Linguistic Diversity as Resource:
English Language Learners in a University Writing Center
Elizabeth Carroll
University Writing Center, Appachian State University, 218 College Street, Boone, North Carolina, 28608, USA
Keywords: English Language Learners, Multilingual writers, L2 Writers, International Students, Writing Centers,
Linguistic Diversity.
Abstract: In US colleges and universities, a growing number of English language learners (ELL) are using university
writing centers for assistance. However, despite the increase in linguistic diversity among students, writing
centers have been slow to respond to the needs of ELL students, approaching their language differences as
problems to fix rather than resources for learning. Through an institutional case study, this paper describes
how a writing center in a mid-sized, public university in the US has increased its support for ELL students
and linguistic diversity through changes in staffing, staff education, and outreach.
1 INTRODUCTION
In the United States, and around the world, the
number of English Language Learners (ELL) in
institutions of higher education is growing.
According to a recent joint report from the Institute
of International Education and the U.S. Department
of State (“IIE Releases Open Doors 2017 Data,”
2017), there were 85% more international students
studying at U.S. colleges and universities than were
reported a decade ago. Last year 1,078,822
international students were enrolled at U.S. colleges
and universities, and this number is expected to
grow exponentially in the coming years, not only in
U.S. but also worldwide (Council, 2012).
In institutions of higher education, this increase
in linguistic and cultural diversity is seen as
important for students and communities. Diversity is
valued so highly that it is often articulated as an
institutional goal, with targets set for increasing
diversity and measuring an institution’s progress
toward recruiting and retaining diverse students and
faculties. Driving this move toward greater
diversity is the belief that the presence of a more
diverse group of scholars enhances the educational
experience of all students and better prepares them
for participation in an increasingly multicultural,
multilingual, and global society.
Despite this emphasis on the importance of
diversity in the academy, however, out-dated
literacy policies and educational philosophies often
work against linguistic and cultural diversity in
higher education. This out-dated model of ELL
literacies relies on the assumption that linguistic
differences should be treated as deficiencies. In this
deficiency model, monolingual and Standard
English assumptions underpin institutional policies
and pedagogical approaches to literacy learning,
assumptions that work against valuing the linguistic
diversity ELL students (and others) bring to the
academy. In this way, linguistic diversity is seen by
many as a problem to be fixed rather than a resource
to be used in the service of learning.
In support of diversity, a growing body of
scholarship (Canagarajah, 2006) calls for institutions
to reject policies and practices that perpetuate the
deficiency model. Despite these research-based
arguments in favour of diversity, though, institutions
continue to operate using the deficiency model,
often because this research has not transformed
practice.
This article describes how one university writing
center changed policies and practices to support ELL
students by engaging difference as a resource for
education. Investigating Appalachian State
University’s Writing Center as an institutional case
study, this paper describes changes made to support
ELL students and to leverage diversity as a teaching
and learning resource. Programmatic and curricular
changes were made in writng center staffing, staff
education, and outreach using current research on
280
Carroll, E.
Linguistic Diversity as Resource: English Language Learners in a University Writing Center.
DOI: 10.5220/0008216900002284
In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 280-286
ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9
Copyright
c
2022 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
diversity and ELL. These changes were aimed at
improving instruction for ELL students and raising
awareness of linguistic diversity as a resource to be
cultivated and supported. This paper concludes with
specific actions writing center professionals can take
to assist ELL students’ writing and to support
linguistic diversity on our campuses.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 History
Writing centers have existed in higher education for
over a century, but most writing centers were started
in the past forty years in response to an influx of first
generation U.S. college students, many of whom
were considered underprepared for the demands of
college-level writing (EdD, 2009). Individualized
support through one-to-one tutoring was seen as the
best method for helping these underprepared writers
succeed.
