post for 1/30

One thing that came up in the tutoring session I observed last week was the idea of different languages placing the responsibility on the reader vs. the writer. I was excited to see that addressed in "Serving ESL Students." In the reading, Severino gives Japanese as an example of a "reader-responsible" language, "with the burden of communication and interpretation placed on the reader and listener," while in English we emphasize the importance of the writer speaking and writing clearly. I had assumed most languages work this way, with incomprehension being the fault of the writer, and have always believed that this is the best way to go about things. But now that I think more about it, I'm often catching myself using a complicated sentence construction or less common words, and changing it to make sure that the point is clear, even though something more complex gets at the idea of the thing in a better way. So, I think this will help me be less inclined to advocate for simpler, clearer sentences, when the student might need complex and at-first-hard-to-comprehend sentence constructions or vocabulary choices.

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 29, 2018 at 6:12 PM


    This is an interesting reflection. I have the opposite situation when teaching/reviewing Spanish writing. I constantly have to tell students to link their sentences, make them longer, and more complex. However, as emphasized in the article, this is a whole learning process that takes time acquire. It took me years to start breaking up my sentences to make them sound English-like. So I guess it's fair to allow students have their voice, and avoid correcting the structure of all their sentences just because it does not sound native. In the end they are writing in an L2, which is a difficult thing to do.

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