Abstract
The needs of ESL students do not end after the first year. Paulette Henderson describes one community college's approach to supporting ESL students throughout their academic career.
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“I felt like a piece of wood,” Yangbin Liu (a pseudonym), a serious and creative student in my developmental writing class, told me about his experience in a general education course. “We all had to answer some questions in the beginning, but I did not understand directions. Then the professor asking me what about what classes I had before, but I could not say anything. I felt like a piece of wood. I was afraid of him. Then he tell me come with him outside the classroom, and he asked me again, many questions in a loud voice, but he talked so fast. So I answer just like a soldier, yes, no, yes, no, but really I didn't understand at all. Oh, it was too terrible.”
Yangbin ultimately dropped the class, feeling unable to understand what was going on or to make himself understood. In order to succeed, students like Yangbin need sustained support that begins before college and continues all the way to graduation.
What has Been Done, and what more can we Do?
History and Rationale of Esl Education
College educators around the country must seek ways to broaden their understanding of the needs of this growing demographic. It is the educator's responsibility to help these students—and all students— experience college as engaged and active learners, not “pieces of wood.” Left unattended, ESL students run the risk of withdrawing from their courses and leaving higher education altogether.
Vincent Tinto, in his classic 1993 book, Leaving College Behind: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition, makes the case for institutional responsibility for student retention. Eschewing psychological and environmental models as focused too narrowly on the individual or too broadly on external forces at the expense of institutional forces, Tinto's sociological model emphasizes what happens within the institution, placing heavier responsibility on the institution itself Of critical importance is the student's engagement in college.
In the case of ESL students, a range of initiatives have been attempted over the years.
ESL refers to a broad range of programs intended to move non-native speakers of English through a series of learning experiences in order to improve their language competence so that they are ready for work or for college. The term ESL gained national prominence with the publication of the first issue of the TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) Quarterly in 1967, formally establishing ESL as a professional discipline. Harold B. Allen, in his 1967 article “TESOL in the Journal,” states, “ESL relies on linguistics and cultural implications for its subject matter and upon the psychology of language learning and language teaching for its method” (p. 4).
Although efforts to help ESL students succeed in college are not new, much of the work toward that end has focused on the early college or pre-college experience through language institutes, pre—first year programs, or developmental reading and writing courses. Sometimes these developmental courses are paired with or linked to courses in other disciplines such as history or psychology, as reported by Marguerite Snow and Donna Brinton in their 1988 article, “Content Based Language Instruction: Investigating the Effectiveness of the Adjunct Model.” At other times, ESL instructors have created theme-based reading or writing courses with specific academic content such as film analysis or linguistics, as described by Marcia Pally in her 2000 book Sustained Content Teaching in Academic ESL/EFL. A third way of supporting ESL students is to design a course to address the academic needs of a targeted group of students. For example, in 1984, Roni LeBauer reported using lecture transcripts (along with audiotapes) to enhance students’ listening comprehension skills by identifying organizational patterns within a lecture.
Under these models, as ESL students move past their first college year toward degree completion, they may find themselves struggling on their own. Notable exceptions to these early intervention approaches include one at Alverno College in Wisconsin where the ESL coordinator offers faculty workshops and has published a guide, ESL Strategies, and the City College of San Francisco, which has received a grant to implement an ESL Across the Curriculum program. At most other colleges, students who complete their ESL requirement may continue to make use of ancillary resources such as ESL labs, writing centers, or tutors for particular subjects. Some colleges also provide extra writing courses to help ESL students with academic writing. However, these programs do not involve professional development for faculty in academic disciplines or other educators outside of these services. The effort at Borough of Manhattan Community College works to close that gap for classroom faculty.
English as a Second Language across the Curriculum (Eslac)
Workshop Design: Addressing Faculty Concerns
Inability of ESL students to ask for help from their professors: Faculty commented that ESL students appeared to be reluctant to ask for clarification when there was something they didn't understand, yet many of these same students seemed lost later on, particularly at test time, indicating that they had not understood the material.
Aural and oral issues: Faculty also revealed that some ESL students had difficulty with making themselves understood and at times could not understand professionals outside the classroom—for example, nurses and doctors in the hospital. These problems resulted in little or no participation in general classroom discussions. Oral reports also appeared to be a problem, both in the classroom and in professional settings, such as in the hospital, where nursing students participated in clinical practice forums or conducted patient intake interviews.
Vocabulary: ESL students seemed to struggle with course terminology. Many professors expressed frustration and a considerable degree of uncertainty about how much vocabulary help they should offer. Sometimes students even asked for assistance with vocabulary in order to interpret test questions once an exam was under way.
Writing: Written work, such as lab reports and out-of-class papers, was another area of concern. Faculty requested more information on how to help ESL students with their writing. They wanted to find ways to provide assistance so that coverage of course content was not overshadowed by time spent on writing instruction.
