Teaching academic ESL writing part 14

Editing and Finding Mistakes in Noun Forms and Uses a Noticing and drawing attention The first step in teaching students to edit their own text is to present one written by someone else

(c) For advanced students, this technique can be used with excerpts from introductory texts in the disciplines or literature on any topic that the teacher considers to be useful and appropriate As intermediate learners, students can work in groups or complete the assignment as homework, followed by a substantial class discussion of their lexical choices For example,

• Why is a particular word appropriate/inappropriate in this sentence?

• What better word can be found?

• Why is another choice of a word better?

• How many parts does a particular word consist of?

• What are they?

• Is this word a noun, adjective, verb, or adverb, and how do we know?

• What lexical substitutions for this word can we think of?

• Are some better than others and why?

Lexical Substitution Exercises

Restatement and paraphrase are often considered to be essential academic tasks However, many NNS students lack the necessary lexical and reading skills to restate an idea Teaching restatement by means of lexical substitu-tions is simpler than paraphrasing, and lexical restatement can be practiced even with high beginners For example,

Task 1 Please replace the underlined nouns with other nouns (or phrases) with similar meanings

1 Education abroad is rapidly expanding due to an increasing number of

ad-venturous students who take advantage of going abroad to explore their

eth-nic roots.

[education—studying, going to school, learning; abroad—in a foreign

country; expanding—growing, becoming popular; roots—origins, family

history]

2 Several factors play an important role in this trend,

[facts, points, ideas]

3 Colleges and universities in England remain the top destination for U.S.

students.

[choice, place, location, goal]

Paraphrase practice is a little more complex and requires examples for students to complete it successfully However, if the lexical substitution work takes place prior to restatement, students will have little trouble

Task 2 Please explain in your own words and in one sentence what these three sentences say together

Also in writing practice, after students produce a paragraph or an essay, the teacher can underline nouns/words in the students' texts to be replaced with other words with similar meanings

Editing and Finding Mistakes in Noun Forms and Uses

(a) Noticing and drawing attention

The first step in teaching students to edit their own text is to present one written by someone else with several mistakes of the same or similar types:

"You got a mail." Technology can provide various ways for communicate Most

American have already visited WWW, but in my country, people still don't use

technolo-gies often With the technology development, we, people, can get more and more benefit.

We use technologies doesn't mean we abandon the traditional way to communicate with

other people I really enjoy to meet with friends and have fun with family But everybody

is so busy today, technology provides a more convenient way for communication

Every-body have different way to communicate, and / believe technology make us having more

communicate with other, it also makes our life more beautiful (From a student essay

on the influence of technology on communication.)

This text can be put on a transparency and the mistakes in it discussed in class Alternatively, students can work on several similar texts in small groups and then present their findings to the class with explanations for each error they identified In this case, the entire class may have additional opportunities for noticing and working with problematic nouns

(b) When proofreading text for structural, morphological, or inflectional errors, most students begin reading their text from the beginning In doing

so, the reader almost immediately gets caught in the flow of the text and stops paying attention to errors in word/noun form Furthermore, when students read their own text silently, they employ only one type of memory—visual For students in ESL/EAP programs in English-speaking countries, aural memory (remembering how the word sounds) can provide

an additional boost in mistake-hunting power:

• It is far more effective to start reading one's own text from the

be-ginning of the last sentence to the end of this sentence In this way

the reader proofs the text by reading it backward, sentence by

sen-tence, to avoid getting caught in the text flow

• Then move up to the one before the last sentence and read to the

end of this sentence

• Then move up one sentence higher still (the third sentence from

the end) and proofread it

• The proofreading of text should be done aloud (but not necessarily

loudly) while paying close attention to word forms

• This proofreading technique can help students locate and correct about one third to half of the word-form errors in their writing

• In most cases, students need to be shown this technique only one time because it is simple to understand and use They just need to

be reminded to proofread their text, read it out loud, and follow what is written (rather than what they think is written) Reminding writers to proofread is not a new task for any writing teacher

For example:

(This is the last sentence to be proof-read (6)] When I was a child, all the

technolo-gies in my hometown were still simple [The fifth sentence to the end (5)] Started from television to computers, all were changed [Then the fourth sentence to the end of the

sentence (4)] Basically, all technologies that people discovered in communications were not

to make money [Then read the third sentence to the end (3)] They were made for im-provements [Then continue with the second sentence to the end of the sentence

(2)] It is true that until now there are no technologies that can promote person contact [Start reading here to the end of the sentence—(1)] For example, people can only

hear voices from telepJwne and people can only see the faces and voices through internet.

