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This semester’s work supporting an accounting course group presentations has been a great experience for me. I worked with a lot of different groups with their own characters. One thing that surprised me a bit was how many of them are actually ESL students (international students or recent immigrants), and as an ESL person myself, I was interested to encounter some of the challenges they face in tackling this task. I thought I would share some of my stories here, and would like to invite others to share their experience working with them as well.

The two different sections of the course I worked with (taught by two different instructors) had a different set-up for their presentation component. In one of the sections, students were allowed to choose their partners, so I encountered groups who consist of native (and near-native) English speakers only, while some groups had ESL students only. This created situations where some groups struggled in preparing and performing due to language issues and having no one in the group to watch out for them. However, the team dynamics were generally good and some groups actually really got into it and produced excellent presentations.

In contrast, in the other section, where the instructor did the grouping, I observed some nice teamwork where native speakers are supporting the ESL students and the presentations are generally easier to follow languagewise. However, I did see more intra-group communication difficulties, unfortunately. Some students had a hard time understanding each other in the process of working together, and/or some of them get frustrated because their partners are not performing up to their expectations.

From the two sections that presented different types of issues, I see not only language but cultural difference behind their ‘communication difficulties’. I can imagine some of the students might be less experienced with public speaking (as I discussed in a post on class participation), or working extensively with classmates. Although I practiced a lot of group work in my own teaching at CUNY, I never had the experience of working on a big group project as a student back in my country. It is not really a common practice there.

So much for the analysis, but what could we do to best support ESL students and help them (and those working with them) succeed in their presentations, then? Their trouble with English could be remedied by extra language coaching, or so it appears, but that is really just giving them a band-aid (as Jennifer nicely put it). We would want some more fundamental solutions, but it is too ambitious to hope that they will become a significantly more competent speaker of English between today and 5 days later. So far, I am limiting myself to giving them one or two pointers that they could use for now and later, so that it is not too overwhelming or takes too much time (especially when non-ESL students are present). I share my own experience as an ESL student (if I can do it, you can do it too!) and cheer them on. There is not much one can do in one sitting, but I hope a tiny step today will lead to a big leap for them.