Looking for Commonalities in Culturally and Linguistically Mixed Basic Writing Classes.

A multilingual basic writing course is-an ideal laboratory for language learning for both second language students and native English speakers. This latter group at Bronx Community College (New York), which is located in a poor, minority urban community, are generally English-as-a-Second-Dialect (ESD) students. What one instructor tries to do is to focus on the commonalities among these groups and to provide group or collaborative opportunities. The commonalities among the two groups would include their age, the educational challenges, including their lapses in education and lack of writing experience, and a corresponding sense of low self-esteem. To make use of these commonalities, the instructor forms groups among the students, each group being composed of one native speaker and one second language speaker. The first activity is an interview, a writing and speaking activity through which students introduce each other to the class. In addition to making use of the commonalities, an instructor must be aware of the differences. He or she must keep in mind the immense difficulties facing the second language speaker, whose second language skills may be far from proficient by the time he or she enrolls in a basic writing course. Instructors should concentrate on global errors when reading student papers--errors that interfere with the conveyance of meaning--rather than small, grammatical errors, however exasperating