(From another student's text on technology and communication.)

Gerund Practice

As mentioned, gerunds derived from transitive verbs often retain their objects even when they play the role of sentence subjects Identifying the sentence sub-ject appropriately when working with gerund constructions is important in subject-verb agreement editing To raise students' awareness of gerund com-plexities, many gerund + direct object constructions can be found Students usually learn a great deal from such practice and enjoy it For example,

Please explain which verb form is correct and is an appropriate choice in this sentence How many are possible and why?

Trusting friends becomes/become necessary at the time of trouble.

Eating fresh vegetables is/are recommended for children and adults of all ages Reading books is/are essential in learning a second language.

Hiding cookies from children is/are something that many parents do, when they want to control their children's diet.

Writing exercises help/helps students to improve their vocabulary skills.

Choosing universities is/are complicated for teenagers without their parents' assistance.

In general, gerund + direct object constructions are extremely common

(e.g., understanding parents/children/students, building blocks (of houses), buying cars, answering phones, typing letters), and many similar sentences can be

made for practice

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1 In teaching ESL to L2 university-bound students, instruction in vo-cabulary and grammar usually take place in courses separate from the teaching of L2 writing Why were ESL curricula and language work designed like this? If you were in charge of the curriculum de-sign, what course structure would you develop?

2 In your opinion, why did Nation (1990) call vocabulary learning a learning burden? How can learners acquire academic vocabulary in

classroom activities? How can these activities be designed to be pro-ductive for learners?

3 Why does the learning of academic vocabulary need to become one

of the central foci of classroom instruction? What current L2 teach-ing methodologies match the needs of academically oriented learners?

4 What methodological and research premise underlies the expan-sion of learners' range of nouns by means of contextual lexical sub-stitution?

5 Among the L2 learners' problems with nouns addressed in this chapter (e.g., countable-uncountable nouns, articles, names of lan-guages and people), in your opinion which ones are more impor-tant than others for L2 learners to be aware of? Why?

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT ACADEMIC VOCABULARY

AND VOCABULARY TEACHING

Vocabulary Teaching

Carter, R., & McCarthy, M (Eds.) (1988) Vocabulary and language teaching Harlow,

Essex: Longman.

Coady, J., & Huckin, T (Eds.) (1997) Second language vocabulary acquisition

Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dudley-Evans, T., & St John, M.j (1998) Developments in English for specific purposes.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jordan, R (1997) English for academic purposes Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Milton, J (1999) Lexical thickets and electronic gateways: Making text accessible by

novice writers In C Candlin & K Hyland (Eds.), Writing texts, processes and prac-tices (pp 221-243) London: Longman.

Schmitt, N (2000) Vocabulary in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge

Univer-sity Press.

Schmitt, N., & McCarthy, M (1997) Vocabulary description, acquisition, and pedagogy.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Academic Vocabulary

Adams, V (2001) Complex words in English Harlow, Essex: Longman.

Arnaud, P, & Savignon, S (1997) Rare words, complex lexical units and the

ad-vanced learner In J Coady & T Huckin (Eds.), Second language vocabulary acquisi-tion (pp 157-173) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Coxhead, A (2000) The new academic word list TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238.

Francis, G (1994) Labelling discourse: An aspect of nominal-group cohesion In M.

Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in written text analysis (pp 83-101) New York:

Routledge.

Nation, I S P (1990) Teaching and learning vocabulary New York: Newbury House Nation, I S P (2001) Learning vocabulary in another language Cambridge:

Cam-bridge University Press.

Vocabulary in Discourse

Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E (2000) Discourse and context in language teaching.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hatch, E (1992) Discourse and language education Cambridge: Cambridge

Univer-sity Press.

