peer review | Scholar Blog ODU

Mason, Katherine. “Cooperative Learning and Second Language Acquisition in First-Year Composition: Opportunities for Authentic Communication among English Language Learners.” Teaching English in the Two Year College 34.1 (2006): 52-58. Web.

In this article, Katherine Mason provides a definition of cooperative learning for ESL and developmental English learners that encompasses both face-to-face teaching and online teaching as a way to improve student outcomes. Mason notes that many ESL students come into college with a fear of speaking English in front of their classmates when it isn’t their native language. This occurs for two reasons. One is that in their culture, educational emphasis is placed on listening rather than speaking. The other is that when students are set up to do group work and must be actively engaged, they often feel that their classmates (particularly those who are not ESL speakers) have better and smarter ideas and they fear looking stupid or less educated (52).

Mason notes that despite this fear, often, setting up a space in which students feel comfortable doing cooperative learning, which she defines as

“face-to-face or online” communication that “promotes a sense of community among students” and includes an emphasis on “interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation, and simultaneous interaction,” promotes greater learning and more comfort in speaking English and sharing their ideas (53).

She notes that cooperative learning has the power to increase linguistic diversity in students more than a traditional lecture. She does warn, however, that a teacher must create modeling and feedback for students so they can successfully work cooperatively (53).

Some of Mason’s recommended activities include both classroom and online work. For classroom work, she recommends asking students to write a stance on an issue and some counterarguments. When sharing their arguments with teams of four or five, other teammates may suggest other possible counterarguments, which helps students develop ideas for writing and practices spoken English (54). For online cooperative learning she suggests asking students to put paper outlines on a Blackboard forum where a small group will read and respond to each other’s proposals providing group critiques (55). Mason has found that such group work is better than a teacher giving feedback, as students often think of feedback that even the teacher wouldn’t have thought about and that students benefit not only from receiving but from giving feedback (55). The students also report that they become more careful about their own drafts when they realize the criticisms they see in other students’ drafts (56).

Here is an example of a similar Blackboard peer review I did in my own class. Students submit their thesis statements and evidence to the board and must respond to at least two of their classmate’s work.

Finally, Mason notes that teachers shouldn’t be too worried about students who are initially quiet or reluctant to participate. She believes that many quiet students are gaining “peripheral participation” and absorbing ideas by listening and that as the semester goes on, they are more likely to become active participants when they learn that speaking up is good practice to think critically and an opportunity to share their opinion (54). Ultimately, this shows the true value of cooperative learning:

“The very act of genuinely communicating with peers from diverse backgrounds through cooperative team-building structures alleviates fears, breaks down stereotypes, and promotes relationship building among students” (57).

Students who learn cooperatively become better writers, students, and more culturally-aware citizens.

Something that struck me as I read this was a reminder of Dell Hymes’ definition of communicative competence. Communicative competence in a cultural aspect as Hymes describes it is when someone learns how to speak language effectively to a particular culture to accomplish their purpose. When I have such a linguistically diverse class (particularly for my ESL English classes), getting students to the place that Mason describes, where students feel comfortable enough for their voices to be heard and are able to be understood is always one of my main goals. My goal is not for students to leave my class speaking standard English, but to be able to comfortably communicate in a college classroom with peers and to take some new knowledge away from that. The question I must then ask is, how do I speed up the process of getting those uncomfortable students to speak? It seems that Mason would argue the more they speak, the more quickly they will improve, but often getting my quietest students to speak is like pulling teeth. However, such cooperative learning would, as both Hymes and Mason would argue, make students improve more rapidly. How to speed up their communicative competence is something I need to consider further.

Lev Vygotsky, the father of a developmental theory of education, changed everything when he introduced the ZPD, which has spurred decades of thinking on cooperative learning in the classroom.

In addition to Hymes, Mason’s definition fits very well again with a developmental theory of learning. Vygotsky’s ZPD helps explain Mason’s success. What she is describing here – students being “equal partners” in learning and being required to participate with their group gives them not only the feedback of their peers to make themselves better, but in giving feedback, they gain the confidence in their abilities and thoughts that eventually will allow them to move to new levels of competence as learners (Vygotsky 86). When Mason notes that often times students will provide feedback that she has never considered before is something I frequently encounter. While I am happy to sit down with students in conferences to discuss their writing, I am still only that – one perspective. By allowing students opportunities for conferring with peers as well, they gain new ideas and I gain new ideas also. This form of cooperative learning benefits both the students and the teacher alike. However, the questions that arise out of this yet again has to do with how I pair students for such work. Is it best to allow students to pick their own groups, or should I form them myself specifically putting weaker and stronger students together? If I do that, do the stronger students only benefit from helping others but not get a perceived benefit on their own? I frequently remember my own peer review days when I felt I got nothing worthwhile out of feedback. In what ways do teachers respond to the problems of such drastic differences in abilities and help cooperative learning improve all students? I haven’t figured out the most ideal solutions to these problems in my own class yet.

Works Cited

Hymes, Dell. “On Communicative Competence.” Research Planning Conference on Language and Development Among Disadvantaged Children. Yeshiva University. Frankfurt Graduate School. 7 June 1966. Address.

Vygotsky, Lev. Mind in Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978. Print.

Williams, Jessica. “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center.” Journal of Basic Writing 21.2 (2002): 73-91. Print.

Do support services, such as the NOVA writing center, shown here, help produce greater outcomes inside the developmental/ESL English classroom? Williams would argue that, with the right tutor strategies, they do.

