I liked what Tony Silva said about writing with an accent. It makes a lot of sense to me that we shouldn’t expect writers to write without an accent anymore than we would expect them to speak without an accent. I also agree that fair isn’t equal and that international students may need some accommodations such as adequate time for response and a focus on meaning over grammar. I have no trouble conceptualizing how such accommodations could be done in a K-12 setting or in an L2 classroom. It is more difficult for me to attend to the needs of L2 students in content area classes at the university level especially in the classes that I teach online. In the online setting, I never meet my students face to face. They offer short introductions of themselves, but I often have no definite information about their age, gender, ethnicity, native language, or other demographic data. I might suspect that a student speaks English as a second language based on writing that seems accented. I can make some guesses about their language of origin based on their name and their introductions, but I am not allowed to ask a student about their language status or to refer them to ESL services unless they self identify. Since I am expected to grade papers with provided rubrics which include grammar, mechanics, organization, word choice, etc., I am often conflicted when grading papers that seem accented. How am I supposed to accommodate for L2 students when I don’t know for sure which students are nonnative speakers? Do I stick to the rubric for every student? Do I disregard the rubric so that I can focus on meaning for all students? The situation makes me question the value of rubrics, but the real issue is that I don’t have the opportunity to get to know my students well. I imagine that this is also a big challenge for instructors who teach general education courses with extremely high class sizes. I’m left wondering what can be done to prepare content area teachers to address the needs of international students.
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