1. What did you notice about your writing process during this course? Did your writing process change? If so, how? The most significant part of my writing process I noticed was the constant feedback/direction. It helped me maintain my focus throughout the written material.
If your writing process changed, what course assignments/interactions supported that change? The Lunsford essay-we read the essays as a class and then wrote about it. Then we discussed our ideas and elaborated on our initial perspectives. The semester was like a 4 month brainstorming session.
2. What have you noticed about your finished essays? Writing styles vary depending on the audiences. The differences are much more acute now. Did the quality of your essays change as a result of this course? If so how? If your final products changed, what do you think led to those changes? Improvement! Constant collaboration.3. What did you notice about the way you coach writing students? I took better notice of my communication style when I’m dealing with students.
Did your approach to coaching change during the term? Yes
If so, how? I listen closely and ask a lot of questions. I tend to mentally switch roles with the student so I can communicate to them the way I’d like to receive communication.
Were any course assignments/interactions useful in facilitating this learning?
4. What have your experiences coaching writing students shown you about effective strategies for talking/communicating to others?
Listening is the key to communication…
Non-verbal cues are important-I never realized just how important they are until I reflected on my sessions.
Writing things down is very important...
5. How has your work coaching writing students changed the way you learn?
It hasn’t changed the way I learn, but it caused me to take notice of how I learn.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Writing center philosophy ...The beginning....
Writing center philosophy…the beginning
I’ve learned quite a bit in the past 4 months…so I want to recreate my writing center philosophy.
Main Principle: The writing center is a place where students come to learn to be better writers, learn better comprehension, learn to listen and learn to communicate.
Student Responsibilities: Students must report to writing center within 15 of their appointment time, careful not to disrupt any current activities.
Students are expected to write/revise their own work after receiving feedback from tutors.
Students are expected to make every effort of provide content of the given assignment and the perspective due date.
Director Responsibilities:
The director shall set forth rules governing the writing center
The writing center will provide tools to assist each student reaching their writing potential.
I’ve learned quite a bit in the past 4 months…so I want to recreate my writing center philosophy.
Main Principle: The writing center is a place where students come to learn to be better writers, learn better comprehension, learn to listen and learn to communicate.
Student Responsibilities: Students must report to writing center within 15 of their appointment time, careful not to disrupt any current activities.
Students are expected to write/revise their own work after receiving feedback from tutors.
Students are expected to make every effort of provide content of the given assignment and the perspective due date.
Director Responsibilities:
The director shall set forth rules governing the writing center
The writing center will provide tools to assist each student reaching their writing potential.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Draft # 2...A work in progress...
Almost there!!!...Still working on it...
Introduction
The requirements of ESL students in writing centers have not been completely outlined for student tutors. Through this essay I will attempt to highlight the specialized training that is necessary to connect with and assist students who are not proficient in the English language in successfully writing academic material. This essay focuses on the adult English language learner, as it translates to writing on various levels. Throughout this paper you will see evidence of the need for training specialization in writing centers only limited to the tutoring of ESL students.
Abstract…(Not yet written)
Implications of Writing Center responsibilities –
When tutors are working with students with different language backgrounds or who have a need for language instruction.
Literature Review
In compiling research for this paper, the following written material was used for research,
“Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking backgrounds.” By Ken Cruishank & Sandra Newell
Overview,
The learning process for students learning the English language is roughly similar to that of American students, however-the language acquisition process tends to make written English more of a challenge. The needs of English language learners are somewhat different than those native speaking students. The literature supports the concept that educators teaching those students are in need of different training standards. Students who are learning English are not “special needs’ students, but they require other types of education to make learning and comprehending English more effective.
“Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures”
Peters and Davis
Overview,
This article is actually a concise list of what is required for non-native speakers to understand English lectures given for learning. This is not limited to tutors, but this assists in determining the methods necessary for successful student comprehension of spoken material.
“A Writing Center Without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning.” Roadacker and Siebler
Overview,
The primary focus of this journal is examining where second language learning are taught; however, it contains written content on teaching older English language learners the basic elements of spoken and written English for specific purposes, which can be applied to Writing Center tutoring. English language use in Writing Centers is highly specified content. The verbiage used is always concentrated on academic discipline subject content the student is writing about.
“The ESL Experience in the Writing Center”
Feuerbacher, Hagen, Kim, Sweets and Yeom
Overview
The focus of this article is assessing and fulfilling the required needs of students in the writing center and what that experience means for tutors. It explores everything from academic levels, cultural differences, student perceptions, language and non verbal behavior, and student comprehension levels.
As ESL students require flexibility and patience in writing centers, it is an excellent guide for expected situations as writing tutors or coaches.
An academic writing needs assessment of ESL clinical investigators
Wang and Bakken
This particular article indicates the needs of skilled ESL adult students and their writing deficiencies. In this case, the students are at more advanced levels of their education, yet they still lack English writing skills because they still not proficient in scholarly writing. As these students are skilled investigators, they are ill-prepared to adequately articulate their ideas properly in written form, nor do they feel the resources are available to them to correct their deficiencies.
Some of the assessed needs are grammatical correctness, word order and phrase usage, and American writing standards and practice. There has been limited investigation into whether pedagogical practice should be introduced into writing centers involving ESL student writers.
ESL guide for Writing Centers
Bruce and Rafoth
This is an explanation of a collaboration of essays surrounding ESL student tutoring in writing centers. What this piece does is outline the general methods which can be used when assisting students with different language backgrounds and some implication for cultural and communication differences. The big difference in this writing is the focus shifts slightly from highlighting different methods for tutoring ESL students to illustrating which methods transcend those boundaries-such as agenda and goal setting, and looking for patterns which indicate deficiencies or writing errors such as line by line correction.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. These students spoke Spanish, and form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
There was a single session that didn’t require additional time and instruction. While this student was not a native speaker, the proficiency level of that particular student was higher than that of other students. This student understood the assignment, the content and word order (grammatical terms) He simply experienced lack of organization in his written material. I noticed student had an accent, but he seemed to a very clear understanding of the English language. This tells me that the requirements of non-native speaking students greatly depends on English language proficiency. Most of the students were freshman and sophomores, but I think if the language skill is there…the focus need only be on the assignment and the writing.
Data Analysis
The research methods I used for collecting this data consists of self-observations as well as observations of tutoring sessions held by other students. In each observation, I focused on the native language of the student, the native language of the tutor, the tutoring styles of the tutors and the methods used by each. I looked for losses that could be reasonably related to language differences, and student responses to the tutor that are definitely related to language differences.
Case Study A-
Student and Tutor were not native language speakers. They both actually experience a loss in communication even though they both spoke Spanish. The student is this tutoring session required more of a Teacher - student relationship than a tutor/tutee relationship. As they were focused on an assignment, Peter had to dissect the written, material line by line in order to provide effective feedback fort the paper. The majority of the information disseminated by the tutor was given in Spanish. The student here experienced difficulties articulating ideas in English.
The session also seemed rushed, going by the rate at which both the tutor and the student moved through the written material. From that I gathered the student was attempting to include everything in this one particular session.
I noticed that Peter had to take the lead in the tutoring session. He provided direction for the tutee from the beginning of the session. The student had written material to be analyzed by the tutor, but was unsure of the proper word order and vocabulary. This required the tutor to feed the student sentences to correct the word usage which is a directive approach to tutoring.
Session overview- The session was effective because the tutor and the student shared the same native language. The tutor effectively used a specialized skill to communicate with the student to make the session more effective.
In Case Study B-
In this session, both the student and the tutor were native English speakers. I still focused on the language content and the overall effectiveness of the session because there were no language differences. The tutor in this session was trained and highly skilled at providing information to students in a student-teacher environment. The student had a mastery of the English language, so the session was focused on the content of the assignment. The student was able to respond to the tutor with exactly what she wanted to say in her assignment and where she was confused, and the session was purely collaborative. In contrast with students who do not have the same language differences, the methods and styles used here were more aligned with a team approach to tutoring than the teacher student model.
Case Study C-
In this session, both student and tutor spoke the native language. The focus here is still on the skill and the training used by the tutor to convey information to the student. Although the language difference is absent-I still wanted to study the training and methods used by the tutor. The obvious goals remained the same, assisting the student and increasing the effectiveness of the written material, listening to the ideas presented by the student and the content of the assignment.
In this session, there were no line by line corrections and paraphrasing written material to ensure the students understanding of the content. During this session, the tutor looked to ensure student comprenhension by having the student repeat everything in her own words, and the tutor looked for HOCs. The student was confident in saying she understood the asignment, but she just wanted support from the tutor.
As the session progressed, the focus shifted to another assignment fpr which the student required additional assistance. The student needed help in finding appropriate sources for a research project. In this, the student had a clear focus on concepts she wished to explore in the research, she did not require additional language instruction or props. The session ended in exactly one hour and the student was disappointed to learn the tutor would be retired as of the following week!
