ENGL 505A

As I read Harris' article, it was interesting comparing her observations of peer response and tutoring with my own, most recently as an ESL instructor and as a student in a rhetoric class long ago and far away.

Peer response activities in the ESL classroom can be something of a gamble. Depending on the educational styles of his or her native culture, an ESL student may not be entirely comfortable working in small groups and spending their class time participating in rather informal discussion. These students recognize the instructor as the sole authority figure in the classroom and, as a result, tend to be dismissive, distrustful or overly sensitive to feedback from their peers.

Although Harris argues that providing students with a set of guidelines for peer responses will limit them, my opinion is that is necessary for ESL students, who are often not very used to activities of these types. I also make these activities count for a grade so that students will know that (a) I believe peer response to be a valid exercise and (2) they need to treat it as such. I do agree with Harris that peer response is a skill that needs to be practiced and honed over time so, as an ESL course progresses, the guidelines could move from more to less focused to allow the students more freedom of expression.

I believe there is a cultural component to tutoring, as well. According to Harris, the American students she observed at the writing center seemed to not respond very well to experienced tutors who used technical language to explain the students' grammatical problems. This is not the case with many ESL students. Because they learned English in a formal manner, they are usually more than familiar with grammatical terms and seem to prefer instructors' using them to explain an error. The specific challenge for tutoring ESL student is, in my opinion, urging them to focus not so much on the grammar, but issues of organization and content.