Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hyeon Een]

I have received some good advice before on this forum, and I'm looking for a little more. Currently I am teaching a class titled "Advanced Writing". Despite the class name, the level of the students is really, really mixed. They vary from sophomore French majors who know little English, to 11th year English Education seniors (on the slow track..) to a native speaker exchange student from the USA. It's a really mixed class.

At the beginning of the semester I got the students to produce a piece of writing for me so that I could judge the level of the class. The biggest problem I saw was students 'trying too hard'. That may not sound like a problem, but I think I should explain better: What I mean is that students tried to write incredibly long, complex sentences, using words, idioms, phrasal verbs etc.
that they didn't really know in order to impress me. They knew that it was an 'advanced writing' class, so they tried to produce 'advanced writing' right from the beginning, without having the ability to do so. (Obviously there were a few exceptions, such as a couple of students who've lived abroad for a year or two and the native speaker).

Most of the work I received was basically un-intelligible except to those of us who are used to reading essays written by Koreans trying to use words they don't know. They tried to produce incredibly complex sentences, four, five, even six lines long using all kinds of clauses and conjunctions they couldn't actually use.

After receiving this disappointing first attempt at writing, I decided to try and change their style of writing. Basically, I tried to make them write more simply. I asked them to use simple, short sentences to get their ideas across. I asked them to use words that they know how to use, instead of using the dictionary or thesaurus to try and find 'impressive' words. 95% of the students have a huge vocabulary as it is, they don't need to go finding new words; they just need to use the words they already know correctly.(I'd go as far as to say that in terms of non-slang words at least 50% of my class have a larger vocabulary than the average native speaker) Furthermore long sentences are less impressive in English than they are in Korean. In Korean you will find super long sentences and it is considered good writing. In English super long sentences are difficult to understand, and when written by students at my students' level almost always so incorrect that they're impossible to understand.

In my opinion, their writing has improved ten fold with regards to what they're handing in to me as a finished product. Now what they produce varies between perfect, and easily understandable to any native speaker but with a few mistakes.

However today one of my students said something to me which got me thinking. As well as my writing class, he is also taking an 'intermediate' level writing class with a Korean professor. He told me today that his Korean professor has been encouraging them to experiment a lot with their writing: try new things; attempt to write in new ways; try to use more advanced grammar etc. He told me that he feels that he is a lot 'freer' in his intermediate level class than he is in mine. He feels that in my class he has to write simply and use perfect grammar, rather than trying to advance his English by trying new things as he does in the Korean teacher's class.

This situation is almost the opposite of what is often experienced in Korea. Apparantely I, the foreign teacher, am being strict and rigid, and the Korean teacher is much more open minded and encouraging experimentation etc.

I really didn't think that this was the way my class had gone. I thought that they had greatly improved their written English. I am a little worried that my students (well, one of them) feel that I am simply limiting them to 'simple' English.

In defense of my policy of getting them to write sentences they KNOW are correct when writing essays, I will say this: During the time they are planning and drafting their writing I am always available. They are welcome to ask me at any time whether a sentence they've produced is correct, or whether they've used a new word in the right way or whatever. It is just that I expect that when their final pieces of work are turned in a native speaker should be able to understand it instead of needing to ask the student what the hell they meant in their 5 line long rambling sentence.


So I'm asking for advice. Am I wrong to encourage students to write short, simple sentences? Am I limiting the development of their skills?

Thanks.

PS. Strangely, the best writer in the class is NOT the American. The best writer is a Korean girl who studied in London for a couple of years. I suspect this might be because the American girl assumes she's going to be perfect and rushes off her work in a 'stream of consciousness' style of writing in the minimum time possible though, whereas the Korean students spend hours and hours on their work.

PPS. Please don't criticise my writing today, I drank a bottle of wine earlier =) (Oh and don't complain about that either, I don't have classes on a Friday)

[gk]

Make sure they know the difference between "simple" and "economic" use of language. Sometimes using a word you learned while studying for the GRE can obscure or make ambiguous the point of your sentence when often a much simpler one will suffice. The same holds for grammar. I think your policy of telling students to only use what they are positive about is stifling as it ignores the fact that making errors is completely natural (even in an advanced class).

