From time to time, I repeatedly hear,
- Non-native speaking students cannot write well.
- Non-native speaking students cannot critique the literature well.
These happen when essay scores are compared between native English speakers and non-natives. In a way, some aspects are true. But those non-native speaking students cleared the entrance requirement for English to be here. So it is improbable that the non-native students' English is sub-standards.
Based on my experiences at ESL schools, non-natives learn various writing style. I cannot speak for everyone, but I am pretty confident that non-native speakers who had extensive English tutoring know how to write an essay.
But it was my PhD when I learned how to answer the questions the tough way. At the very first written exam, I was penalised for 'not' answering the question. After consulting with my own tutor (=native English speaker), I learned the art of answering the essay exam: Restating the question with my own interpretation, ending with my position. Using that as a guide, structure how to support my position, in turn answering the question. A difficult lesson about a statement was valuable, too. I omit the detail, but knowing how to make a statement helped me use evidence to support my position.
I should not be using culture as my defence, but in the Far East Asian culture, we accept a statement as a face fact. People know something concretely as a fact and speak the fact. So, we do not need to support or argue. We believe in what we read or hear. The most important thing in writing is to share the fact (heard or read elsewhere) accurately. That is why Asian students' writing tends to be very descriptive.
And of course, for native English speakers, presenting the series of facts does not mean anything unless it has a position. 'Cannot write well in English' implies here that 'cannot argue' in the way that native English speakers can follow.
Similar to the case for 'argument', critiquing evidence is a foreign concept to many non-native speakers, especially those from Asian countries. It is because of the same reason why we accept a statement as a fact. In the research context, critiquing evidence means examining the level of the evidence based on its research design. Identifying the level of evidence can show how strong/weak our argument would be. In another word, our initial position can be supported/not supported by the level of evidence that we placed in an essay.
For all non-native English speaking students, I strongly suggest familiarising with Bloom's taxonomy, which blew my mind. Demonstrating what we acquired as knowledge has a hierarchy that closely relates to the action words in any assessment. So if we are asked to 'critique' something, that is level 5 learning, 'Evaluating' which students are expected to identify a solution for a specific problem with justification/providing with evidence. And it means to apply all of the preceding levels of learning in answering the question (Remembering, Understanding, Applying, and Analysing).
I do hope that all non-native English speaking students are to have opportunities to learn how to argue with the evidence, or at least having an induction for cultural interpretation of learning-related words. If non-native speaking students can see the hidden context of words like 'infer', 'discuss' or 'appraise', they can answer the essay question more closely to what is aimed for. Then we will see what are English problems and what are not.
Comments
Post a Comment