McCarthy, M (1991) Discourse analysis for language teachers Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Appendix to Chapter 5

LEXICAL CHUNKS WITH VARIOUS TYPES OF NOUNS

AND NOUN PHRASES

Negative Openings: Uncountable Nouns

(However),

little information is available about xxx little attention has been devoted to yyy

Negative Openings: Countable nouns

few reports have discussed/examined zzz

few discussions have addressed/noted/examined

few articles have focused on/noted

few studies have investigated/dealt with

(Adapted from Swales & Peak, 1994)

Most Common Noun Phrases Found in Academic Prose

Nouns with Prepositional Phrases

the relationship between the

the difference between the

an important part in

an important role in

an increase in the the same way as

Prepositional Phrases Followed by the Of-phrase

as a result of the

as in the case of the

at the end of the

at the beginning of the

at the time of the

at the time of writing from the point of view (of)

in the context of the

in the division of labor

in the course of the

in the early stages of

Most Common Noun Phrases Found in Academic Prose

Four-Word Units: Noun Phrases Followed by an O/-phrase

(and) the development of the

different parts of the

one of the main/most

other parts of the

part(s) of the body

parts of the world

per cent of the

point of view of

the ability of the

the absence of a

the base/basis of the

the beginning of the

the case of a/the

the center of the

the composition of the

the context of the

the course of the

the division of labor

the early stages of

and the number of the edge of the the effect(s) of the the end of the the existence of a the first of these the form of a/the the formation of the the history of the the importance of the the length of the the level of the the magnitude of the the nature of the the needs of the the origin of the the point of view the position of the the presence of a/the

both sides of the the presence or absence of the the purpose of the

the rest of the the results of the the role of the the shape of the the size of the the start of the the structure of the the sum of the the temperature of the the time of the the top of the the total number of the use of a/the the value of the the work of the

(Adapted from Biber et al., 1999)

Five-Word Units: Noun Phrases Followed by an Of-phrase

one of the most important the point of view of

the aim of this study the presence or absence of

the first part of the the rate of change of

the other end of the

(Adapted from Biber et al., 1999)

6 More on the Noun Phrase: Pronouns

OVERVIEW

• The place of personal pronouns in academic text and their

associ-ated genres

• Uses of impersonal pronouns

• Demonstratives, text cohesion, and lexical substitution

• The prevalence of indefinite pronouns and learning to avoid them

Although the term pronouns suggests that they can be used in place of

nouns, in reality pronouns have characteristics and functions that make them different in important ways First, unlike nouns, pronouns represent

a closed class of words (Quirk et al., 1985)—that is, they are limited in number and functions, and new words of this type are not coined Unlike nouns, pronouns can be used in place of whole phrases or concepts with

nominal functions (e.g., the phrase the big blue grammar books can be re-placed by a pronoun they, which refers to the entire noun phrase)

Further-more, in English pronouns have syntactic properties that nouns do not have: Pronoun forms can vary depending on whether they occur in the

sentence subject or object position (I/me, she/her) or refer to first, second,

or third person, or male or female

In addition to personal pronouns, various other types of pronouns are

very common in English: demonstrative (this/that, these/those), indefinite (somebody, anybody, everything), and slot fillers (it/there) Although many L2

learners believe pronouns to be syntactically and lexically simple, and al-though words or particles with demonstrative and indefinite functions exist

in most languages, various types of problems in pronoun use have been identified in NNS students' academic prose (Indrasuta, 1988; Johns, 1991, 1997; Vaughan, 1991)

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Additional levels of complexity arise when L2 writers transfer culturally determined considerations of appropriateness in pronoun use, as is the case, for example, with personal pronouns In the teaching of L2 writing in ESL/EAP and writing/composition courses, frequent employment of per-sonal pronouns is often perceived to be appropriate and acceptable, partic-ularly in essays associated with expressing personal views and ideas However, several studies of large corpora of formal academic text have found that in many disciplines uses of personal pronouns are very infre-quent With regard to L1 and L2 essay texts, prominent and significant dis-tinctions have been identified between NS students' uses of various types of pronouns and those encountered in NNS academic prose in English (Hinkel, 2001c, 2002a)

