Stressors and Coping Strategies of ESL Teachers
The article focuses on the stressors that ESL teachers experience in the workplace and the strategies that these teachers employ in coping with stressful, job-related situations. As part of the data collection process, the researcher interviewed 12 teacher informants concerning their job-related stressors and coping strategies. Observation of the participants; classrooms before and after the interviews was also conducted. The identified stressors to ESL teachers in the workplace are:
1. Working with limited English proficiency (LEP) students who were struggling with English and were almost universally behind grade level expectations on subject matter areas
2. Teaching LEP students with distinctly different levels of proficiency in the same classrooms
3. Attempting to serve too many LEP students
4. Addressing LEP student adjustment problems
5. Perceiving that other non-ESL faculty and non-ESL administrators were bit supportive enough of their efforts
6. Having adequate opportunity to coordinate with other non-ESL teachers and non-ESL administrations
In terms of coping strategies, every teacher has different ways of responding to stressors. One teacher revealed that being content and comfortable helps.
Challenges of Academic Listening in English: Reports by Chinese Students
Academic listening is important in the success of every ESL university student’s academic success. There is a growing body of research that show that ESL students have difficulty in English academic listening at American universities. The paper focuses on the challenges that Chinese ESL students in understanding English lectures.
Academic listening plays a crucial role in a student’s academic success. Academic listening has distinct characteristics and places high demands upon listeners. It requires listeners to have relevant background information on the lecture delivered. It also requires listeners to be able to distinguish between what is relevant and what is not relevant because an academic lecture contains both relevant and irrelevant information on the topic discussed. Academic listening contains long stretches of talk when listeners do not have the opportunity to engage in the facilitating functions of interactive discourse, so it places high demands upon listeners.
Among the ESL learners in American universities, Chinese students are the largest group. Chinese students often feel uncomfortable with the students’ behavior in American classrooms. American professors’ teaching methods seem to have created problems for Chinese ESL students in comprehending academic lectures. This is probably because these students are less familiar with American teaching methods. Some Chinese ESL students comment that they experience many challenges caused by the cultural and historical differences.
ESL Students’ Computer-Mediated Communication Practices: Context Configuration
The paper examines how context is configured in ESL students’ language learning practices through computer-mediated communication (CMC). Specifically, the author focused on how a group of ESL students jointly constructed the context of their CMC activities through interactional patterns and norms, and how configured affordances within the CMC environment mediated their learning experiences. After a brief review of relevant studies of CMC in the literature, the author discussed ecological perspectives of language learning as a core construct of this study, to explain contextual fluidity in relation to learners’ agency in their learning. Next, the author presented an ethnographic study of how members of an ESL class constructed a community of social practices through synchronous CMC. The findings indicate that (a) the constructed interactional patterns and norms of the students’ CMC activities represented group dynamics among the participants, (b) the participants’ roles in joint construction of the activities reflected their language socialization experiences, and (c) the activities provided a way for spousal participants to assume academic identities, while becoming a social space for academic gatherings.
Gender Differences in Reading Strategy Use among ESL College Students
The use of a complex array of reading strategies has been found to be essential for those ESL students desirous of a high level of English language literacy and success in the US academic institutions. The importance of using reading strategies is especially critical for English language learners, since high levels of English language literacy–which are essential for even minimal academic achievement at any level (elementary, secondary, university, and tertiary)–have been found to correlate with frequent and complex strategy use. The paper focuses on then differences strategic reading habits.
The study identified three kinds of reading strategies. These are global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies and support strategies. Global reading strategies are those which students use to plan, monitor, and direct their reading. Instances of such strategies include checking to see if one’s guesses are correct, explicitly deciding what material to pay close attention to and what to ignore, and entering a reading task with a certain purpose or goal. Problem-solving strategies are procedures that learners use while reading a text in order to clear up misunderstanding or difficulties in text comprehension. Visualizing information to help one remember it, and guessing the meaning of unknown words are illustrations of such strategies. Finally, support strategies are auxiliary materials and resources aimed at increasing text comprehension, such as note taking and highlighting important information.
This study produced many interesting results, the first among them is the striking similarities of strategy use among males and females. Male and Female participants used the same number of overall strategies. Male and female college ESL learners showed no overall significant differences and only differed on one individual strategy.
Effective Instruction for Second Language Learners: What Tutors Must Know
The article focuses on the necessary elements that must be considered when preparing tutors for second language learners. Although it may not be as critical when tutoring children from Euro American descent, getting to know the tutees in terms of socio- economic, political, educational, linguistic and culturally-related issues is crucial when teaching ESL students. As a result, tutors must acquire:
1. An awareness that a multiplicity of factors, rather than one single source, may hinder or promote an individual’s success or failure in school. Cultural information tutors should seek may include group beliefs, customs and values (e.g. some cultures do not allow children to look at adults directly at their eyes), views on education, traditions, and family roles. These factors will affect the students’ self-perception, self-esteem and general attitudes toward schooling (group and individualized), including their speaking reading and writing in English as a second language.
2. An awareness of the distinctive features of their tutee’s first language such as the phonological and morphological aspects of a the language, tutors will be better prepared to understand why their tutees have a tendency to make certain type of errors when speaking, reading and writing. This will enable them to plan instruction that addresses these errors more appropriately.
3. An understanding that there will be common traits or characteristics and issues for a particular group but these may be considered only “tendencies’. It is important to stress the concept of individuality among members of a particular ethnic group to prevent stereotyping by the tutors.
4. An understanding that the aforementioned 1-3 are key in building trust and rapport with the tutee which should be a priority at the beginning of the tutoring experience.
5. Learning strategies on how to validate the tutees’ languages and cultures. For instance, tutors may ask their tutees to teach them vocabulary words in their native language. This translation can be done by a professional translator, a more proficient student, a parent volunteer, or a paraprofessional. This is an important step in lowering students’ anxiety levels so they are more open to the tutoring experience, particularly if the tutors will be in charge of doing formal assessments in English.
References
Alexandrowicz, V. (2002). Effective Instruction for Second Language Learners: What Tutors Must Know. Reading Improvement, 39(2): 71+.
Huang, J. (2005). Challenges of Academic Listening in English: Reports by Chinese Students. College Student Journal, 39(3): 553+.
Markham, P. L. (2002). Stressors and Coping Strategies of ESL Teachers. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 26(4): 268+.
Poole, A. (2005). Gender Differences in Reading Strategy Use among ESL College Students. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 36(1): 7+.
Shin, D. S. (2006). ESL Students’ Computer-Mediated Communication Practices: Context Configuration. Language, Learning & Technology, 10(3):65+.
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