Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1988

Thesis Director

Jeanne Simpson

Abstract

Tutors of American university writing centers can be invaluable advisors for German ESL students who come to study in the United States. The tutors can directly assist German students in coping with their particular academic and cultural difficulties.

German students must adapt to the American academic conventions to become successful students at their U.S. universities. The tutors can point out to them the features of the American academic standard and show them effective methods for learning and studying in the American environment.

The American academic standard includes the students' almost perfect reading comprehension. Students must be prepared for heavy reading assignments. They must understand and take notes on lectures in standard spoken English. Lastly, they must be able to produce standard English written work. Technical and scientific terms, idiomatic English, grammar, and style can be difficult areas for them.

German ESL students may have special difficulties with style. They tend to use an over-formal variety of English. The tutors can help them with different exercises (for example, sentence completion exercises) to become aware of the varieties of English and improve their writing.

Since writing plays an important part at the U.S. university, the tutors must spend time on motivating the students to generate ideas, arrange and organize papers and paragraphs, learn new vocabulary, practice cohesion, and improve general writing skills.

Also, the students should develop their reading and note-taking abilities. They should be taught to revise, edit, and proof-read, for these are the skills they might neglect as writers of English as their second language. They must consciously adapt these skills to be satisfied with their papers and exclude mistakes and errors.

Tutoring German ESL students, and foreign ESL students generally, should be understood as a chance to improve international and personal relationships. There will be nearly 500.000 foreign students studying in the United States in 1990. And if these numbers are reached, it will be necessary that American universities are prepared to offer writing and tutoring centers with adequate counselling and guidance.

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