While writing centers may have started to help
developmental English writers (assumed to be
monolingual), they have also been used heavily by
ELL students, who recognize the valuable
opportunities writing centers provide to practice the
conventions of academic English and to have
conversations in English about writing. Despite the
presence of ELL students, writing centers in some
areas of the US are still often assumed to be sites for
monolingual, English (only) speaking students. This
is not because writing center professionals intend to
ignore the needs of ELL writers; rather, it is because
of a lack preparation for TESOL and a monolingual
bias in the academic culture. In the U.S., most
writing center professionals are educated in English
departments and rhetoric and composition programs.
While these programs prepare to teachers and tutors
of writing, they often assume a monolingual
(English-only) speaking group of learners, and,
based on this assumption, they fail to provide
specific training in TESOL. With few exceptions,
TESOL programs are located in foreign language
departments, separated from English writing
instruction administratively and in the curriculum.
This bifurcation of TESOL and writing instruction
means that most writing center professionals lack
adequate training in working with ELL students.
2.2 Linguistic Diversity And Writing
Centers: Two Models
As sites dedicated to writing support in English,
writing centers are well-positioned to accommodate
the needs of ELL students. Through one-to-one
conferences with writing consultants, ELL students
benefit in several important ways through writing
center visits: 1) they have conversations about the
conventions and genres of academic English in the
context of their own writing projects; 2) they learn
about the cultural and linguistic differences between
their home countries and the U.S.; and 3) they
practice English in a natural context through
conversations with peer tutors (Rafoth, 2015).
In our work with ELL students, writing center
professionals can employ practices that are based on
assumptions from ither the deficiency model or the
resource model of difference. In a deficiency model,
writing centers function as sites for eradicating
language differences, where students come to erase
linguistic differences that mark them as non-native
English speakers. Alternatively, writing centers
using a resource model operate as sites where
linguistic differences are recognized as resources for
learning and communicating. This model
emphasizes collaboration between consultants and
writers that supports students’ voices, languages,
and ideas at the same time that students are learning
the discourses of academic English. The resource
model is based on a negotiation between consultants
and students, and this negotiation empowers ELL
students to make choices for themselves about
whether and how to present or erase linguistic or
cultural differences in their writing.
Unfortunately, though, because of monolingual
assumptions and a lack of education and training in a
resource model, writing centers often operate from
the deficiency model. Some of our writing center
training manuals and scholarship sometimes even
reinforce this view of ELLs’ writing differences as
problems to be fixed. Transforming writing center
practices to a resource model requires a different set
of principles that assume diversity is central, not
marginal, to literacy learning. Putting these
principles into practice was the focus of one writing
center’s program development and the subject of the
study at the center of this paper.
Linguistic Diversity as Resource: English Language Learners in a University Writing Center
281
3 RESEARCH METHOD
The study described in this paper focused on support
for ELL students in a university writing center. To
investigate the topic, the researcher relied on a case
study method of research, in which one institution,
Appalachian State University, served as the case
subject and the site of inquiry. It was chosen for two
reasons, the first was the researcher’s in-depth local
knowledge of the institution; the second reason was
because Appalachian State represents a specific kind
of case as an institution that struggles with issues
deriving from its homogeneous population and
resulting lack of linguistic and cultural diversity on
campus. Support for diverse populations, in this
context, is especially important and yet often
difficult to achieve. Research on Appalachian State,
therefore, yields insights for other homogeneous
institutions struggling to serve and support the needs
of diverse populations, as each institution is a “local
manifestation of more general social relations”
(Grabill, 2001).
The case study offered here should be considered
a research strategy as well as a research method.
While Appalachian State is the subject of the
inquiry, the object of the inquiry is providing
answers to questions concerning the role of writing
centers in supporting linguistic and cultural
diversity. The study was conducted over one
academic year, 2016-2017, in which writing center
professionals at Appalachian State attempted to
change practices to reflect current research on
diversity. The case study here is used as a form of
institutional critique, “a rhetorical methodology for
change” (Monske and Blair, 2016). This type of
research engages the institution’s policies,
curriculum, and professional documents as data,
interpreting and revising these materials to promote
change. This rhetorical methodology offers a
critique of current practices and exposes
opportunities for change (Monske and Blair, 2016).
