What, Why, and How?
15
NON-NATIVE
ENGLISH SPEAKERS
Definition and rationale
English survey
Parts of speech self-review
Top 8 tips to improve your reading
Tips for addressing length in academic writing
Turning spoken English into written
Tips for reported speech
Turning questions into statements
Conveying an author’s point of view
Agreeing and disagreeing with an author
Proofreading tips for ESOL students
WHO ARE NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS?
Used in the context of living in the United States, the term non-native speakers means
Students who are not native speakers of English, meaning that English is not their first
language. Other common terms used are ESL (English as a Second Language) and ESOL
(English Speakers of Other Languages).
WHY HAVE A SEPARATE CHAPTER FOR NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS?
Non-native speakers in mainstream college classes face the extra challenge of reading,
speaking, and writing in a language they have not studied their whole lives. The ESOL
Instructors at Skyline College have designed this chapter to help provide added assistance to
those students in mainstream English classes to support their learning and success.
HOW CAN I IMPROVE MY SUCCESS?
If you are enrolled in a mainstream English class (a class that is not ESOL specific so
contains a mixture of native and non-native English speakers), then most likely there will be
no class time dedicated to ESOL specific needs and issues. To ensure your success in the
class and in improving your English skills, you will want to take advantage of your resources.
The Learning Center in building 5 has a staff of dedicated English tutors (faculty, grad
students and peer tutors) and ESOL trained tutors as well. You can enroll in a credit/no-credit
lab course and earn college credit while getting assistance from tutors and taking advantage
of the other resources in The Learning Center. Additionally, you can use the materials in this
chapter as well as the Grammar and Style chapters in this Rhetoric to strengthen your skills.
English Survey
To begin, you can complete this survey and then take it with you when you first meet with your English teacher so
you can go over your history, your goals for the class, and your particular needs as a student. This will allow your
English teacher to get to know you better, and you can make a plan together to help you be successful in the class.
(1) What is your native language? Can you speak, read and write fluently in this language? What other languages
do you know? Can you speak, read, and write in each?
(2) How long have you lived in the United States? When did you begin studying English? How many
English classes have you taken? What grade level? What grades did you get in those classes?
(3) What areas in grammar do you find most challenging? What have past teachers commented on about
your writing?
(4) What other skill areas do you want to strengthen? Reading comprehension? Organizing your ideas?
Developing your ideas? Doing research? Listening? Class discussion?
(5) Circle the answers to the following questions about your editing/proofreading habits:
I edit and proofread the final draft of writing assignments.
Always
Often
Rarely
Never
Somebody else helps me with editing and proofreading my papers.
Always
Often
Rarely
Never
I edit and proofread by listening to how my writing “sounds.”
Always
Often
Rarely
Never
I analyze my sentence structure by circling subjects and underlining verbs.
Always
Often
Rarely
Never
(6) What else would you like me to know about you as a student in my English class?
PRACTICE
Parts of Speech Self-Review
Be sure you understand the foundational elements of English. For any of the following you are not sure of or cannot define,
use this as a guide for which topics you should review in the Chapter 14: Grammar.
Noun
Pronoun
Definition: _________________________
Definition: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
Verb
Preposition
Definition: _________________________
Definition: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
Adjective
Conjunction (also known as coordinator)
Definition: _________________________
Definition: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
Adverb
Definition: _________________________
Examples: _________________________
(Pause)
ANSWERS
Parts of Speech Self-Review
Noun
Definition: a word (other than a pronoun) used to
identify any of a class of people, places, or things
common noun, or to name a particular one of these
proper noun.
Examples: chair, dog, essay, left-handed people
Pronoun
Definition: a word that can function by itself as a noun
phrase and that refers either to the participants in the
discourse (e.g., I, you ) or to someone or something
mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it, this).
Examples: he, they, we
Verb
Definition: a word used to describe an action, state, or
occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate
of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.
Examples: run, was singing, will be calling, sank
Preposition
Definition: a word governing, and usually preceding, a
noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another
word or element in the clause, as in “the man on the
platform” and “she arrived after dinner.”
Examples: around, on, under, above
Adjective
Definition: a word or phrase naming an attribute,
added to or grammatically related to a noun to
modify or describe it.
Examples: red, scary, enormous, challenging
Adverb
Definition: a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies
an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group,
expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance,
manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, then, there ).
