be taught as an end in itself, but should be taught
with “reference to meaning, social factors, or discourse” (467). Celce-Murcia concedes
that grammar should never be the highest order of concern, but says understanding
appropriate usage rules is critical for ESL students who may be otherwise unable to
express concrete messages.
In “ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors” Bruce and Rafoth argue that
more often than not, when a tutor does some line-by-line editing, students begin to
recognize patterns of error and quickly learn to self-edit (90). Bruce and Rafoth
suggest an indirect approach by the writing tutor; they argue it is more productive for
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the tutor to ask the student to look for the errors first before pointing out error
locations. This exercise helps the student become a more independent editor of their
own work and increases the students’ confidence in their ability to understand correct
grammatical structures.
In an attempt to synthesize and build on previous research on the role of
grammatical instruction during ESL student writing conferences, I decided to look at
the way native English speaking tutors versus ESL tutors handle grammatical issues.
My study looks at the role grammatical instruction plays through two case studies
involving ESL students and writing center tutors at the University of Wisconsin –
Madison. My study looks at the differences between how a native speaking tutor
addresses grammar with an ESL tutee versus how an ESL tutor addresses questions
related to grammar. The debate surrounding whether or not grammar instruction
should be a primary focus in conferences with ESL students, contextualized by my two
case studies, brings me to the question of “what methods do native speaking tutors and
ESL tutors use to address grammatical issues and to what extent do these methods
affect attendance of ‘higher order concerns’?” My study also looks at how cultural
differences or similarities between the tutors and their tutees contribute to the
“success” of a conference. My study examines how such relationships either contribute
to or prevent miscommunication during discussion of higher order concerns. My
findings help me conclude that writing center tutors should help equip ESL students
with the grammatical tools they need to write comprehensible drafts through a
dialogue that accounts for the gravity of grammatical errors. My research also helps
make the case that ESL tutors’ and their tutees’ potentially similarly situated cultural
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backgrounds allow ESL tutors to more effectively address the grammatical needs of
ESL writers.
Methodology
Four subjects were selected to participate in observation sessions at the UWMadison Writing Center; two writing center tutors and two ESL students. Each student
met with one of the writing center tutors to discuss their papers, which were written
for different courses. Both tutees were female and both writing center tutors were
male. “Lily,” who worked with “Joe” (a native speaker), moved to the United States
when she was ten years old. “Jen,” who worked with “Dave” (a non-native English
speaker) moved to the United States to attend college and attended high school in her
native country.
With the students’ and tutors’ permission, one 30-minute writing conference
was audio taped for each pair. Each students’ draft was written prior to the conference.
Joe had never met with Lily to discuss a paper but Dave had worked with Jen on
previous drafts of the paper they discussed during the recorded observation session I
watched.
In a comparable study that looked at the role conferences play between
teachers and ESL students in a writing context, a comprehensive iterative process and
set of codes was established to analyze the discourse between the teacher and the
student. Using a similar approach, my study which evaluated the discourse exchange
between writing center tutors and tutees used a scheme based on the one used in the
comparable study with some addition of codes that seemed particularly relevant for
this study. The following discourse features were evaluated:
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Discourse Schemes
Episode
Subunit of the conference. Change in topic or purpose
signifies a new episode.
Topic Nomination
The participant who introduces a new topic/purpose
changes to a new episode.
Invited Nomination
Occurs when the participant nominates the topic in
response to “what would you like to discuss?”
Question
A question asked by the ESL student or the writing center
tutor
Negotiation of
Confirmation checks, comprehension checks, clarification
Meaning
requests
Negotiation of
Clarification of revision strategies: 1) student confirming the
Revision
tutors suggestion of a need for revision 2) teacher checking
to see if the student understands the revision strategies 3)
student checking to see if it is appropriate to revise in a
certain way 4) student stating he/she did not understand
why revision is necessary
Interruption
Change of speaker before the original speaker has
completed a thought
Change in Language
Moving between languages (subset of negotiation of
meaning)
Backchannels
Verbal devices such as year, um, etc. to indicate the listener
is attending to the speaker
Turn
Change in speaker – discussion that does not include one of
the above
discourse schemes.
