International tutors make a difference.

Balester, Valerie

In her 2008 keynote address to the International Writing Centers Association, Nancy Grimm suggested that writing centers actively seek out international, multilingual tutors in order to prepare our students (and our monolingual tutors) for the multilingual world of the 21st century. At the University Writing Center at Texas A&M, we have employed international tutors (and a few native multilinguals) for many years. International tutors have been instrumental in helping us effectively address the concerns of non-English speaking international clients and learn about teaching English as a foreign language; and they have helped us fashion a diversity statement and think more critically about difference. In this essay, I briefly describe our international staff, explain some of the advantages they bring us, and provide evidence of their effectiveness.

THE TUTORS

For this article, I focus on non-native English-speaking graduate students, those who attended high school outside the United States, and their contributions to our center over the past nine years, that is, since our founding. Although we have employed international undergraduates who attended high school in this country and who are bilingual (from Canada, China, India, Russia, Nigeria, Mexico, Portugal), and although they have also contributed to our linguistic diversity initiative, the students I discuss here are distinct because of their cultural expectations in regards to schooling and literacy (Leki). They are more often perceived as different and are less likely to be employed as tutors or teachers of writing in American institutions of learning. I would include undergraduate tutors who went to high school in another country if in fact we had employed any; however, the only one to date attended school in English-speaking Canada. Only graduate-level internationals have applied for our tutoring positions.

We have employed sixteen graduate tutors from Serbia, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Korea, in fields of study that include construction management, communications, education, linguistics, medical journalism, and English. Up until two years ago we had an agreement with the English department to assign us students who wanted to work on their oral English skills before facing a composition class. Eight out of sixteen international hires came to us this way. We knew these tutors would have many opportunities to speak English in our center, and we allowed them to take as long as they needed before tutoring solo. Most were ready in a month or less. They worked with us for a year and left more prepared to teach and with more confidence in their speaking. Unfortunately, the practice has been temporarily halted because budget cuts have forced a reduction in teaching staff in the English department.

In addition to online and one-to-one sessions, all our international tutors conduct classroom workshops in undergraduate classes across campus, putting them front and center as experts on writing and public speaking. Public roles like these showcase their capability (and of course use their talents) and subvert the belief that English belongs to native speakers. Their presence as writing tutors and classroom workshop leaders sends the message to students and faculty that knowledge of writing and public speaking is not something one owns simply by virtue of citizenship, but rather earns by study. By involving our international tutors fully in everything we do, we convey to the university community and to our writing center staff that they are fully capable participants in all writing center work. Masha, for example, has been a tutor through both her M.A. and Ph.D. programs, for six years. She is an Assistant Director who takes many responsibilities, for example, teaching courses for the Honors Council on plagiarism, preparing our annual fall staff development day for new tutors, writing training materials, and assisting with the undergraduate tutor course. She, Anisah, and Marisa have served or are serving as team leaders, meaning they supervise and mentor six to seven other tutors. Dragana recently led our graduate tutoring seminar.

Besides serving as a team leader, Anisah has been an active writing assistant (our term for a course-linked tutor working with a writing-intensive class) for a senior-level poultry science class and a sophomore-level computer science class (both taught by an international professor, coincidently). All the consultants worked as receptionists when needed, and Marisa and Anisah worked as night supervisors. Tony, Masha, Dragana, Marisa, and Yonggi all attended and presented at writing center conferences.

WHAT INTERNATIONAL TUTORS OFFER

Besides offering what every good tutor does--dedication, talent, and knowledge about writing--international tutors contribute something more to the center: they bring a different perspective and serve as resources for knowledge about language.

* A different perspective. Because of their peer relationship and close contact with other tutors, international tutors change the tenor of our center; their accents, their life stories, their explanations of customs, holidays, or rituals, their questions about our culture, the food they offer at gatherings, all remind us that the world is not confined to the United States. Some of them bring a new view of schooling or literacy learning or a new way to approach academic genres. Sometimes they notice things others don't. At one staff meeting, Dragana protested when American tutors unwittingly made a joke about a demanding student portrayed as an international tutee. Her protest, which was sobering (and brave), encouraged critical dialogue and reflection about how we approach our tutoring and pushed our tutors to consider how they sometimes stereotype tutees. In another instance, Joori sparked questions from tutors who observed her using Korean in consultations; they thought this might be against our policy and that it might provide the tutee with less practice in English, an assumption that led to an opportunity to discuss how tutoring can be just as effective in another language for some situations.

