In “Linguistic Support for Non-Native English Speakers: Higher Education Practices in the US,” Andrade, Evans, and Hartshorn (2014) identify a lack of English language support for multilingual students as a significant concern in many institutions. In some cases, “students are left to ‘sink or swim’” (p. 219). In many institutions, support is available through workshops and clinics, writing centers, and academic resources centers, but students must take the initiative to access this support and hope that it provides the particular kind of assistance they need. Further, at busy times during the semester, demand for peer tutor appointments may exceed availability, meaning that students may not be able to access support even if they want to. Regular one-on-one meetings with the same tutor provides much-needed support as well as a variety of ancillary benefits, including connection and conversation with an upper class student. In response to these factors, and in an effort to provide an opportunity for sustained conversation about language, the Academic English Seminar I Lab was created.

Design

Despite what its name suggests, the Lab is not a physical space, but rather a concept of students meeting individually with a lab assistant to discuss the language in a piece of writing. Lab assistants are selected following an application process and receive credit for their work with students and for enrolling in a for-credit Subject Tutor Training course. The goal each fall is to pair every student in Academic English Seminar I, a four-skills course for first-year multilingual students, with a lab assistant for weekly 30–40 minute sessions. Enrollment in the class determines the number of lab assistants needed to achieve the one-on-one goal, and the number of lab assistants available determines the number of tutoring hours each week. To encourage attendance and accountability, the lab counts for a small part of students’ final course grade.

In addition to the Subject Tutor Training course, lab assistants also participate in four additional training sessions devoted specifically to working with multilingual students on the sentence-level language in their writing. Students read chapters from ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors (Bruce & Rafoth, 2009) and practice working with students on their writing with the goal of making them more independent.

Assessment

Most students find the lab useful. In a 5-point Likert scale end-of-semester survey in 2017, 86% of respondents rated the usefulness of the lab as a four or five, five being most useful. When asked to rate their agreement with the statement, “My Lab Assistant provided valuable help with my sentence-level English grammar and word choice,” all respondents selected four or five. Results have been similar in past years, with a majority of students rating the lab useful or very useful. Indeed, many students express a desire for a longer lab session. In the comments on the 2017 survey, one respondent said, “Please increase the time to one hour.” Another student commented, “Although the lab was short for meeting, it was really helpful to discuss detailed surface errors with strategies and deeper understanding.” Another student remarked, “Having a lab every week was helpful and just motivated me to do my work.” Lab assistants also report finding the work valuable and rewarding.

Challenges

Though successful in terms of student surveys, the lab, like any peer tutoring program, requires significant labor to implement each year. In addition, there are a number of challenges involved in hiring and training lab assistants as well as overseeing the running of the lab.

First, it can be difficult to find interested, qualified students to apply for the lab assistant position. Unlike Writing Center tutors, lab assistants are not paid. Instead, as described previously, they enroll in a tutor training course and receive academic credit for their work. Most tutor for 3 hours a week. If they do not need credit and are already busy with various other commitments, as most students are, it can be difficult for them to commit to the responsibility of tutoring each week. On a few occasions, students have committed to tutoring and enrolled in the course only to drop out once the schedule has been made because of concerns about being overcommitted. These situations have necessitated a change from weekly one-on-one meetings to a required minimum number of sessions that students must attend during the course of the semester.

Like any tutoring program, the lab also requires a significant amount of time to hire, train, and schedule the lab assistants and then manage and oversee the lab itself throughout the semester. Are students attending their sessions? Are lab assistants completing a lab record form for each session? Are students and lab assistants following the guidelines for the lab and working only on assignments for the academic English course? Are lab assistants referring students to the Writing Center and/or the instructor for additional assistance? These issues are especially important given that students will be graded on their participation in the Lab.

Conclusions

Writing fellows and course-embedded tutoring programs provide important student support in writing across the curriculum programs, but they require sustainable funding. By folding a one-on-one peer-tutoring program for first-year international students into the institution’s subject tutor program, it has been possible to sustain this additional support for multilingual students and maintain consistency in tutor training.

References

Andrade, M. S., Evans, N. W., & Hartshorn, K. J. (2014). Linguistic support for non-native English speakers: Higher education practices in the United States. Journal of Students Affairs Research and Practice, 51(2), 207–221. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/jsarp-2014-0020.

Bruce, S., & Rafoth, B. A. (Eds). (2009). ESL writers: A guide for writing center tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Lynn Ishikawa is assistant professor of English and director of English for Academic Purposes at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, USA.