@ecsd
As you say, if our explanation seems pointless and overexplain same thing needlessly, it will came from that. The skills required in ESL class is not only the linguistic aspect such as grammar and vocabulary but also how we construct the logical structure on which discussion can based. Though such analysis is stereotyped, it makes sense for me. I believed “Yes, this is the topic sentence Ms. X longed for, finally I wrote!”, but Ms. X said “No, it’s not topic sentence” and shook her head again…
@mikanshibano
<if our explanation seems pointless and overexplain same thing needlessly, it will came from that.>
What I said was "it seemed like the writer could not recognize that THEY had made their point." They did in fact MAKE the point, but seemed not to recognize that their language had sufficed and that no more needed to be said.
I would take language instructors with a few grains of salt. (With some skepticism.) It's too easy to lay out rules, and I fear foreign students will feel bound to the rules /per se/, rather than to what the rules are trying to get you to remember.
First you learn the rules, then you learn how to break the rules. As long as you remember /what the rules intended./ (What was the point of the rule?)
[I will digress here: I read Fukuzawa's autobiography and a biography or two about him, and his demise as a reformer after 1890. If anyone could have, he could have dragged Japan away from what I call "Chinese compulsiveness." But then came the edict on education (and the 'revenge' of the elites to reassert control and prevent Democracy), and he was sidelined. What I concluded was that he could have led the Japanese to balance individualism with compulsion to social norms, and his being sidelined forfeited a great opportunity for the Japanese. I see that as a great loss for Japanese culture, that I have not seen described as such (in anything written in English.) I hate conformity, and love seeing your young experiment with flouting it (Harajuku street culture.) The Yin-Yang symbol: you (Japanese) know the benefits of all pulling together to do some thing; but it needs to be balanced by letting individuals develop on their own terms. We in America need to learn the opposite lesson! How to subordinate selfish goals to the betterment of all of society.
You can see what I've read at ecsd.com/books.html, use the BegFin sort. <> end digression.]
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What I need to do is develop a mental model of YOUR (Japanese) mental models, because "how can points be lost in translation"?
If I were the instructor, I would say "you write to make a point. What is the point, or what are the points, that you are trying to make? (and did you state them and defend them?)" -- unless you are simply writing about your feelings and have no point to make (prose poetry.) The rule about stating the point up front is no more than a suggestion, but you need to make the point before the reader wonders what you are trying to say. But a writer can "set things up" at length before actually getting to the point, especially if the material holds interest on its own. I do that a lot. I do a lot of reorganizing in producing a second or third draft, and I correct a lot of bad habits in that process. The problem is, I rarely rewrite anything.
[Digression: I thought to emigrate to Japan. What could I do there? ESL (and calculus for 11-year-olds.) But I thought: "But they'll ask me WHY, when I tell them "it should be such-and-such a way," and I don't have the correct vocabulary to just recite a grammatical rule. All I can do is show them the right way. "I /just know/." But still, I would be a kick-ass ESL instructor. <> end digression]
English is very "combinatorial" -- you can (often) reorganize words in a sentence in many ways to make the same point. Different forms have 'connotations*', though, and that's something you only get used to with experience (and for an ESL person, coaching.)
* as opposed to denotations.
I could read your original submission to that teacher and give you my assessment: did you make a point? was your writing clear? And you could compare what I said with what she said.
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I will bother you with some corrections. Pay attention to agreement in NUMBER. English distinguishes sharply between ONE and MORE THAN ONE.
You have <The skills required in ESL class is> -- but skills is PLURAL, while IS is singular. It's either "a skill is" or "skills are". One is, two or more are.
In
<if our explanation seems pointless and overexplain same thing needlessly, it will came from that.>
Let me just rewrite it:
<if our explanation seems pointless and we overexplain the same thing needlessly, it came from that.>
You could also say "it will have come from that."
A very slight nitpick is with "overexplain" -- that could be a single delivery (one overexplanation), but what I referred to were /multiple explanations/, and to make that point I would say "keep explaining" (over and over = multiple explanations) instead of "overexplain". [Others might disagree with my view, but I've made my point. I believe, correctly or incorrectly, that I use English very precisely.]
<Ms. X said “No, it’s not topic sentence”> -- remember articles!
"it's not (A/THE) topic sentence."
"finally I wrote!" -- I smiled, because that sounds like the direct translation Lafcadio Hearn offered, if you read that in full.
<I believed “Yes, this is the topic sentence Ms. X longed for, finally I wrote!”,>
I would have used one of these (note the punctuation):
"for; finally I wrote IT."
"for(;,) I finally wrote it."
"for, which I finally wrote."
"for, which I had finally written."
The semicolon introduces a slight break, setting the following phrase off. You could also have
"for. I finally wrote it."
...