Reading week 6: Writing Groups and the Less Proficient ESL Student

Reading: Writing Groups and the Less Proficient ESL Student

By Gayle L. Nelson and John M. Murphy

            When I started to read this article, right in the third paragraph, there was a contradiction between what the authors say and what I have been taught in my teacher training within the BEALS so far. The authors express their uncertainty about the effectiveness of pairing up less proficient students with more advanced ones and also that they are worried about the potential problems that might occur from the students’ different cultural backgrounds. These factors (achievement level and cultural background) are in my opinion, as I was taught by Spencer Kagan and his Cooperative Learning approach, are to be integrated in the students’ daily routines so they get to know each other and gain more cultural awareness, social skills and cooperation.

            However, this is how I was taught but I do not always agree with Kagan’s theories! I am also very concerned about the fact that less proficient students might have more difficulties to identify other students’ errors and mistakes. I am wondering if these lower level students are more likely to be confused from misunderstanding sentences due to their lower proficiency and actually not noticing organization, development irrelevancies, topic sentences and cohesion errors.