Tutoring Second Language Writers (29 page)
Read Tutoring Second Language Writers Online
Authors: Shanti Bruce
Blot
,
David
.
2007
.
Grammar Study and Practice
.
New York
:
Linus
.
Raimes
,
Ann
.
2011
.
Keys for Writers
.
Boston
:
Wadsworth
.
Academic Expectations
Tutors are often mediators between students and their instructors as they help writers read and write critically, navigate through disciplinary conventions, and polish their sentences. In this section of the book, the authors confront some of the challenges tutors face when they try to help writers meet readers’ specific expectations. As students go from one discipline to another and then into their majors, they encounter shifting notions of critical thinking. Chapter 12 shows how these notions change and offers suggestions tutors can use to help students from different cultures. This chapter also reminds us that when tutors assist international and L2 students, they are helping them learn not the right way, necessarily, but the dominant way in colleges and universities in the United States. Chapter 13 offers a different perspective on critical thinking, one based on discipline-specific ways of writing and the anxieties tutors often feel about working outside their own areas of expertise. What are the limits of tutors’ expertise? How do they signal their limits without undermining their credibility with those they are trying to help? Three vignettes toward the end of this chapter can provide a spark for lively discussion in staff meetings. Finally, chapter 14 draws upon the coauthors’ ten years of experience as learners and now teachers of English in ESL and EFL contexts in Thailand and elsewhere. They take up the extended debate in applied linguistics over whether and how to correct errors, along with the cultural implications that infuse error correction. Also included with this chapter are three appendices that illustrate patterns of error in writing—a useful guide for all tutors.
Tutoring against Othering
Reading and Writing Critically
VALERIE M. BALESTER
When international students come to the Texas A&M University writing center, we assume we will be working on a paper draft, but they can surprise us. A few years ago, we regularly worked with Shu Fen, a dissertation-level student. In the last ten minutes of each session, she pulled out a list of words she had heard on television, and we discussed their meanings. More recently, our tutor Julia blogged on
Peer Centered
about her experiences with Yashvant, an international student taking first-year composition.
Yashvant was told to choose a campaign as from the 2012 presidential election and analyze it, and therein laid the problem: He didn’t know who Mitt Romney or Barack Obama was. He didn’t know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. He didn’t know how American government was set up or how election systems functioned. And these gaps in knowledge made him feel that he couldn’t write the paper. (
Medhurst 2013
)
Although it may not be apparent, Yashvant and Shu Fen were both using their writing center conferences to improve their critical thinking skills. In this essay, I examine expectations about critical thinking faced by international students, especially (but not only) second language writers and speakers of English (L2 writers/speakers). Effective tutoring should start from the premise that critical thinking is a social construct, not always well defined, tied in complex and sometimes opaque ways to cultural and disciplinary rhetorical practices. Writing center tutors are in a powerful position to help international students overcome or deal with unrealistic expectations about critical thinking they may face in US classrooms. Most important, writing center tutors can go beyond helping international students assimilate to American ways of thinking;
they can contribute to an intercultural understanding of critical thinking that will be more useful in an increasingly global academic climate.
Within higher education in the United States, critical thinking typically means employing judgments of quality, validity, reliability, or truthfulness and is usually applied to judging written or spoken texts. It is described as providing sound evidence to support claims, questioning experts and authorities from a skeptical stance, and contributing one’s own thoughts or ideas to a discussion. It is widely believed that “students must learn to read textual statements as the beliefs of the writer”—beliefs that should be received with skepticism (
Olson 1997
, 506). Adjusting to the demands of critical thinking means learning to question authority and to participate in putting forth our own contributions to knowledge.
