Four years later, Maria graduated from high school with a C+ average. She took the SAT and scored 330 on the verbal and 440 on the math. She was accepted into an opportunity program at the local college, which thrilled her whole family. The first in her family to go to college in the U.S., Maria felt proud and very bicultural. She was also glad she was done with the stigma of ESL and developmental classes that she felt labeled her as a non-native English speaker or, worse, as stupid.
Her new college required Maria to take a placement exam to determine which writing class she should register for. Students had 45 minutes to write a two-page essay about a book or play they read in high school, and why it influenced their decision to continue their education at the college level. Maria had never written so much, all at once, on the spot. She got very nervous and ran out of time. In addition, she was sure there were “awks” and other errors in the essay that she handed the proctor. In fact, her score was so low on the test that she didn’t qualify for the First Year Seminar course. Maria was enrolled in Writing Skills 01 (WS 01) instead, a non-credit bearing course in basic English. The course was designed to ease the transition to academic English. The syllabus listed the following student objectives:
At the end of this course, each student can expect a working knowledge of various writing and reading skills, including:
- A working knowledge of grammatical structures
- An understanding of the inter-related processes of speaking, listening, reading and writing
- The ability to pre-write, plan and formulate critical questions, interpret and discern facts for reading and writing purposes
- The ability to proofread, edit, and revise
In WS 01, Maria found both native and non-native English speakers from many different home countries. Some were more proficient in English than Maria, but some had stronger accents and weaker English. At least there were native speakers in the class! “Even bilingual speakers like me need practice writing,” Maria told herself. Still, the placement test did nothing to increase her confidence.
Question 3—Why is Maria so resistant to the idea of ESL courses? What other stigmas do academically unprepared students face?
Their professor, who encouraged the students to call him Max, was a young man still in graduate school working as an adjunct at Maria’s college. He seemed very relaxed and accepting of all the students. On her first paper, Maria received a B+ and a “Good!” This was a first for Maria as a writer.
Maria grew more confident and began participating in class. She also started to enjoy the class and the assignments. They wrote one- to two-page papers weekly on such topics as “My Favorite Hobby” and “My Dream Job.” Instead of those old, familiar comments in the margins, her papers came back with suggestions for revisions. Max took a great deal of time on each student’s paper, re-writing awkward sentences and re-organizing disorganized paragraphs. He believed in validating the writers’ ideas and de-emphasizing errors of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. His students were in WS 01 to uncover and organize their thoughts. Spell checking tools and tutors would take care of the rest. At the end of the term, Maria received a B+ in the course. Max saw real progress over the 14 weeks in Maria’s efforts and rewarded her with a high grade to encourage her to continue to practice her writing.
In fact, though, Maria’s writing was still poor, even after revision and sessions with Max, as seen in the two excerpts below:
| Sample 1—Writing | Sample 2—Paragraph from a Revised Paper |
|---|---|
In my own opinion I believe on how the storyteller takes the fact about someone interrupting him. Everybody feel differently in situation. For example, some people don’t mind sharing their sex life or listening to someone else sex life. |
Many two years colleges accept student without their high school diploma. Most of those students receive help from the government. Gov. George E. Pataki disagree, he believes that students who don’t have their diploma shouldn’t receive help from the government until they complete 24 credits. The government discovered that some colleges gave students financial aid to those who don’t qualify so that they would collect their money. Then students would drop out and cancel their students’ loans. So this won’t occur, now students need to take a test in order to get government help by the Department of Education. |
Question 4—Compare the samples of Maria’s writing to the course objectives and determine to what degree this course appears to meet Maria’s needs.
Originally published at http://www.sciencecases.org/bilingualism/case2.asp
Copyright © 1999–2010 by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. Please see our usage guidelines, which outline our policy concerning permissible reproduction of this work.
