WPE
Iis harder for ESL students
By Yi-Fang Vicky Lin
On-line Forty-Niner
For
Cal State Long Beach students whose second
language is English, also known as ESL students,
one of the greatest obstacles for graduation
is the completion of the Writing Proficiency
Exam.
ESL students must make extra efforts to
overcome this problem. Language acquisition
is the key reason that students fail the
exam, said Sarah Macias, ESL tutor in the
Learning Assistance Center.
“What our students do when they’re coming
here, is they are trying to translate from
their language to English and that’s not
possible,” Macias said.
Another ESL tutor, Marshall Thomas, at the
Learning Assistance Center said, “The way
the brain works is that you can only do
one conjunctive task at a time, so if you
get a WPE topic in front of you, you’ll
have to think through the question. For
many ESL students, using English is also
a conjunctive function. They have to think
about grammar. So if you can only do one
at a time, one of them is going to fail.”
Macias and Marshall said that they believe
students who achieved the WPE are those
who naturalized English on a daily basis.
Early preparation and self-awareness of
weaknesses in language would help to avoid
failure of the exam.
“It’s difficult for most ESL students,”
said Dat Pham, a Vietnamese student majoring
in computer engineering. “Many of my friends
took the test more than three times — some
even five times before graduation, and they
all have high GPA’s.” He has failed the
WPE twice and will try for the third time
soon.
Joey Ruangdejworachai, a graduate student
from Thailand also considers the WPE difficult
to ESL students. He failed the test once,
but passed the test the second time. Ruangdejworachai
said he believes the test time limitation
and the essay topics are main concerns for
many students.
“I think it is quite difficult for me especially
[because] this is a timed essay,” said Ruangdejworachai.
“Also the topic itself is hard because many
questions are related to American society.
It is hard for us who just live here for
a few years to understand the topic,”
Pham and Ruangdejworachai said they both
have known people who completed all courses
in CSULB but are unable to get a university
degree because of the exam.
“My friends [have taken] the WPE five times,
but still can’t pass it,” Pham said. “He
is now already working as a full-time engineer
without a degree.”
Assistance is available for students including
workshops, preparation courses and one-on-one
tutoring.
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