Re: SURVEY FOR PEER TUTORS (RE: ESL)

[amoser@ruacad.ac.runet.edu]

Changing teachers' expectations for ESL students--
I always tend to the personal approach--talking with individuals, giving 
them a chance to offer rebuttal--and I do find that effective.  However, 
we have many students in our WC from the Business Dept., and they are 
charged to bring back "perfect" papers for "perfect" grades.  
Occasionally they tell us that a professor says, "You don't sound like a 
native speaker, yet."  !!  Now they are in the WC with, "Make this sound 
right."

Before I took over as director, the Center was turning away ESLs because 
they did not feel capable of helping them.  We are doing our best, but we 
are making it up as we go along.  One thing we have done that has given 
us some insight:  enlisted several ESL students willing to sit down, 
listen to our plans, policies, dreams, and, in turn, listened to their 
notions of what they need.  We found that we want to get to the same 
mark, just at different speeds.  They wanted to have a tutor "fix" a 
paper, while talking about each error, explaining it, showing how to 
correct it.  We want to do those things too--just not all in the same 
hour!  Any ideas are most welcome...