I am...disturbed.
I am teaching remedial English this semester. Now, that can mean many things and every class brings new challenges as every batch of students have different issues. The first class I ever taught was basically an ESL class. I've also taught classes that most of the students only had a few problems but could still string together a semi-decent essay. I never know what I'm going to get until I open that classroom door.
This semester is no different. Students who sometimes slip into run-on sentences are sharing the classroom with students who continually omit the word "the," spell "warm" as "worm" and "feel" as "fell." It's hard to teach to the crowd when there are so many differing needs, but I do what I can.
I have a middle age student who I will call Pat. Pat has many, many problems--in writing, that is. But I didn't know how big the problem was until the other day when Pat asked, "Does a capital letter have to come after every period?"
Did you get that?
Pat didn't know that every sentence starts with a capital letter! And Pat has got to be in hir 40s or 50s. Doesn't that seem awful? Isn't that the most basic concept of writing?
Anyways, I answered yes, every sentence starts with a capital letter. Then Pat asked if a capital letter would also follow commas or semicolons. The class groaned, which I hate. I answered Pat's questions with disbelief raging inside of me.
But Pat had more questions.
While we were practicing using coordinating conjunctions, Pat did not know the meaning of "for," "nor," "yet," or "so." Okay, I'll explain as best as I can. Somewhere in my explanation I used the word "and."
"What about that other word for 'and'?" Pat asked.
"What other word for 'and'?"
"You know, a-n,"
"A...n?"
An. Pat thought "an" was another word for "and." Am I wrong in being absolutely astonished? I've seen a lot of surprising mistakes, but this worries me. This is an adult native speaker who is tripping over the basics. Is this functional illiteracy? I feel awful because I don't know if I can help this person. I know this is remedial English, but I am still expecting a familiarity with basic grammar. The class is 20+ students and no one is as far behind as Pat. I don't think this is the place to help Pat. I'm going to recommend zir to go to our Writing Lab where full-time professors can sit down one-on-one to assist and maybe they will give me some guidance.
Until then, I'll do what I can. I am just flabbergasted that someone can live for so long without basic writing skills.
Astonished and flabbergasted sum it up well. I was sure you were going to explain that Pat is from some other country and speaks some non-Indo-European language natively. I simply cannot imagine how a human being in the United States could grow up socialized to the company of other human beings and not know such concepts. This isn't illiteracy; it's non-verbality.
ReplyDeleteWe often get students like Pat: middle aged, clearly not literate beyond the very basic level, worked in a field where reading was not necessary, etc. We recommend they take one of our almost free, basically one on one, Adult Basic Ed literacy classes---not that they always take our advice.Does your college (or the local cc) have such an option?
ReplyDeleteThe odd thing is that Pat doesn't seem to realize the extent of hir illiteracy---and that's so very sad.
Good luck.
PK: Yep, native speaker. I, too, was very surprised that zie could live life this long without knowing such basic concepts, but I guess it happens all the time. Amazing and sad.
ReplyDeleteA: Thank you for the recommendation, I will have to check that out. I am an adjunct at a CC and I don't know the extent of the programs they offer, but I will look into this.
I teach remedial writing as an adjunct, as well. My full-time job is actually working in the writing center at the same university. That means I get this students all the time. Fortunately, I've yet to experience a student quite as bad as Pat. Instead, my students just generally don't know the difference between a subject and a verb.
ReplyDeleteMe too. Every day I'm astonished, and chagrined. It's hard to keep the faith.
ReplyDelete