“Nigerian Students in the American ESL Freshman Writing Class: A Site of Resistance and Accommodation”

Abstract

Two groups of undergraduate students, one composed of 15 Nigerian students studying at a public university in the US and a similar one composed of US-born students from the same university composed short essay drafts in response to the same writing prompt. These essays were read by the researchers and a group of student assistants to assess the differences between the two groups. The Nigerian students wrote longer essays with longer sentences and were more likely to use subordination than were their US counterparts. Both groups then participated in focus groups to discuss their English language education, university experiences, and attitudes toward college writing. The Nigerian students viewed the development of English writing skills as much more important than did their US counterparts but expressed frustration that their instructors in the US tended to dismiss what they saw as more eloquent writing, privileging instead a brief and concise style. The article discusses the results of the study as well as the frustration expressed by the Nigerian students and argues in support of Lee’s (2014) assertion that universities seek to “internationalize” faculty and student recruitment as well as provide better training for first-year composition instructors to equip them with a more sophisticated understanding of the varieties of the English language. The authors suggest that doing so will lead to better outcomes and increased retention for this group of international students.