Although the semester is over, I wanted to post my summary and a brief thought about this article and what it was lacking. There is a significant focus on issues with nonnative English speakers and teaching writing and communication and where the emphasis should be placed on improving or correcting their errors. However, I feel that an entire population is being left out that also deserve consideration when teaching and reading communications that contain grammatical and pragmatic errors: students from disadvantaged and othered communities and groups. These students, regardless of growing up as native speakers, have not had the best educational foundations or upbringing that would model correct grammar, “politeness” and an understanding of tone and professionalism. I agree that concessions can be made for NNES, but I also firmly believe that is an unacceptable stereotype to assume and therefore hold to a higher expectation writing by native English speakers.

• In this article, Joanna Wolfe, Nisha Shanmugaraj, and Jaclyn Sipe discuss their study of how professionals view communications from students (or anyone) with pragmatic and grammatical errors to help determine if non-native English speakers (NNES) were at a disadvantage due to their lack of experience and knowledge of English. The question was whether this set students up for failure in the future if their errors were considered major distraction and detracted from their potential hiring. It was indicated the majority of communication instructors give leniency when they know a student is a NNES, and less leniency to native speakers (NES). Through their sample e-mails and feedback from the professionals who read and rated the e-mails, writing that was obviously from a NNES was given more leniency in the grammatical errors if the rest of the communication indicated politeness and attention to detail. Perceived NES were judged more critically on grammatical errors. Pragmatic error consisting of things like word choice and tone, as well as a professional format, were the most highly criticized.
• From an instructor’s perspective and also as someone who has interviewed and hired staff, I understand the challenges of deciding what to focus on when teaching vs evaluating writing and communication. It is too time intensive to explain to NNES why a grammatical error is an error. The fasted way I’ve discovered to help correct these is to take a paragraph of their writing and rewrite it correctly, line by line, and have them read it out loud. Then I ask them to apply the revisions to the rest of their documents, so it has a consistent tone and flow. Not addressing them does a disservice to the students, but hyper focusing on grammar is also not the answer. I was disappointed, as an educator from an at-risk population, to see that NES were judged more harshly without knowing anything about their foundation education opportunities and experiences. These impact communication as significantly, if not more, that English being a second language.