Blog Post #3 - Brittany Means

While reading through "Possible Transfer Based Problems You Might Observe When Working with Chinese Students," I recognized grammatical and syntactic transfer features that I have been seeing in the papers of students who I have worked with in the Writing Center this semester. It was actually super helpful to learn the technical terms for the constructs I only have only known the function of up to this point. For instance, placing adverbial expressions after the object they modify. I've had students write sentences where the adverbial expressions before the object they were modifying and all I knew to say was that the sentence needed to be rearranged. Or, another example, inverted word order and modal auxiliaries. Before, I didn’t know that Chinese questions are expressed with tone whereas English questions are structured differently to express the state of being interrogative. It was also helpful to learn in this course that in Chinese there are no articles. It makes it easier to acknowledge the issue when it arises since I have a frame of reference for where to start explaining. I also started thinking about all of these conventions and what it means to be teaching Standard English. I would be interested in reading something about teaching nonstandard English.

Comments

  1. WarrenSeptember 11, 2018 at 2:06 PM

    Hi Brittany, I agree - it is very helpful. I'm fascinated by the issues in L2 students' writing. As a language nerd, it's a great way to learn about some of the structural underpinnings of their language. That knowledge also serves as a conduit to help us improve our tutoring. But sometimes I get too wrapped up in this stuff; for instance, I'll ask a student about an issue in their writing, and it turns out it's not an issue of transfer at all. It often turns out that the student is highly aware that what they wrote is wrong, and it was just a moment of sloppiness - which we all have. - Warren

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  2. UnknownSeptember 11, 2018 at 8:13 PM

    Hi Brittany, I also just wanted to echo that I also found putting a name to certain problems to be extremely helpful. Also, reading over Warren's response above, I was struck with the realization that I'd made similar errors at different points - and I occasionally have to remind myself that, when working with L2 writers, not every moment has to be charged as a *moment of exchange.* Given, many moments ARE exchanges, but I wonder if the hypervigilance I sometimes employ when working with L2 students hinders the collaborative environment instead of bolstering it.

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