Coding originally devised in Conrad and Goldstein, 1990. Rows 7-8 are original
codes.
The data collected in the conferences was transcribed from the audio
recordings and then coded based on the discourse analysis system that synthesized
Conrad and Goldstein’s scheme with original codes devised specifically for this study
(‘interruption’ and ‘change in language’). Each statement a participant made could
receive multiple codes; for example, a question that changes the topic or purpose of the
conversation could receive a “question code” and a “topic nomination code.” After each
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conference was coded, frequencies of each discourse scheme were calculated and
compared.
For the purpose of this study, the most significant area of interest comes from
an examination of how frequently ESL students versus their tutors use “negotiation of
meaning” discourse schemes. The goal of this research is to discover the approaches
writing center tutors at UW-Madison use to address grammatical errors in ESL
students papers and each discourse scheme coded under “negotiation of meaning” and
“change in language” serve as points of interest for evaluating the tutors’ approach to
correcting errors.
Case One: Lily and Joe
Lily, a non-native speaker, met with Joe at the UW-Madison Writing Center to
work on a sociology paper about her family’s structure. Joe followed the prescribed
writing center format during the conference; he encouraged Lily to read her paper
aloud and contribute mutually to the discussion on the paper’s content as they went
through paragraph-by-paragraph.
Using the coding described above, I calculated how much “talk time” each
participant contributed to the nine areas of discourse I coded. The primary areas I
evaluated after calculating each participants frequencies allowed me to identify trends
in particular discourse areas. Four primary trends emerged from the data I collected;
Joe nominated topics more than four times as often as Lily, Joe asked more than four
times as many questions as Lily, Lily negotiated grammatical meaning twice as many
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times as Joe and Lily engaged in explanatory “talk time” (turns) four times as often as
Joe.
Discourse Distribution Data
TN
IN
Q
M
R
I
L
B
T
Joe
82%
100%
78%
33%
50%
58%
n/a
60%
19%
Lily
18%
0%
22%
67%
50%
42%
n/a
40%
81%
Although not all of these trends seem directly related to the use of grammar
instruction, each of these trends gives useful information on the roles each participant
played in the conference which provides some insight on the “meaning negotiations,”
which are the focus of this study.
The main discourse area I address in this study is negotiation of grammatical
meaning, which includes confirmation checks, comprehension checks and clarification
requests. These categories include discourse primarily focused on grammar, sentence
structure and other linguistic rules. Negotiation of meaning also includes
comprehension checks, which includes discourse between the two participants aimed
at confirming that one participant understands the other participants meaning.
Finally, negotiation of meaning includes clarification requests, which consist of one
party asking the other party to explain their meaning (this subcategory is cross-listed
with the code “question”). Excerpts from Lily and Joe’s conference displaying these
types of negotiations are below.
Overall, Lily asked for grammatical clarification, such as how to pluralize a noun
correctly, twice as often as Joe. This statistic indicates Lily needed clarification on
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potential grammatical errors and asked comprehension or clarification questions
significantly more than Joe. Celce-Murcia argues that ESL students are likely to feel
more comfortable with their drafts if their basic grammatical questions are answered
than if they stay silent about errors they are concerned about (469). In the case of Lily,
she did spend more time than Joe asking for comprehension and clarification help.
Although this is interesting, the statistic becomes of more interest when contextualized
by the actual conversation patterns, and types of “negotiation of meaning” phrases Joe
and Lily used.
Throughout the conference Lily initiated clarifications about her word choice
and sentence structure through questions and indication of confusion. In an episode
near the beginning of the conference after Lily finished reading her first paragraph, Lily
and Joe discussed the placement of the word “structure” relative to the subject and
verb in a sentence Lily included in her paper:
Lily: “It is interesting to see how much cultural heritage shapes the structure interactions…” Do I
say the “structure interactions? Can I do that?
Joe: The structure … the interactions … ok yeah.
Lily: I was just always taught I could have done it that way …
Joe: Either way is fine.
