Listen to Multilingual Students
To hear more about the experiences of multilingual students studying in the US, check out these two videos, which were made by Oregon State University. While they are from several years ago, they provide some valuable context for understanding students’ experiences and all the factors beyond language proficiency that may impact their writing.
Writing Across Borders 1
In this video, you’ll hear from students about their experiences learning what kind of organization, rhetoric, and content is desirable in English academic writing and some perspectives about how this can vary across languages and cultures. This can help you understand why students don’t necessarily naturally do what is desirable in English academic writing.
Writing Across Borders 2
Part 2 continues with talking about assessment and feedback practices for multilingual writing. You’ll hear from professors about their perspectives on assessment. You’ll also hear from students about their issues with being asked to write about American contexts that are unfamiliar to them or political issues or critiques that they’re not used to talking about in public.
Identifying Multilingual Writers in Your Class
There’s no way to know about your students’ language background unless you ask them. You may be able to identify a student’s nationality, but, as stated in the opening chapter of this section, assumptions about one’s language background that are based on one’s nationality are often wrong or lack nuance. In order to fill in this gap in your understanding of your students, you should consider giving students a brief survey that asks about their language background, the languages that they’ve studied, the languages that they know, and their goals for improving their academic writing. (Note that not all multilingual writers have interest in having what might be perceived as American-like or native-like language, so you shouldn’t assume that all students are interested in being “corrected.”) Taking a few minutes to survey your class about their language backgrounds and goals can help you build rapport with them in general and help you determine what kind of feedback to provide them.
Here is a suggested questionnaire to learn more about the language backgrounds of your students:
| Suggested Questions | Rationale |
| What languages do you speak, and to what degree (e.g. native, advanced, intermediate, beginner, etc.)? | This highlights the asset of speaking multiple languages rather than asking students about English only. Their self-perception of their level in any given language gives a limited perspective on their level, but it can help you see how they see themselves. |
| What kind of experience do you have with writing academic papers in English? (e.g. what’s the longest paper you’ve written for a course, what types of papers do you have experience writing, etc. tailored to your course / field) | This can help you see what level of experience your students have. Some students may arrive at college without having written anything longer than a paragraph. You’ll only know if you ask! |
| What are your goals for improving your writing? (And / or something else specific to your course) | Students may or may not be able to articulate their goals, but this gives them an opportunity to share and understand that you want to hear from them. |
Not all students will have an elaborate answer for each question, but giving students an option to answer these questions will give you an idea about their language backgrounds that could inform your teaching and feedback and also help build rapport.
