The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

94
Jamie Ferrando
Kristina Kellermann
Rexford Osei-Ansah
Vu Tran
Fall 2009
Multilingual Students: Who They Are, How They Learn and How to Tutor Them
Background of Multilingual Students at Sac State
(by Vu Tran)
A lot of native speakers are unaware of the complexity of speaking and writing in two languages.
Becoming fluent in one language is a difficult task alone, but to become fluent in two languages is even
more difficult. Recent research shows that it takes more than 10 years to become academically fluent in a
second language. Many native speakers view the grammatical errors of multilingual students’ writings at
the university level as something that is a deficiency, and not a unique process. In fact, one can say that it
is an accomplishment for multilingual students to have made it this far academically.
Speaking and writing English has never been a strong skill for me while growing up (for most of
my life) in an impoverished neighborhood filled with street violence, gangs, crimes, and poverty. I, along
with other immigrant children in my neighborhood, suffered from the perennial condition of not having
enough food, clothes, and resources available in order to maintain good hygiene and function sufficiently
on a daily basis. Consequently, education took a toll on me and became secondary to my human basic
survival needs (e.g. food, clothes, and immediate resources). My parents’ primary objectives were to
work and bring money home to feed and clothed us. However, even that became a dilemma, for the
language barrier immensely hindered their progress to acquire a decent job position. They would often
work as menial farm laborers, custodians, and janitors; jobs that required long hours per day and paid
appallingly minuscule in return. The thought of overcoming this poverty-stricken situation, coupled with
learning a second language in alien environment, was nearly impossible.
The education that I had received during my high school years did awfully little to help ease my
deprived circumstance at home. During my senior year, I began asking myself questions like: Did
learning about grammar rules help provide food and clothes for my family? Did writing an essay about
endangered species provide my family the resources we need to survive at home? My family was still in
dire condition, prone to violence, crimes, and poverty that prevented us to climb up the socio-economic
ladder. However, with my parents “nagging” at me constantly about the importance of education, I knew
that graduating from high school and attending college was not a choice, but obligatory, and the only
means of overcoming our impoverished situation. Therefore, the need to speak and write fluently in
English at the University level became a means to an end for me.
Many of the multilingual students at Sac State are experiencing this dilemma as we speak. They
come from a diverse range of linguistic, cultural, economic, and educational backgrounds. I recently
conducted a study in several of the multilingual classes here at Sac State, and found out that many of the
students were either 1.5 generation or immigrants coming from different cultural, economic and
educational backgrounds in various cities across California. Many of them shared similar experiences and
outcomes. Based on the questionnaire, they view their writings thus far at the university level as more of
an accomplishment than a deficiency, and that teachers/tutors should be amazed by what they can do in
two languages, rather than what they cannot do. Out of all the multilingual students that I have tutored
throughout the semester in the writing center, there was one that truly made me appreciate how beautiful
and gifted multilingual students are. I was not only amazed by the tutee’s ability to write in English at the
university level, but was even more astonished by the fact that English was his fifth language. He told me