In this exchange, Lily asks Joe if the word “structure” is an OK modifier of the word
“interactions.” She seems to realize something doesn't sound correct about her
sentence but she is not sure if she is correct or incorrect in identifying an error. It is
evident Joe is trying to understand where Lily sees a potential problem, but instead of
helping her see the correct way to modify “interactions” is with the word “structural”
rather than “structure,” he seems to lose focus and has problems aiding Lily. When she
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says she was always taught to “do it that way,” Joe says, “Either way is fine.” Joe has a
difficult time understanding Lily’s initial grammatical question, and seems to either
want to brush aside her concern by consoling her with the vague statement “either way
is fine” (it should be noted that Lily did not offer another option of how to word her
sentence. Joe’s suggestion therefore seems out of place) or simply not understand
what she is asking.
To this instance is not an anomaly on Joe’s part, it is necessary to examine
another case when Lily attempted to negotiate grammatical meaning. In another
episode, this time near the middle of the conference, Lily was reading through her
second paragraph when she asked another question about how to phrase a particular
sentence:
Lily: “Without question we do care about each other in our own way, however our
relationship…” would have been much better? Is much better? If we are able to express … ?
Joe: Don't worry about it for right now. Why don’t you bracket that off and we can come back to
it.
Although he offers to come back to the issue Lily brings up, the pair never goes back to
address Lily’s question. In this exchange, Joe seemingly wanted to focus on his
perception of “higher order issues” such as the content and ideas in Lily’s paper.
Although Joe is not harsh, he makes it clear he wants to focus on higher order issues
such as organization and content. A few “turns” after the exchange about bracketing off
Lily’s concern, Joe says, “There’s so many good observations and thoughts in here but I
feel like sometimes they get pushed to the background because of the organization.
Maybe adding something to another paragraph? Maybe mapping onto these questions?”
Joe continues to ask the sort of “collaborative” questions Power’s criticizes (when used
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with ESL students) and as the pair progress to higher order concerns, Lily occasionally
seems to become confused with Joe’s questions.
As the conference progressed, Joe directed the conversation toward what he
considered “higher order issues” without going back to address Lily’s personal
concerns on grammar and usage. In an article by Jessica Williams and Carol Severino,
they argue that tutors should focus on higher order concerns over grammatical
instruction (167). In another article by Williams, called “Tutoring and Revision: Second
Language Writers in the Writing Center,” she argues it is the role of the writer to detect
grammatical issues and evaluate these problems themselves so they develop their own
understanding “of how they want their text to evolve” (174). However, the drawbacks
of silencing Lily’s concerns and forcing her to evaluate them herself became more
apparent as the discussion continued; Lily expressed confusion rather than
successfully engaging in Joe’s collaborative questions and she seemed to begin to doubt
some of the fundamental arguments her paper made. Miscommunication began when
Joe asked about the factors that contribute to Lily’s family’s power hierarchy (she
devotes a section of her paper to discussion on this topic). Joe brings up content ideas
Lily had not thought of and he suggests a different method of organization based on the
new content. After this suggestion, Lily seems to shut down and become confused
about what Joe is asking from her:
Lily: Yeah. I am confused because I talk about this in the summary.
Joe: You were saying everything seems to overlap.
Lily: Yeah, I guess sometimes I can talk about it, how, and the thing that I didn’t really talk about
because I think that I … I don’t know.
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As Joe directed the conference in the direction he thought was useful, Lily
seemed to feel less confident about her work as a whole. Ultimately, addressing “higher
order concerns” without abating Lily’s concern about her grammatical errors proved
fruitless, possibly because of Joe’s initial rejection of Lily’s grammatical questions. Lily
seemed to lose confidence after her concerns were never addressed which made it
more difficult for her to engage in Joe’s concerns. According to Powers, it is the context
of the questions ESL students ask that matters; Powers says although some questions
regarding form, thesis statements or usage may seem similar on face to the types of
questions “lazy” or “insecure” native speakers might ask, what makes these questions
different is the ESL students’ inherent unfamiliarity with the English language (373).
“We were … unlikely to provide useful help to ESL writers until we saw the questions
they raised about basic form and usage not as evasions of responsibility but as the real
questions of writers struggling with an unfamiliar culture, audience, an rhetoric,” she
says about her experience in the writing center at the University of Wyoming (373).
