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TimmyZhang

Writing2

WP2

2.25.2024

A conversation

I want to show the information that was discussed at the academic party to

one of my friends who studies English education in university. I am the host of

the party and 7 scholars were invited to discuss the problem that causes non-

native English speakers to struggle with English writing at the university and

the potential solution to deal with the problem. These scholars who are involved

in English study are very experienced in researching or teaching English writing

to non-native English speakers. The academic party is hosted on an online

discussion group board and the 7 scholars can post their comments on it. There

are also audiences in the online discussion group who can see all the posts from

the 7 scholars but cannot make comments on their posts. The audiences are all

related to English education but they are varied. Some are the students who

major are English education, some are the staff from the Teaching English as a

Foreign Language (TEFL) program in universities, and some are the professors

or instructors who research or teach that specifically Focus on the English

learning of non-native English speakers. All the audiences want to learn the

newest research output from the area of the English education of non-native

English speakers. Here are the online discussion group posts I showed to my
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friend:

Me: Hi everyone, we are here tonight to talk about the problem that non-native

English speakers may face in studying English writing at university and the

potential solution for that. Who will start to address their opinion first? Any

volunteer?

Bauer: I think the problem that causes non-native English speakers to struggle

with English writing is mainly focused on the English education system of the

university instead of themselves. There is a great opportunity for the writing

department at the university to change to help non-native English speakers

improve their writing skills better.

Me: How do you get this opinion?

Bauer: I have been teaching English writing at the UC system for a long time. I

have a lot of real experience getting in touch with the non-native English

speaker here and I will use these experiences as an example. There are lots of

international students here that are non-native English speakers. In these

universities, the main problem is that there is a huge difference in the level of

writing skills between various international students. The general English

writing course cannot help a large portion of non-native English speakers

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because the level of difficulty of these courses is only suitable for a small

portion of non-native English speakers so this probably means most non-native

English speakers in universities nearly can learn nothing from these courses.

This is because if their writing ability is higher than the difficulty of these

writing courses, then non-native English speakers students can learn nothing

new in writing skills, and if their writing ability is lower than the difficulty of

these writing courses, the non-native English speakers students cannot

understand the content in these courses. I believe that the specialty or instructor

in the department of writing at the university should give more customized help

to some specific groups of non-native English speakers that are poor on writing.

Furthermore, opening more different levels of writing courses is also helpful to

fit in all non-native English speakers in different levels of writing. The

conclusion can be generalized to other universities because the non-native

English speakers are mainly international students in the university.

Abbuhl: I think I may partially disagree with your point about providing

customized help to different writing levels of students. I am researching the

writing performance of non-native English speakers and native English speakers

on specific writing assignments after different forms of instruction writing are

provided by instructors. The result shows that under poor instruction there is no

difference in performance between the high-proficiency non-native English

speakers and the low non-native English speakers. They all have a lower
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performance than the native speaker. This means the different levels of writing

of non-native English speakers will bring the same level of struggling in English

writing in the same teaching process.

Bauer: That result is surprising to me. So what’s your point?

Abbuhl: Well, I agree that the problem is caused by the English writing

education system of the university. But based on the research results I posted

before, the solution should be that the instructor should provide more detailed

and clear instructions to guide non-native English speakers in English writing

instead of giving customized help to different writing levels of students.

Kennedy: professor Abbuhl, I think you may be right on the effect of the

different levels of writing on non-native English speakers but for my opinion,

same as Professor Bauer, I believe it is necessary to provide more customized

help to non-native English speakers for solving the problem of struggling on

writing. But for my research, the university should give the

The customized help to the non-native English speakers that have the same first

language background. Because from my research, the dual language pre-writing

assignment in the native language of non-native English speakers will largely

help them understand the requirement of the writing assignment and then

improve their performance.

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David: I agree with you about mentioning the importance of pre-writing for

non-native English speakers English writing. My research is specifically

focused on the effect of the pre-writing assignment on the writing performance

of non-native English speakers of postgraduate students. The result of my

research shows that if non-native English speakers can receive a couple of

detailed and specific pre-writing assignments tied with other useful writing

resources, their performance in English writing will improve a lot. This implies

that some specific details around the English writing process of non-native

English speakers will be vital factors that affect the writing performance of non-

native English speakers.