This chapter begins with an examination of personal pronouns in

aca-demic texts, followed by slot fillers (it/there), and then demonstrative and

in-definite pronouns and their functions in academic discourse and text

PERSONAL PRONOUNS IN ACADEMIC TEXTS

The textual purpose of personal pronouns in written discourse is to refer di-rectly to the writer, the audience of writing, and specific things or persons other than the writer or audience Corpus analyses of various genres have shown that personal pronouns are orders of magnitude more common than other types of pronouns, and these features are far more common in conver-sational than in any other type of genres In addition to converconver-sational dis-course, personal pronouns are also encountered in fiction, but only rarely in academic text As Biber et al (1999) pointed out, because personal pro-nouns mostly refer to persons, "human beings are a more marginal topic" (p 333) in academic prose

First- and Second-Person Pronouns

In written text, the uses of first-person pronouns usually mark personal nar-ratives and/or examples that are often considered inappropriate in aca-demic writing Many researchers of acaaca-demic discourse and prose have noted the highly depersonalized and objective character of academic prose that requires "author evacuation" (Johns, 1997, p 57) Explicit teaching of features of formal and academic discourse and text requires avoiding per-sonal pronouns, perper-sonal tone, and perper-sonal references (Jordan, 1997; Raimes, 1992; Swales & Feak, 1994)

In fact, Swales' (1990a) analysis of written academic genre found that ac-ademic texts are often expected to project objectivity in presenting informa-tion and depersonalize text by various lexical and syntactic means Swales further argued that the teaching of writing and "student writing in colleges and universities should not be viewed as an individually-oriented,

inner-di-reeled cognitive process" (p 4), but as tasks in discourse and text construc-tion within the convenconstruc-tions of communicating knowledge within the norms

of the academic community According to Swales, L2 writing teachers need

to prepare students to write in the disciplines because academic writing is a socially situated act that extends far beyond the writer's analysis of his or her inner explorations and thoughts

Second-person singular and plural pronouns are also considered inap-propriate in academic prose because they are employed to address the reader directly (Smoke, 1999; Swales & Feak, 1994) The use of these pro-nouns requires a specific individual to whom the text is addressed, indicates

a high degree of the writer's involvement with the addressee, and marks the conversational register (Biber, 1988, 1995)

Corpus analyses have shown that first- and second-person pronouns are

rare in academic prose In all the rate of occurrences of I, me, we, and us

con-stitutes 0.006% (6 per 100,000 words) in a large corpus of academic text

(Biber et al., 1999) The rate of occurrences of you is rarer still with 0.001%.

Some amount of variation of personal pronoun use has been noted across various disciplines Prose in philosophy included the highest rates of first-person pronouns of 6.5 per 1,000 words (0.65%), followed by texts in marketing and applied linguistics with 6.2 (0.62%) and 4.8 (0.48%) occur-rences per 1,000 words, respectively (Hyland, 1999)

However, in NNS students' academic texts, personal narratives and ex-amples can be common, and rates of first-person pronoun usage varies be-tween 1.89 and 3.97% (Hinkel, 2002a) In addition, the frequency rate of second-person pronouns are also relatively high—between 0.5% and 1.00% For example, in a senior-level psychology assignment, included next, a student employed several types of personal pronouns to an extent that may make her text appear to be a personal narrative

Extroversion

(This excerpt starts at the beginning of the third paragraph of the paper.)

Is it possible for everyone to change one's behavior and thoughts by different

environ-mental/actors? 7 believe the answer is no doubt One's childhood experience and

back-ground constitute his disposition for the first period During this period, his family or

school teachers might influence his development of character Furthermore, he, as an

adult in the second period, could transfer whether from introversion to extroversion or

from extroversion to introversion, depending on his religion, culture, and personal

ex-perience in society Perhaps, his personality will be changed again in the future The best

successful example is my personal experience to support this approach 7 was so isolated

and shy that 7 was not popular in my parents' eyes when 7 was a child It won't be

changed until 7 entering high school Mr Lee, one of my high school teachers,

encour-aged me and helped me to understand my own ability in languages that completely

de-cided my future After 7 attending many speech contests in school, 7 have become a

self-confidence and talkative girl as a leader Most friends consider me to be an