US academics often assume they share a common definition of critical thinking. It falls into the category of tacit knowledge; in other words, these scholars think of critical thinking as something they do not need to define because it is a universal aspect of human thought. However, there is dispute over the details of what constitutes critical thinking (
Atkinson 1997
;
Moore 2013; Olson 1997
). What a history professor means when asking for critical thinking may not match what a biology professor means. Moore found that although academics from different disciplines whom he interviewed were able to discuss their own understanding of critical thinking, and even convey it to their students, “the notion is a complex one, and . . . in this complexity there is potential for a fair degree of confusion for students in the way they engage with the ideas in their studies” (
Moore 2013
, 519).
In this essay, I look at critical thinking from an intercultural rhetorical perspective (
Connor 2011
). I assume critical thinking is culturally specific. As a construct, critical thinking varies between disciplines or genres, and between cultures as more traditionally defined, by language, geography, and sociopolitical boundaries (
Ramanathan and Atkinson 1999
; also,
Atkinson 1997
;
Lun, Fischer, and Ward 2010
). Dwight Atkinson states that “critical thinking is cultural thinking” (
Atkinson 1997
, 89). What he means is that critical thinking is a social construct and a social practice. For example, it is well established that some cultures associated with Confucian heritage operate by foregrounding the group and collaborative cooperative over the Westernized habit of foregrounding the individual. Westerners put a premium on the lone, dissenting voice or the creative genius revolting against the norm, like Copernicus or Martin Luther. The Confucian-heritage perspective, however, values the sharing of a strong tradition rooted in important texts (such as the wisdom of the Buddha), coming to consensus, and building
relationships and solidarity with others. Atkinson explains how socialization into these views can affect self-expression: “The direct expression of ego via language seems to be substantially proscribed in many cultures” (
Atkinson 1997
, 82). Foregrounding personal opinions in a critical analysis, then, may feel awkward to some students.
Some of the best-known research in this area was conducted by Geert
Hofstede (2001)
, who describes cultural characteristics reflected in the ways people communicate, think, and learn. Hofstede describes one cultural cluster of characteristics found in numerous cultures as large power distance, low individualism, and high avoidance of uncertainly; in contrast, the cluster that predominates in Western European cultures and the United States includes low power distance, high individuality, and low avoidance of uncertainty. Power distance describes the extent to which the least powerful in society accept that the power of those over them is unequally distributed, so high power distance means, essentially, that people accept a more rigid, autocratic power structure. Individuality describes the extent to which individuals are integrated into groups, and it is compared to collectivism; in collectivist societies, the individual’s interests are subordinated to the group, often the extended family, and individuals may not have much choice in their affiliations. Uncertainty describes how much tolerance a society has for ambiguity; a society with high avoidance of uncertainty tolerates less ambiguity and may use rules or procedures such as politeness conventions to minimize it (
Hofstede 2001
). Think about how writers in the United States learn to compose academic essays; they do conform to Hofstede’s pattern because the author is considered the authority (something we often have to urge novice writers to recognize) whose personal views are important and allowed even when they do not conform to the majority view, and who is expected to put them forward confidently.
If critical thinking is a central concept in US higher education, and if most faculty view it as a universal aspect of human thought, it stands to reason academics have complex expectations about how to express that thought in writing or about what sort of behaviors in classes or conferences students who can think critically should display. Sometimes these expectations are explained to students, and sometimes they remain unstated. But even when expectations are spelled out, meeting them can be a challenge for some international students. For example, overt debate, taking a strong pro or con stance, or contradiction and questioning of authority are valued behaviors that “have been frequently found to be problematic for L2 writers from more interdependently oriented cultural backgrounds” and are based on our cultural ideas
about the individual’s civic duties or about the reasonableness of dissent (
Ramanathan and Atkinson 1999
, 61; also see
Durkin 2008
).
Expectations may begin with faculty in the classroom, but they inevitably spill over into the writing center. Like faculty, tutors, who have been well socialized into US academic discourse, have expectations about how students should write or talk, ways that evidence critical thinking as we define it in a US academic setting. Tutors may wonder why some students they work with hesitate to question authority or to take strong “ownership” of ideas. They may feel frustration when a student resists taking a stance that even slightly contradicts a professor’s favored theory, especially when the tutor can help provide a solid argument. What the tutor may see as an intellectual challenge, the student may see as disrespect.
