ENGL431fosen

This article is looking at the differences in Non-Native speaker (NNS) and Native speaker (NS) in their writing discourse. The main focus is on the usage of tense, aspect, and active/passive voice in their writing. The subjects include NS, and NNS Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Arabic. They were given a class periods to answer one out of three questions. The result is very interesting for it shows the difference between the different groups of NNS and the overall differences of NNS and NS. At the conclusion of the finding, it says that NNS are less likely to use passive voice in their writing. I reflected it back to professor Wyrick's question about passive tense in Hmong. I notice that the reason we never pay attention to passive voice because we rarely use it in everyday communication that when I translated to my parents they said it's possible but it's hard to make sense out of it. I also tried to translate some transition words and found it to be very disturbing to the flow of the sentence.

This article is explaining in detail the differences in cultural factors of education between North American students and Chinese students (both college level). Some of the major factors discusses are Confucianism, communism, behavior reform, authority, and organization. The article explains the differences in expectations between the two cultures. Although it is not focused on the specifics of writing, it takes a deeper look into ESL learning as a whole for Chinese students. I think that every student aspiring to become a teacher should read this article. It is only eight pages, but it answers a lot of questions about Chinese students that might arise.

In this article, there are 21 steps to assist the literary councilor in teaching writing. Although it is a fairly short article, there is fairly useful information that can be extrapolated and applied to the multiplicity of situated learning that exist. A number of the steps actually have sub sections that pertain to the objective that is listed; furthermore, illustrating pragmatic, as well as feasibly applicable, instructive literary algorithms for assisting others in enhancing their writing skills. Truthfully, these steps contain information that isn't always brought to mind during our workshops; and I veraciously admit to relearning things in which I overlooked and/or have forgotten. Quintessentially, these steps can be applied to out workshop environment, and provide us with a helpful literary approach-instead of accidently sending the wrong idea, or running out of intellectual things to say (it happens to us all from time to time). Before we enhance our workshop surroundings, we should all endeavor to enhance our understandings of the procedural nature of excelling in writing, while simultaneously assisting others. In my opinion, teaching is one of the best, if not the best, ways to teach ourselves; instructing others reveals the hidden connecting points that we subconsciously always knew were there.

Li, Xuemei. "Identities And Beliefs In ESL Writing: From Product To Process." TESL Canada Journal 25.1 (2007): 41-64. ERIC. Web. 11 Mar. 2012. This article explored the differences between first language culture and second language culture in an attempt to fill the gap between them. It offered some really insightful notions on the connection between both western and eastern current learning norms and their historical developments. Li points out that western learning can be traced back to the Socratic ideologies; which were to question yourself and others, be skeptical, and to form self-generated knowledge. Li says that Eastern education is based on Confucian ideologies which is a more "humanistic" approach that taught to achieve social harmony by being "reproductive" rather than analytical and to focus on correctness instead of originality. The article also conveyed the idea of the importance of authority in the classroom and explained that students of Eastern cultures place high value on their teacher's position. It explains their indifference to "micro-processes" such as peer critiquing. The article was about 20 pages, but all of the good information is in the first part, the "Background of the Study. The rest is pretty much just a repeat of everything mentioned in the first part. It was a good and insightful article. I would recommend it (at least the first part).

this article sound good...i think i will use it later.

In this article, there are 21 steps to assist the literary councilor in teaching writing. Although it is a fairly short article, there is fairly useful information that can be extrapolated and applied to the multiplicity of situated learning that exist. A number of the steps actually have sub sections that pertain to the objective that is listed; furthermore, illustrating pragmatic, as well as feasibly applicable, instructive literary algorithms for assisting others in enhancing their writing skills. Truthfully, these steps contain information that isn't always brought to mind during our workshops; and I veraciously admit to relearning things in which I overlooked and/or have forgotten. Quintessentially, these steps can be applied to out workshop environment, and provide us with a helpful literary approach-instead of accidently sending the wrong idea, or running out of intellectual things to say (it happens to us all from time to time). Before we enhance our workshop surroundings, we should all endeavor to enhance our understandings of the procedural nature of excelling in writing, while simultaneously assisting others. In my opinion, teaching is one of the best, if not the best, ways to teach ourselves; instructing others reveals the hidden connecting points that we subconsciously always knew were there.