Lucas: I want to add my point to Professor David’s claim. Around all the

details of the writing process, not only the specific setting of the writing

assignment affect the writing performance of non-native English speakers, but

also some writing on specific genres will cause non-native English speakers to

struggle a lot. For example, composing emails to instructors in university will

be one of the genres that really cause non-native English speakers to struggle.

My research shows that even though non-native English speakers want to show

their politeness in composing emails, they fail to show enough politeness in

writing emails than the native speaker due to the lack of collection of suitable

phrasing or wording.
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Me: Is there any specific example you can show the difference of the wording?

Lucas: Sure, for example, non-native English speakers like to use “I want”

instead of “I would like to” which seems a little bit aggressive expression. I

want to say that the situation of non-native English speakers in writing emails

definitely can be improved. From my research, the specific course that teaches

the ways of writing an email will definitely enhance their wording and phrasing

in composing the email. In general, I want to mention that the solution of

providing a specific class focus on specific genre writing for non-native English

speakers from my research could be potentially generalized to all the genres that

appear in the academic environment of the university on a high frequency.

Indeed, composing email will not be the only genre that makes non-native

English speakers in university struggle with.

Scarcella: I agree with your idea. It is important for the non-native English

speakers at university to receive more training on some specific genre. My

research is about comparing the different performances on the expository essay

between non-native English speakers and native speakers. The expository essay

is a very common genre that non-native English speakers will write at university

and based on my research I can provide some specific guidance for non-native

English speakers to write the expository essay better. In my research, one of the
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most important problems about non-native English speakers writing expository

essays is that they tend to include a very long orientation in the beginning. This

makes their writing less authentic because native and experienced English

writers will be less likely to write in this way. If non-native English speakers

can notice that difference in their process of writing expository and try to alter

their original writing style to a more native expression with less orientation,

their writing will easily meet the writing convention of the genre of the

expository essay.

Ferris: Thank so much for Professor Scarcella and Professor Lucas showing

their research to help non-native English speakers to successfully compose on

one specific genre. My research also focuses on the performance of non-native

English speakers in one specific genre, persuasive writing, too. But I think I will

go back to Professor Abbuhl’s claim about the improvement of the teaching

quality of the writing instructors at the university. I want to provide a couple of

general suggestions for the writing instructors to help improve the writing of

non-native English speakers. My research shows that there are 3 ways that the

writing instructor can change to help non-native English speakers improve their

writing skills and writing performance better. The first one is the instructors

should teach more on how to write on a variety of different genres, the second

one is the instructors should introduce more topic-focus persuasive strategies

instead of some fixed transition words and the last one is the instructor should
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provide more structural instruction for writing assignments. I hope my idea will

help you all to identify some specific way for what the writing instructor can do

to help non-native English speakers……

Citation:

Abbuhl, R. (2011). Using Models in Writing Instruction: A Comparison With

Native and Nonnative Speakers of English. SAGE

Open, 1(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244011426295

Bauer, H., & Picciotto, M. (2013). Writing in America: International Students

and First-Year Composition. Writing on the Edge, 23(2), 75–86.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/43158914

Biesenbach-Lucas, S. (2007). Students Writing Emails to Faculty: An

Examination of E-Politeness among Native and Non-Native Speakers of

English. Language Learning & Technology, 11(2), 59–81.

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David, Camps. “The process of prewriting of four non-native speaker

postgraduate students.” Revista de Humanidades: Tecnológico de

Monterrey, 2005.

Ferris, D. R. (1994). Rhetorical Strategies in Student Persuasive Writing:

Differences between Native and Non-Native English Speakers. Research in the

Teaching of English, 28(1), 45–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40171324

Kennedy, B. L. (1993). Non-native Speakers as Students in First-year

Composition Classes with Native Speakers: How can Writing Tutors Help? The

Writing Center Journal, 13(2), 27–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43441928

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Scarcella, R. C. (1984). How Writers Orient Their Readers in Expository

Essays: A Comparative Study of Native and Non-Native English Writers.

TESOL Quarterly, 18(4), 671–688. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586582

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