Examples: slowly, well, quietly, rapidly
Conjunction (also known as coordinator)
Definition: Definition: a word used to connect clauses or
sentences or to coordinate words in the same clause.
Examples: For, And, Nor, But, Or,Yet, So
(FANBOYS)
Top Eight Tips to Improve Your Reading:
(1) Read as much as possible: the more you read, the more you build up your vocabulary
and sentence structure. Choose books that interest you and are more fun than watching television.
(2) Develop a system for vocabulary. Keep a list of vocabulary words with their definitions to review again
and again.
(3) Make friends with a high-quality dictionary. Develop a system for finding key words and use the
dictionary to find definitions for key words.
(4) Make enemies with your dictionary. Don’t overuse your dictionary or interrupt your reading by looking
up every word. Studies show that breaks in reading mean a gap in your understanding.
(5) Be familiar with academic word lists. Find a vocabulary review book and use it to build your
vocabulary. The more vocabulary you know, the better you will understand what you read.
(6) Annotate your academic reading. Underline important points and make notes in the margin. Turn the
text into a conversation! If you want to sell your book back, use post-it notes for your comments.
(7) Read the newspaper. It gives you something to talk about and will increase your vocabulary.
(8) Read to your children! Don’t have any? Find some children and read to them!
What Researchers Say about Vocabulary
and Reading
What does this research mean? It means that for advanced levels of ESOL, you need to
nail down the 2,700 frequent core words and be well into learning the 6,000 core words!
* 90% comprehension is not good enough! That means you will not understand 1/10 words.
You need stronger vocabulary than that if you want to understand a newspaper or pop fiction
(such as a mystery novel).
**95% is enough to guess the meaning of the words you don’t know.
Tips for Addressing Length in Academic Writing:
Academic writing should be developed into powerful sentences that convey an idea completely. One common
problem among second-language speakers is when students don’t observe punctuation rules; the sentences end up
too long because they are not well punctuated, and the instructor tells the student, “Make your sentences shorter and
simpler.” However, another problem is created here because short and simple sentences are not as powerful as
longer, more descriptive sentences. So what can you do?
 What is the idea that you want to convey? It may be several ideas that are connected. Separate them
out first. Example:

Source: “The Black Table is Still There” by Lawrence Otis Graham

Graham is surprised to see that racial self-separation still exists at his old high school.

Graham doesn’t know whether he should feel proud or sad about it.

Final sentence:

In The Black Table is Still There, Lawrence Otis Graham is surprised to see that racial selfseparation still exists at his old high school, but he isn’t sure whether he should feel proud or sad
about it.
 State your ideas in simple clear sentences first. Use powerful verbs, nouns, and strong, descriptive
adjectives.
 After your sentences convey those ideas, then consider joining them together using sentence joining
strategies and tools such as FANBOYS (coordination) or subordination.
Practice for Addressing Length in Academic Writing
Using a source from your current course of study, select an idea that you wish to convey. Break it into several ideas
and state them in their own clear sentences first. Use powerful verbs, nouns, and strong, descriptive adjectives.
Finally, join the ideas into one powerful idea. Refer to rules you know that address sentence joining (such as
FANBOYS and subordination).
Source: __________________________________________________________________________
Idea 1: __________________________________________________________________________
Idea 2: __________________________________________________________________________
Idea 3: __________________________________________________________________________
Final sentence: ___________________________________________________________________
Turning Spoken English into Written:
Spoken English and written English differ in many important ways. One way they differ is in how questions are
interpreted in past time. For example, look at this conversation between a teacher and a student:
Student:
Teacher:
Student:
Teacher:
Student:
Teacher:
Did you receive my email?
When did you send it?
Yesterday.
I’m sorry, I didn’t see it. What was your question?
I want to know if the research paper is due next week.
Yes, it is.
Now, look at the description of the same conversation, but written instead of spoken.
I saw my teacher and asked her if she had received my email, which I had sent the day before.
She hadn’t seen it, so she asked what my question was. I asked her whether the research paper
was due next week, and she said it was.
There are three important differences between spoken English and written English:
(1) Length. Written English often takes more words to convey the same idea that can be conveyed in
spoken English. The conversation above took 36 words, but the written version took 47 words.