What I would suggest is doing some sentence workshopping with some of their writing samples. Take 3 sentences that are excessively wordy, sophomoric or grammatically convoluted. Show the students how to rewrite the sentence in a more precise way while still retaining the meaning. You can ask the class for their ideas as well, but have your own suggestions prepared ahead of time. Just to keep some balance and show that big words are ok, do the reverse as well. Take 3 sentences that are too simple in either their grammar or word choice. Same procedure, poll the class for ideas but have your own prepared. Also, make sure you keep everything anonymous if you are taking sentences from the students' writing. Hopefully they will learn the difference between expressing their ideas precisely and lexical overkill.

You seem to be in a sort of awkward situation, which sucks. However, you should always err on the side of "encouraging experimentation" if you have any doubts. It would be alright to insist that they don't make the same mistake twice, however.

Edit:
Here's an example of the spirit of doing this kind of activity courtesy of Benjamin Franklin. It relates to drafting the Declaration of Independence more than improving the writing of ESL students, but maybe somebody will get a chuckle out of it.

[Hyeon Een]

[kat2]

I had an excellent grammar/writing teacher in HS. She used to give us assignments where we had to write a paper (2-3 pages) but we had to use X number of prepositional phrases or adjective phrases or adverb clauses or whatever. We would obviously study what those were and the comma rules involved and look at some literature excerpts containg them earlier in the week. So, if we had studied adverb clauses that week, our final assignment was to write a 2 page paper using 8 adverb clauses and underline them. This is good b/c it taught us to use different kind of sentences but in a more controlled environment. It also taught us to be creative with our sentences b/c you had to use so many of a certain kind of clause/phrase. Try to do an assignemnt like that and see what they think. It's good to teach students to experiment, but they also need to know when to use what they know. This kind of assignment let's do them do both.

[Scott in Incheon]

I run my writing classes using portfolios. This allows the students the freedom to write what they want, but then they need to work on improving the essay throughout the semester. Nothing in my class is actually do until the end of the semester when the students hand in their portfolios.

This would allow you to help the students rewrite their texts and make them more readable without have such strict rules in place.

Our class works a lot on the editing process with each student having an editing partner and the writer acting as a editor as well. It is a long process, but soon they start looking at their writing differently.

The big thing is that they see it as a process and realize the first draft will never be that good, but that is okay because the second will show some improvement and then the 3rd and 4th....

[buster brown]

It sounds like your student sees the value of what you're teaching. After all, accurate writing should be the first goal (in my opinion). Since it sounds like you've gotten them to a point where they're doing that, why not throw in some opportunities for creative writing? Give them pictures or topics and let them write whatever and however they'd like. You can use the results for the sentence workshopping that gk suggested, editing exercises, or peer editing.

In short-term classes I teach editing techniques more often than writing techniques because that's the best way to make their writing comprehensible. But it sounds like this one student is looking for a chance to try something different and get the native teacher's input on how successfully he can pull it off.

Be glad that what you've taught so far has improved their writing skills. But also be aware that they'll probably revert back to the big-word, long-sentence style with other teachers and future real-world writing because no matter how much you tell them otherwise, they believe that's the way to produce something impressive in English.

[articulate_ink]

There's been some good advice here, and I'd like to add a little. Your students need to understand the differences between different types of writing. In nonfiction, the experimentation encouraged by that Korean professor doesn't work so well. The first goal in essay writing (or business correspondence, or whatever else university students might need to do in English) should be clarity. That doesn't mean simplicity. People tend to confuse the two. A mix of shorter and longer sentences balances the writing and keeps the eye moving across the page. GRE words should only be used when the student knows both the dictionary definition and the connotation.

In my own composition classes, I tell the students up-front that I'm not teaching grammar. While I'll make a few editorial suggestions and will spend a certain amount of time on their most common error patterns, composition is a distinct body of knowledge. I focus heavily on format, unity, coherence, and organization. Grammar will be an ongoing process, and they tend to understand that too.

Unless you're teaching a creative writing class, I would suggest nipping that 'try new things' problem in the bud. There's room in fiction to experiment, but second-language learners who are taking composition classes need to focus on mastering the basics first.