Clearly, students run into difficulty when they do not display the kind of critical thinking expected. Worse, faculty or tutors may judge students who do not conform to their notion of critical thinking as having a deficit. One of the most common moves we make, when confronted with someone who does not meet our expectations, is Othering, that is, placing that person in a category we find is distinct from our own so we feel comfortable in discounting or even subordinating everyone in that category. Othering is a power move that pits
us
against
them
and that uses rhetoric to assert superiority. When confronted with college students who do not meet their expectations as critical thinkers, faculty may employ Othering by placing students in categories such as “not college ready” or “unteachable.”
Adrian
Holliday’s (1999)
concepts of small and large culture apply here. He describes the dominant culture—in this discussion the US academic culture—as the “large culture,” and groups defined by “cohesive social behavior” are ethnographically described as “small cultures.” The large culture is the social construct, the abstraction, while the small cultures are where we actually live, work, and act. The large culture prescribes our norms, sets rules and boundaries, and defines us by ethnicity, nationality, or other features we might have in common. In the large culture of the academy, “foreign students” may be lumped together and stereotyped as deficient in English. Small cultures more carefully describe their actual language and literacy practices. Small cultures are based on our social grouping, maybe our occupation or our identity with or membership in a group. In the academic context, a class or a
writing center might constitute a small culture. Within a small culture, individuals navigate and negotiate the sometimes conflicting demands of the social groups with which they are affiliated (Bruce, this volume; Connor 2011). So while we may stereotype foreign students as a group, in the one-to-one interaction of a writing center session, we face an individual from a specific country with a unique language background and with unique educational experiences, preparation, and attitudes. Most important, we face an individual who is trying to solve a specific rhetorical problem, the problem posed by the assignment or the task they are addressing when they come for our help.
Amy Winans, who calls for a critical understanding of race, makes a point about othering that we can also apply to nationality (
Winans 2006
, 483). Winans identifies three beliefs held by the white students she worked with in Pennsylvania, and she explains why these beliefs are ripe for critical deconstruction: “that the United States is a meritocracy that rewards all individuals’ hard work; that their identity is individual and can be chosen and shaped by them alone; and that they are not affected by history or racism” (
Winans 2006
, 491). We can easily enough identify more strongly held beliefs about “Americanness” that push international students into the Other category, such as that the United States has the best educational system, lowest level of poverty, highest level of material comforts, and strongest military in the world. If we accept these notions uncritically, we may think of “foreigners” as culturally or materially impoverished. In this respect, we might think of American (US) identity as the norm and other national identities as a deviation from the norm. If it’s not American, it’s not important or maybe just not quite right. The resulting attitude can be indifference, ignorance, or hostility toward international students’ home cultures and languages (
Leki 1992
, 47).
Tutors can see how we might also extend this concept to language or thought. Michelle Cox in chapter 3 of this volume notes our tendency to lump all L2 students into a category based solely on linguistic identity. Shanti Bruce gives a detailed account about Puerto Rican identity and the complex ways it is tied to competency in English in chapter 4. As she explains, writers can be burdened when students who are learning academic English are “made to feel, by some, that they are betraying loyalties” (85). Puerto Rico’s colonial past makes learning English more than a simple linguistic endeavor. We may further place international students who fail to display the type of critical thinking we expect into this category of “needs to learn better English.” Those who do not speak or write Standard American English like a native need to learn it
to become normal, and as teachers and tutors, we are doing our international students a favor by helping them be like us. Further, if they speak perfect, error-free English, they will think like we do (critically, of course). When we categorize all writing problems that face L2 writers/speakers under the category of “English language problems,” we think of the support we can provide in a writing center primarily in terms of lower-order concerns like grammar, vocabulary, or sentence structure. Our assumption, one faculty may support and urge us to adopt, is that focus on individual sentences and words, rather than working from the top down and starting with the gist of a text or working with pragmatics, as discussed by Pimyupa W. Praphan and Guiboke Seong in this collection, is what L2 writers/speakers need to develop their critical thinking.
