ESL Resources Often Second Choice for Students

The Writing Center offers one-on-one tutoring sessions to help ESL students

A group of volunteers under the leadership of Bailey Ulbricht ‘15 tutors Syrian refugees to help them practice their English, and a number of Carleton students teach in weekly Adult ESL classes. But how are ESL students at Carleton receiving help?

Surprisingly, Carleton does not offer English language courses specifically designed for ESL students. Because the students are required to take SATs (or ACTs) and additionally TOEFL for non-native English speakers to apply for Carleton, the college assumes all the students have advanced command of the language.

Instead, the Writing Center offers one-to-one tutoring sessions held by designated writing consultants to help ESL students to improve their academic writing skills. The students in need of help usually voluntarily sign up for the services, but there are some cases when they are referred by professors or other students.

“What I want to avoid is the situation where student feels they are being made to come here like a punishment,” explained Renata Fitzpatrick, the Assistant Director of Writing Center and Coordinator of Second Language Writing. “My goal is to support them if they want it, but nobody is trying to force anything.”

According to Fitzpatrick, often the students who ask help are not those who have trouble expressing themselves in English or didn’t have much exposure to English, but those who are already advanced and skilled writers.

“It’s not just a service for people having trouble or struggling, but it is also for people who care about writing,” Fitzpatrick clarified.

“I do need help in correcting grammar sometimes but mostly, the reason I go to the writing center has nothing to do with English language itself,” Jialin Jiang, a freshman from Ningbo, China, confirmed. “It has to do more with structuring essays and correcting the logic.”

Jiang did confess that when he writes in English, he is more prone to wander off from the topic in his paper than he would in his native language, Mandarin Chinese. “I’m less capable of structuring my essay stronger and coming up with new perspectives and ideas.”

Along with the writing center, the Office of Intercultural & International Life (OIIL) supports ESL students by creating a safe and supportive environment to foster conversations and practice the language in more social settings.

Beginning with the International Student Orientation, held a couple of days before New Student Week, international students have many opportunities throughout the year, such as International Term Dinners and the annual International Festival, to build and engage in a supportive, understanding community.

The OIIL office also assigns each student with a mentor, known as Peer Leaders, at the beginning of the year to offer personal guidance and build stronger relationships within the community.

“Often when you’re struggling with language, creating this safe space can allow those individuals to practice the language and feel more comfortable expressing their opinions,”

Brisa Zubia, the Assistant Director of Intercultural and International Life, explained. “Whereas in classrooms, it may be more difficult to do that.”

According to Zubia, when the students feel comfortable speaking out and making mistakes verbally instead of being ashamed or trying to cover them up, they are more likely to speak up in more restrictive settings like classrooms and perform better academically.

Jiang, who has been on campus for almost two terms now, shares the same sentiment. “I am a shameless speaker, often shamelessly confident,” he said. “I make mistakes but that is how we all learn, and I know I will get better in time.”


This article was published by The Carletonian (February 27, 2015)

Mock Trial Presses Suit to Championships

In the Regionals of annual American Mock Trial competition hosted by Hamline University in Saint Paul Friday, Jan. 30 to Sunday Feb. 1, the Carleton Mock Trial team won third place and qualified to continue to opening round championships over spring break.

Additionally, Emily Starr ’16, an economics major, won all-region top attorney, and Suhail Thandi ’17 won all-region top witness for their outstanding scores.

The American Mock Trial Association has four levels of competition for college students.

The first level is Invitational, which is solely for practice and not counted for points. The second level is Regionals, and the top seven to eight teams from each Regional group advance to the third level, Opening Round Championships (ORCS).

The top six teams from ORCS move on to the fourth and the final level, Nationals.

According to Ryan Gorey ‘17, one of the four team captains along with Taylor Mayhall ‘15, Kaitlyn Cook ‘15, and Emily Starr ‘16, it has been the highest advancement achieved by the club since one of the Carleton teams was  “randomly” placed third in Nationals ten years ago.

“The club has been newly built in the past four years, especially under Taylor and Kaitlyn's guidance,” Gorey explained.

“This year, we earned our way in third place in Regionals, outranking Macalester and University of Wisconsin-Madison, both nationally recognized teams.”

Founded in 1996, the Carleton Mock Trial team currently consists of 15 members, playing either attorney or witness roles, divided into two competing teams.

