By: Mai-Thu Pham

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Cultural and Academic Informant
By Mai-Thu Pham
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1. Is Culture Really at Issue? When Culture
   Affects Writings
2. Citation of Sources Acknowledge Individual
   Achievements
3. Hesitation for Questions Question to Obtain
   Information
4. Tutee Unrealistic Goals A Realistic Goal
5. Time to Edit? Tutors as Editors

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Is Culture Really at Issue?
Situation Tutor noticed tutee writes in a
particular pattern not familiar to English
writing system. Example An Ecuador student
presents an argumentative essay with lots of
background information rather than getting to the
point and says she learned how to show things
both she and the readers can agree on first
before starting her arguments.
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When Culture Affects Writings
From the first sign of an unfamiliar writing
style on a students paper, tutors should take
the time to ask if the student had been taught to
write that way. Try to ask a number of different
questions about why they chose to write in that
particular format and whether if it is something
they learned from their country. Then explain to
student the American way of writing, but be sure
to be patient because the American preferences
may seem as a whole new writing system that the
frustrated international student has to adapt. It
is important to go over this since the student
might find the new system as something that will
opposed to what he/she thinks is a good paper.
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Citation of Sources
Situation International students having trouble
with the American standard for citing
sources. Example A Chinese student putting
information in her paper from different sources
but did not quote them. She tells the tutor that
in China, citing sources is not necessary since
there are so many people and they all share the
sources.
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Acknowledge Individual Achievements
Some students have difficulties with citing
sources because they came from different
backgrounds and learning systems. Especially
international students who came from countries
where citing sources is not important. Tutors
should not be shy to address issues of plagiarism
to students. Both should talk about how to
paraphrase from original ideas and transforming
them into new ideas on students paper. If the
student wants to use the original idea, tutor
should explain the MLA format for citing sources.

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Hesitation for Questions
Situation Student feels reluctant to ask tutor
questions and to question tutor. Example A
Japanese student is unclear and uncertain about
what the tutor just said but is afraid to speak
up or question his tutor because he thinks that
is disrespectful according to his native country.
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Question to Obtain Information
To the international student, questioning a
semi-authority figure, a.k.a the tutor, might
seem inappropriate, whereas in America, it simply
means to obtain more information. Many of the
cultural differences exist between the students
and the American conventions. Tutors need to
acknowledge this kind of problem when they notice
the situation by observing what the tutees say
and do. In this case, tutors should encourage
tutees to ask more questions. Explain to the
tutees that it is not considered as disrespectful
in our culture and it will only help them to
learn more. This will help to improve tutor-tutee
relationship.
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Tutee Unrealistic Goals
Situation Tutee is unable to distinguish the
differences between a tutor and an
editor. Example An ESL student comes into the
Tutoring Center with the expectation of leaving
with a perfect paper and believes that the tutor
is suppose to correct grammatical errors on
paper.
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A Realistic Goal
Most students come into the Tutoring Center with
hopes of turning in a perfect paper after getting
help from their tutors. What might surprise them
is that the job of the tutor is to help the tutee
improve the paper and produce better writers,
not perfect ones. Tutor needs to be clear with
students on their roles, identify students
problems, and use different teaching methods to
reach the goal of improving students writing
together with tutee. Sharon Myers, an ESL
scholar, for example, recommends a flexible
approach in which tutors work back and forth
between global and local errors, noting that
there are connections between the two. Of course,
particular emphasis should be put on talking
about errors that affect meaning. It is also
productive to address errors that are patterns or
that students can learn from. What we need to
keep clear, however, is that our purpose is not
to scrub the paper so that it sounds like a
native speaker has written it. Small
sentence-level errors that constitute what Silva
terms as accent shouldnt take up much session
time (http//cwl.oregonstate.edu/wab/tutors.html
2)
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Time to Edit?
Situation Student want to submit a statement to
the graduate program he/she is applying for and
needs help to make paper sounds like a native
speaker wrote it. Example An international
student asking her tutor to edit her finished
paper so it can be perfect before turning it in.
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Tutors as Editors
Tutors should remember that editing for student
papers will not help improve the writers. The two
most pressured situations that tutors are put on
the spot as editors are 1) when a student is
working on a piece of writing that needs to be
very well written to submit to graduate schools
or journals and he/she had worked with another
writing assistance through writing issues. 2)
when the students instructor has an unrealistic
expectation for perfection from the paper. These
are the only times when tutors should do more
than just pointing out tutees weaknesses. They
can help student to express ideas clearly and
make sure the writing reads smoothly, but not to
address another issue into the piece.
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For more useful sources, please check out the
following http//cwl.oregonstate.edu/wab/
http//writing2.richmond.edu/training/project/in
dex.html http//coldfusion.louisville.edu/webs/a
-s/wcrp/wcjournal/search.cfm http//writingcenter
s.org/ http//writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.
htmlstructure Cultural Conflicts in the Writing
Center Expectations and Assumptions of ESL
Students by Muriel Harris
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