A recent trend in articles, conference papers, and
book manuscripts in writing center studies calls for
increasing support for diverse populations; some
focus on multilingual writers (Lin and Deluca, 2017;
Newman, 2017; Phillips, 2017; Schreiber and
College, 2017) some on cultural and racial diversity
(García, 2017; Monty, 2013) and others on
marginalized populations (Babcock and Daniels,
2017). These writing center scholars call for greater
attention to issues of diversity and inclusion,
embracing a resource model of difference and
emphasizing the need for institutional change. The
results of this study add new knowledge to the
scholarly conversation about supporting diversity by
offering recommendations for changes to writing
center staffing, curriculum, and pedagogical
resources.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Cultivating Diversity at Appalachian
State University
By any measure, Appalachian State University is not
a diverse institution: Of the 18, 295 students enrolled
at Appalachian State University in 2016-2017, only
16% self-reported as ethnically or racially diverse
(non-white), and only 186, or about 1% of the
student body, identified as international students. In
recent years, the university has made progress in
diversifying its students and faculty, but the
institution continues to be overwhelmingly white,
middle-class, and monolingual (Appalachian State
University, 2017).
Although international students comprise only
around 1% of the student body at Appalachian, they
make up over 12% of the appointments in the
University Writing Center. Last year, out of 4448
total writing center appointments, 563 identified as
L2 English speakers.
Table 1: ELL appointments in the University Writing
Center, 2016-2017.
Japanese
159
Spanish
119
Chinese
93
Other
62
Arabic
37
German
26
Korean
20
French
18
Farsi
12
Russian
8
Vietnamese
6
Portugese
3
In addition to making up 12% of all writing center
appointments, international students also tend to use
the writing center more frequently than their native
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English speaking peers. Over half of the students
who visit the writing center only make one
appointment per year. By contrast, over 75% of ELL
students made more than one appointment per year,
and some visited the writing center weekly or
biweekly, with a total of more than 20 visits during
the course of a year. Using frequency of visits as a
measure, ELL students are the best users of writing
center services, taking advantage of our assistance
during all stages of the writing process and for all
types of writing assignments.
Although ELL students frequently use the
writing center as clients, they rarely apply for
employment in the writing center. As a result, the
staff of the writing center, historically and currently,
has not been ethnically or linguistically diverse.
Where we have had some success with diversifying
is with academic rank and discipline. The writing
center is staffed by writing consultants at all
academic ranks, and from different academic
disciplines across the university. Of the 29
consultants currently employed by the writing
center, 14 are undergraduate students, 9 are graduate
students, 4 are composition faculty, and 2 are
professional consultants. About half of the
consultants have a background in English studies,
and the others come from different disciplines,
including business, communications, education,
psychology, anthropology, history, music, and
foreign languages. This disciplinary diversity is not
matched by linguistic and ethnic diversity: Only 3
consultants are multilingual, able to speak and write
fluently in a language other than English, and only 2
consultants are non-white. In other words,
consultants may be diverse in their disciplinary
identifications and levels of expertise, but
consultants are not (yet) very diverse in terms of
their ethnic, racial, or linguistic backgrounds.
4.2 Toward A (Diverse) Writing Culture
Changes to Appalachian’s writing curriculum have
begun to change the culture of writing on our
campus, and these changes point toward some
promising opportunities for cultivating a more
diverse writing culture at the institution. In 2009,
Appalachian revised its general education
requirements to include a vertical writing
component. Every student in the university, in every
major, now takes a dedicated writing course in each
year of their undergraduate study. The first two
courses are taught by writing faculty in the rhetoric
and composition program, and the junior and senior
level courses are taught by faculty in the disciplines.
As students move through the writing curriculum,
they are expected to transfer writing knowledge to
new academic genres and contexts, culminating in a
senior capstone course, which demonstrates
students’ readiness to participate successfully in
their chosen academic and professional discourse
communities.