The club meets three times, in total of six to seven hours, every week to write themes, strategize witness calls, and practice case law and rules of evidence objections.

“The main purpose of the club is to develop public speaking, acting, legal, writing, and logic skills,” Mayhall said. “But the members tend to become very close friends in the process.”

This year’s unprecedented success can be attributed to having an intact group of members and changing the focus of the presentation, according to Mayhall.

While Thandi said focusing on essential arguments strengthened the team’s competitiveness, Gorey revealed that also polishing on rhetoric and articulation helped persuade the jury and the judges effectively.

“Even though, objectively, there may be facts that will prove your case better, if you don’t have the means to present those in a professional way, sometimes less powerful information will have more power in persuading the jury,” Gorey said.

“So changing our perspective on how to present our information was the key.”

The club members went on additional trips to New Jersey during winter break this year and participated in a tournament hosted by Monmouth University, aside from the usual invitationals at Macalester College, St. Olaf College, and the University of St. Thomas.

While only individual speakers have won awards for outstanding performances in the past, one of the teams won first place at St. Olaf, Monmouth University, and the University of St. Thomas.

“It’s my favorite community at Carleton,” Gorey expressed his appreciation of the club. “Watching people find their moments, where they click, and seeing everybody's growth over the course of the entire year are really exciting to watch.”


This article was published by The Carletonian (February 20, 2015)

FinAid says Carleton’s “doing its best” on need-sensitive aid

FinAid says Carleton’s “doing its best” on need-sensitive aid

While increasing number of liberal arts colleges are following the trend of implementing a need-blind aid policy, Carleton continues to admit students on a need-sensitive basis.

Paul Thiboutot, the Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, clarified that Carleton “will attempt to be need-blind to the fullest extent it can be”. It means that the college will practice need-blind until the set budget is exhausted and then apply the need-sensitive policy to a small pool of applicants, usually around 10 to 15 percent.

“We approach the admissions process as if we are entirely need-blind, and then we stop at a certain point and take a snapshot of it to see the projections of our financial aid commitment,” he said. “If we can’t afford at some point, we have to make some adjustments.”

Thiboutot emphasized that the college does not separate the pool of applicants into those who are in need of aid and those who are not.

Students in consideration for acceptance are not only evaluated based on their financial need, but also on factors such as test scores, gender, race, ethnicity, and national origin.

“All of these students are well qualified academically to be here, so there are more subjective matters that come into play,” explained Rodney Oto, Associate Dean of Admissions and Director of Student Financial Services. “One of the factors is the amount of financial assistance the student is going to need.”

Both Thiboutot and Oto strongly supported the idea behind the need-blind policy but also agreed that it requires a significant commitment of resources that Carleton does not have available at present.

The financial difficulties and budget constraints that would arise from having a need-blind policy may lead to inadequate distribution of endowments and loans. Though financial aid does take up a large portion of school funds, there are other significant costs to consider, like faculty member salaries, to maintain the college’s attractiveness and ability to compete with peer schools.

“There are two major groups where costs are sensitive to, one is the students and the other is faculty personnel,” Oto commented. “We want to make sure there are outstanding teachers, faculty who are interested in teaching, and we want them to stay.”

Even if the college decides to change its financial policy to need-blind, the reality may not be as ideal as it seems. There are a number of colleges that guarantee need-blind admissions, but fail to provide the full amount of aid to help students continue their studies after they are accepted.

“When some people think of need-blind, they assume that the school will admit anyone unconditionally, meet their full need, and give scholarships,” Thiboutot said. “But there are schools that claim to be need-blind but do not meet all of the students’ need. Some schools may give 100 percent but mostly in forms of loans, instead of scholarships.”

Even though the policy of need-sensitive aid continues at Carleton, the college is constantly striving to increase the amount of financial aid for the students. Oto recently addressed the board of trustees for more financial assistance to make sure there is sufficient aid for the students.

The students, in general, are satisfied with the Carleton’s current aid policy. More than half of the first-year students, approximately 52 percent, received need-based grants and scholarships that do not need to be repaid. Many students credit their choice of Carleton to receiving the most generous aid package than anywhere else.

“When applying to colleges, it's not uncommon for students to pay attention to financial aid packages when considering what colleges to attend,” a sophomore student, Kifaya Taha said. “For me, Carleton was able to provide me with a very generous financial aid package. This was one among many reasons that I decided to come here.”

This article was published by The Carletonian (February 13, 2015)