Represent.

In "Looking at the Whole Text," by Jennifer Staben and Kathryn Nordhaus, they do their best at modeling an ideal ESL tutoring session with sections devoted to specific points a tutor must address in order for the session to have some positive results. Sections like these are all good I guess, but only as a vague example of something to follow if you're having trouble knowing where to begin, or how to handle, parts of the session. But the part of the section that I think they should have elaborated on more was, Talk Before Text.

The direction they hope students take their ESL sessions seems to be direct and focused on the assignment itself. They talk about finding ways to develop a repertoire between the tutor and the ESL student so that the student feels more confident in trying to convey their ideas as well as discuss linguistic choices they make with the tutor. But, the way to build this repetoire is not explored enough.

I recommend that a good starting point for a conversation with an ESL student is to begin a conversation with talk about where they're from and about their families and any other details that are universal. I'm genuinely interested in what other people outside of the United States think about the world and about where they're from. In this type of discussion I can also relate using my own context which helps build a bridge between the ESL student and myself. Once we realize we're not so different, accept for in how we speak English or how I speak Spanish or Japanese or German or etc., we can move on to more specific topics like the assignment at hand.

I don't want to act like a persons country of origin is the only important and only thing worth talking about, but at a base level, an introduction and conversation not revolving around the assignment could help them feel more of an equal to you and also help them open up when talking about the problem at hand. Conversations about their home country is a good way to get them thinking healthily and without hesitance.

Conversations aren't easy but they are an essential part of life. If people are afraid to talk to other people then they are depriving themselves of so much more they could learn about themselves and the world around them and for the purposes of tutoring, the conversation is a good way to get the session going. If they're afraid of you it probably won't work out so good, so care about the person, not just the paper.

In response to the two questions in class:

1. Like I mentioned in class, I value clarity over other cultural writing preferences because it is the easiest place to start from. Reading over somebody's paper in one sitting often has me asking immediate questions about clarity. About what the author meant by this or that, and that is a good jumping point in developing some solid piece of writing. When I write, I start off by trying to get the point across. After that, I make things fancier with descriptions and examples and I think I prefer these stylistic preferences because of journalism and famous writers who cross-applied their journalistic writing approach to their fiction, like Hemingway or Thompson.

2. If I notice a cultural difference in the way an ESL student is writing, or even an American student, I might ask them about why they chose to value one style over another. If they have thought it out and can justify why they choose examples over descriptions, than not only have I learned, but they've proven themselves as a competent writer. If the writing is unreadable even if they can justify it, I might try my best to explain how I don't like the way they've written it, and trade ideas back and forth until they at least see my point-of-view.

Plans

Although I've been fortunate enough not to have to tutor an ESL student yet, I find it interesting that of the three terms for trying to tutor an ESL student: Assimilation, Accomodation, and Seperatism, assimilation is the only one I have a hard time trying to justify.

Accomodation is the happy medium of the two, and probably the example we want to follow the closest by working with their preconceived notions about writing, and seperatism is a hands-off approach to try and maintain the cultural identity of the ESL student. But assimilation seems to be a leading cause of concern for tutoring any student, not just ESL. Assimilation can be seen in many other ways than just in the writing center, but essentially it forces traditions and linguistic norms on to a person without accomodating their own personal knowledge and style of writing.

I've had to deal with assimilation myself and drawing from personal experience, I didn't learn anything from it. If anything I just shot for average to complete the assignment. I wasn't invested and I was only concerned with my grade. If I thought that as an NES student, I can only imagine an ESL student will feel the same way, if not more, causing a rift in the goals and actual accomplishments of the tutoring sessions.

Assimilation to me is plan C. If nothing else is working and you have to do something, than settle for forcing some standard on the ESL student to help them see another example of a way to write.

Writer's Block

Motivation is key to a good tutoring session. I learned this from watching a tutor for our observation analysis closely. I think the problem with most of the text we've been reading in regards to a tutoring session is missing a huge part of the whole interaction; motivation. When I watched a tutor sit and go over a paper I saw many parts of the lessons we've been taught executed. However, the session wasn't as interpersonal as I think a session needs to be to really understand a persons point of view as well as emotions surrounding a writing assignment.

Encouragment can only go so far. But what a tutor really needs to know how to utilize is their motivation to help the paper. I'm not saying the tutor I watched last week wasn't motivated or was doing something I wouldn't have done. The session was good in so far as both parties were willing to do what they came to the room to do. The tutor even seemed to have a good time but the good time was seperate from the paper in the sense that the interaction between the two was what made it a good time, not the handling of the paper. Perhaps creating a good repetoire, or at least making the client laugh, is a good technique to help relax them with whatever writing assignment they are working on but it doesn't necessarily get to the issue.

Motivation is something hard to control. But, our job as tutors is not supposed to be a breeze. We have to learn how to control our motivation to help so that we can find the real problems our clients are faced with. If I am going to help someone with a paper, I need to attempt to understand all of the facets of the writers life revolving around the paper in order to get a foothold on where to start helping. Not every problem revolves around organization or grammar. Sometimes the hardest part of a writing assignment has to do writers block. If the client has nothing to say or doesn't even know where to begin, then the task of the tutor becomes harder but in a good way. Writing problems can be very complex, but the more complex the problem the more motivation both the tutor and the client have for the assignment.

My Name Means Business

In Elizabeth Boquet's, "Snapshots of Life in the Center," she touches on an important issue that I feel is being overlooked. When presenting the example of a tutor who refuses to fill out documentation on her tutoring sessions, "I never fill those sheets out. They take too much time. If the student wants a note sent to her professor, I'll send that, but other than that, I just don't worry about it," it led me to wonder about what affect filling out the forms has on the client as well as the consultant.

Imagine that you are new to the room and the school and you walk in to get help and someone hops up from a table, picks up a sheet of paper, and starts filling things out. This form of documentation takes away from the interpersonal dialogue that is so valuable to the tutoring session. The form reminds the student that they are still in school. They are still being watched and anything they do could be up for question and they haven't even said more than, "Hi, my name is __"

Boquet goes on to defend the use of written forms of documentation for tutoring sessions with claims that it helps protect the tutor, inform the professor, and serves as a document in case a particular session is up for question. While her defense is valid I still feel that the formality of the paper hurts the clients initial interpretation of the Writer's Room. If my goal is to receive credit for helping someone tutor than I should be an adamant supporter of the forms. But, we've been taught thus far to do more than just clock hours and take names. Is there a happy medium?

I'm not sure. We could only fill out a form if a student wants us to, or only fill them out if we literally feel something from the session, but feelings are subjective and where one person may feel moved the other may feel stationary. We could throw the forms out all-together and pretend we're just some social hang-out with an emphasis in helping people with papers. But that could seem to much like a click and could hurt the over all goal of the room. Kids tend to get side-tracked, you know? We could fill forms out for every session, but like I said before, the formality of the documentation could hurt the ability to develop a good interpersonal connection.

Perhaps the best option is to leave it alone and pretend like it won't hurt anyone's overall opinion of the room. But we want to do more than just be a room where people go to get help in writing. Maybe implementing a teacher to watch over the room, one proficient with English, could be enough to secure the validity of each session. Maybe just an observer who sits behind the desk at the entrance of the room and signs people in and out and records sessions for us is the best option. It's all speculation, but I'm not a big fan of saying "Hello," and then looking down at a formal document.