* Resource for knowledge about language. As Williams and Severino point out, while American tutors may be good writers, they sometimes lack the metalanguage of grammar to explain what learners of English as a foreign language require. This feeling of not knowing enough, which often contributes to frustration for tutors working with international tutees, has been documented in the Writing Lab Newsletter (Crowley; Hiller; Willis). Having studied English as a foreign language (at least in most cases), our international tutors know grammar and often, too, know how to explain it. Some, especially those with a background in teaching English as a Foreign Language or English for Academic Purposes, have shared this knowledge in our center, either working peer-to-peer with other tutors, in staff meetings, or in tutor classes. As an added bonus, when tutor and tutee share proficiency in a language other than English, international tutors can create a bridge into academic English, an option not available to monolingual tutors.

Our tutors appreciate that international tutors can serve as a resource on language issues; for example, they indicated--in anonymous end-of-the-year evaluations--that they highly valued presentations at staff development meetings conducted by international tutors. Over the years, Gina and Tony presented one on working with international tutees; Yonggi and Anisah conducted one on teaching articles; and Dragana conducted one on teaching pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet. In that case, Dragana explained not only how and why we can teach pronunciation, but also why cultural conditioning makes it difficult for us to hear sounds that are not used in our native language. Gina's supervisor noted in her annual review that Gina used her presentation as an opportunity to collaborate with other tutors: "When Dr. Balester asked Gina to present on ESL, she accepted immediately and coordinated with other students to give everyone important information. She worked many hours to ensure the presentation was a success." The same evaluator also remarked on how Gina served as a resource: "Gina has provided tremendous ESL-related support at the Writing Center this semester. When tutors have issues with international students, they will often seek her advice." Our international student seminars, which tutors conduct weekly to provide cultural information on genres and writing (resumes, interviews, dissertations), were inspired by Gina and Masha, who created an international conversation course one semester based on discussing popular American television shows.

International tutors Gina and Tony were also influential in creating the current seminar, explaining why a basic grammar class was not needed. Dragana, Masha, and Anisah have all been active supporters of the seminar and have been helpful to the undergraduate moderators.

EFFECTIVENESS

Students visiting the Writing Center have seldom questioned the authority of international tutors, a fact that I attribute to their faith that the Writing Center views them as capable tutors. To be sure that my impressions were accurate, however, I reviewed yearly staff evaluations and the anonymous exit surveys completed by students to compare international tutors with American tutors. I examined the yearly evaluations for all sixteen international tutors and looked at all open-ended comments on exit surveys for international tutors who worked with us from 2008-2011, that is, 173 surveys for nine tutors. (Keep in mind that most students do not provide comments on the exit surveys.) From this perspective, the tutors, native and nonnative speakers of English, look very much the same, mostly highly positive. The examples below show a range of positive comments coming from both American and international tutees. Each is about a different international tutor:

   From a graduate student in industrial engineering: "I really should
   give credit to the person who helped me on this particular
   appointment. She was fascinating! She helped technically and
   brought with her material to show me (so she also did her research
   about what I asked!). In few words, I am highly thankful to her for
   putting order in my writing!"

   From an international graduate student in education: "She is very
   professional and friendly. Most importantly, she encouraged me to
   find out and correct the errors by myself and helped me to
   summarize my common problems."

   From a senior biology major: "I read my essay out loud while he
   listened and stopped after each paragraph. He had great
   contributions in both wording, ideas, and grammar. It was
   definitely one of my best experiences ... very kind and helpful ...
   whoever doesn't use this is just naive and or lazy."

   From a first year English major: "I needed help with my thesis
   statement and the consultant was able to help me form one that I
   could go back and revise if I need to."