Case Study D –
In this session, although English was not the student’s native language, the student’s level of English proficiency did not impede his ability to understand and respond to the assignment or to the tutor. The student had a clear focus on the paper, and her major concerns were that she was unsure she was staying on topic and that her paper was fully developed. This particular student was confident in articulating his ideas, and he knew exactly what he wanted to say, he just needed support in organizing his thoughts and putting the words on paper.
I noticed in this session, the written material needed to be developed as opposed to the vocabulary of the student. The tutor asked questions of the student to draw information and to make the student really think about what she wanted to say.
Overall, the language proficiency of this particular student did not require additional training on the part of the tutor. (expand)
Case Study E
In this session, the student did not have proficient English language skills. When he came to the center, he understood the content of the assignment-but he did not understand the written material for the assignment. The assignment was to paraphrase a chapter of a book, but the student lacked the English vocabulary skills to fully comprehend the material.
I took notice of the tutor slowing down to fully read the material, and proving feedback on each page. The tutor spoke in slow deliberate sentences with smaller words so the student could understand everything that was stated in the written material.
Also in the session, the tutor used hand movements to assist in making points to assist the student in understanding what he conveyed to the student. I noticed the student was very comfortable with the tutor writing things down for him to read. The student actually seemed to respond positively to written words, more-so than spoken words. The student smiled and laughed when he read what the tutor wrote, and seemed to look frustrated, frightened and confused when the words were spoken-even when the words were spoken at a slower pace.
In the end, the session may not been as effective as the student would have liked-only because it was too short. The student arrived half hour after the session was to begin. The student seemed comfortable enough with the tutor to want additional sessions and additional time with the tutor.
I noticed the tutor took a directive approach and thoroughly explained everything to the student. (expand)
Discussion and Analysis
In analyzing the data from the above observations, several trends stand out from each session. Student tutors seem to begin the sessions displaying signs of nervousness, thereafter; they seem to get more comfortable, but in general they have a look of slight shock on their faces when they realize exactly what is happening. Certain non verbal cues are unknowingly displayed as the session progresses. For example: the student tutors sit and stare at the written material seemingly at a loss. Initially that may be the case as the tutors begin to move the session along.
According to Help Non Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures as tutors assist those students who have yet to master the English language, certain methods and techniques are necessary to make those sessions more effective. Trained professionals generally use directive techniques with students still learning the English language. Although student tutors are not teachers and lack those special training skills, they fulfill an integral role in helping students attain goals of comprehending and generating academic written material.
For instance, in A Writing Center without Walls, the material states they use content based words to correlate vocabulary with teaching English language in the Garden. This focused based training is based used to increase the understanding of certain words used in the learner’s world. In this respect, it is the exact same concept in providing writing assistance for a non native speaking adult student in a writing center. The material is content based and it must be absorbed for full comprehension. Just as material in the Garden is content based, writing center tutoring is done based on assignment content-and standard methods and practices may be used to benefit the adult student.
In each piece, in addition to various styles of learning and writing by students with a native language other than English, there is a need for additional training to accommodate the needs of these students. There is a demonstrated need for vast experience with the English language or specialized training in working with students who fall into this category.
Introduction
The requirements of ESL students in writing centers have not been completely outlined for student tutors. Through this essay I will attempt to highlight the specialized training that is necessary to connect with and assist students who are not proficient in the English language in successfully writing academic material. This essay focuses on the adult English language learner, as it translates to writing on various levels. Throughout this paper you will see evidence of the need for training specialization in writing centers only limited to the tutoring of ESL students.
Abstract…(Not yet written)
Implications of Writing Center responsibilities –
When tutors are working with students with different language backgrounds or who have a need for language instruction.
Literature Review
In compiling research for this paper, the following written material was used for research,
“Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking backgrounds.” By Ken Cruishank & Sandra Newell
Overview,
The learning process for students learning the English language is roughly similar to that of American students, however-the language acquisition process tends to make written English more of a challenge. The needs of English language learners are somewhat different than those native speaking students. The literature supports the concept that educators teaching those students are in need of different training standards. Students who are learning English are not “special needs’ students, but they require other types of education to make learning and comprehending English more effective.
“Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures”
Peters and Davis
Overview,
This article is actually a concise list of what is required for non-native speakers to understand English lectures given for learning. This is not limited to tutors, but this assists in determining the methods necessary for successful student comprehension of spoken material.
“A Writing Center Without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning.” Roadacker and Siebler
Overview,
The primary focus of this journal is examining where second language learning are taught; however, it contains written content on teaching older English language learners the basic elements of spoken and written English for specific purposes, which can be applied to Writing Center tutoring. English language use in Writing Centers is highly specified content. The verbiage used is always concentrated on academic discipline subject content the student is writing about.
“The ESL Experience in the Writing Center”
Feuerbacher, Hagen, Kim, Sweets and Yeom
Overview
The focus of this article is assessing and fulfilling the required needs of students in the writing center and what that experience means for tutors. It explores everything from academic levels, cultural differences, student perceptions, language and non verbal behavior, and student comprehension levels.
As ESL students require flexibility and patience in writing centers, it is an excellent guide for expected situations as writing tutors or coaches.
An academic writing needs assessment of ESL clinical investigators
Wang and Bakken
This particular article indicates the needs of skilled ESL adult students and their writing deficiencies. In this case, the students are at more advanced levels of their education, yet they still lack English writing skills because they still not proficient in scholarly writing. As these students are skilled investigators, they are ill-prepared to adequately articulate their ideas properly in written form, nor do they feel the resources are available to them to correct their deficiencies.
Some of the assessed needs are grammatical correctness, word order and phrase usage, and American writing standards and practice. There has been limited investigation into whether pedagogical practice should be introduced into writing centers involving ESL student writers.
ESL guide for Writing Centers
Bruce and Rafoth
This is an explanation of a collaboration of essays surrounding ESL student tutoring in writing centers. What this piece does is outline the general methods which can be used when assisting students with different language backgrounds and some implication for cultural and communication differences. The big difference in this writing is the focus shifts slightly from highlighting different methods for tutoring ESL students to illustrating which methods transcend those boundaries-such as agenda and goal setting, and looking for patterns which indicate deficiencies or writing errors such as line by line correction.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. These students spoke Spanish, and form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
There was a single session that didn’t require additional time and instruction. While this student was not a native speaker, the proficiency level of that particular student was higher than that of other students. This student understood the assignment, the content and word order (grammatical terms) He simply experienced lack of organization in his written material. I noticed student had an accent, but he seemed to a very clear understanding of the English language. This tells me that the requirements of non-native speaking students greatly depends on English language proficiency. Most of the students were freshman and sophomores, but I think if the language skill is there…the focus need only be on the assignment and the writing.
Data Analysis
The research methods I used for collecting this data consists of self-observations as well as observations of tutoring sessions held by other students. In each observation, I focused on the native language of the student, the native language of the tutor, the tutoring styles of the tutors and the methods used by each. I looked for losses that could be reasonably related to language differences, and student responses to the tutor that are definitely related to language differences.
Case Study A-
Student and Tutor were not native language speakers. They both actually experience a loss in communication even though they both spoke Spanish. The student is this tutoring session required more of a Teacher - student relationship than a tutor/tutee relationship. As they were focused on an assignment, Peter had to dissect the written, material line by line in order to provide effective feedback fort the paper. The majority of the information disseminated by the tutor was given in Spanish. The student here experienced difficulties articulating ideas in English.
The session also seemed rushed, going by the rate at which both the tutor and the student moved through the written material. From that I gathered the student was attempting to include everything in this one particular session.
I noticed that Peter had to take the lead in the tutoring session. He provided direction for the tutee from the beginning of the session. The student had written material to be analyzed by the tutor, but was unsure of the proper word order and vocabulary. This required the tutor to feed the student sentences to correct the word usage which is a directive approach to tutoring.
Session overview- The session was effective because the tutor and the student shared the same native language. The tutor effectively used a specialized skill to communicate with the student to make the session more effective.
In Case Study B-
In this session, both the student and the tutor were native English speakers. I still focused on the language content and the overall effectiveness of the session because there were no language differences. The tutor in this session was trained and highly skilled at providing information to students in a student-teacher environment. The student had a mastery of the English language, so the session was focused on the content of the assignment. The student was able to respond to the tutor with exactly what she wanted to say in her assignment and where she was confused, and the session was purely collaborative. In contrast with students who do not have the same language differences, the methods and styles used here were more aligned with a team approach to tutoring than the teacher student model.
Case Study C-
In this session, both student and tutor spoke the native language. The focus here is still on the skill and the training used by the tutor to convey information to the student. Although the language difference is absent-I still wanted to study the training and methods used by the tutor. The obvious goals remained the same, assisting the student and increasing the effectiveness of the written material, listening to the ideas presented by the student and the content of the assignment.