(2) Reported speech. In the written version that describes the spoken conversation, the verbs shift from
present to past, and from past to past perfect. This is because the speaker is reporting something
that already happened.
(3) Using if/whether to turn a question into a statement. In reported speech, the question cannot
remain a question. It must be turned into a statement.
Incorrect: I asked her did she receive my email.
Correct:
I asked her if she received my email.
Incorrect: I asked her is the research paper due next week.
Correct:
I asked her whether the research paper was due next week.
When should I use it?
Tips for Reported speech:
Reported speech should only be used when reporting an action in past time. It is often used in the reporting fields
of journalism and news casting, but may be appropriate for some forms of academic writing where reporting of a
source is needed.
Example:
Event: A fire in a building, set by arsonists
Police statement: We believe the fire was set by juveniles. The juveniles were seen by
neighbors earlier in the day.
Journalist: “The police said that the fire had been set by juveniles who had been seen
loitering around the building earlier in that day.”
Reported speech is NOT used when discussing the words of an author of fiction or non-fiction (the present tense
is used).
When Mark Twain states “The funniest things are the forbidden,” he reminds us how we revel
in pushing the boundaries of society’s rules. Perhaps he also suggests that he himself has
been taken to task by those rules, and he seeks safety in like-minded individuals who
appreciate risk.
Reported speech is also NOT used when reporting research that has been published and is used for determining
other research (present tense is used).
According to DeFrancis (1989), the Chinese writing system is a syllabic system of writing.
How do I use it?
Take the verb from the original
tense and move it backwards
in time.
PRACTICE
Practice for Reported Speech
Imagine that all of the following statements are source material for your paper.
Decide whether these statements should be moved into reported speech. If
they should be moved into reported speech, do so. If not, write “not reported
speech” in the blank.
(1) College President, Memo to College Governance Council: We are ready and willing to support the
veterans who have served our country by providing them with excellent opportunities for success.
___________________________________________________________________________
(2) Author, Paolo Freire, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”: Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the
oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them.
___________________________________________________________________________
(3) Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius: I believe strongly in the need for
accountability, and in the importance of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
___________________________________________________________________________
(4) Linguists Edelsky and Goodman: It is more common in modern education to combine the writing
process with whole language to form a holistic process and philosophy of literacy learning.
___________________________________________________________________________
(Pause)
ANSWERS
Practice for Reported Speech
Imagine that all of the following statements are source material for your paper.
Decide whether these statements should be moved into reported speech. If
they should be moved into reported speech, do so. If not, write “not reported
speech” in the blank.
(1) College President, Memo to College Governance Council: We are ready and willing to support the
veterans who have served our country by providing them with excellent opportunities for success.
The College President wrote to the College Governance Council that they were ready and willing to support the
veterans who have served our country by providing them with excellent opportunities for success.
(2) Author, Paolo Freire, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”: Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the
oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them.
Not reported speech
(3) Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius: I believe strongly in the need for
accountability, and in the importance of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary for Health and Human Services stated that she believes strongly in the need for
accountability, and in the importance of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
(4) Linguists Edelsky and Goodman: It is more common in modern education to combine the writing
process with whole language to form a holistic process and philosophy of literacy learning.
Not reported speech
PRACTICE
Practice for Reported Speech
Now, find two sources for a paper that you are writing.
Choose one that will be appropriate for converting into
reported speech, and one that will remain in present tense.
Remember to cite your source.
1.
2.
Using If and Whether to Turn
Yes/No Questions into Statements:
When using reported speech, Yes/No questions cannot remain in question format. It is necessary to
re-word the question to put it into statement format. Remember the earlier example:
Incorrect: I asked her did she receive my email.
Correct: I asked her if she received my email.
Incorrect: I asked her is the research paper due next week.
Correct: I asked her whether the research paper was due next week.
Notice the many ways that a question can be worded.
PRACTICE
Practice for Reported Speech
Convert these questions into statements. Note the many ways to state a Yes/No question.
Example: Scholarship committee question: Will giving laptops to students improve student
success?
Statement: The scholarship committee is curious to know whether giving laptops to
students will improve student success.
1. Community question: Will the cost associated with the earthquake cause local taxes
to go up?
Statement:
____________________________________________________________________
2. Researcher question: Is the low number of enrollees in the new program connected to
the scandal involving the program’s director?