Developed by Dr. Georgia Rhoades,
Appalachian’s Writing Across the Curriculum
Director, the general education writing curriculum
presents challenges to students and teachers. Two
programs on campus support students and teachers
as they confront these challenges: the University
Writing Center, which assists students with their
writing, and the Writing Across the Curriculum
program, which supports faculty teaching the writing
courses. Together, these programs support the
vertical writing curriculum by giving teachers,
consultants, and students the resources they need to
succeed in teaching and learning in the writing
courses. These resources aim to demystify academic
discourses for all students, including those whose
home language is not standard English.
Before the changes in the writing curriculum,
students took two writing courses, both in the
English department. At that time, the University
Writing Center was also located in the English
department and primarily served students in English
composition courses. The revised general education
curriculum moved writing into all disciplines in the
university, and, around the same time, the University
Writing Center moved out of the English department
building and into a new library in the center of
campus. Moving writing out of English and into the
university enabled students to see writing as a
multidisciplinary tool, not a resource only for
English. This move toward recognizing and
supporting disciplinary differences in writing began
a culture change on our campus. This culture shift,
which has centered on engaging disciplinary
diversity in writing, promises also to point the way
toward greater recognition and support for linguistic
and cultural diversity as well.
Moving writing administratively and
physically out of the English department and into the
university library sent the message that writing is not
owned by any other single discipline. Moreover,
and of central importance for ELL students, as the
leaving the English department sent the message that
writing in the university isn’t owned by English.
This separation of English from writing opens new
possibilities of valuing and supporting linguistic and
cultural differences, much along with the
disciplinary differences in writing we now accept as
Linguistic Diversity as Resource: English Language Learners in a University Writing Center
283
part of general education. As a result of the writing
center’s move, writing center staff diversified in
terms of disciplinarity and in terms of academic rank
and levels of experience. The writing center staff
grew to include non-English majors as well as
professional consultants with more experience than
the undergraduate peer consultants that had formed
the majority of our staff before the writing center
moved from the English department.
4.3 Writing Center Staff Education
Cultivating a tutoring approach that engages
difference as a resource requires a revision to
consultant education and professional development.
As mentioned in the section on history, writing
center professionals often—and at all ranks, from
undergraduates to directors--lack a background in
TESOL. This lack of TESOL training, combined
with the monolingual assumptions guiding literacy
learning in the U.S., leaves writing center
practitioners unprepared for using linguistic
difference as a resource. This means that even those
who are teaching and mentoring new writing
consultants often fail to adequately prepare them to
work with ELL students. Even writing center
training manuals often treat differences as additives,
as though stereotyping writers into separate
categories--ELL writers, writers with disabilities,
developmental writers, etc—means that there is a
standard, monolingual writer who is typical, and
everyone else who is “different” must be treated to
address or remove the difference.
In a model of staff education that focuses on
treating difference as a resource, Blazer (2015) calls
for cultivating a “transformative ethos” in consultant
education. Her curricular model approaches
diversity and inclusivity as both ideals and resources
in teaching and learning. She offers examples of
regular reading, writing about, and discussion of
texts that engage with differences as resources. She
also asks consultants to develop materials and
resources for their work with students. Through
careful attention to connecting theories and practices
that support diversity, her model of staff education
challenges consultants to engage with linguistic and
cultural differences instead of avoiding or
eliminating them.
Adapting Blazer’s call for re-imagining writing
center staff education, we are placing diversity and
inclusion at the center of consultant training and
professional development at Appalachian. One
example of an excellent text that engages new
consultants and challenges them to re-think their
assumptions about academic English is Writing
Across Borders (“Writing Across Borders | Writing
Center | Oregon State University,” 2005), a short
video made by faculty at Oregon State University
that features international students talking about
their experiences with academic English in the U.S.
compared to writing in their native languages. After
watching the video, we discuss the issues raised in
the video, and students write about how they might
transform their tutoring practices based on some of
the ideas presented in the video. In reflective essays
at the end of their first semester as consultants, they
often report that the video opened their eyes to
cultural differences in writing that they were
unaware of before.
