English As A Second Language Essay Questions

GSIs who work in courses that are designed to improve student writing should read, in addition to this page, Working with NNS Writers in the Reading and Composition section of the Teaching Guide for GSIs.

GSIs who work in courses that are designed to improve student writing should read, in addition to this page, Working with NNS Writers in the Reading and Composition section of the Teaching Guide for GSIs.Why is there such a wide range in student writing at Cal?The response and commenting strategy can vary: you can, for example, comment on the paper’s features based on the grading criteria and also comment on one or two prominent kinds of writing error for a student to work on.

When a GSI feels that a student writer’s work is so problematic that the GSI really can’t tell how much the student has learned or what he or she means to say, there are several options.

GSIs needn’t feel like they are putting a student off or singling a student out by suggesting outside tutoring; it’s actually a great resource.

If you would like to see a list of resources for student writers and their GSIs, please see Additional Resources at the end of this Teaching Guide section or the Additional Resources page in the Reading and Composition section of the Teaching Guide.

Welcome to our collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) tools & resources for students, teachers, and educators.

Research shows that one-on-one instruction with a tutor is an extremely effective strategy for students to improve their writing.

If you would like to learn more about working with multilingual students on their writing, please see Working with NNS Writers in the Reading and Composition section of the Teaching Guide.Many of the reasons are the same ones native English speakers might have for plagiarizing: the stress of thinking their own written English is not good enough; getting desperate at the last minute before an assignment is due; not understanding that merely cutting and pasting from the internet is an unacceptable practice; not sufficiently understanding the norms for acknowledging sources in U. However, even if cultural difference does enter in, all college students in the US need to understand and follow the norms of the academic community here.Any paper a student turns in as his or her own work must in fact be the product of the student’s own intellectual labor; if students use other sources, they are required to give proper citations.“NNS” and “multilingual” are often more accurate expressions than “English as a Second Language” because English may be a person’s third or fourth language or beyond.This page addresses questions that often come from GSIs who work with multilingual students in courses that require a substantial amount of writing, but in which developing writing skill is not necessarily a primary learning objective.International students who come from non-English-speaking countries show evidence of English proficiency through standardized testing before being admitted to Cal.For many of these students, the volume and sophistication of the writing expected in their classes here may present a new order of challenge.What if I’m finding a student essay really, really hard to read? Linguistic variety in a world language such as English is inevitable and normal, and UC Berkeley students come from a vast array of linguistic backgrounds.International students bring the varieties of English they learn in other English-speaking countries (for example Australia, Canada, or India) or in their previous schooling in non-English-speaking countries.What GSIs are generally tasked to do is to evaluate students’ mastery of specific course materials or awareness about a topic based on their writing assignments, using an appropriate grading rubric (a specific set of standards).More helpful than singling out multilingual student writers for special attention is to consider all student writing as falling somewhere along a continuum from very correct, elegant, and effective to ungrammatical, awkward, or incoherent.