Powers argues the tutors’ role should be as an “informant” rather than a “collaborator”
when tutoring ESL students. In the case of Joe and Lily, Joe held on to his role as a
“collaborator” rather than negotiating with Lily in a way that made her more
comfortable with her piece of writing.
Joe’s limited success in his attempts to transition from grammatical concerns to
organization and content concerns could also be attributed to instances where his
efforts to understand cultural differences between Lily and himself deteriorated the
flow of the conversation and made Lily feel uncomfortable. Powers notes that because
a native speaking tutor likely does not know very much about the ESL student’s
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background or culture, the tutor should be direct and “teach writing as an academic
subject” (374). Powers says it is easier to assist ESL writers, “only if we understand
what they bring to the writing center conference and allow that perspective to
determine our conferencing strategies,” (374). In the case of Lily and Joe’s conference,
Joe’s attempts to “understand” Lily’s culture conflate his genuine interest in her
background with inappropriately personal questions and combative suggestions that
shut their conversation down:
Lily: Yeah, it’s not always indirect. And often direct communication [in my family] is considered
rude or not respectful.
Joe: So why do you think this is something that’s cultural, because my family is not very good at
communicating and I’m from Massachusetts.
Lily: That’s true.
Joe: So I’m not saying that you are wrong, but I want to hear a little more about why you think
this is cultural because I think would be interesting about your particular experience. Are you
first generation? Were you born here?
Lily: I came here when I was ten.
In this episode, Joe asked deeply personal questions considering he has never
worked with Lily prior to this conference. In the above episode Lily and Joe quickly
moved on from the cultural comparison Joe brought up; after Lily divulged her
personal information she seemed to retreat from Joe’s invasive questioning which had
the effect of shutting down their conversation on issues relevant to the content of her
paper. Joe seemed to try to fit Lily into the mold of a native speaker and failed to adjust
his strategies to fit her needs. Powers says it is the tutor’s attempt to apply
collaborative or other techniques that help native speakers succeed to ESL students
that creates the “possibility of cultural miscommunication and failed conferences
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inherent in the methodology itself” (375). It is likely that Joe was trying to find a way to
connect on a cultural basis with Lily. His questions do not seem rudely intrusive; however,
the combination of Joe shutting down Lily’s grammatical needs and his overly personal
questions led to the miscommunication Powers describes. It is unlikely Joe’s personal
questions were motivated by any other agenda than him wanting to get Lily to open up about
her paper topic. Despite this, Joe’s method seemed to backfire based on how Lily seemed to
remove herself from the rest of their conversation. This sort of miscommunication helps me
conclude that it is possibly the combination of Joe’s inherent lack of cultural knowledge
about Lily in addition to his blanket application of methods typically used for native
speakers that made their conference less successful than it could have been.
Case Two: Dave and Jen
Jen, a non-native speaker, met with Dave, also a non-native speaker, at the UWMadison writing center to discuss a paper she wrote for a geography course. Jen and
Dave met previously to discuss another paper Jen wrote for the same geography
course. It is important to note that both Jen and Dave speak Mandarin and Taiwanese
fluently. Using the coding system I discussed in the methodology section, I coded the
transcript for the writing conference between Dave and Jen, noting trends I found
along the way. Three primary trends emerged based on the coding. First, Dave asked
three times as many questions as Jen. Second, Jen was three times more explanatory
than Dave (took more “turns”). Finally, Dave and Jen negotiated meaning almost the
exact same number of times.
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Discourse Distribution Data
TN
IN
Q
M
R
I
L
B
T
Dave
71%
0%
76%
49%
75%
57%
50%
50%
25%
Jen
29%
0%
24%
51%
25%
43%
50%
50%
75%
For the purpose of my study, the most important trend I investigated was the
“negotiation of meaning” between Jen and Dave. As I stated earlier, “negotiating
meaning” includes confirmation checks, comprehension checks and clarification
requests (see full definition under the sub section titled Case One: Joe and Lily). Unlike
the case of Joe and Lily, negotiating meaning between Jen and Dave not only included
grammatical negotiation, but also content negotiation. This is an important distinction
because it could be argued that because Joe did not adequately negotiate meaning with
Lily on grammatical issues, the pair was never able to successfully negotiate meaning
on higher order concerns. In the case of Jen and Dave the “negotiation of meaning” is
worth splitting into two subcategories: the first category, grammatical meaning, will
refer to instances when Jen and Dave worked together to clarify one of Jen’s
grammatical concerns. The second category, content-based meaning, will refer to
instances when Jen and Dave worked together to clarify points Jen made in her paper
(this happened often because her paper was about humanistic geography, a topic her
tutor was not particularly familiar with).
