today's discussion did answer many of the issues i had been thinking about if i were to encounter an ESL student. How and where I should start was a concern of mine. whether we should treat them differently. isn't that a bad thing? discussing the differences between an ESL writer and a native speaking writer is giving me a better understanding of what we can assume about the student, that the way they see grammer is different and also that even if their wording may not be "americanized", it's not our job to correct and make it sound like ours.
I have to agree that the word "correct" gives a certain wrong schema to writers, tutors and professors. we need to be more careful and perhaps by changing these minute phrasing, one or two words, we can also change the sterotype that writing centers recieve as a fix it up shop. there is not 'correcting' i think when it comes to a writer's ideas; however, it's safe to say CORRECTing grammar mistakes for the writers who really do not understand how english grammar works. Explaining the reasoning is important so that they won't make the same mistake again and it's also important not to change all their mistakes for them for the same reason.
on a somewhat different topic, i wonder if we should think about our individual personalities and how that affects the kind of tutors we are. we talk about the strategies as directive and nondirective tutors but there's a difference between directive and nondirective PEOPLE, u know? tutoring can be difficult when the tutor is a very nonconfortational person and do not like "correcting" or being the person to say maybe this should be fixed or it would sound better in another way. how can these types of tutors become more effective in their approach. Do they need to change their methods?
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