ESL Students

“Cultural Conflicts in the Writing Center: Expectations and Assumptions of ESL students” ~ Muriel Harris

Muriel states, “ESL students tend to see a tutor as someone whose primary role is to answer questions and solve problems. ESL students often do not expect a tutor to ask them questions aimed at facilitating collaboration or returning the burden of problem solving to the students, and these conflicting expectations can impede learning.” When it comes to ESL students it very hard to use the facilitative approach because they find this as offensive and it may actually discourage them from using the writing center again. “Collaboration is viewed as empowering because it returns ownership of the piece writing and responsibility for learning to the writer. Tutors are there to guide, ask questions. As tutors we would be more helpful to them when we are more directive. This argument is also stated for Borderland students, I will elaborate further in my next blog. It contains similar arguments made for ESL students and it is my presentation piece.