Time: 3pm Sunday afternoon.
Grading: 19 two-page single-spaced analyses.
Question: Which language issues should I mark?
Note to self: Try not to overwhelm the students.

This routine may seem familiar to many of us. Other questions that may arise are whether or not the language issues should impact students’ grades, and how nonnative speakers of English should be supported in the science/technology/engineering/mathematics (STEM) classroom. I address my own pedagogical answers to these questions through this brief reflection.

As early as 2006, Matsuda noted that the multilingual classroom is fast becoming a reality for teachers of English and writing, and, in 2014, I find my writing classes are quite diverse in terms of students’ language backgrounds. For second-language writing specialists, this is not as daunting as for those with less experience teaching English and writing classes to nonnative speakers of English. However, even for those in the second-language writing community, one issue that recurs is how and when to provide feedback on language issues. Second-language writers need support whether they identify as ESL (Ortmeier-Hooper, 2008) or not. I am finding this to be a concern at my institution, particularly at the junior and senior levels where capstone design projects in students’ majors may require students to complete written reports as well as research and where multilingual students do not identify as ESL. As a STEM school, we strive to help students understand and write technical material. For many of my students, the technical material is much easier to understand than it is to write.

As a teacher of the third course in a series of required writing courses, a teacher of technical writing, I find myself employing strategies from both technical communication as well as second-language writing to support my multilingual students’ development in writing. For example, organizational strategies such as frequent use of headings to divide subsections is a common technical communication tool, but also serves as a helpful way for both native and nonnative speakers of English to signpost their writing. Other methods, such as my feedback approach, have grown from the literature on responding to student writing in both L1 and L2 contexts. Sommers’ (1982) advice to provide specific comments rather than rubber-stamped feedback has been important to me ever since I asked a student to “expand,” and the student triple-spaced the paper.

Within second-language writing, Ferris, Liu, Sinha, and Senna’s (2013) case-study exploration of written corrective feedback has helped me consider how to address language issues in my students’ writing. They emphasize that focused, specific feedback on the particular language issue is helpful, but note the importance of giving more opportunities for students to interact with the feedback. Ferris et al. (2013) explain, “However, even focused, explicit feedback such as the WCF [written corrective feedback] provided for this study may fall short of meeting students’ needs if there are no opportunities for follow-up discussion and clarification” (p.323). Feedback is a dialogue, and discussion between the teacher and student helps the student understand how to read the comments and which comments hold the most importance for revision.

I have, therefore, tried to build an interactive component into my teaching that allows students, both native and nonnative speakers of English, to discuss my feedback. I allot time in my classes to discuss feedback on assignments, with increasing amounts of time for feedback as the assignment length increases. For example, I save 15 minutes for conversation about comments on early assignments of only two single-spaced pages. I hold half-hour conferences and devote whole 75-minute class periods to discussing feedback on eight-page, single-spaced research reports. Exploring students’ interpretations of my feedback and clarifying my intent are important elements of my content and language issue feedback.

As an experienced teacher of both native-English-speaking students and nonnative-English-speaking students, many of the techniques I employ in my classes are helpful to students regardless of language background. Also, my methods allow students flexibility to seek out additional help from me particularly on language issues, or simply work from the written feedback I provide. I, like others in the field, have particularly noted the growing multilingual population in my classes, and have implemented some techniques in my teaching that I hope will help others reflect on what methods may work in their particular multilingual contexts.

Institutional Setting
At my institution, much emphasis is placed on original research, even for undergraduate students, during their capstone junior and senior design projects. Students are required to write long reports for these projects, and many of our students continue into graduate school. This institution is a science and engineering university, with many research institutions surrounding the campus, such as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The school is small with only 2,000 students. This institution serves a population which is roughly 25% Hispanic, and many students come from New Mexico and have varied language backgrounds, though most are native speakers of English. However, recently, partnerships with other universities (for example the Petroleum Department’s partnership with a university in China) have drawn more international students to the university. Also, several students from African nations where English is an academic, if not a native, language have been drawn to our institution for its engineering programs. Therefore, the students’ language backgrounds are quite diverse.

Course Design
In this required technical writing course for STEM students, I have had students from a variety of majors including environmental engineering, petroleum engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, and electrical engineering.

One of the central course objectives as described by the writing program for this course is that students will “demonstrate facility with ideas and language.” I find that my students have developed facility with ideas in their respective fields, but both native and non-native speakers of English struggle to develop facility with language. I specifically design early assignments to focus on content, but I mark for language to raise students’ awareness in low-stakes assignments. I also structure the course to build from several small assignments to a larger group project to finally a researched report that often contains original research. The first two assignments are small and ask students to analyze documents and interview professionals in their respective fields. The next assignment is a group assignment to create instructions and conduct a usability test, and has a language component but is done as a group. The final half of the semester is a research project that includes drafts of the proposal, an annotated bibliography, multiple drafts of the research report, and a final presentation. By helping students practice writing and working with them on language issues early on, I notice that they are all better prepared for the final research project.

