I thoroughly agree with your quote from Donald Grave that error
correction is not teaching. The problem is that sometimes the student
doesn't realize it. I tutored ESL for Russian-speakers at a local
college here in NYC, and found that there was an inverse correlation
between fluency in writing in the first language and fluency in English.
The reason for this seems to be that accomplished writers in their mother
tongue are afraid to try what they feel they will inevitably fail at -
expressing themselves in English as freely as in their first language.
As I was frequently told, "I am ashamed to have to talk in *baby talk.*"
All my protestations that, "No one expects you to write like Dostoevsky"
were greeted with skepticism or embarrassment.
For me the solution was fairly simple, and I got a reputation as a bit of
a magician because of it. At that time I was just beginning to study
Russian again after several decades' disuse, and usually all I had to do
was to let the student know this, say a few sentences in my barbarous
Russian, and then we both had a good laugh and settled down to work. The
playing field had been made - if not level - then a little less slanted
uphill. The trick is to find some common factor or link that takes you
out of the role of pure critic and into the role of someone the student
wants to communicate something to as another person. This does mean
relinquishing the usual status of teacher as omniscient controller, but
the result can be a feeling of collaboration which lets the student worry
about what to say rather than the minutiae of how.
Rachel Heckert
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