University Writing CenterMany Cal Poly Pomona students are non-native speakers of English, who may speak English as a second, third, or even fourth language. Faculty often find students in their classes who seem to have a good understanding of the materials and concepts of the course, but produce written work that contains grammatical errors, odd syntax, and inappropriate word choices. How can we help these students become more fluent writers and speakers of English? How should we evaluate this written work?
Non-native speakers have problems with features of the language that never trouble native-speakers. For example, until recently, most standard handbooks did not even address problems with articles or prepositions, because native-speakers rarely get them wrong. These are major problem areas for ESL students, however.
Articles, which are part of a class of words called "determiners," are the little words "a," "an," and "the." Speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian languages who are acquiring English tend to leave articles out entirely at first, and then gradually learn to add them, sometimes in the wrong places. The rules for article use are surprisingly complex and subtle, and there are so many exceptions that approaching articles through rules is impractical.
Why is it that we say “the United States,” but not “the Iran”? Why can we talk about “the destiny of mankind,” but we can’t say “the mankind has the great destiny”? Students ponder these questions.
A related problem is the distinction between count and non-count (or mass) nouns. What is a count noun in one language may be non-count in another. "Information" is non-count in English but countable in French and Spanish. ESL students will often talk about doing "a homework," or how many "vocabularies" they have to learn.
Prepositions are another source of difficulty. These little words define relationships rather than referring to objects or meanings. In many languages this kind of information is coded in an inflection on a noun. English has more prepositions than most languages, and if you look a preposition up in a dictionary you are likely to find twenty or thirty meanings, all rather vaguely defined. Prepositions are not always logical. As my colleague Alfred Bendixen is fond of asking at Writing Proficiency Exam grading sessions at Cal State L.A., “Why is it that we ride in a car, but on a bus?”
After articles and prepositions, verb tense and form problems are probably the most common grammatical errors in second language writing. In English we pay a lot of attention to the order of events—what happened first, what happened before that, what is happening now, and what will happen. On the other hand, Chinese dialects don't have tense at all, although time is represented in other ways.
ESL writers often believe that things expressed in the past tense are no longer true. A student may write "Mr. Williams was my math teacher in high school. He is a very strict no-nonsense teacher." If we point out that "is" in the second sentence should be "was," the student might respond, very logically, "But he still is a strict teacher!" However, in this context, "was" does not indicate that the teacher has changed, or no longer exists. "Was" simply indicates that the condition existed at that time in the past.
Finally, after the problems noted above, lack of vocabulary probably causes more syntactic difficulties than any other single problem. When you don't know the word for something, you are forced into one of two strategies: 1) to use a bi-lingual dictionary and choose a word you have not acquired and therefore have no feeling for, or 2) to "write around" the gap, describing the concept you are groping toward. The first strategy usually ends up with a word with inappropriate connotations, and the second often produces a complex and tangled sentence structure.
Most faculty will recognize all of the problems described above, and many probably have so much experience with ESL writing that they have a pretty good idea of the writer’s language and cultural background simply from looking at the types of errors. However, most do not know how to help their students improve their English.
When a teacher is faced with the grammatical problems outlined above, the natural tendency is to teach grammar. However, a substantial body of empirical research has accumulated that shows that teaching grammar to native-speakers of English does not improve writing ability. George Hillocks Jr., in Research on Written Composition, a book-length survey of recent empirical studies in composition, concludes:
"The study of traditional school grammar (i.e., the definition of parts of speech, the parsing of sentences, etc.) has no effect on raising the quality of student writing. Every other focus of instruction examined in this review is stronger. Taught in certain ways, grammar and mechanics instruction has a deleterious effect on student writing. In some studies a heavy emphasis on mechanics and usage (e.g., marking every error) resulted in significant losses in overall quality" (248).
However, aren't ESL students a different case? Don't non-native speakers require grammar instruction?
Stephen Krashen’s language acquisition theory is a good starting point for understanding the implications of this question. First, Krashen distinguishes between language acquisition and language learning. For Krashen, second language acquisition is a natural unconscious process similar to first language acquisition. Language learning, on the other hand, is the development of conscious knowledge about a language—rules, forms, etc. Krashen’s view is that conscious learning has no effect on unconscious acquisition, a position that has generated considerable controversy.
In Krashen’s theory, acquisition occurs when comprehensible input in the target language is available. Just as babies acquire language from the surrounding environment without studying grammar books and dictionaries, second language learners acquire language from interacting with other language users. Krashen argues that we acquire by understanding language that contains structure a bit beyond our current level of competence through the help of context or extra-linguistic information. We acquire best by "going for meaning" first, and as a result, we acquire structure.
In Krashen’s view, simplified codes—caretaker speech, foreigner talk, teacher talk—facilitate acquisition by making input more comprehensible. In fact, for Krashen, because direct teaching of rules and forms is not useful, the main task of a language teacher is to facilitate language acquisition by creating the proper linguistic environment. Many teachers have found this role to be overly limited.
Other linguists posit some kind of interface between acquisition and learning. William Rutherford, for example, stakes out a compromise position in which acquisition is still the most powerful factor in second language mastery. However, Rutherford believes that conscious attention to grammatical forms or other features can produce “consciousness raising” which can guide acquisition.
Essential to Rutherford’s position is the concept of “interlanguage.” An “interlanguage” is a structured grammatical system, constructed by the learner, which approximates the grammatical system of the language being acquired. As acquisition proceeds, the interlanguage system evolves into a better approximation of the standard system. This evolution proceeds through “hypothesis testing,” and thus highlighting or focusing on specific differences or mismatches between the learner’s interlanguage system and the standard grammatical system can facilitate acquisition of standard forms.
To return to our question, do ESL students need grammar instruction? It is clear that Krashen is at least partly right: natural acquisition is a powerful force in language learning, perhaps the most important factor. Hearing and reading a lot of English is very important. However, most ESL professionals believe that targeted error correction combined with some grammatical explanation will facilitate acquisition, and speed improvement. With that in mind, Writing Center tutors are trained to identify patterns of error and provide explanations.
ESL writers need help establishing priorities, and they need feedback on what parts of their writing are most difficult for native-speakers to understand. As a motivating factor, the accuracy of their English should be a factor in the evaluation of the written product. Improvement takes time, but with help, they can improve, and as always, the Writing Center is available to assist them.
Rod Ellis’s Understanding Second Language Acquisition is an excellent review and analysis of competing language acquisition theories. Stephen Krashen’s Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition sets out his theory and the research behind it , while Writing: Research, Theory and Application applies language acquisition theory to writing issues. William E. Rutherford’s Second Language Grammar: Learning and Teaching is an interesting and well-argued investigation of the role of grammar in language teaching. A new collection, On Second Language Writing edited by Tony Silva and Paul Kei Matsuda, provides the latest perspectives on a wide range of ESL issues.