It's very strange, i went to read your article and all it show me was computer stuff, like C++ stuff. This is not about you wrote. It is not about applied multiplicity of situated learning.....maybe i got the web site wrong, can you post your website again?

Thank you very much for pointing that out to me Khou. I must have cut off a fraction of the URL when I pasted it~ I re-posted the article, please check it out! Here's the link if you don't feel like searching for it- it's kind of monotonous digging through postings http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cts=1331526916842&ved=0CGoQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.shaw.ca%2Fenglishtour%2Fway_correct_essay.pdf&ei=_3xdT72nO6OPiAKOrIizCw&usg=AFQjCNFFk0ZVEBkpvxpMk6dA-RAZ4ClavQ

This article is specifically designated for instructing learners of secondary language acquisition. There are many helpful ideas, recommendations, phonetic charts, and pronunciation exercises. This article is also brief, concise, and coherent; and can be applied to secondary learning acquisitive environments. If the learner is experiencing difficulty in certain places of articulation such as: labial, labial dental, velar, glottal, palatal etc. there are a number of references at the bottom that can assist in strengthening the learners' place and manner of articulation (pronunciation). Since some foreigners have native tongues coming form polysynthetic, formative, and/or analytical languages, learning an agglutinative language (English) can be not difficult, but very different for them. Learning grammar if essential, but unified verbalization is just as crucial. This article is most certainly benefit anyone in the SLC or ESL workshop; and honestly will help the instructor with certain obstructive literary shortcomings and/or frustrations hat students may have. So check it out if you're in a secondary learning acquisition environment!

Yes, but it's not about writing--about pronunciation . . .

This article was really interesting because it targeted exactly what I'm doing at the ESL resource center and gave me a lot of insight into what kinds of questions I should be asking students who come in, how I can better understand their writing and most importantly, how I can better help them with their writing. It discussed how as tutors, we should maximize our resources and skills to better help these students. In the ESL resource center, we have such a good mix of backgrounds, that it really helps accomodate the students as we better understand them. This article emphasized pointing out the differences between HOC (Higher Order Content) vs LOC (Lower Order Content) something I have definitely come across in my internship: students coming in focusing solely on grammar, or pronunciation, or content (a rare one.)

In this article, the author interviews a several instructors and examines the different types of assessment based on the information from the instructors and students. The general purpose assessment can have many benefits such as improve students' self-confidence and expressive abilities, check the language style and composing process, and so on. The specific purpose assessment limits individual's development and pushes students focusing on the written text rather than exploring ideas from multiple media. Assessment is also very important for students and instructors because it is closely related to the grades students will get. If the assessment is not appropriate, writing practices and activities will not attract students' attention. Also, this article agrees that general purpose assessment can be more helpful for students; my question is that whether general purpose writing is helpful for students to improve writing.

Ardashir Vakil's "Teaching Creative Writing", to me, is an essential read. And I should add that I'm rarely excited by "Academic" writing. What makes Vakil's article different? Well other than his very cool name, he tackles the very real problem of teaching creativity with an opening salvo that had me hooked instantly. Paraphrasing Vakil's words in the first paragraph, you can't teach creativity. What he explores after qualifying his position is in and of itself a story. Vakil hopes to reveal his meaning by giving a kind of case study example of how he learned an important lesson in teaching. His attempt to impart that knowledge begins first though with another example, that of writer Anthony Trollope's attempts to turn his son into a great writer. In what read more like a conversation Vakil continues with an observation he's made of a trend in education, "…there has been a surge of interest in and enthusiasm for courses that offer creative writing, not to speak of books by writers and academics who profess to teach you how to write the perfect story or novel." (157). It's a trend I find myself following and since Vakil wrote this article in 2008 I wonder whether it has grown stronger in the last four years. The first whole paragraph of the second page boils down the troubles teachers face so well I wish I could quote the whole thing but I'll just point it out as an intensely insightful piece of the whole. As the piece continues Vakil describes what he did in his workshops and I must say I was envious of his students. As you follow Vakil's student through her journey to discover her writer's voice it is almost as though you are sitting across from Vakil while he tells the story, a quality of his writer's voice that burned brightly through this very academic material. I don't know that I'll say this many more times but this is a must read for anyone interested in teaching creative writing.

