Helen Alexander
Grammar and Tutoring ESOL Students:
Attention to Form, Meaning, and Use to Address Writing Weaknesses
I. Approach
Rule #1: Begin by looking at the verb. What kind of action is it? What does it need to be complete? This is as true for the dependent clauses as for the main clauses; however, incomplete main clauses are more damaging to discourse level comprehensibility.
--Addresses logic, completeness of thought at syntactic levels, building schema for using verbs and creating clauses in future writing assignments.
Rule #2: Try to elicit one main idea for each paragraph from the student. Then, keeping that idea in the main clauses as much as possible, have them talk you through the how they want to explain that topic. Often most students can say it out loud even if they don’t write it. Then help them create an A to B. B to C. C to D relationship between sentences, discussing what you can take for granted the reader will know/what you can leave out. Don’t be afraid to flip sentences or move them around! The ideas might all be there, but they might be organized according to the student’s first language’s needs for communication.
--Addresses flow and logical completeness of reasoning structures, building awareness of how low-context English can be, and how to avoid tangential tendencies in writing. Can also be used to strengthen synthesis features of topic sentence, clarification, evidence, explanation, and transition for advanced writers or research papers.
Rule #3: Examine all pronouns and the nouns closest to them. Can this pronoun replace this noun, and would having the noun be better for keeping the reader focused on the paragraph’s main idea? Is this pronoun referring to an idea, or is it filler more appropriate to a different context? Bear in mind that sometimes filler is the most appropriate structure for flow!!
--Addresses reference and cohesive logic, encouraging completeness and clarity through replacement-techniques at the syntactic and paragraph level, building concepts of complex summation and argument movement through attention to the kinds of pronouns and their uses in academic writing.
Rule # 4: Make some ideas less important, and keep similar ideas in similar types of language. Create explicit relationships between sentences and/or ideas by adding clarifying prepositional phrases (or other modifiers) to guide the reader’s ability to recognize the wholeness of the paragraph and paper. Don’t change essential vocabulary heedlessly.
--Addresses repetitive coherence and reinforcement of the text’s purpose, again building awareness of and control over the low-context needs of English writing. Uses subordination to both reinforce meaning as well as keep only the main ideas dominant.
II. Practice
All samples taken from student papers. Please use for training purposes or modeling purposes only.
Rule 1 Practice:
Look at the following sentence stems. What must I do to complete the thought?
1. Do you have a pen? Yes, I have.
Problem: Transitive needs a direct object.
2. I gave the pen.
Problem: Ditransitive needs two objects—one direct, one indirect OR one direct object and a prepositional phrase of transfer.
3. I fell.
Problem: Intransitive actions begin and end in the subject, so nothing is needed to complete it. However, we often use a preposition or prepositional phrase.
4. The results indicate.
Problem: Certain verbs represent more abstract and complex actions than one word can hope to explain. This verb is a transitive verb requiring a noun clause (complex noun) by virtue of its more abstract meaning.
5. He happy.
Problem: A copula in English still requires a verb. This is an adjectival complement of feeling, so “is” or “was” is probably the most appropriate. He could “smell” happy, but the logic would be rather twisted or scientific for that interpretation.
6. He teacher.
Problem: This example could be a copula sentence, using a nominal complement. This could need to be intransitive. What is the context? Is this an action (a spelling problem? A part of speech problem?), or a description?
Rule 2 Practice:
Look at the following passage. What is the main idea? Based on this idea, how can we reorder the sentences to get a clear old information/new information flow? What should we cut, or what sentences should we flip, to optimize readability?
Another critical issue for the case would be customers’ satisfaction.1 The employee, who was claimed, received some other customers’ request to ask the woman to relocate or cover up as she breastfed.2 Some customers prefer to enjoy their coffee without the view of a breastfeeding mother while other customers and mothers support the right to breastfeed in public.3 Employees in Starbucks stores could not please all the customers.4 When Starbucks satisfies one group of customers, it must alienate the other group in this case.5 Starbucks must consider some solutions that will satisfy both groups, or determine which party is more essential to the success of the business.6
Rule 3 Practice:
What does the “it” refer to in this sentence? What other pronouns do you see? How can we clarify these ideas?
(Remember—don’t worry about the punctuation until you’ve decided what meaning was intended first! Otherwise, you might have to go back and totally rework the periods and commas).
¡ To illustrate, when someone took this test and the doctor tells him there are 50% to get your child disease. After that, the doctor prevents them to not get married, it means the doctor broke their relationship, that is very sad.
What about these pronouns? What context could this be appropriate for?
¡ If you take a genetic testing, you will be able to find out what is going to happen to your health in the future.
Rule 4 Practice:
Look at the following passage. Determine where you can add prepositional phrases (and possibly adjectives or possessives that function in the same capacity) to clarify the context or situation, and the focus of the paragraph. Then think of other modifiers you could use (adjectival or adverbial clauses perhaps). Some ideas have been offered below.
Without any doubt, studying abroad could open my mind to the world. I could meet school mates from lots of different countries with different culture and background. Also, I could improve my English skills and the capability of diversity. However, I would get a lot of challenges, such as communication, cultural differences, high expense, and so on.
-for college -in America -about the world -of international finance
-communication challenges -for living in a different culture -financial challenges
Look at the final paragraph of a student’s (VERY short) paper. With your partner, work through the 4 different rules to see how you can help this student make his ideas clear.
I think it’s helpful to rely on this test if the doctors cannot know what’s affecting the patient. In addition, we should know how the science are developing so fast and making our life easier. We have to imagine how our life can be without the science inventors.
III. Theories and Methods
This approach takes for granted that the ultimate purpose of writing is communicative competence, as outlined by Sauvignon (2001):
a. The ability to communicate effectively in English (especially as one’s second language) must include attention to the sociocultural, strategic, discourse, and grammatical elements that enable a person to move between contexts.
Larsen-Freeman’s depiction of grammar as form, meaning, and use (1997) enables the practitioner to use grammatical and syntactic elements as sites of competence-building since each element can be examined as part of a larger context, giving the learner a point of reference:
a. Form—Is this accurate to the structure and situation?
b. Meaning—Does this structure convey what the author intends it to convey for this situation?
c. Use—is this appropriate to the intended purpose and situation?
Using the accessibility hierarchy (Lightbown & Spada, 2003) as a foundation and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (1978) as the medium of transmission, this approach assumes:
a. Students’ knowledge of structures can be gauged by what they do seem to know, and this in turn can be used to help them build knew ways of structuring language appropriate to the context.
b. The learner can connect to structures in their own language and higher in the hierarchy if the meaning of the structure can be tapped into.
c. Explicit attention to these forms in the shape of awareness raising (or meta-cognitive) activities gives the tutee control over his or her own processes and helps him or her move more quickly to a higher level of communicative competence.
IV. References
Larsen-Freeman, D. (Series Director). (1997). Grammar dimensions: Form, meaning, and use (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Heinle & Heinle.
Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2003). How languages are learned (2nd ed.). Oxford: University Press.
Savignon, S. J. (2001). Communicative language teaching for the Twenty-First Century. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp. 13-28). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle/Thomson Learning.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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