Career goals: Some professors expressed concern about the gap between students’ language ability and their career goals. They worried about students’ ability to clear such professional hurdles as going on interviews or passing state licensing exams.
The goals of these workshops were to help faculty learn not to blame students and to help them address these problems.
Surprising Success Stories
Opening up the Dialogue by Globalizing the Curriculum
“Why not ask the students to bring in menus from their home cultures?” This comment arose in one of the workshops while a nursing professor was presenting her revised nutrition lecture. She readily adopted this suggestion and now has collected an extensive sampling of ethnic cuisines and mounted them on slides. When I was invited to observe the enhanced lecture, I noted a high level of enthusiasm and participation as students evaluated the menus for nutritional content and described unfamiliar dishes to their peers. The professor was able to elaborate on what constitutes a balanced meal, encouraged the students to become teachers, and created an inclusive classroom atmosphere.
Building Confidence and Self-Esteem
The most frequently cited change in student behavior after ESLAC techniques were implemented in the classroom was an increase in verbal participation, summed up well by this sociology professor's comment: “There were many noteworthy changes in the level of participation by my students. It almost seemed like a contagion. Once a couple of students began to participate, others followed. By the end of the semester, at least one-half of the ESL students would verbally participate. Prior to midterms, it was consistently zero.”
Increased verbal participation resulted in other beneficial outcomes. One psychology professor commented: “I do think my ESL students feel more integrated into the class. One student actually mentioned this in a paper he wrote about his personal development of self-esteem. He included that the class has helped him speak out when he had never previously been able to do this.” These comments stand in stark contrast to student Yangbin Liu's comment: “I felt like a piece of wood.”
Communicating in the World beyond the Classroom
Professors were especially concerned about their ESL students’ ability to handle the challenges of the workplace in their chosen career. Because nursing students are required to do clinical practice before they graduate, their performance in this professional setting provided workshop participants with ideal material to consider.
One of the nursing professors decided to tape a report given by hospital staff to nursing students during a clinical rotation. After listening to the tape, she noticed ways in which this report might be difficult for ESL students to follow and decided to a make a “translation.” Here are some excerpts from her work:
Mrs. Smith is a multip. This is her fifth NSVD….
Her dressing is due at 10 am. She received a stat dose of mag for high BP at 2 am. She has continuous mag going. Blood was sent for mag levels. Vitals are stable. She's on clears for today. Her baby is in NICU for mec aspiration.
This is the fifth normal vaginal delivery for Mrs. Smith…. At 10 am she needs wound care change. For high blood pressure, she received an emergency dose of magnesium sulfate. She now has continuous magnesium infusing. Blood was sent for magnesium levels. Her vital signs are stable and she is on a clear diet today. Her baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit for meconium aspiration.
The professor played the tape for her students after their clinical rotation. She then replayed it with the accompanying translation and allowed time for questions and comments. In this way, students were able to catch what they had missed and familiarize themselves with medical jargon that did not appear in their textbooks.
After implementing her new techniques, the professor was pleased by the turnaround in five out of the nine ESL students in her group. Previously unable to give reports to colleagues and hospital nursing staff during clinical rotations, they suddenly began to contribute. At first unable to follow clinical instructions, they soon were meeting all clinical objectives. Clinical absenteeism was also down—avoidance had been replaced by engagement. And it is important to note that these students who had been disengaged in nursing classes lost their reluctance to discuss their concerns with their professor and began to communicate with her outside of class.
Modifying Classroom Practices
Is Everybody Getting It? Making Lectures More Accessible
We reviewed a number of areas where lectures could be adapted to facilitate comprehension:
Delivery
Enthusiasm and familiarity with a topic can sometimes cause college professors to unconsciously accelerate delivery. At the same time, one of the most frequent sources of frustration for ESL students is that their professors talk too fast. It helps to slow the pace of delivery, using gestures and repeating or emphasizing important points, Sheryl Slocum suggests in her manual
Esl Strategies
One might try a pronunciation preview of key terms that might appear in a lecture in the order of their appearance, stopping briefly to highlight them during the course of the lesson. Though students may have seen the printed word in their textbook, they may have no idea how it sounds, due to the peculiarities of English spelling.
Idiom Awareness
The English language is filled with colorful idioms such as “It's raining cats and dogs.” In fact, many ESL students may have come across these types of expressions in books or classes for beginning learners of English. But many other idioms use combinations of very common words that can be confusing to a non-native speaker and yet are not thought of as idioms by native speakers. For example, “turn out” can have all of the following connotations: reject or send away; result in; be present; extinguish; the number of people in attendance.
