RESPONDING TO ESL STUDENT WRITING:
THE VALUE OF A NONJUDGMENTAL APPROACH
This article describes the benefits of adopting a nonjudgmental response approach in the ESL writing class.
I quite agree this point. Some students will have anxiety to write English. As non- native English learners, they come to believe that writing is designed to expose their deficiency; therefore they will expect failure and feel anxiety. This article says that the anxiety does not come from the task of writing but from the anticipation of the evaluation of that writing by the teacher. So, it’s important for the teacher to encourage students to write. We should accept whatever the student does at first without judgment. By establishing a supportive writing environment, the student will have confidence to go on writing.
I agree with the “Fluency First” approach that the author raises. The result of emphasizing correctness too much is that students lose the possibilities for discovery. However, this approach can redirect the student’s attention toward fluent and clear expression of ideas, and away from perfectly correct language and form. Only after students have learned to express themselves fluently in writing, do they proceed to correcting errors in language and form.
Nonjudgmental Response Approach can mesh well with the “Fluency First” approach. It requires the teacher’s feedback that responds to students' writing not by correcting errors, but by asking task-oriented questions or by making task-oriented comments. For example, I may ask the student the question, such as: Could you be more specific, provide more details, about this point? Or I may make the comment, such as: You need to go deeper to analyze your feelings. By asking task-oriented questions, the students will improve and expand the content of their writing and on increasing the clarity of their ideas.
As for editing student’s writing, the author suggests that the teacher alerts students to minor errors, which don’t obscure meaning, such as tense, spelling, or word form, by circling those errors. Besides, the teacher should circle and use editorial symbols to identify more serious errors, which will obscure meaning, such as word order errors. Later, the teacher can provide further grammatical assistance only when students request it, and only after students have made several attempts to clarify and correct their own writing. By this approach, students can take more responsibility for their own writing and gradually gain more confidence in their ability both to express themselves more effectively and to check their own work.
I really identify with the nonjudgmental instructional approach. It emphasizes the fluent and clear expression of ideas, writing anxiety decreased and writing performance improved. What’s more, students took a more active role in learning how to write. Both the quality and the quantity of students' writing increased, and their papers became more thoughtful and coherent.
THE VALUE OF A NONJUDGMENTAL APPROACH
This article describes the benefits of adopting a nonjudgmental response approach in the ESL writing class.
I quite agree this point. Some students will have anxiety to write English. As non- native English learners, they come to believe that writing is designed to expose their deficiency; therefore they will expect failure and feel anxiety. This article says that the anxiety does not come from the task of writing but from the anticipation of the evaluation of that writing by the teacher. So, it’s important for the teacher to encourage students to write. We should accept whatever the student does at first without judgment. By establishing a supportive writing environment, the student will have confidence to go on writing.
I agree with the “Fluency First” approach that the author raises. The result of emphasizing correctness too much is that students lose the possibilities for discovery. However, this approach can redirect the student’s attention toward fluent and clear expression of ideas, and away from perfectly correct language and form. Only after students have learned to express themselves fluently in writing, do they proceed to correcting errors in language and form.
Nonjudgmental Response Approach can mesh well with the “Fluency First” approach. It requires the teacher’s feedback that responds to students' writing not by correcting errors, but by asking task-oriented questions or by making task-oriented comments. For example, I may ask the student the question, such as: Could you be more specific, provide more details, about this point? Or I may make the comment, such as: You need to go deeper to analyze your feelings. By asking task-oriented questions, the students will improve and expand the content of their writing and on increasing the clarity of their ideas.
As for editing student’s writing, the author suggests that the teacher alerts students to minor errors, which don’t obscure meaning, such as tense, spelling, or word form, by circling those errors. Besides, the teacher should circle and use editorial symbols to identify more serious errors, which will obscure meaning, such as word order errors. Later, the teacher can provide further grammatical assistance only when students request it, and only after students have made several attempts to clarify and correct their own writing. By this approach, students can take more responsibility for their own writing and gradually gain more confidence in their ability both to express themselves more effectively and to check their own work.
I really identify with the nonjudgmental instructional approach. It emphasizes the fluent and clear expression of ideas, writing anxiety decreased and writing performance improved. What’s more, students took a more active role in learning how to write. Both the quality and the quantity of students' writing increased, and their papers became more thoughtful and coherent.
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