In this session, there were no line by line corrections and paraphrasing written material to ensure the students understanding of the content. During this session, the tutor looked to ensure student comprenhension by having the student repeat everything in her own words, and the tutor looked for HOCs. The student was confident in saying she understood the asignment, but she just wanted support from the tutor.
As the session progressed, the focus shifted to another assignment fpr which the student required additional assistance. The student needed help in finding appropriate sources for a research project. In this, the student had a clear focus on concepts she wished to explore in the research, she did not require additional language instruction or props. The session ended in exactly one hour and the student was disappointed to learn the tutor would be retired as of the following week!
Case Study D –
In this session, although English was not the student’s native language, the student’s level of English proficiency did not impede his ability to understand and respond to the assignment or to the tutor. The student had a clear focus on the paper, and her major concerns were that she was unsure she was staying on topic and that her paper was fully developed. This particular student was confident in articulating his ideas, and he knew exactly what he wanted to say, he just needed support in organizing his thoughts and putting the words on paper.
I noticed in this session, the written material needed to be developed as opposed to the vocabulary of the student. The tutor asked questions of the student to draw information and to make the student really think about what she wanted to say.
Overall, the language proficiency of this particular student did not require additional training on the part of the tutor. (expand)
Case Study E
In this session, the student did not have proficient English language skills. When he came to the center, he understood the content of the assignment-but he did not understand the written material for the assignment. The assignment was to paraphrase a chapter of a book, but the student lacked the English vocabulary skills to fully comprehend the material.
I took notice of the tutor slowing down to fully read the material, and proving feedback on each page. The tutor spoke in slow deliberate sentences with smaller words so the student could understand everything that was stated in the written material.
Also in the session, the tutor used hand movements to assist in making points to assist the student in understanding what he conveyed to the student. I noticed the student was very comfortable with the tutor writing things down for him to read. The student actually seemed to respond positively to written words, more-so than spoken words. The student smiled and laughed when he read what the tutor wrote, and seemed to look frustrated, frightened and confused when the words were spoken-even when the words were spoken at a slower pace.
In the end, the session may not been as effective as the student would have liked-only because it was too short. The student arrived half hour after the session was to begin. The student seemed comfortable enough with the tutor to want additional sessions and additional time with the tutor.
I noticed the tutor took a directive approach and thoroughly explained everything to the student. (expand)
Discussion and Analysis
In analyzing the data from the above observations, several trends stand out from each session. Student tutors seem to begin the sessions displaying signs of nervousness, thereafter; they seem to get more comfortable, but in general they have a look of slight shock on their faces when they realize exactly what is happening. Certain non verbal cues are unknowingly displayed as the session progresses. For example: the student tutors sit and stare at the written material seemingly at a loss. Initially that may be the case as the tutors begin to move the session along.
According to Help Non Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures as tutors assist those students who have yet to master the English language, certain methods and techniques are necessary to make those sessions more effective. Trained professionals generally use directive techniques with students still learning the English language. Although student tutors are not teachers and lack those special training skills, they fulfill an integral role in helping students attain goals of comprehending and generating academic written material.
For instance, in A Writing Center without Walls, the material states they use content based words to correlate vocabulary with teaching English language in the Garden. This focused based training is based used to increase the understanding of certain words used in the learner’s world. In this respect, it is the exact same concept in providing writing assistance for a non native speaking adult student in a writing center. The material is content based and it must be absorbed for full comprehension. Just as material in the Garden is content based, writing center tutoring is done based on assignment content-and standard methods and practices may be used to benefit the adult student.
In each piece, in addition to various styles of learning and writing by students with a native language other than English, there is a need for additional training to accommodate the needs of these students. There is a demonstrated need for vast experience with the English language or specialized training in working with students who fall into this category.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Draft.....still developing!
Introduction
The requirements of ESL students in writing centers have not been completely outlined for student tutors. Through this essay I will attempt to highlight the specialized training that is necessary to connect with and assist students who are not proficient in the English language in successfully writing academic material.
Abstract…(Not yet written)
Implications of Writing Center responsibilities –
When tutors are working with students with different language backgrounds or who have a need for language instruction
Review of the literature….. (some)
In compiling research for this paper, the following written material was used for research,
“Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking backgrounds.” By Ken Cruishank & Sandra Newell
Overview,
The learning process for students learning the English language is roughly similar to that of American students, however-the language acquisition process tends to make written English more of a challenge. The needs of English language learners are somewhat different than those native speaking students. The literature supports the concept that educators teaching those students are in need of different training standards. Students who are learning English are not “special needs’ students, but they require other types of education to make learning and comprehending English more effective.
“Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures”
Peters and Davis
Overview,
This article is actually a concise list of what is required for non-native speakers to understand English lectures given for learning. This is not limited to tutors, but this assists in determining the methods necessary for successful student comprehension of spoken material.
“A Writing Center Without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning.” Roadacker and Siebler
Overview,
The primary focus of this journal is examining where second language learning are taught; however, it contains written content on teaching older English language learners the basic elements of spoken and written English for specific purposes, which can be applied to Writing Center tutoring. English language use in Writing Centers is highly specified content. The verbiage used is always concentrated on academic discipline subject content the student is writing about.
“The ESL Experience in the Writing Center”
Feuerbacher, Hagen, Kim, Sweets and Yeom
Overview
The focus of this article is assessing and fulfilling the required needs of students in the writing center and what that experience means for tutors. It explores everything from academic levels, cultural differences, student perceptions, language and non verbal behavior, and student comprehension levels.
As ESL students require flexibility and patience in writing centers, it is an excellent guide for expected situations as writing tutors or coaches.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. These students spoke Spanish, and form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
There was a single session that didn’t require additional time and instruction. While this student was not a native speaker, the proficiency level of that particular student was higher than that of other students. This student understood the assignment, the content and word order (grammatical terms) He simply experienced lack of organization in his written material. I noticed student had an accent, but he seemed to a very clear understanding of the English language. This tells me that the requirements of non-native speaking students greatly depends on English language proficiency. Most of the students were freshman and sophomores, but I think if the language skill is there…the focus need only be on the assignment and the writing.
Data Analysis
The research methods I used for collecting this data consists of self-observations as well as observations of tutoring sessions held by other students. In each observation, I focused on the native language of the student, the native language of the tutor, the tutoring styles of the tutors and the methods used by each. I looked for losses that could be reasonably related to language differences, and student responses to the tutor that are definitely related to language differences.
Case Study A-
Student and tutor were not native language speakers. They both actually experience a loss in communication even though they both spoke Spanish. The student is this tutoring session required more of a Teacher - student relationship than a tutor/tutee relationship. As they were focused on an assignment, Peter had to dissect the written, material line by line in order to provide effective feedback fort the paper. The majority of the information disseminated by the tutor was given in Spanish. The student here experienced difficulties articulating ideas in English.
The session also seemed rushed, going by the rate at which both the tutor and the student moved through the written material. From that I gathered the student was attempting to include everything in this one particular session.
I noticed that Peter had to take the lead in the tutoring session. He provided direction for the tutee from the beginning of the session. The student had written material to be analyzed by the tutor, but was unsure of the proper word order and vocabulary. This required the tutor to feed the student sentences to correct the word usage which is a directive approach to tutoring.
Session overview- The session was effective because the tutor and the student shared the same native language. The tutor effectively used a specialized skill to communicate with the student to make the session more effective.
In Case Study B-
In this session, both the student and the tutor were native English speakers. I still focused on the language content and the overall effectiveness of the session because there were no language differences. The tutor in this session was trained and highly skilled at providing information to students in a student-teacher environment. The student had a mastery of the English language, so the session was focused on the content of the assignment. The student was able to respond to the tutor with exactly what she wanted to say in her assignment and where she was confused, and the session was purely collaborative. In contrast with students who do not have the same language differences, the methods and styles used here were more aligned with a team approach to tutoring than the teacher student model.
Case Study C-
In this session, both student and tutor spoke the native language. The focus here is still on the skill and the training used by the tutor to convey information to the student. Although the language difference is absent-I still wanted to study the training (develop more)
Case Study D –
In this session, although English was not the student’s native language, the student’s level of English proficiency did not impede his ability to understand and respond to the assignment or to the tutor. The student had a clear focus on the paper, and her major concerns were that she was unsure she was staying on topic and that her paper was fully developed. This particular student was confident in articulating his ideas, and he knew exactly what he wanted to say, he just needed support in organizing his thoughts and putting the words on paper.
I noticed in this session, the written material needed to be developed as opposed to the vocabulary of the student. The tutor asked questions of the student to draw information and to make the student really think about what she wanted to say.
Overall, the language proficiency of this particular student did not require additional training on the part of the tutor. (expand)
Case Study E
In this session, the student did not have proficient English language skills. When he came to the center, he understood the content of the assignment-but he did not understand the written material for the assignment. The assignment was to paraphrase a chapter of a book, but the student lacked the English vocabulary skills to fully comprehend the material.
I took notice of the tutor slowing down to fully read the material, and proving feedback on each page. The tutor spoke in slow deliberate sentences with smaller words so the student could understand everything that was stated in the written material.