College educators need to raise their awareness of idioms when it comes to monitoring speech. But becoming idiom-sensitive takes time. With the knowledge that awareness is the first step, workshop participants considered ways to become more idiom-sensitive. Some professors suggested monitoring themselves for an established period of time and writing down what they said, or watching a few minutes of TV or listening to the radio and keeping a record of idioms used by others. Some contributed examples from their own experiences when they first came to the United States from another country. For example, one professor said she had not understood what her daughter meant when she asked whether she was going to “pick her up” from school. The phrase “Are you going to pick me up?” brought up the image of her picking up the child in her arms, and she had thought her daughter was a bit old to be making this request.
Syntax
Awareness of how one's sentences are constructed can also make lectures more comprehensible. ESL students can sometimes lose their place in a lecture if the sentences are overly long or if they begin with small words such as this, it's, or or. Use of offhand expressions such as “all of this,” “whatever,” or “something like it” often deflect attention away from the main points of the lecture. It is helpful to shorten sentences, repeat key words, and move key words to the front of the sentence.
Pacing and Previewing
Pausing and restating key points at intervals can help a student follow the lecture's pattern of organization.
The following before and after examples show how to modify the message:
The Sounds of Silence: Creating a more Inclusive Dialogue
Following are several additional strategies for drawing ESL students out and increasing their confidence:
Many of my own students have indicated that they prefer to ask questions after class, especially when their classes are large and include many native speakers. Carving out a brief time for questions after class or during the break may encourage non-native speakers to come forward at those times.
During designated question times, students can be encouraged to put their questions in writing, which will allow their professors to help them formulate and practice repeating their question. This activity may give ESL students the confidence they need to ask questions in front of groups and to gain recognition from their peers. As the term progresses, students may begin to ask questions in front of groups with less assistance.
For oral presentations, professors might pair an ESL student with a native speaker, not to make a joint presentation (which sometimes leads to the more fluent speaker monopolizing the time) but, rather, to practice making the presentation. Practicing first with just one person may increase the comfort level of the non-native speaker and give the native speaker an opportunity to help their partner with phrasing and pronunciation.
Writing Resources: Helping Students Write Better Papers
Participants in the ESLAC workshops wondered how to approach the problem of student papers that lack polish without assuming the role of a language teacher—a common concern in the academy. In response, I provided participants with a copy of “Errors: Windows into the Mind,” an article by Anne Raimes that discusses how to give ESL students feedback on their writing. Among the useful suggestions that Raimes offers are these: Have a clear marking system in which the students know what the symbols and abbreviations mean; keep comments on ideas on a separate sheet from comments on grammar; and concentrate on global rather than local errors, which better equips you to focus on content. I also pointed out the value of giving commentary on content in complete sentences at the end of a paper rather than jotting down incomplete phrases in the margins. Since I began this practice a few years ago, students have told me how much it has helped them revise. I also made available my proofreader's blueprint, which can be used alone or with a tutor and uses a linguistic approach to diagnose errors and check for accuracy.
Mentor and Mentees Reflect
Changes in classroom practices varied, but the single most important change that occurred was an increased awareness of lecture style, especially language choices and speed of delivery. Other changes included giving students more time to formulate questions and answers orally, asking students to list new vocabulary or terminology introduced in each lecture, and having students summarize important points at the lecture's conclusion. A number of faculty members employed group work, and some used individual meetings with ESL students that included encouragement and praise for their verbal participation. Those who used this approach reported an increase in class participation and a marked decrease in course withdrawals.
Finally, the initiative resulted in an unexpected bonus. Faculty commented that the new techniques seemed to benefit native speakers as well as the ESL students. They too became more engaged in their classroom community, as evidenced by more participation, less absenteeism, and better performance on assignments and examinations.
Emerging Challenges
A number of faculty expressed frustration at managing a classroom of students with varying competencies and a range of linguistic and educational backgrounds. Student goals and motivation levels vary as well. Workshop participants agreed that they did not want to stereotype individuals or groups of students, and that they had learned the importance of creating an atmosphere in which every student is comfortable and has the ability to learn.
As a follow-up, five ESLAC participants joined me in the creation of a post-workshop video. In one segment of the video, Classroom Odysseys, faculty members talked first about their own educational experiences and the expectations they had had when they first came to this college. Next, they were filmed in their classrooms, demonstrating how they created an inclusive atmosphere while addressing individual student needs. This scene was followed by discussions with small groups of students who voiced their opinions on the educational demands they faced, and talked about what did and did not work for them. The video was shown throughout the college, and all members of the college community, including deans and personnel from the learning resource center, were invited.
The creation of the video demonstrates how an across-the-curriculum initiative can expand beyond the workshop phase and speak to the needs of everyone involved in teaching and learning.
Across-the-curriculum initiatives, whether focused on writing, math, or second language learning, are a powerful technique for creating and maintaining campuswide discussions on teaching and learning. Initiatives such as ESLAC foster faculty development, increase collaboration across departments, and encourage faculty to seek creative solutions to the challenges that confront them.