English 90 versus ESL 93

In Spring 2007, I've decided to extend the opportunity for blog writing to my developmental English students in this English 90 course. We spend about half the time Reading and the other half writing these blogs. I have found that students work very hard and without complaint during the first hour, and then go right to work continuing the blog topics that I provide for them. The skills of these students varies considerably, but one of the major complaints among them are poor spelling and an inability to write clear sentences. Thanks to spell check programs, spelling is no longer the terrific burden for these students as it once was, and frankly I see little point in going beyond recognition skills during the in-class portion of the course. If I can teach students to become aware of how to go about correcting their spelling, then their talents and confidence in writing will improve. Building sentence skills by way of the blog is a more complex matter, but basically somewhere within the strings of words sequenced by most of these students are the fundamentals of sentences. So, I find time to tutor on an individual basis aspects of punctuation in these blogs to make them clearer for the reader. Students also need help with logical aspect of their sentence structures and with organization within the paragraph. For these challenges, I discuss with the student exactly what they would like to express, and in time we work together to improve the quality of their work. All the blog essays contributed here represent the real lives of students and have some very interesting perspectives. Please read and enjoy.

Helping Students Write

Helping ESL students write really isn't much different from helping native speakers of English--the hard parts are the ideas and organization. I find that grammar tends to more or less fall in place if the ideas are sound and the organization meaningful. In this semester, I had promised to write my own blog for every blog written by students in this class. Although it may seem like I failed that promise, readers of these student blogs will see in their writing a thread of style that is clearly mine, as well as the students. To help students write, I must spend time with them visualizing situations and recalling facts. These things are critical to good writing because they provide the substantive detail that makes reading of a blog so worthwhile. Students who merely express their oppinion with substantive support, or who adopt "chatty" styles of writing bore their readers. All of my ESL students have in their lives wonderfully rich details from which they can draw upon to express themselves. I try to elicit such detail and then help them learn by example the idiomatic English phrasing to describe it. As a result, students learn to express experiences via the English language more fully, and show their readers opinion worth reading. Naturally, the same process works well for native speakers too, as even college students frequently haven't had enough experience to see how writing works.

ESL and Technology

My students have now learned to log on to their e-mail acounts, and post a blog. Some students caught on right away, others needed additional training, but now everyone knows how to at least send one e-mail. This week students finished choosing their background template colors, and a few students proceeded to the third paragraph activity. So far, students are reluctant to include photos, both for technical and privacy reasons, having a fear perhaps that the internet is dangerous to them.

I am the teacher of this ESL 93 course at Merced College, and I am very excited to have my students work on a project that is both useful for learning English and that uses the technology available at the college. I promise to make an entry that reflects on the successes and challenges faced by my students during this semester's work. Any teachers that find this post, please send comments to me.