Statement:
____________________________________________________________________
(Pause)
ANSWERS
Practice for Reported Speech
Convert these questions into statements. Note the many ways to state a Yes/No question.
Example: Scholarship committee question: Will giving laptops to students improve student
success?
Statement: The scholarship committee is curious to know whether giving laptops to
students will improve student success.
1. Community question: Will the cost associated with the earthquake cause local taxes
to go up?
Statement: The community would like to know if the cost associated with the earthquake
will cause local taxes to go up.
2. Researcher question: Is the low number of enrollees in the new program connected to
the scandal involving the program’s director?
Statement: The researcher is inquiring whether the low number of enrollees in the new
program is connected to the scandal involving the program’s director.
Conveying an Author’s Point of View:
Part of academic writing is accurately conveying the viewpoint of writers. You want to clearly state their points of view
and arguments before you add your own evaluation and analysis. In other words, you want to fairly and accurately
present the ideas in the material you are offering a critique of. Here is an example of conveying an author’s point of
view:
In his essay, “We Should Cherish Our Children’s Freedom to think,” author Kie Ho
states that the U.S. is the “country of innovation” because of its emphasis on free
thinking. He argues that countries who value conformity over freedom of thought
are at a disadvantage in the global marketplace.
Conveying an Author’s Point of View:
Agreeing and Disagreeing with
an Author’s Point of View:
In many cultures, it is considered rude or unwise to disagree with a published author. However, in the United States, it is
considered perfectly appropriate for a student writer to agree or disagree with a professional author. In fact, it shows the student
writer’s ability to think critically and be a participant in intellectual dialogue. Your professor wants to see that you can think
independently and can critique another writer’s ideas. When you are able to critique an author, you show yourself to be a strong
thinker and writer.
There are many words and phrases that you can use to agree or disagree with an author, as you will see below.
Examples of Showing Agreement with an Author:
Brady proclaims that she wants a wife to support her and take care of all the child-rearing and homemaking duties
so that she can be free to pursue a life without entanglements. It is easy to agree with her irony and obvious anger
at having little choice in strict gender roles.
McCuistion may be correct in that kids have to “fit themselves into categories imposed by society” (283); after all,
if society imposes these rules, what choice do young people have but to follow them?
Perrin’s argument is convincing because no one can doubt his maleness after his explanation of his job (a horse
wrangler), yet the reader sees how little freedom society allows him to be who he is.
Examples of Showing Partial, or Full, Disagreement with an Author:
While Brady’s anger is understandable, her hyperbole is not completely convincing; she assumes that
the whole purpose of marriage is to deliberately take advantage of the wife, and that the wife is, by definition,
a servant. This is an antiquated view (the piece was written in the seventies) and therefore may not be
representative of most marriages. I hesitate to endorse her view of “wife=slave” because I feel she isn’t fair
to men who truly uphold their half of marriage responsibilities. The argument is not effective because it focuses
on one angle.
What McCuistion calls “a competitive sense that reverberates throughout adult life” (283). I would call building
human connections. McCuistion fails to consider that competition is part of the way that humans, not just male
humans, interact all over the world. Competition teaches us social dynamics, not just “controlled violence” (283)
as McCuistion insists.
Agreeing and Disagreeing with
an Author’s Point of View:
Notice that the language that is used is very polite and respectful, even if the student writer disagrees with the
published author. Use the following words to agree and/or disagree with authors.
PRACTICE
Agreeing and Disagreeing with
an Author’s Point of View:
(1) Locate a quotation by an author that you are reading for your class.
Choose a quotation that clearly states the author’s point of view.
Write that quote here:
(2) Choose reporting verbs that will adequately and creatively report
what the author is saying. Write those verbs here:
(3) State your opinion of the author in the form of a critique.
Use language for critiquing authors. Write that here.
(4) Now, put it all together. Present the author’s point of view using
reporting verbs. Follow this with your statement of critique.
Proofreading Tips for ESOL Students
Proofreading is the process of error detection and error correction in your own work. Put in other words,
it is the identification and correction of your own mistakes. It should be an integral part of your writing
process.
Proofreading Checklist
Directions: Go through this checklist, one item at a time. When you have checked for this item throughout the
essay, mark what is true for your paper.
that concludes
15
NON-NATIVE
ENGLISH SPEAKERS