Also in the session, the tutor used hand movements to assist in making points to assist the student in understanding what he conveyed to the student. I noticed the student was very comfortable with the tutor writing things down for him to read. The student actually seemed to respond positively to written words, more-so than spoken words. The student smiled and laughed when he read what the tutor wrote, and seemed to look frustrated, frightened and confused when the words were spoken-even when the words were spoken at a slower pace.
In the end, the session may not been as effective as the student would have liked-only because it was too short. The student arrived half hour after the session was to begin. The student seemed comfortable enough with the tutor to want additional sessions and additional time with the tutor.
I noticed the tutor took a directive approach and thoroughly explained everything to the student. (expand)
Discussion and Analysis
In analyzing the data from the above observations, several trends stand out from each session. Student tutors seem to begin the sessions displaying signs of nervousness, thereafter; they seem to get more comfortable, but in general they have a look of slight shock on their faces when they realize exactly what is happening. Certain non verbal cues are unknowingly displayed as the session progresses. For example: the student tutors sit and stare at the written material seemingly at a loss. Initially that may be the case as the tutors begin to move the session along.
According to Help Non Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures as tutors assist those students who have yet to master the English language, certain methods and techniques are necessary to make those sessions more effective. Trained professionals generally use directive techniques with students still learning the English language. Although student tutors are not teachers and lack those special training skills, they fulfill an integral role in helping students attain goals of comprehending and generating academic written material.
For instance, in A Writing Center without Walls, the material states they use content based words to correlate vocabulary with teaching English language in the Garden. This focused based training is based used to increase the understanding of certain words used in the learner’s world. In this respect, it is the exact same concept in providing writing assistance for a non native speaking adult student in a writing center. The material is content based and it must be absorbed for full comprehension. (more later)
The requirements of ESL students in writing centers have not been completely outlined for student tutors. Through this essay I will attempt to highlight the specialized training that is necessary to connect with and assist students who are not proficient in the English language in successfully writing academic material.
Abstract…(Not yet written)
Implications of Writing Center responsibilities –
When tutors are working with students with different language backgrounds or who have a need for language instruction
Review of the literature….. (some)
In compiling research for this paper, the following written material was used for research,
“Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking backgrounds.” By Ken Cruishank & Sandra Newell
Overview,
The learning process for students learning the English language is roughly similar to that of American students, however-the language acquisition process tends to make written English more of a challenge. The needs of English language learners are somewhat different than those native speaking students. The literature supports the concept that educators teaching those students are in need of different training standards. Students who are learning English are not “special needs’ students, but they require other types of education to make learning and comprehending English more effective.
“Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures”
Peters and Davis
Overview,
This article is actually a concise list of what is required for non-native speakers to understand English lectures given for learning. This is not limited to tutors, but this assists in determining the methods necessary for successful student comprehension of spoken material.
“A Writing Center Without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning.” Roadacker and Siebler
Overview,
The primary focus of this journal is examining where second language learning are taught; however, it contains written content on teaching older English language learners the basic elements of spoken and written English for specific purposes, which can be applied to Writing Center tutoring. English language use in Writing Centers is highly specified content. The verbiage used is always concentrated on academic discipline subject content the student is writing about.
“The ESL Experience in the Writing Center”
Feuerbacher, Hagen, Kim, Sweets and Yeom
Overview
The focus of this article is assessing and fulfilling the required needs of students in the writing center and what that experience means for tutors. It explores everything from academic levels, cultural differences, student perceptions, language and non verbal behavior, and student comprehension levels.
As ESL students require flexibility and patience in writing centers, it is an excellent guide for expected situations as writing tutors or coaches.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. These students spoke Spanish, and form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
There was a single session that didn’t require additional time and instruction. While this student was not a native speaker, the proficiency level of that particular student was higher than that of other students. This student understood the assignment, the content and word order (grammatical terms) He simply experienced lack of organization in his written material. I noticed student had an accent, but he seemed to a very clear understanding of the English language. This tells me that the requirements of non-native speaking students greatly depends on English language proficiency. Most of the students were freshman and sophomores, but I think if the language skill is there…the focus need only be on the assignment and the writing.
Data Analysis
The research methods I used for collecting this data consists of self-observations as well as observations of tutoring sessions held by other students. In each observation, I focused on the native language of the student, the native language of the tutor, the tutoring styles of the tutors and the methods used by each. I looked for losses that could be reasonably related to language differences, and student responses to the tutor that are definitely related to language differences.
Case Study A-
Student and tutor were not native language speakers. They both actually experience a loss in communication even though they both spoke Spanish. The student is this tutoring session required more of a Teacher - student relationship than a tutor/tutee relationship. As they were focused on an assignment, Peter had to dissect the written, material line by line in order to provide effective feedback fort the paper. The majority of the information disseminated by the tutor was given in Spanish. The student here experienced difficulties articulating ideas in English.
The session also seemed rushed, going by the rate at which both the tutor and the student moved through the written material. From that I gathered the student was attempting to include everything in this one particular session.
I noticed that Peter had to take the lead in the tutoring session. He provided direction for the tutee from the beginning of the session. The student had written material to be analyzed by the tutor, but was unsure of the proper word order and vocabulary. This required the tutor to feed the student sentences to correct the word usage which is a directive approach to tutoring.
Session overview- The session was effective because the tutor and the student shared the same native language. The tutor effectively used a specialized skill to communicate with the student to make the session more effective.
In Case Study B-
In this session, both the student and the tutor were native English speakers. I still focused on the language content and the overall effectiveness of the session because there were no language differences. The tutor in this session was trained and highly skilled at providing information to students in a student-teacher environment. The student had a mastery of the English language, so the session was focused on the content of the assignment. The student was able to respond to the tutor with exactly what she wanted to say in her assignment and where she was confused, and the session was purely collaborative. In contrast with students who do not have the same language differences, the methods and styles used here were more aligned with a team approach to tutoring than the teacher student model.
Case Study C-
In this session, both student and tutor spoke the native language. The focus here is still on the skill and the training used by the tutor to convey information to the student. Although the language difference is absent-I still wanted to study the training (develop more)
Case Study D –
In this session, although English was not the student’s native language, the student’s level of English proficiency did not impede his ability to understand and respond to the assignment or to the tutor. The student had a clear focus on the paper, and her major concerns were that she was unsure she was staying on topic and that her paper was fully developed. This particular student was confident in articulating his ideas, and he knew exactly what he wanted to say, he just needed support in organizing his thoughts and putting the words on paper.
I noticed in this session, the written material needed to be developed as opposed to the vocabulary of the student. The tutor asked questions of the student to draw information and to make the student really think about what she wanted to say.
Overall, the language proficiency of this particular student did not require additional training on the part of the tutor. (expand)
Case Study E
In this session, the student did not have proficient English language skills. When he came to the center, he understood the content of the assignment-but he did not understand the written material for the assignment. The assignment was to paraphrase a chapter of a book, but the student lacked the English vocabulary skills to fully comprehend the material.
I took notice of the tutor slowing down to fully read the material, and proving feedback on each page. The tutor spoke in slow deliberate sentences with smaller words so the student could understand everything that was stated in the written material.
Also in the session, the tutor used hand movements to assist in making points to assist the student in understanding what he conveyed to the student. I noticed the student was very comfortable with the tutor writing things down for him to read. The student actually seemed to respond positively to written words, more-so than spoken words. The student smiled and laughed when he read what the tutor wrote, and seemed to look frustrated, frightened and confused when the words were spoken-even when the words were spoken at a slower pace.
In the end, the session may not been as effective as the student would have liked-only because it was too short. The student arrived half hour after the session was to begin. The student seemed comfortable enough with the tutor to want additional sessions and additional time with the tutor.
I noticed the tutor took a directive approach and thoroughly explained everything to the student. (expand)
Discussion and Analysis
In analyzing the data from the above observations, several trends stand out from each session. Student tutors seem to begin the sessions displaying signs of nervousness, thereafter; they seem to get more comfortable, but in general they have a look of slight shock on their faces when they realize exactly what is happening. Certain non verbal cues are unknowingly displayed as the session progresses. For example: the student tutors sit and stare at the written material seemingly at a loss. Initially that may be the case as the tutors begin to move the session along.
According to Help Non Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures as tutors assist those students who have yet to master the English language, certain methods and techniques are necessary to make those sessions more effective. Trained professionals generally use directive techniques with students still learning the English language. Although student tutors are not teachers and lack those special training skills, they fulfill an integral role in helping students attain goals of comprehending and generating academic written material.