There were negative comments (although they were not many). Very often they were the same sort of negative comment one gets for any tutor: not having specific expertise, such as in science writing; not paying enough attention to the session; not finding enough mistakes or finding too many; refusing to proofread-in short, the usual. More notable are those comments which seem to stem from the international status of the tutor. However, it is important to note that positive comments far outweigh these few negative comments. In fact, in the comments from 2008 to 2011 for all international tutors, the five listed below were the only comments of this nature. Two of them concerned one tutor:

   From a senior in sports management: "It was hard to understand his
   accent at times and I just feel that he didn't really help me very
   much. Except for answering a couple questions I had, the experience
   was a waste of my time."

   From an international graduate student in history: "She was so
   rude. English is not my mother language, and this is only my second
   semester in US. However, she talked like I am a fool because of my
   English. It was VERY UNPLEASANT experience. Also, I could not
   understand her weird pronunciation."

   From a junior in agricultural economics: "I could not clearly
   understand what the person was saying and [they] did not give me
   much feedback on the content of my paper, which is what I made the
   appointment for."

   From a junior in international studies: "she ... was unable to
   communicate how to improve my essay because she literally did not
   know how to put it into words. When I asked for a clarification she
   would drop the subject. This particular appointment I told her
   three separate times the reason for my appointment and the subject
   matter of my essay. "

   From a graduate international student in chemistry: "The person was
   an International and it was little bit hard to communicate.
   Furthermore, I strongly think that the consultant should be well
   versed in English to help students and that a native English
   speaker will be ideal."

While the last comment, from an international student who prefers to work with a native speaker, probably reflects the opinion of more than this one student, it does not appear to be the majority opinion by any means. And while it can be said that an occasional student takes issue with an international tutor's pronunciation, it is not the norm.

The exit surveys include Likert-scale questions. I compared the scores, and again they seemed similar for international and other tutors. In addition to reviewing the surveys in general, I looked specifically at one of the least experienced of the international tutors, one who was with us for only one year and who was mentioned twice in the negative comments. I isolated the scores on the item "I was satisfied with my consultation." Out of 73 responses, 4 strongly disagreed, 4 disagreed, 6 were neutral, 19 agreed, and 40 strongly agreed. For comparison, the scores for an American tutor who had 70 responses (and two years' experience) broke down as follows: 3 strongly disagreed, 3 disagreed, 3 were neutral, 25 agreed, and 36 strongly agreed. This strongly suggests that the international tutors on average perform as well as their American counterparts.

The inclusion of international tutors has always been one of our most effective practices and has pushed us toward the twenty-first century multilingual, multicultural writing center that Grimm envisions, one where "multilingualism rather than mono-lingualism" is the "conceptual norm" (17). With about 25 percent of our clientele being international, international tutors help us remember to focus on diversity and be sensitive to other cultures. They also inform our tutoring by providing us with language resources we would otherwise lack. However, they help us more broadly, as well, to recognize that, no matter our country of origin or our native language, when we tutor we serve as "mediators" (Grimm, 22) and "cultural informants" (Powers 373) for all students struggling to communicate across media, languages, audiences, and genres.

Postscript

One of our former international tutors, Gina, has started a writing center in Taiwan. The consultants are Taiwanese graduate students in Teaching English as a Second Language.

Works Cited

Crowley, Catherine. "Are We on the Same Page? ESL Student Perceptions on the Writing Center." Writing Lab Newsletter 25.9 (2001): 1-5. Print.

Grimm, Nancy. "New Conceptual Frameworks for Writing Center Work." Writing Center Journal 29.2 (2009): 11-27. Web. March 6, 2011.

Hiller, Joshua. "Misinterpretation vs. Misunderstanding: A Look at ESL Students." Writing Lab Newsletter 29.4 (2004): 10. Print.

Leki, Ilona. Understanding ESL Writers: A Guide for Teachers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1992. Print. Powers, Judith K. "Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer." Writing Center Journal 13.2 (1993): 39-47. Rpt. in The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice. Ed. Robert W,

Barnett and Jacob S. Blummer. NY: Longman, 2008. 368-75. Print.

Williams, Jessica, and Carol Severino. "The Writing Center and Second Language Writers." Journal of Second Language Writing 13.3 (2004): 165-72. Web. April 30, 2011.

Willis, Tracy. "Tutoring ESL Students and Overcoming Frustration." Writing Lab Newsletter 28.5-6 (2005): 8-10. Print.

* Valerie Balester

Texas A&M University

College Station, TX