Greetings and welcome to my writing blog! I started this blog as
a project for my class on teaching second language writing, but I
hope to continue working on it after the semester is over and explore
a wide range of writing-related topics.
About me: I am a graduate student in the Applied Linguistics
Master's program (TESOL emphasis) at Old Dominion University. In addition to linguistics, my academic and professional interests extend to
cross-cultural communication as well as rhetoric and composition
studies. I also work as a writing tutor in The Writing Center
at ODU, and am particularly committed to helping the
nonnative students who come into our center for writing assistance.
In addition to my writing tutor job, I have multilingual/multicultural experience as both a teacher and
a student. While a student in Munich, Germany in 2002-03, I didn't
just learn about German culture; the experience of living in the
international student dormitory there gave me the opportunity to view
the world from many different perspectives outside my own limited worldview.
My experience as a teacher comes from another year-long program,
this time in Denver, Colorado, where I worked as a full-time
volunteer in 2006-07. There, I taught introductory English to a
class of adult students, all from Mexico. I learned a great deal
from my students, who despite a lack of education and opportunity in
early life, were bright and eager learners. Through working with
them, I became more acquainted with the struggles of immigrants to
this country who are more than willing to learn English, given the
opportunity.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the areas of second
language writing that are of interest to me focus on the linguistic,
rhetorical and cultural challenges second language writers face, and
the ways in which students and educators can work together in
overcoming these challenges. Also, I am interested in outsiders' (or
should I say "insiders'"?) perceptions of nonnative student
writing, as well as the perspectives of the students themselves.
Connected with this is an interest in what, specifically, constitutes
second language writers' written "accents;" that is, how
their writing differs grammatically, lexically and rhetorically from
that of native speakers.
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