For instance, in A Writing Center without Walls, the material states they use content based words to correlate vocabulary with teaching English language in the Garden. This focused based training is based used to increase the understanding of certain words used in the learner’s world. In this respect, it is the exact same concept in providing writing assistance for a non native speaking adult student in a writing center. The material is content based and it must be absorbed for full comprehension. (more later)
Sunday, December 6, 2009
More writing #20
Methods analysis
The research methods I used for collecting this data consists of self-observations as well as observations of tutoring sessions held by other students. In each observation, I focused on the native language of the student, the native language of the tutor, the tutoring styles of the tutors and the methods used by each. I looked for losses that could be reasonably related to language differences, and student responses to the tutor that are definitely related to language differences.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. These students spoke Spanish, and form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
The research methods I used for collecting this data consists of self-observations as well as observations of tutoring sessions held by other students. In each observation, I focused on the native language of the student, the native language of the tutor, the tutoring styles of the tutors and the methods used by each. I looked for losses that could be reasonably related to language differences, and student responses to the tutor that are definitely related to language differences.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. These students spoke Spanish, and form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Blog 19- Review and methods...a little snippet
Some review of the literature…..
In compiling research for this paper, the following written material was used for research,
“Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking backgrounds.” By Ken Cruishank & Sandra Newell
Overview,
The learning process for students learning the English language is roughly similar to that of American students, however-the language acquisition process tends to make written English more of a challenge. The needs of English language learners are somewhat different than those native speaking students. The literature supports the concept that educators teaching those students are in need of different training standards. Students who are learning English are not “special needs’ students, but they require other types of education to make learning and comprehending English more effective.
“Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures”
Peters and Davis
Overview,
This article is actually a concise list of what is required for non-native speakers to understand English lectures given for learning. This is not limited to tutors, but this assists in determining the methods necessary for successful student comprehension of spoken material.
“A Writing Center Without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning.” Roadacker and Siebler
Overview,
The primary focus of this journal is examining where second language learning are taught; however, it contains written content on teaching older English language learners the basic elements of spoken and written English for specific purposes, which can be applied to Writing Center tutoring. English language use in Writing Centers is highly specified content. The verbiage used is always concentrated on academic discipline subject content the student is writing about.
“The ESL Experience in the Writing Center”
Feuerbacher, Hagen, Kim, Sweets and Yeom
Overview
The focus of this article is assessing and fulfilling the required needs of students in the writing center and what that experience means for tutors. It explores everything from academic levels, cultural differences, student perceptions, language and non verbal behavior, and student comprehension levels.
As ESL students require flexibility and patience in writing centers, it is an excellent guide for expected situations as writing tutors or coaches.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. Most of these students spoke Spanish and a form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I looked to see if the students understood assignment content, requirements and language. Of course this depends on academic levels, 2 out of 5 students fully understood the language and content of the assignment.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
There was a single session that did not require additional time and instruction. While this student was not a native speaker, the proficiency level of that particular student was higher than that of other students. This student understood the assignment, the content and word order. He simply lacked organization in his written material. I noticed student had an accent, but he seemed to a very clear understanding of the English language. This tells me that the requirements of non-native speaking students greatly depends on English language proficiency. Most of the students were freshman and sophomores, but I think if the language skill is there…the focus need only be on the assignment and the writing.
In compiling research for this paper, the following written material was used for research,
“Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking backgrounds.” By Ken Cruishank & Sandra Newell
Overview,
The learning process for students learning the English language is roughly similar to that of American students, however-the language acquisition process tends to make written English more of a challenge. The needs of English language learners are somewhat different than those native speaking students. The literature supports the concept that educators teaching those students are in need of different training standards. Students who are learning English are not “special needs’ students, but they require other types of education to make learning and comprehending English more effective.
“Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures”
Peters and Davis
Overview,
This article is actually a concise list of what is required for non-native speakers to understand English lectures given for learning. This is not limited to tutors, but this assists in determining the methods necessary for successful student comprehension of spoken material.
“A Writing Center Without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning.” Roadacker and Siebler
Overview,
The primary focus of this journal is examining where second language learning are taught; however, it contains written content on teaching older English language learners the basic elements of spoken and written English for specific purposes, which can be applied to Writing Center tutoring. English language use in Writing Centers is highly specified content. The verbiage used is always concentrated on academic discipline subject content the student is writing about.
“The ESL Experience in the Writing Center”
Feuerbacher, Hagen, Kim, Sweets and Yeom
Overview
The focus of this article is assessing and fulfilling the required needs of students in the writing center and what that experience means for tutors. It explores everything from academic levels, cultural differences, student perceptions, language and non verbal behavior, and student comprehension levels.
As ESL students require flexibility and patience in writing centers, it is an excellent guide for expected situations as writing tutors or coaches.
Methods
While collecting data for this research paper, I observed five students at various stages of secondary language acquisition. Most of these students spoke Spanish and a form of African *.
I wanted to analyze the shift in methods used by tutors when assisting nns students.
Then to take the study a step further, I wanted to analyze the tutoring sessions to ascertain each tutor’s effectiveness with students that lack adequate English language skills for academic writing.
As the tutors proceed to read line by line, there seems to come a point where the tutor experiences a form of “frustration” or a feeling being slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of going thoroughly dissecting each aspect of the student’s paper.
Students who were not strong English speakers required a lot of repetition throughout their sessions. They were not readily able to understand what was said in English by non-bilingual tutors.
I looked to see if the students understood assignment content, requirements and language. Of course this depends on academic levels, 2 out of 5 students fully understood the language and content of the assignment.
I took notice of students seemingly getting overwhelmed with the intense requirements of ESL students. Without realizing exactly what was going on, I noticed the tutors were required to explain things in detail a lot more than native speaking students-which of course made the word order correction process very lengthy. Each tutoring session I observed which involved a student who lacked English language proficiency went beyond the allotted one hour time limit.
There was a single session that did not require additional time and instruction. While this student was not a native speaker, the proficiency level of that particular student was higher than that of other students. This student understood the assignment, the content and word order. He simply lacked organization in his written material. I noticed student had an accent, but he seemed to a very clear understanding of the English language. This tells me that the requirements of non-native speaking students greatly depends on English language proficiency. Most of the students were freshman and sophomores, but I think if the language skill is there…the focus need only be on the assignment and the writing.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Blog 17 Research Plan
Topic: ESL students and writing centers
Main Research questions: Should tutors of students with language differences receive specialized training? ...or ...Is overall effectiveness of tutoring sessions decreased by language differences?...more specific to students learning ESL
Sub questions include:
What are the needs of WC students who are NNS?
What methods are used by tutors to increase effectiveness of sessions?
Do language differences affect the outcome of tutoring sessions?
How can session efficacy be measured?
Are tutors of ESL students more likely to switch between NL and NNL For greater understanding? If so, why?
Do writing tutors for students with language differences need specialized training; or is the overall effectiveness of sessions dependent on tutor ability?
Data collected-Observations
Sample size-5
5 sessions were observed where an NS tutored a non-native speaker. In my observations, I noticed there appears to be a different level of engagement by tutor and student. This is usually initiated by the tutor as they generally complete a line by line dissection of the paper-assessing and evaluating material while looking for accurate use of vocabulary and ensuring articulation of intended concepts.
During this process, I thought it was important to gauge the needs of second language students and weigh the implications against those of a writing center.
The chosen goal of each tutor is to create better writers; however, that target cannot be reached without measuring what those needs are, then see if those needs can be provided for.
Written data collected-
Thus far, all collected data indicates the needs of second language learners in Writing Centers differ from native speaking students by way of tutoring approaches and terminology.
Language used for tutoring and how that language is conveyed can make sessions more or less effective. For instance, when assisting NNS students in the writing center or in an academic setting, slower speech and emphasis is generally required for greater understanding of writing content. Also because values differ greatly, jokes and slang may not be used during the sessions as this can potentially confuse students.
Additional research data to be collected:
More information on specialized training for WC tutors assisting students with language differences
Should tutoring be a prerequisite for TESOL graduate or certification program students
More to follow.....
Main Research questions: Should tutors of students with language differences receive specialized training? ...or ...Is overall effectiveness of tutoring sessions decreased by language differences?...more specific to students learning ESL
Sub questions include:
What are the needs of WC students who are NNS?
What methods are used by tutors to increase effectiveness of sessions?
Do language differences affect the outcome of tutoring sessions?
How can session efficacy be measured?
Are tutors of ESL students more likely to switch between NL and NNL For greater understanding? If so, why?
Do writing tutors for students with language differences need specialized training; or is the overall effectiveness of sessions dependent on tutor ability?
Data collected-Observations
Sample size-5
5 sessions were observed where an NS tutored a non-native speaker. In my observations, I noticed there appears to be a different level of engagement by tutor and student. This is usually initiated by the tutor as they generally complete a line by line dissection of the paper-assessing and evaluating material while looking for accurate use of vocabulary and ensuring articulation of intended concepts.
During this process, I thought it was important to gauge the needs of second language students and weigh the implications against those of a writing center.
The chosen goal of each tutor is to create better writers; however, that target cannot be reached without measuring what those needs are, then see if those needs can be provided for.
Written data collected-
Thus far, all collected data indicates the needs of second language learners in Writing Centers differ from native speaking students by way of tutoring approaches and terminology.