Writing for many of the students at this science and engineering school, whether they are native or nonnative speakers of English, is difficult. Therefore, I instituted a revision policy in my course that encourages students to revise any and all assignments throughout the semester. I find that many students revise, even if they receive a good grade, and as all of my assignments and feedback are digital, it is easy for me to see where they made changes. Students submit the initial assignment as a discussion board thread, then I reply with comments, and finally the students reply to my reply with their revisions. Looking at the draft with my comments and then at their revisions, I regrade the assignment after the revision and give a completely new grade based on the revision work.

I am able to give extensive feedback to students as I limit the length of, particularly, the early assignments in the class to two single-spaced pages, but it is also important to note that my class is composed of only 20 students.

I provide both a written and oral description of the assignment, and I provide in-class time for questions. Students post the assignment to a discussion board where they can all see one another’s assignments. Students are often able, therefore, to look at how other students have completed the assignment. I have seen similar approaches to the assignments as a result of this approach, but no plagiarism.

I try to clarify my expectations to students by providing a rubric that is content- and organization-based. For example, my first assignment is to analyze two documents in a student’s particular field, and discuss whether or not these are examples of writing conventions used by these engineers or scientists throughout the field. My rubric for the first assignment was 10 points for specific, cited support; 10 points for organization of the information by recurring themes such as “Jargon” or “Figures”; and 10 points for a discussion of whether or not this was typical of the field. The early assignments do not contain a grammar, mechanics, or language component to the grade, but later assignments and the final research project do contain such components. This allows students to identify and work on some language issues early in the course without penalty.

My Feedback
Feedback in a STEM institution is, as one student I spoke with mentioned, “about accuracy.” Both in providing specific cited support and explaining this cited support, students are encouraged to clearly and accurately convey technical material. Even words such as “unfortunately” and “improved” are scrutinized to see if they accurately reflect the research findings. At our institution, research is very common for undergraduate students, and an emphasis on accuracy also leads to increased marking of language issues from many professors, myself included. However, these are not the only issues I mark, but part of the whole of maintaining accuracy of reporting technical information.

I address students’ issues of organization such as multiple ideas per paragraph, or issues such as providing specific support for claims for both native and nonnative speakers of English. However, as I often mark more language issues for nonnative speakers of English (though this is not always the case), I preface the comments with one overarching comment about how to read the rest of the comments. For example, I explain that I marked recurring language issues and mention which ones seem most pressing for that particular student to focus on (such as singular/plural or verb forms) and then explain that the student’s grade does not reflect the language issues, but the student is encouraged to revise these as well as other content issues in the revision.

I provide direct correction for the first occurrence of the language error, with explanation for what kind of issue it is. For example, I may write “Explaining. Need the –ing form of the verb here.” I am more directive in my comments than much of the written corrective feedback literature recommends, but my students seem to benefit from this approach. For subsequent instances of the same type of language error, I point out the type of error and write “see above.”  I find that both nonnative- and native-English-speaking students make language errors, and I approach corrective feedback similarly for both populations. However, my nonnative-English-speaking students tend to have more language issues, and though I try not to point out all language issues, I find myself more heavily marking their assignments.

I accompany my written comments with time in class to discuss my feedback, and I again emphasize my revision policy. Also, for later assignments, I offer one-on-one conference time to my students as well as providing them with written feedback.

Conclusions
Over the course of the semester, I have observed great growth and development from some students in their writing, and, in my end-of-semester course evaluations, students often mention that my feedback was particularly helpful. However, one student wrote in the final course evaluation that he/she didn’t understand the feedback I gave. I also notice some students find it more difficult to learn from written feedback. Building in discussion time to talk to students about my feedback has helped me clarify how to read my comments, and which comments to prioritize. Also, the overarching comment at the beginning about how to read the comments seems to be helpful to students. I will continue to try to find ways to engage my students in an interactive feedback dialogue, whether they are native or nonnative speakers of English, and whether the feedback concerns content or language issues.

[Editors’ note: We encourage instructors to share their writing processes and feedback practices with SLWIS members. We hope to hear from instructors teaching in different settings to help us learn about context- and discipline-specific expectations and constraints.]

References

Ferris, D. R., Liu, H., Sinha, A., & Senna, M. (2013). Written corrective feedback for individual L2 writers. Journal of Second Language Writing, 22, 307–329. doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2012.09.009

Matsuda, P. K. (2006). The myth of linguistic homogeneity in U.S. college composition. College English, 68, 637–651.

Ortmeier-Hooper, C. (2008). English may be my second language but I’m not ‘ESL’. College Composition and Communication, 59, 389–419.

Sommers, N. (1982) Responding to student writing. College Composition and Communication, 33, 148–156.