ESL Lab

When I attended the staff meeting two Fridays ago, I must admit that I did not think I would ever recommend that any of my clients go there. I was worried that it was too much like quitting. The last thing I want to do is to help an ESL student only a little bit, and then give up and make it somebody else's problem. That is, anyway, the situation I expected the ESL Lab would create with me (through no fault of its own). I was able to get over that on my next day of work though.

I dealt with two clients from Taiwan. For the first it was clear that she needed help with the structuring of her paper. Her situation was interesting because her assignment, or part of it, involved summarizing an article. This was a concept that she did not completely understand. It was satisfying to be able to explain structural concepts to her. Afterwards, when she needed grammar help toward the end, I helped her but ultimately referred her to the ESL lab. It was hard to overcome the desire to help, but I was able to. The second client was different. Though I've often argued that an authoritarian approach is often the best when dealing with grammar issues and ESL students, I could tell it wasn't working on this girl. I would fix things, and explain the reasons to her. I would ask her if she understood and she would say "yes" but I could tell that she didn't and just wanted her paper edited.