Language used for tutoring and how that language is conveyed can make sessions more or less effective. For instance, when assisting NNS students in the writing center or in an academic setting, slower speech and emphasis is generally required for greater understanding of writing content. Also because values differ greatly, jokes and slang may not be used during the sessions as this can potentially confuse students.
Additional research data to be collected:
More information on specialized training for WC tutors assisting students with language differences
Should tutoring be a prerequisite for TESOL graduate or certification program students
More to follow.....
Monday, November 16, 2009
Blog # 17
The purpose of my research is to differentiate the shifts in tutoring styles between non-bilingual vs. bilingual tutors.
The dynamics I will focus on are:
The shift between NL and NNL by the tutor
The vocabulary issues faced by NNS
The shift of approaches used by each tutor in the sessions
The overall effectiveness of each session based on the methods used (i.e. directive approach, collaborative approach, minimalist approach, editor /client, teacher/student)
My research question is
Do language differences make tutoring sessions any less effective?
Data Collection
My observations thus far have illustrated the directive approach is the effective when working with NNS.
Some of the students have had major vocabulary issues in terms of word order and comprehension.
Students who are NNS require a much more intense focus on LOC and vocabulary than
NS.
Tutoring session 11/14/09
In this session, I had to shift between the collaborative approach and the directive approach. As we worked on paraphrasing, the best approach was collaborative. I had to get the student’s buy in because the words needed to be hers. With this student, I think the best approach is to give her ideas and let her articulate her own thoughts. She likes to take complete ownership of the written material.
During the part of the session where we were worked on the essay, I used the teacher/student approach.
The student still had development issues with the paper as she knew what needed to changed and what data needed to be gathered, however; she did not complete the research to add more information to the essay. I old her to make an outline of the data she wanted to use, and to create a list of all of her ideas. As she worked through her notes, she would come up with an outline and a clear list of points she needed to collaborate on to make the work a successful piece of written material.
Some sources include:
"Success with ELLs" by S. Adams
" The ESL experience in the Writing Center" by Hagen, Kim, Sweets, and Yeom.
" A Writing Center without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning" By Kodacker and Seibler
" Meeting English language needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model non-English speaking background students" by Cruikshank, Newell and Cole
" Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures" By Peters and Davis
The dynamics I will focus on are:
The shift between NL and NNL by the tutor
The vocabulary issues faced by NNS
The shift of approaches used by each tutor in the sessions
The overall effectiveness of each session based on the methods used (i.e. directive approach, collaborative approach, minimalist approach, editor /client, teacher/student)
My research question is
Do language differences make tutoring sessions any less effective?
Data Collection
My observations thus far have illustrated the directive approach is the effective when working with NNS.
Some of the students have had major vocabulary issues in terms of word order and comprehension.
Students who are NNS require a much more intense focus on LOC and vocabulary than
NS.
Tutoring session 11/14/09
In this session, I had to shift between the collaborative approach and the directive approach. As we worked on paraphrasing, the best approach was collaborative. I had to get the student’s buy in because the words needed to be hers. With this student, I think the best approach is to give her ideas and let her articulate her own thoughts. She likes to take complete ownership of the written material.
During the part of the session where we were worked on the essay, I used the teacher/student approach.
The student still had development issues with the paper as she knew what needed to changed and what data needed to be gathered, however; she did not complete the research to add more information to the essay. I old her to make an outline of the data she wanted to use, and to create a list of all of her ideas. As she worked through her notes, she would come up with an outline and a clear list of points she needed to collaborate on to make the work a successful piece of written material.
Some sources include:
"Success with ELLs" by S. Adams
" The ESL experience in the Writing Center" by Hagen, Kim, Sweets, and Yeom.
" A Writing Center without Walls: Community Gardens as a site for Teaching English Language Learning" By Kodacker and Seibler
" Meeting English language needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model non-English speaking background students" by Cruikshank, Newell and Cole
" Help Non-Native English Speakers Understand Your Lectures" By Peters and Davis
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Blog#16.....
Something I am really focused on in my observations is how language differences affect students in the writing center, and how the tutors can effectively fill that gap.
Since research is still being conducted on writing center methods for L2 students, I thought it made more sense to merge both of my previous ideas to create a more effective paper. Now I can not only focus on methods, but I can also focus on the difference between what ESL students learn to communicate in English (language functionality), and what is necessary to successfully write in an academic setting....
The data I will continue to collect will be tutor methods used for NNS, linguistic ideas and terms, and how students generally translate the spoken language learned in ESL courses to written material.
To be continued.......
Since research is still being conducted on writing center methods for L2 students, I thought it made more sense to merge both of my previous ideas to create a more effective paper. Now I can not only focus on methods, but I can also focus on the difference between what ESL students learn to communicate in English (language functionality), and what is necessary to successfully write in an academic setting....
The data I will continue to collect will be tutor methods used for NNS, linguistic ideas and terms, and how students generally translate the spoken language learned in ESL courses to written material.
To be continued.......
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Blog #15-Notes Continued......
In the last class, we discussed getting more focused on L2 tutees and the most effective tutoring methods for them. We also discussed finding more suitable sources for a research paper that would focus on tutoring students with language differences.
In my last observation, the student seemed very confident in her wrtten ideas, but she wasn't sure of alittle of the vocabulary.
She felt the need to read line by line and ensure not only the written material made sense, but also was cohesive.
The tutee seemed a little nervous initally, but that was vey quickly overcome as she seemed very focused on completing the task of thoroughly dissecting her paper looking for errors. She seemed to have an extensive vocabulary and a total understanding of the native English speaker. From my perspective, that particular session was no less effective than a session with a bilingual tutor.
This session differed slightly from the traditional ESL based session in that it wasn't competely a directive approach. This session actually seemed more like peer tutoring; there were two people collaborating to make a paper more effective.
Lastly, I read the Writing Center and Second Language Writers by Jessica Williams and Carol Servino. Some of my concerns were confirmed by this article, the same approached cannot be used on non native speakers as those used on native speakers; there unfortunately is not a great deal of research on the difference in learning and writing center approaches for NS vs NNS and whether or not the two are equally effective.
Something I found interesting was the discussion of specific curriculm for those students who face strong language differences in the writing centers to make tutoring sessions more efficient
In my last observation, the student seemed very confident in her wrtten ideas, but she wasn't sure of alittle of the vocabulary.
She felt the need to read line by line and ensure not only the written material made sense, but also was cohesive.
The tutee seemed a little nervous initally, but that was vey quickly overcome as she seemed very focused on completing the task of thoroughly dissecting her paper looking for errors. She seemed to have an extensive vocabulary and a total understanding of the native English speaker. From my perspective, that particular session was no less effective than a session with a bilingual tutor.
This session differed slightly from the traditional ESL based session in that it wasn't competely a directive approach. This session actually seemed more like peer tutoring; there were two people collaborating to make a paper more effective.
Lastly, I read the Writing Center and Second Language Writers by Jessica Williams and Carol Servino. Some of my concerns were confirmed by this article, the same approached cannot be used on non native speakers as those used on native speakers; there unfortunately is not a great deal of research on the difference in learning and writing center approaches for NS vs NNS and whether or not the two are equally effective.
Something I found interesting was the discussion of specific curriculm for those students who face strong language differences in the writing centers to make tutoring sessions more efficient
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Blog 14
A tentative focus for me is the implications of students with language barriers on writing centers.
One possible thesis question is-Are bilingual tutors more effective than non bilingual tutors?
Some things I will look for are the connection between non bilingual students with non native English speakers.
Overall effectiveness of each session, and if the language disparity has any effect at all on students.
I will also observe the strategies used by tutors to ensure the goal of the session is reached. From what I've observed thus far-the students seem to visit the writing center after their papers have been written, and they need to revise them. There was one observation however that was based on the actual assignment before the completed product was submitted for grading. That was the bilingual student. In that case the directive approach was used very effectively. I think
when students with language barriers are involved, the directive approach most frequently used as extra authoritative instruction is required.
More to follow...........
One possible thesis question is-Are bilingual tutors more effective than non bilingual tutors?
Some things I will look for are the connection between non bilingual students with non native English speakers.
Overall effectiveness of each session, and if the language disparity has any effect at all on students.
I will also observe the strategies used by tutors to ensure the goal of the session is reached. From what I've observed thus far-the students seem to visit the writing center after their papers have been written, and they need to revise them. There was one observation however that was based on the actual assignment before the completed product was submitted for grading. That was the bilingual student. In that case the directive approach was used very effectively. I think
when students with language barriers are involved, the directive approach most frequently used as extra authoritative instruction is required.
More to follow...........
Monday, November 2, 2009
Blog# 12 Observations and notes
Several things I've observed are tutoring strategies, the need of the student, and body language.
The Students
In my first observation, the student had a language barrier and the directive approached was used. There were vocabulary issues, where the student could not effectively communicate in English.
