The English used in college compositions is “standard written English,” but this is not necessarily what students speak. Almost everyone speaks differently from how they write. Students who are not native speakers of English or who speak dialect will often make persistent errors of verb tense or subject-verb agreement when they write. Dialect speakers use a grammatically consistent subject-verb agreement that is the opposite of standard written English: “He talk” vs. “He talks.” Both dialect speakers and non-native speakers may have trouble writing the past tense of regular verbs (“He talked”) either because “He talk” is correct for past tense in spoken dialect or because the “d” sound at the end of the verb is particularly hard to hear and thus remember. For ESL (English as a Second Language) students, their particular pronunciation patterns are often clearly reflected in their grammatical or spelling errors.

How Can I Help This Student? 
In your feedback on the student’s writing, be as specific as possible in assessing grammatical errors. For instance, “You need to work on putting your verbs in past tense” is better than “You need to improve your grammar” or “Your English is not at college level.” Emphasize the difference between spoken and written English. What you mark as an error on a paper may be perfectly acceptable for casual speech. For dialect speakers, don’t assume that the differences in verb forms are clear to the student. Many students have never had to convert to standard English until college. And ESL students may never achieve the grammatical accuracy of a native speaker.

Assess how much grammatical errors take away from the overall impact of the student’s writing. It may be a serious detriment to the clarity of the student’s thought, or it may be more of a distraction. It will help the student if you can quantify how important an issue their nonstandard English is. 

Don’t Edit the Student’s Work
If you circle every error, the student may be overwhelmed by the amount of red ink, and the student also has no incentive to find and correct his or her own mistakes. Direct your comments on the paper towards revision, not editing (see “Revision-Oriented Comments”).   But you may insist that errors be corrected before you assign the final grade. Or you may want to do this in stages, insisting that one class of errors be cleaned up, whatever you deem most important.

Where Can Students Go for Help?
Refer students to the Writing Center to work with a tutor or ask students to make an appointment with Writing Specialist Angela Woodward. Encourage students with significant problems to use the Writing Center on an on-going basis. You might offer an incentive for using the Writing Center, such as bonus points or extended time to complete the assignment. Some faculty allow students to use the Writing Center even for take-home exams.

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