In addition to reading (or watching) challenging
texts, which are then discussed and written about,
our staff education curriculum, like Blazer’s model,
asks consultants to develop materials and resources
to support their work of tutoring. In the past few
years, our staff has developed some excellent
resources that support all writers, especially those
for whom academic English is a new discourse.
Led by writing consultant Dennis Bohr (“WAC
Glossary of Terms | Writing Across the Curriculum |
Appalachian State University,” 2015), our writing
center staff has produced a series of short
handouts—WAGS (Writing About Guidelines)—
that describe conventions and genres of writing in
various disciplines in the university. These handouts
are available in print format in the writing center for
consultants to use in their tutoring sessions. The
WAGS are also located on the writing center’s
website, which can be accessed by students,
consultants, and teachers to use in their teaching and
learning about disciplinary conventions. These
materials focus on demystifying academic writing,
and are helpful to all students, especially those
unfamiliar with conventions of academic writing in
the U.S.
Another WAC initiative that supports all
students, which is helpful to ELL students in
particular, is the development of the WAC Glossary
of Terms (“WAC Glossary of Terms | Writing
Across the Curriculum | Appalachian State
University,” 2015). This glossary, which is located
on the Writing Across the Curriculum website,
offers pages of writing-related terms, defined and
explained for students. This glossary of key terms
includes words used in discussing writing (revision,
invention, rhetoric). Establishing a common
vocabulary for talking about writing is one way
Appalachian has developed a culture of writing on
our campus. Learning English terms for discussing
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writing holds particular value for ELL students,
whose English and writing knowledge is expanded
through learning vocabulary for thinking through
and discussing issues related to their academic
writing process.
In addition to supporting and mentoring
consultants in their work with ELL students, these
resources also give students language to express
themselves in conversations with consultants about
their challenges with writing. Developing materials
not only helps student writers, but it also assists
consultants in thinking through ways to discuss
differences and challenges writers bring to writing
center sessions.
4.4 Diversity Recruitment And Outreach
Tutoring methods and materials that support
diversity and inclusion form the basis of how writing
centers can use difference as a resource for learning.
This focus on tutoring is the most important
transformation we can make to support ELL writers.
Beyond the tutoring, however, we still need to find
ways to expand the ethnic and linguistic diversity of
the writing center staff. Given the lack of diversity
in the overall population at Appalachian, it is not
surprising that the writing center staff reflects that
lack of diversity. However, this homogeneity makes
it more, not less, important for us to lead efforts in
supporting diversity when and where we can.
Supporting diversity and inclusion in a writing
center means viewing diversity as central, not
marginal, to literacy learning. Although we have
more work to do, we have made some changes to
direct efforts toward diversifying our staff and
supporting diversity in our work with students.
These efforts include: 1) updating the writing
center’s mission statement and strategic plan to
emphasize the central importance of diversity; 2)
increasing outreach to students through a consistent
writing center presence at orientations and diversity-
related events on campus; 3) diversifying staff
through targeted recruiting of international students
and students of color; and 4) transforming consultant
education and professional development to focus on
pedagogical approaches that support teaching and
learning using diversity as a resource. These efforts
are meant to signal a genuine commitment to ELL
students and anyone else who might see themselves
as outsiders in the institution, marked by linguistic
or cultural differences.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Linguistic and cultural differences present
challenges for international students as they learn
conventions of academic English. As sites of
individualized writing instruction, and peer
collaboration, writing centers are ideal sites for
supporting ELL students in learning academic
discourses.
The linguistic and cultural diversity international
students bring to US universities enriches the
educational experience for all students. Creating a
culture of writing and a common language about
writing enables conversation and transfer of
knowledge across discursive boundaries, which
helps all writers, especially those who are new to the
cultures, genres, and conventions of U.S. academic
English. Over time, these changes in staffing,
education, and outreach have the potential to change
academic culture by challenging deficiency-based
assumptions about linguistic differences and
replacing those assumptions with policies and
philosophies that support diversity and inclusion.
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