In my next solo observation, the student was not clear on the focus. In each paragraph, the student had issues tying in the key concepts from each paragraph to the actual thesis of the paper. The paper was written already, but she needed support to articulate her ideas on paper. The student was visibly uneasy initially, then as the session progressed-she clearly became more comfortable.
The Tutors
The tutor in my initial session was very comfortable using the directive approach. It was as if there was a commonality between the student and the writer which helped them both progress.
The tutor in this case helped the student find the right vocabulary, as well as punctuation and grammar.
In my next observation, the tutor was insecure at the beginning of the session, but she became much more comfortable as the session progressed. She used the teacher/student relationship model to draw the information out of the student. The student also read back data for the tutor to elaborate on, then give her opinion as they went along.
The tutor here also had the student read her paper, paragraph by paragraph, then the tutor asked her if she actually communicated the proper ideas. Most the time the student said no, then they went about collaborating and rephrasing.
Some things I though about focusing on for my paper:
Language barriers in the writing center
Tutoring across all disciplines
Tutoring students with language barriers in subjects other than English.
Most of my interest lies on students with language barriers, but I still haven't narrowed it down.
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/260
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/255
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/24
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/91
The Students
In my first observation, the student had a language barrier and the directive approached was used. There were vocabulary issues, where the student could not effectively communicate in English.
In my next solo observation, the student was not clear on the focus. In each paragraph, the student had issues tying in the key concepts from each paragraph to the actual thesis of the paper. The paper was written already, but she needed support to articulate her ideas on paper. The student was visibly uneasy initially, then as the session progressed-she clearly became more comfortable.
The Tutors
The tutor in my initial session was very comfortable using the directive approach. It was as if there was a commonality between the student and the writer which helped them both progress.
The tutor in this case helped the student find the right vocabulary, as well as punctuation and grammar.
In my next observation, the tutor was insecure at the beginning of the session, but she became much more comfortable as the session progressed. She used the teacher/student relationship model to draw the information out of the student. The student also read back data for the tutor to elaborate on, then give her opinion as they went along.
The tutor here also had the student read her paper, paragraph by paragraph, then the tutor asked her if she actually communicated the proper ideas. Most the time the student said no, then they went about collaborating and rephrasing.
Some things I though about focusing on for my paper:
Language barriers in the writing center
Tutoring across all disciplines
Tutoring students with language barriers in subjects other than English.
Most of my interest lies on students with language barriers, but I still haven't narrowed it down.
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/260
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/255
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/24
http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/91
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Blog #11 Coaching strategy
I think the best coaching strategy I can use is getting to know you talk; making the writer feel comfortable without losing control of the session, and then getting them to talk about the assignment.
Even though the writer may not fully understand what is requested of them, it sometimes helps the when the writer is able to fully articulate the subject matter.
We will go over the assignment and then apply the subject matter to the required assignment, and we start from there.
There are other strategies I like, such as "One sentence summaries" and "Nutshelling and teaching."
Nutshelling and teaching is very similar to something I've been doing in the practice sessions-making the writer articulate the subject matter, but it takes it one step further. It actually forces the writer to think about the organization of the paper; major and supporting data -OUT LOUD. Then it forces the writer to give their opinion on what they're doing once the roles are reversed.
After that we talk about it some more...that creates a really good support system for the writer, it creates the feeling that the writer is not stuck by themselves.
I am very open minded about the strategies I will use because they will change depending on the situation. The same strategy is guaranteed not to work for every student.
Even though the writer may not fully understand what is requested of them, it sometimes helps the when the writer is able to fully articulate the subject matter.
We will go over the assignment and then apply the subject matter to the required assignment, and we start from there.
There are other strategies I like, such as "One sentence summaries" and "Nutshelling and teaching."
Nutshelling and teaching is very similar to something I've been doing in the practice sessions-making the writer articulate the subject matter, but it takes it one step further. It actually forces the writer to think about the organization of the paper; major and supporting data -OUT LOUD. Then it forces the writer to give their opinion on what they're doing once the roles are reversed.
After that we talk about it some more...that creates a really good support system for the writer, it creates the feeling that the writer is not stuck by themselves.
I am very open minded about the strategies I will use because they will change depending on the situation. The same strategy is guaranteed not to work for every student.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Blog #10 I want to work on......
Hmmmm.... I still haven't narrowed down my focus....but I'm leaning towards tutoring across disciplines as a start.
I've visited a few of the sites posted on the bottom of the class website, but I have yet narrow it down.
I like the idea of students from many different academic disciplines tutoring in writing, but I need to brainstorm or research a little more before I come up with something solid.
I've visited a few of the sites posted on the bottom of the class website, but I have yet narrow it down.
I like the idea of students from many different academic disciplines tutoring in writing, but I need to brainstorm or research a little more before I come up with something solid.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Blog #8 Check List
Things I need to work on as a tutor:
NOT BEING NERVOUS!!!!!
Really listening to what the student is trying to say
Make sure I ask about the assignment and really get some background info to work with...
Try to make the student comfortable
Things to make note of while I'm tutoring:
Body language
Whether or not student knows the assignment or where to start before and/or after I explain it if necessary
Is the student focused?
Does the student want to write the paper, or are they really looking for answers -someone to write the paper for them.
What strategy works best for each student, take notice of student cues and change strategy if necessary
NOT BEING NERVOUS!!!!!
Really listening to what the student is trying to say
Make sure I ask about the assignment and really get some background info to work with...
Try to make the student comfortable
Things to make note of while I'm tutoring:
Body language
Whether or not student knows the assignment or where to start before and/or after I explain it if necessary
Is the student focused?
Does the student want to write the paper, or are they really looking for answers -someone to write the paper for them.
What strategy works best for each student, take notice of student cues and change strategy if necessary
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Blog #7Note taking
I will refer to my sessions as a note taker as "silent sessions."
During my silent session I noticed both the tutor and the student were engaged in the practice. They both leaned in to review the written material and they both participated in the conversation. Although it was a tutoring session, it was more like an exchange of dialogue than a tutor-student relationship.
I noticed tutor had thorough knowledge and understanding of not only the assignment, but the written material as well. This allowed the tutor the ability to point out different focal points to the student. This action clearly helps the student locate key concepts and will help create a focus for the response essay.
The best strategy I saw the tutor use was in getting the student started. The student had a lot of details in her head at the time, but she wasn't sure exactly how to begin because of the way the original material was organized. It created problems in determining a focus; however, the tutor was quickly able to assist by going through the material with the student and holding what I call "comforting conversation" to draw out ideas on what she thought the author was trying to say in his writing.
Some things I notice about taking the notes:
I need a system, there was talking going on...so I had to abbreviate a great of words and commit detail to memory. That tells me I need some type of shorthand or code words.
My writing was sloppy, so that I will attribute to not having a system in place to handle the speed at which I was required to write the notes.
I had the urge to talk, yes it was hard to remain silent and just observe without actually saying "Try this....or maybe you should do it this way"
practice listening skills
I like absorbing two differing perspectives on tutoring and being tutored. You actually get to pick up pointers as if you were being tutored, and its a valuable coaching opportunity for when you actually tutor someone else. Its just like being a "fly on the wall." It takes you out of the picture while you get an objective view of everything taking place during the session.
During my silent session I noticed both the tutor and the student were engaged in the practice. They both leaned in to review the written material and they both participated in the conversation. Although it was a tutoring session, it was more like an exchange of dialogue than a tutor-student relationship.
I noticed tutor had thorough knowledge and understanding of not only the assignment, but the written material as well. This allowed the tutor the ability to point out different focal points to the student. This action clearly helps the student locate key concepts and will help create a focus for the response essay.
The best strategy I saw the tutor use was in getting the student started. The student had a lot of details in her head at the time, but she wasn't sure exactly how to begin because of the way the original material was organized. It created problems in determining a focus; however, the tutor was quickly able to assist by going through the material with the student and holding what I call "comforting conversation" to draw out ideas on what she thought the author was trying to say in his writing.
Some things I notice about taking the notes:
I need a system, there was talking going on...so I had to abbreviate a great of words and commit detail to memory. That tells me I need some type of shorthand or code words.
My writing was sloppy, so that I will attribute to not having a system in place to handle the speed at which I was required to write the notes.
I had the urge to talk, yes it was hard to remain silent and just observe without actually saying "Try this....or maybe you should do it this way"
practice listening skills
I like absorbing two differing perspectives on tutoring and being tutored. You actually get to pick up pointers as if you were being tutored, and its a valuable coaching opportunity for when you actually tutor someone else. Its just like being a "fly on the wall." It takes you out of the picture while you get an objective view of everything taking place during the session.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Blog 6 WC Philosophy
During the last class, we talked over North and the belief system on which writing centers should be based....Here is what I think:
Writing centers are "Welcome Centers." These are not only for the students, but also for the teachers, professors and the staff.
Why not have a writing center where people can enter for all kinds of help? This allows development on all levels. Involvement can be on an assignment level, or for more complex writings.
