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I am in a quandry, and need some perspective from anyone who routinely has
non-native English speakers in their classes. This is the first time, in
a long time, that I have non-native English speaking foreign students in my
Physics class (and not all from the same country). I have all my students
write lab reports, one every other week, rather than "papers" -- I consider
this the science-y equivalent of writing across the curriculum.
My problem is that because these students are not native speakers their
grammar suffers. I don't want to penalize them for not being native
English speakers/writers, on the other hand I believe I need to deduct some
points for failings. For instance, awkward phrasing or poor word choice
may just be a translation problem and I want to allow that -- with
suggestions for improvement. However, conjoining sentences into run-ons,
or having poor transitions between ideas I would think are not translation
problems and should be penalized.
I would be grateful for any suggestions, etc.
Thanks in advance,
Peter Schoch
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