"profess to teach you how to write the perfect story or novel". Do you believe that creative writing is about teaching other to write a perfect story or novel? For me, i don't know. I'm not a writer, so i would assume so.

This article dealt with an interesting look at the revision process and shortening sentence length. It talks about the restrictions one can place on themselves during the writing process. In this case, Hunley found many of the students writing greatly improved with this one exercise. Some students found the exercise to be helpful, while others said it disrupted the flow of their writing.I thought it was interesting and very relevant to sections of English 030. I have noticed that the kids in the section I am working in have had some problems with run-on sentences and an exercise like this would be really helpful. Any tip we can give people on how to improve the writing process is a good one, even if it doesn't help every single person.

This study investigated semantic transfer in second language. The author studied Korean ESL speakers who were asked to perform a semantic judgment task in which they decided whether or not 2 English words were related in meaning. I'm not sure if it's because I did a similar project in semantics or what, but this article is just jumping off the page to me and I feel like I need to share it with others. Semantic transfer from L1 to L2 is so fascinating and I have a feeling I can link this to where my inquiry is going.

This is quite a small article, but it presents a certain interest as it connects writing with other social practices. I guess this assumption is crucial for teaching because it presupposes writing in the classroom with real-life purposes. The article also mentions interculturality and constant interaction of two languages, which is important when teaching writing to ESL students. The author is concerned about the specifics of effective transfer of literacy skills in bilinguals and heritage speakers. According to Martinez, as a result of traditional teaching, bilingual students tend to write with "conformity to rhetorical traditions in the dominant language" ("backwards literacy"), which creates certain problems with style, thoughts expression, choice of words and sentence patterns (i.e., mechanical transfer of the dominant language features into L2 writing). Therefore, it is necessary to develop "forward literacy", which accepts a non-standard way of writing ("writers carve out their own transcultural paths of expression"). In other words, writing of a bilingual or heritage learner implies constant shifts (transfers) between languages and cultures, and using the multiple resources of both languages in order to create an original pattern. The instructor's task is: (1) to identify multiple literacies (i.e. writing practices) that students possess and / or should possess in their heritage language and their dominant language; (2) to teach the students how to shift without mixing two languages. E.g. in early works of Spanish heritage learners, English norms penetrate Spanish writing: estoy the acuerdo instead of estoy de acuerdo. The shift should concern rhetorical strategies, which reflect cultural and aesthetical values of the two languages worlds, but not grammar or writing vocabulary; (3) teaching writing in the context of multiple social practices and contents While teaching writing, it is important to distinguish between positive transfer of skills already acqu

Wow, i like your article. It state purposely on how to help ESL student to write English better.

This study occurs over a period of eight years and follows 55 secondary teachers as they take part in professional development in cognitive strategies approach to reading and writing and then implement those strategies in their classrooms. The cognitive strategies approach, an intervention program developed by the UCI Writing Project, focuses on how readers and writers construct meaning from and with texts. This approach suggests that teachers provide systematic and explicit guidance in the cognitive strategies that are utilized by effective readers and writers. The authors state that the "aim of the project was to help students develop the academic literacy necessary to succeed in advanced educational settings," (275). Students were placed into two groups, the "Pathway students" who received cognitive strategies interventions and the control group. According to the study "pathway students not only grew more from pre- to post-test, but also wrote better essays on the post-test and received higher scores than their counterparts in the control classes," (289). http://www.evernote.com/shard/s88/sh/ebcc6b46-f96b-4912-adfe-880d00e4c81e/2b3ed2a99dda281a4071c0fc3d20b990