Throughout the conference Jen initiated negotiation of grammatical meaning by
noting specific areas in her paper where she was unsure how to use a particular verb
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form or how to pluralize a noun. Jen used a more formalistic approach than Lily when
she indicated she needed help from her tutor. Dave responded in a formalistic manner.
In one episode, Dave explains how to use the word “until” in a sentence:
Jen: I am trying to link the sentence with only a phrase.
Dave: After “until” you can write…
Jen: Which preposition can I use? Or just make a noun…
Dave: You mean after a preposition there must be a noun? In, on, at, off…
Jen: If I just want to use a preposition…
Dave: Yes you can. But usually after “until” you have “what time” … until tomorrow, until
December. You want to show particular times. So when you hear “emerges” mark the specific
time here.
Through negotiation, the pair discussed Jen’s misunderstanding of the correct way to
use the word “until.” Jen asks the correct way to use a preposition in conjunction with a
noun and Dave helps move her through the process. This episode does not consist of
one question asked by Jen and a definitive answer given by Dave; rather, the pair work
through exactly what Jen is asking and Dave formally teaches her a skill she can use in
the future. Harris and Silva acknowledge that ESL students often use a rule-based
approach when writing in English. The way Jen structures her grammatical questions
seems representative of the rule-based approach Harris and Silva describe. However,
unlike Harris and Silva’s advice to only attend to higher order issues, Dave seems to
proscribe more to Power’s strategies; Dave takes on the role of an “informant” when
Jen has grammatical questions rather than shying away from her supposed “lower
order” concerns. He tells Jen in a direct way how to use the word “until” by stating that
“until” must be followed by a specific time.
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Based on the scope of my research it is unknown how Dave initially learned
English and how he was taught to tutor students in the field of writing. However, the
way he taught Jen provides some insight on his understanding of Jen’s formalistic
approach (one a native speaker would unlikely use). It is possible that Dave was able to
successfully negotiate grammatical meaning with Jen because he understood her
inherent difficulties with grammar based on his own potential challenges learning
English as a non-native speaker. Because Dave’s English training background is unclear
I am unable to conclude he did indeed have more background in formalistic English
than Joe. But, the way he approached Jen’s grammatical concerns could be indicative of
the way he was taught English, which would likely be more formalistic in nature than
the way native speakers are taught.
Jen and Dave’s progression to higher order concerns was not linear; rather,
what made their conference successful was the pairs ability to fluidly transition
between Jen’s grammatical concerns and her content concerns. Content-based
negotiation seemed to go hand in hand with grammatical negotiation during their
conference. This is demonstrated by Jen and Dave’s continual conversation of both
higher and lower order concerns throughout the meeting. Jen didn't ask to first address
grammatical errors and then move on to content questions; instead, when she felt
uncomfortable with her own word choice or had a usage error she asked for Dave’s
advice and then easily seemed to slip back into discussion about her paper topic
(humanistic geography):
Dave: It’s very interesting. The focus of man begins in geographical schools. From humanistic
geography and…
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Jen: Yes, two focuses.
Dave: “Two” focus. Foci.
Jen: Foci?
Dave: Mhm.
Jen: Actually, they didn't separate the men and the world. They believed the world is…
Dave: Part of the world…
Jen: Is generated from the men. How do men…?
Dave: See the world.
Jen: Mhm. Think, feel, recognize.
This episode demonstrates how Jen and Dave’s conversation doesn't devolve into only
discussion on lower order concerns when one came up. It also shows the
interconnectivity between the content of an idea and how that idea is communicated in
English. Dave corrects Jen’s incorrect pluralized version of “focus” but doesn't harp on
the issue. After Jen seems to understand Dave’s correction the pair move on to the
content they were in the midst of discussing.