In considering issues related to developmental/ESL English at the community college, one important goal of teachers and the school alike is providing adequate support to make students successful in their courses. In looking at what support services are available to improve outcomes for developmental/ESL English students, writing centers are an important resource. Jessica Williams in “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center” examines the historical problems for both teachers and writing centers for addressing ESL students and what might be done to support greater outcomes for these students in need.

Williams notes that while teachers have been using writing centers as a place to help “fix” or “improve” ESL writing student outcomes, most writing center tutors succeed in helping writers with their writing issues, but fail to help them with language issues. “For the latter, some tutors may refer second language writers to handbooks, which generally contain explanations of troublesome grammatical forms and sentence-level exercises” which are often “frustratingly ineffective” (75). However, Williams believes that the research and particular methods can make the writing center effective for second-language writers and outlines methods for improving student outcomes.

First, tutors in the writing center can assist students by teaching students concepts systematically. This “system learning” is for when tutors and students are able to see grammatical or language patterns throughout writing. For example, when a student can recognize that the “regular past tense marking with ed” is a pattern, they can project that knowledge “onto new forms” (78-9). Applied linguists generally agree that such teaching is possible on the part of the tutor (78), as long as the the tutor knows the grammar rules himself (79).

Second, the tutors should act more as a peer and guide the second-language writer to negotiate the writing with them. ESL students prefer a more “directive” session with a tutor, in which the tutor behaves “as higher-standard interlocutors” with more dominant behavior. Research has shown that being more directive might be helpful for ESL writers (80), yet for the best results, negotiation, in which the learner participates actively with the tutor to facilitate comprehension and possible revisions will lead to the greatest outcomes (81-2). Texts that are negotiated with tutors tend to receive the most revision (83).

Finally, Williams addresses the sociocultural approach to helping ESL English students. The zone of proximal development is Vygotsky’s theory on learning, in which stretching current knowledge in interactions with novices or peers helps students internalize new knowledge (84). In the writing center, this can be achieved by asking the writing center tutor to act as an “interlocutor” in which they control the “flow of discourse, but there is a moderate mutuality” and active encouragement of the novice to contribute (85). These three methods together can result in strong outcomes and gains for the ESL writer in their writing classroom.

The methods that Williams brought up as the ways to support ESL writers reminded me of Richard Fulkerson’s “Four Philosophies of Composition.” Within this approach, I can see how at least three of his philosophies can be accounted for in these methods. The formalist approach, which judges “good writing as correct writing” and “readability” (344) can be seen in Williams’ notion of system learning – students can be taught particular forms to make their writing more readable. I can see the philosophy of expressionism, which focuses on students as self-directed and teachers as non-directive (345) in Williams’ suggesting that students have some directive aspects in their writing. Finally, I see the mimetic approach, which says there is a connection between good thinking and good writing (345) when Williams points out that one of the biggest challenges for ESL writers is in reading comprehension. A struggle with comprehension of required college texts “can pose a tremendous challenge for these second language writers” (77). What is interesting is that Fulkerson acknowledges how problematic it is to use multiple approaches at once, or to use one approach and grade based upon another (346). However, writing tutors might escape these issues because they work one-on-one with the writer and they have no stake in the grading of the work. Therefore, it seems possible that support services like writing centers can help students simply based on their ability to perform multiple philosophies or functions without having to assess the work. Such a theory could explain one reason why students who use the writing center have greater outcomes in their classes than students who do not.

My own experiences working with students in class and one-on-one might speak to the possibility of the successful multitasking writing tutor. For example, when I teach my developmental composition course I do not generally teach grammar usage. As is widely accepted, particularly after Patricia Hartwell’s definitive piece “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar,” explicit teaching of forms is not particularly productive. However, when students are one-on-one with me and I can see small patterns of errors in their writing, discussing these issues, as a writing tutor would do, becomes more practical and useful. I also generally find that ESL students struggle the most with reading comprehension of any deficiencies they may have, and this is a major inhibitor to clear and understandable writing. I encourage them to read frequently (both for and outside of class), ask questions, and talk with their peers. Helping with basic comprehension of a given task or writing instantly makes their job easier. Finally, I see the value both in letting students making directives for their writing while also letting me guide them a bit – a middle ground approach is always better than allowing only them to talk or only me to talk when we conference about their writing. In addition, so much more is accomplished when I am facing only one student rather than 25 or more.

At NOVA’s writing center, the results of such benefits are definitive. The writing center has done their own studies showing the benefits of their work. Below, you can see that students who visit the writing center do better in their courses than students who do not. These support services, therefore, are crucial to continued ESL in the English classroom success.

These statistics, from NOVA’s writing center program assessment in spring 2011, show that writing centers do make a difference based on the number of times the student goes. This supports the idea that with good tutoring techniques, students, ESL or not, can improve their writing.

Works Cited

Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition.” College Composition and Communication 30.4 (1979): 343-348. Print.

Hartwell, Patricia. “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar.” College English 47.2 (1985): 105-127. Print.

Williams, Jessica. “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center.” Journal of Basic Writing 21.2 (2002): 73-91. Print.

Scholar Blog ODU

Amy Flessert – English 810

Tag Archive | peer review

Engl PAB Entry 8

“The very act of genuinely communicating with peers from diverse backgrounds through cooperative team-building structures alleviates fears, breaks down stereotypes, and promotes relationship building among students” (57).

ENGL 810 PAB Entry 5