• Students engaged in an English Conversation Corner (ECC) discussion. Oct 2016, Office of International Education.

Tips for Responding to Multilingual Student Writers

Reading Texts by Multilingual Writers

  • Read through the whole paper before responding, and then respond to the central intellectual work
  • Don’t be distracted by difference: read generously, for meaning
  • Focus first on global issues (ones that affect the paper as a whole), such as approach, content, evidence, organization, use of sources, etc.
  • For sentence-level issues, focus on what interferes with understanding
  • Consider what will help the writer develop her/his skills.

Priorities for Responding to “Error"

Identify where a student should focus attention, considering, in descending order of importance,

  • whether the issue interferes with communication
  • where “writing with an accent” may be acceptable
  • the seriousness of the issue in the context
  • the frequency of the issue (identifying patterns)
  • the complexity for that writer of learning the relevant rules

Support for Multilingual Writers through the Writing Center

Workshops & Events

We hold workshops abouts responding to multilingual writers at least annually and view/discuss the film Writing Beyond Borders periodically.  If you do not find these events on our current workshops & events calendar, contact us - we would be happy to set up an individual consultation and/or run another session of the workshop(s).  If you have any suggestions for workshops on this or other topics, please contact us.

Books Available to Borrow from the WID Library

 

Writing Across Borders: a Film

This documentary film, written and directed by Wayne Robertson of Oregon State University was developed to, "help faculty, writing assistants, and other professionals work more productively with international students in writing environments." Robertson's goal is to, "address some of the most significant challenges international students face when writing for American colleges and universities."  You can read more and/or watch the film on Oregon State's website (new tab). The Writing Across Borders video is available for streaming (new tab). It is not captioned, but there is a Writing Across Borders transcript (new tab) available.