Dave and Joe’s approaches to addressing grammar exhibit some obvious
differences. The way Dave helped Jen when she had a concern was direct and explicit
while Joe used collaborative techniques to bypass grammatical errors. Instead of trying
to fit Jen into the mold of a native speaking tutee, Dave was able to “collaborate” with
Jen in a different sense of the word by working through grammar issues and content
issues simultaneously. Based on Celce-Murcia’s research and what I witnessed in Dave
and Jen’s conference, I deem this second writing conference more successful than the
conference between Lily and Joe.
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Jen and Dave’s conference took an unexpected turn that could help explain why
their conference was able to succeed in the way it did. Because Jen and Dave are fluent
in two of the same Asian languages, Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, they were able
to negotiate meaning without the language barrier Lily and Joe faced. Throughout the
conference Jen and Dave’s shared languages and possibly similar background
experiences allowed them to negotiate in a way Lily and Joe never could. In one
instance, their negotiation helped Jen learn a word in English she did not previously
know:
Jen: The difference between these two terms. Because place is linking to a personal feeling. Your
emotions. Space is more neutralized. The space is trying to link to prior schools of thought that
talk about … how do you say … [Chinese]
Dave: Oh, ok. Mathematical?
Jen: Mathematical. A physical space.
In another instance, Jen expressed a word she knew how to say in Mandarin Chinese
and then attempted to express it in English. Dave was able to correct her based on their
shared understanding of the Mandarin Chinese word Jen expressed:
Jen: Because humanistic geography talks about men, I will deal with men. But that is a different
viewpoint. Bu you know…
Dave: You can use Chinese.
Jen: [Chinese] that might be focused on psychology, but here they care more about special
behaviors. It is expectful…?
Dave: It is predictable?
Jen: Expectful?
Dave: Predictable.
The shared understanding Powers describes (note when I previously mentioned
Power’s argument about how understanding the tutees perspective determines a
tutors conferencing strategies) is evident in the case of Jen and Dave. They are able to
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literally negotiate the meaning of various words through the use of more than one
shared language, and, this negotiation allowed them to successfully address “higher
order concerns” more efficiently. Although their ability to negotiate in multiple
languages in itself is not what deems this conference successful, this ability did seem to
aid the Dave and Jen’s when they addressed both higher and lower order concerns.
Concluding Analysis:
The successfulness of the observed conferences was ultimately based on both
the level of direct grammatical instruction the tutor was willing to provide as well as
the ability of the tutor and tutee to work either within or outside similarly situated
cultural frameworks. This second contributing factor, cultural communication, was not
immediately evident as a meaningful point of analysis or lens of comparison. However,
the cultural differences in Joe and Lily’s conference and the cultural compatibility
witnessed in Dave and Jen’s conference made it necessary to evaluate the success of
the conferences in light of the trends I saw. Ultimately, the success of the conferences
was determined by the ability of the pair to move from lower order concerns to higher
order concerns while keeping in mind the specific expressed needs of the individual
tutee. This criterion, which seems to be intimately related to cultural communication
or a lack thereof, deems Dave and Jen’s conference more successful than the first
conference.
I think other research could be done evaluating the transcript codes I didn't
focus on in this study. For example, the number of questions each individual asked and
the types of questions asked would likely include interesting data that could be used to
Furfaro, 22
support an argument about the power relations in ESL student conferences. The
number of times each individual nominated a topic (another code I used) could also be
used to look at the roles of tutors versus their ESL students.
This study reveals tensions in native speaking tutor – ESL tutee conferences.
However, the small scope of these observations begs for more research to help confirm
or deny trends found in this particular study. It is possible that the case of Joe and Lily
is highly unrepresentative of the successfulness in most native speaking tutor – ESL
tutee conferences. Because of this, more research replicating the methods of this study
is needed. Although there is some research on foreign language writing centers, how
culture influences writing conferences and the effectiveness of using grammar to teach
writing to ESL students, my secondary source research indicates little research has
been done studying the techniques of ESL tutors with ESL tutees. Although the
institution of ESL tutor based writing centers is somewhat unrealistic, my research
provides support for recruiting ESL English graduate students to teach in writing
centers at minimum.
Furfaro, 23
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