It is a place of comfort, but it also a place which we expect to elicit positive results. Therefore it is for the use of everyone; for the benefit of everyone.
In the spirit of collaborative learning, I would say the writing center work with all levels of staff and students. That would mean the WC staff and teaching staff would work together, without undermining any one person's expertise.
With this comes a hierarchy of control. It begins with the Director, Assistant Director and staff. People must have a certain amount of training in specific areas in order to accomplish this task. Of course we will have peer tutors for the students, but available, must be at least 1 member of the staff who is proficient in the more challenging writing tasks.
Writing centers are "Welcome Centers." These are not only for the students, but also for the teachers, professors and the staff.
Why not have a writing center where people can enter for all kinds of help? This allows development on all levels. Involvement can be on an assignment level, or for more complex writings.
It is a place of comfort, but it also a place which we expect to elicit positive results. Therefore it is for the use of everyone; for the benefit of everyone.
In the spirit of collaborative learning, I would say the writing center work with all levels of staff and students. That would mean the WC staff and teaching staff would work together, without undermining any one person's expertise.
With this comes a hierarchy of control. It begins with the Director, Assistant Director and staff. People must have a certain amount of training in specific areas in order to accomplish this task. Of course we will have peer tutors for the students, but available, must be at least 1 member of the staff who is proficient in the more challenging writing tasks.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Blog #5 Tutoring Session
During my tutoring session, I learned I had a major formatting issue. When I printed the paper out it just looked like a giant box. I didn't see it initially, then during the second session it was pointed out!!!! I thought I was insane for not spotting it before, but once I compared it to the original document I saw a major difference. I learned in order to revise my paper, I needed re-shuffle, and further connect some of my ideas to my focus.
As a tutor, I learned that tutors need to know the requested assignment and how to use different methods to draw the ideas out of the student.
Tutors cannot be afraid to ask questions of the student, or point out flaws in the student's work.
In both sessions, we read each other's paper to get a starting point. We then questioned each other to see if we felt the writing touched the intended points. We discussed the tone of each other's writing and following assignment instructions.
One part of tutoring I still need to get acquainted and comfortable with is being in the "teacher" role. I'm really not accustomed to providing academic instruction-so I tend to absorb a great deal from the sessions.
As a tutor, I learned that tutors need to know the requested assignment and how to use different methods to draw the ideas out of the student.
Tutors cannot be afraid to ask questions of the student, or point out flaws in the student's work.
In both sessions, we read each other's paper to get a starting point. We then questioned each other to see if we felt the writing touched the intended points. We discussed the tone of each other's writing and following assignment instructions.
One part of tutoring I still need to get acquainted and comfortable with is being in the "teacher" role. I'm really not accustomed to providing academic instruction-so I tend to absorb a great deal from the sessions.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Blog #4 Tutoring Experience
In my mock tutoring session, I learned some key aspects of tutoring-
a. Know the assignment!! Obviously, if you don't really know or understand what is being asked of you; how in the world are you going to provide it?!?
b. Ask the right questions!!!
If you don't ask the right questions, you won't get the right answers!
c. Try to draw out the student's focus piece during conversation. If the student and the tutor are somewhat comfortable, more information will present itself. Sometimes student's may not know how to organize their thoughts without "hearing" it out loud.
Notice the above points are not categorized by which party was tutoring and which was being tutored...guess what..... each person can learn the above regardless of where they sit!
In terms of who did the most talking during the sessions, I think while I was the tutor, the talking was pretty much equal. However, when we switched sessions-the tutor did the majority of the talking as she led me down the right path. While she did a great deal of talking, she also asked the right questions to draw out details of necessary points to be made during our session.
Either way, I learned whether you are a tutor or a student, the learning process doesn't end because you are in a position to help someone reach their academic goals.
In fact, the writing center is much more effective if the tutor and the student benefit from each session.
a. Know the assignment!! Obviously, if you don't really know or understand what is being asked of you; how in the world are you going to provide it?!?
b. Ask the right questions!!!
If you don't ask the right questions, you won't get the right answers!
c. Try to draw out the student's focus piece during conversation. If the student and the tutor are somewhat comfortable, more information will present itself. Sometimes student's may not know how to organize their thoughts without "hearing" it out loud.
Notice the above points are not categorized by which party was tutoring and which was being tutored...guess what..... each person can learn the above regardless of where they sit!
In terms of who did the most talking during the sessions, I think while I was the tutor, the talking was pretty much equal. However, when we switched sessions-the tutor did the majority of the talking as she led me down the right path. While she did a great deal of talking, she also asked the right questions to draw out details of necessary points to be made during our session.
Either way, I learned whether you are a tutor or a student, the learning process doesn't end because you are in a position to help someone reach their academic goals.
In fact, the writing center is much more effective if the tutor and the student benefit from each session.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Blog #3 WL
Writing Lab
Welcome students!!!! My name is Kay Gordon and I will work with you this semester. First, I would like to extend a warm welcome and say this is OUR lab. I want to embrace the student body so we can be comfortable and get to work.
I like to consider us "colleagues," so feel free to address your concerns and fears as well as expectations of the staff.
As we embark on this endeavor, I think we should set up baselines for effective sessions in the WL:
1) We are here if you must write a formal assignment, or if you need assistance with your writing in general. We do not discriminate!
2) If you do not have a thesis for an assignment, do not hesitate to ask for help. That is why we are here.
3) We can assist you in finding the right source types for your paper, if you are lost-you only need to ask. We will guide you in the right direction
4) Tutors are here to assist you in getting started; articulating your data; organizing your data, and guiding you toward resources. We cannot write your paper for you so please don't ask.
5) If you have an unpleasant experience here, please do not hesitate to reach out to the lab manager T. Cromwell for assistance. While this center is built on exchanging ideas to learn and draw information, our leaders are available to ensure operations run as smoothly as possible.
FINALLY, please respect that we must all share this space for collaborating and keep any noise to a minimum
Welcome students!!!! My name is Kay Gordon and I will work with you this semester. First, I would like to extend a warm welcome and say this is OUR lab. I want to embrace the student body so we can be comfortable and get to work.
I like to consider us "colleagues," so feel free to address your concerns and fears as well as expectations of the staff.
As we embark on this endeavor, I think we should set up baselines for effective sessions in the WL:
1) We are here if you must write a formal assignment, or if you need assistance with your writing in general. We do not discriminate!
2) If you do not have a thesis for an assignment, do not hesitate to ask for help. That is why we are here.
3) We can assist you in finding the right source types for your paper, if you are lost-you only need to ask. We will guide you in the right direction
4) Tutors are here to assist you in getting started; articulating your data; organizing your data, and guiding you toward resources. We cannot write your paper for you so please don't ask.
5) If you have an unpleasant experience here, please do not hesitate to reach out to the lab manager T. Cromwell for assistance. While this center is built on exchanging ideas to learn and draw information, our leaders are available to ensure operations run as smoothly as possible.
FINALLY, please respect that we must all share this space for collaborating and keep any noise to a minimum
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Blog # 2 Lunsford and Collaboration
Lunsford felt passionately about the effects of collaborative work in writing centers. She spoke of Writing Centers becoming a place where students and tutors could work together to produce written work.
What she did not want was the writing centers becoming "classrooms", instead of a place that embraced each student's unique writing needs.
She argued collaboration breeds the following:
Aids in problem solving
Learning abstractions
Critical thinking
Transfer of knowledge
Greater achievement
The writing center should be a meeting of the minds and various levels (tutor and student, tutors and leaders). Simultaneously, leaders should ensure the respective efforts. She made a point to say control, power and authority would basically be shared by those who utilize the center.
I agree with the last sentence, simply put -if writing center policies are based on those who use it, tutor and those who manage it, it will evolve continuously to meet the needs of its students.
What she did not want was the writing centers becoming "classrooms", instead of a place that embraced each student's unique writing needs.
She argued collaboration breeds the following:
Aids in problem solving
Learning abstractions
Critical thinking
Transfer of knowledge
Greater achievement
The writing center should be a meeting of the minds and various levels (tutor and student, tutors and leaders). Simultaneously, leaders should ensure the respective efforts. She made a point to say control, power and authority would basically be shared by those who utilize the center.
I agree with the last sentence, simply put -if writing center policies are based on those who use it, tutor and those who manage it, it will evolve continuously to meet the needs of its students.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Blog #1 Writing Tutors*******
Writing centers provide a sense a comfort to those who feel lost in terms of written pieces. Whether its aid in writing an organized piece, or writing tutoring in general writing practices.
The principles I think I would see in a writing center are:
A) Empathy
B) Not being judgemental
C) Open door policy
D) Non-Assertiveness
E) Fair treatment as peers
The principles I think I would see in a writing center are:
A) Empathy
B) Not being judgemental
C) Open door policy
D) Non-Assertiveness
E) Fair treatment as peers
Monday, September 14, 2009
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