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from abstract: "in keeping with theory and practice of tutor training in inquiry-based pedagogy, ELL students and peer tutors vacillate between the linguistic dominant position, indicating that participants establish a collaborative and egalitarian environment. However, L1 tutors may experience dissonance because the agenda set by ELL students often focuses on surface features such as grammar and diction rather than on global revisions" (36).

crowdsouring a list of dictionaries

This study examined the perspectives of both tutors at university writing centers and the Non-Native English Speaking (NNES) students who use the centers. Using qualitative methods, this study looked at perceptions of the academic writing needs of the NNES students, along with characteristics of tutoring sessions which made the sessions successful in the eyes of tutors and students. The study used interviews, observations, a survey, and artifacts to look at these topics and then compared the perceptions of tutors and students. Additionally, the study compared writing centers at two universities, one of which employs an ESL specialist, in order to learn if employing this specialist affects success for the tutors and NNES students. Results indicate that student and tutor perceptions of student needs were similar in that they expressed consistent need for grammar assistance and help with low-order concerns (LOCs). Sessions at both universities were successful, according to tutors and students, if sessions focused on these grammar and LOC needs. Employing an ESL specialist did not affect the perceptions of students or tutors nor did it seem to effect the success of sessions for either students or tutors.

discussing pros, cons, and options

b discussion of a NNES student who visits the WC very frequently; discussion of limits on visits

see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=22726331

discussing appropriate terms to describe students whose first language is not English continues here: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24563554 continues here: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24564435

An extensive list of bibliographies on topics related to writing program administration

crowdsourcing a list of resources related to tutoring ESL students a discussion that focuses on grammar resources: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=16081123 see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24436378

discussing how to help students who want writing help but aren't working on a particular project (general skills)

"This page displays resources useful for bringing a multilingual and multicultural lens to WAC/WID practice, programming, and research."

ABSTRACT. This article investigates tutor dominance in academic writing tutorials within the framework of institutional discourse. Tutor gender and tutee gender and language proficiency, as well as the interaction of the three, are considered as exponents of interactant dominance. Pragmatic measures of tutor dominance selected are frequency of directives, directive type, and mitigation strategies. Analysis indicates that these features of tutors' speech remain relatively constant in interactions with male and female tutees or with native and nonnative speakers of English. These results suggest that institutional context outweighs gender and language proficiency in the definition of participant roles and the sanctioning of tutor dominance behaviors.

From ABSTRACT: "For teaching practices in the Writing Center, the findings raise questions about how writing center pedagogy can empower L2 writers on their language control when the writing consultants have the ultimate control in language and the L2 learners have the inherent uncertainty. While writing center work draws on the advantages of collaborative dialogues and effects better language control for ESL writers based on a sociocultural learning perspective, writing center pedagogy needs to continue reconsidering the needs and beliefs of ESL writers (Blau & Hall, 2002; Powers, 1993). The language issue in ESL writing is not a lower order concern in the writing, but more likely a primary concern for the writer. As also found in this study, when the broader contextual factors such as the focus of writing and writers' beliefs are taken into account, language knowledge and control are not just about linguistic correctness to ESL writer development. In striving to create better writers but not just better writing for any writers, it is crucial for writing centers to continue rethinking their staff training on the topic of language issues with their diverse multilingual clientele who speaks English as a second language."

From abstract: "This dissertation theorizes the writing center as bridge-as an institutional resource that supports second language graduate writers as they journey from outside the academy to the inside-including its strengths and limitations, both locally (for these writers at this writing center) and for the field more broadly. I offer the metaphor of the writing center as bridge, both as an alternate writing center identity and therefore as an alternate approach to tutoring, and as an approach that privileges the multiple subject positions that students hold as they use the writing center.  [...] Based on the literature, the experiences of these participants, and my own experiences as a tutor-turned-coordinator, I ultimately argue that nondirective tutoring is rooted in practice with native-English-speaking undergraduates and that this practice so dominates many writing centers' identities that it has left little room for other subject positions, including those of second language graduate writers."