This article is about using ellipsis in writing and in creativity in classrooms and books. They start out with how it can leave an audience hanging or getting them to think cognitively about what is being asked on a certain thought. This is in opposition to the traditional teaching methods of lecturing and providing answers to facts. This also helps promote creativity in student and teacher learning in classrooms. The teacher can then also help promote scaffolding the students to the main topic. Using this style helps students to think about why and how they learn and write. The best thing that I got out of this was how this gets students involved personally in learning and helps students participate in classrooms and writing.

Ellipsis defined how?

This article introduces several methodologies in order to tackle writer's block. It includes eight different strategies that range from talking to admirable advisors for their opinions on your current writing assignment and genre to listening to music--how even psychologists agree that the creation of writing with the presence of music playing is beneficial to breaking down stumps in the road of writing. I wanted to see if i could find Cynthia A. Arem's book, Conquering Writing Anxiety, in the Library's Research database due to the fact that her book contains "self-assessment charts and strategies to break cycles of both writer's anxiety and writer's block" but this article seems like the next best thing :) I'll find more articles and books on writer's block this week as well.

In this article, President of Teaching That Makes Sense, Steve Peha shares his views, methods, philosophy, and applications of teaching writing to others. He addresses questions like "how do teachers achieve the best practice" and "what is the best practice for writing instruction?" Steve also has incorporated a chart that dichotomously sorts the attributes of the quality, process, strategies, reading-writing connection, philosophy, management and forms of writing. He also includes his "Six Traits" of evaluative criteria for assessing a variety of genres of writing. His arguments are quite applicable and logical, and his instructive guide is considerably pragmatic and "easy to follow." For anyone endeavoring to assist and critique others' writing on an academic plain will find this article to be of assistance. Even if there is a disagreement on some of the material, it is arranged in a way that can be slightly altered and still beneficially applicable.

In May I took the CBEST without studying because everyone told me it was super easy, and that all you needed to do to study for a test like that is breathe. I did not pass one section, which left me heartbroken. I was so hung up on the idea that I hadn't passed such an easy test that I didn't stop to think about why. Of course I didn't study, but I shouldn't have to, I thought. According to this article and the book being discussed, "the brain will avoid thinking and instead try to rely on memory." Maybe I just tried to rely too much on my memories of the material in all those classes years ago, and my brain avoided actually thinking and synthesizing the material. Or maybe I needed to really study. Either way, an interesting read. (Oh, and I just finished retaking the CBEST this morning)

This article provides information on the use of WebQuests (a web-based program to help students learn in a variety of subjects) in the classroom. The authors determined that literacy should also encompass digital literacy since the job of a teacher is to teach and prepare the students for a successful and productive life. I was interested in this article because my paper is about using web-based media in the classroom, and while this article certainly covers that, there is a strong focus on students who are learning English. The article states that WebQuests make it easier for students learning English because these programs provide visuals and require participation because they're interactive.

This article by John Bitchener, Stuart Young, and Denise Cameron of the Auckland University of Technology explores the value of grammar-related feedback in ESL writing. They found a combination of explicit written and oral feedback to be the most effective method to enact change. However, the change in grammar accuracy did't always last. The authors suggest prolonged exposure to this kind of feedback would show a more consistent result. 

This is from the library's scholarly database, you will need to login to view it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article examines the reasons university students have anxiety over writing and/or confidence in their writing. I was especially interested because of the focus on genders. The authors hypothesize that female students are more likely to experience anxiety in their writing because of a difficulty in navigating the power structures that are academic discourse, and that male students are more confident in their writing than females even when there is no difference in ability. The article conducts a study of 127 college students at a public university near the Texas-Mexico border.