There
is
some truth to that assumption in that language proficiency has been tied to skill in critical thinking of the Western type. A 2010 study by Vivian Miu-Chi Lun and her colleagues Ronald Fischer and Colleen Ward attempted to sort out whether difficulties L2 students in New Zealand seemed to be facing with critical thinking were due to differences in thinking styles or just the result of a lack of proficiency in the English language (
Lun, Fischer, and Ward 2010
). They hypothesized that L2 writers/speakers would have more difficulty on objective measures of critical thinking than would mainstream New Zealand students (native speakers of English). They tried to isolate the causes for these differences as coming from either language proficiency or from differing cognitive styles. Ultimately, they found that the differences they uncovered could be traced significantly to language proficiency, and most especially to vocabulary, but not to cognitive styles. However, they cautioned that there could still be a connection between English proficiency and adoption of mainstream New Zealand culture, including cognitive styles, and they noted the need for further research.
We might conclude from this research that working on language proficiency is helpful, but we should not conclude that it is helpful for every student in every case. In truth, no single approach works, and applying a single approach to all L2 writers/speakers regardless of their needs, desires, or learning preferences, simply because we assume learning English grammar means learning English rhetoric, would constitute Othering.
Another form Othering can take is to assume all international students operate from culturally different rhetorics. When I interviewed ten Texas A&M writing center tutors in 2011, a few hinted that they applied contrastive rhetoric uncritically and broadly. For example, one stated that “Asian cultures have a totally different organizational strategy.”
I believe in practice she was not applying this statement to all Asian students, but I also believe she was theorizing from
Kaplan’s (1987)
version of contrastive rhetoric, which asserts that organization patterns arise from cultural norms that interfere with writing in English as a second language.
Tutors who adopt a more critical and more accurate view of contrastive rhetoric can correct this stereotypical assumption (
Connor 2011
;
Kubota and Lehner 2004
;
Matsuda 1997
;
Leki 2007
;
Severino 1993
;
Thonus 1993
).
Kubota and Lehner (2004)
and
Matsuda (1997)
provide a way to view the differences in rhetorical strategies and knowledge writers bring to a task that avoids Othering. In Paul Kei Matsuda’s terms, literacy learning is dynamic—not a matter of simply decoding or encoding a text but “the result of the encounter of the writer and the reader—an encounter mediated through the text” (52). The background of the writer and the reader must be considered, including what languages they speak, their educational and cultural backgrounds, and the discourse communities they share—that is, their large culture—but in understanding what a writer is trying to do, the small culture must also be considered. The rhetorical strategies any given writer brings to creating a text or expects readers to bring to that text include far more than organizational structures—they might include tone, level of formality, diction, choice of rhetorical figures or tropes, or the depth or style of argument, among other things. Every writer is situated within a fluid and dynamic rhetorical situation. This dynamism makes the writing center a particularly potent place to address the writer’s choices because in the writing center we can take the time to individualize instruction.
So to the tutor who believed “Asian cultures have a totally different organizational strategy,” we might offer a few observations. Asian students may have no issues with organization because in many Asian cultures students are taught to write scholarly texts in a US academic style. Or Asian students may be struggling so much with diction and understanding a topic that the difference in their organization comes not from the interference of another rhetorical strategy but from the fact that so much attention is being paid to meaning that they have not even worked on organization. It is even possible an Asian student wants to improve on or challenge US academic style by bringing the flavor of Asian rhetoric to a text. This critical view of contrastive rhetoric helps tutors remember that there is no one correct rhetorical style, and that what seem to be errors may just be differences in strategies or in understanding of the rhetorical situation.
