Internationalizing the Writing Center: A Guide for Developing a Multilingual Writing Center

Noreen Groover Lape Second Language Writing Series Edited by Paul Kei Matsuda Information and Pricing 978-1-64317-165-4 (paperback, $29.99) 978-1-64317-166-1 (hardcover, $60.00); 978-1-64317-167-8 (PDF, $19.99) © 2020 by Parlor Press, with illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. 288 pages. Bookstores: Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details. About This Book Internationalizing the Writing Center provides a rationale, pedagogical plan, and administrative method for developing a multilingual writing center. The book incorporates work from writing center studies as well as second language acquisition studies, including English as a second language; English as a foreign language; second language writing; and foreign language writing. Author Noreen Lape draws on ten years of experience directing a multilingual writing center that offers writing tutoring in eleven languages, and she incorporates the voices and insights of foreign language writing tutors and faculty from surveys, interviews, and tutoring session reports. Lape begins by exploring the dominance of English-medium writing centers in a globalized world and arguing for the expansion of English-centric into multilingual writing centers. She then considers how tutor training differs when the writing center is multilingual as opposed to monolingual, and the writing is second language and foreign language as well as “native” language. The chapters on tutor training explore issues such as holistic tutoring, composing in a foreign language, the role of translating in the writing process, creating a positive learning environment, and developing intercultural competence. In multiple appendices, Lape shares original exercises that writing center administrators can use to train foreign language writing tutors. The book ends with a discussion of strategies for engaging faculty and administrators as stakeholders, and collaborating with those stakeholders to create a sustainable center. What People Are Saying “This must-read book offers writing center administrators a roadmap for how and why they should expand services to include native speakers of other languages and those studying and writing in other languages. Though developing programs for all these writers might seem daunting, Lape details what is needed in terms of offering a rationale, theoretical underpinning, plan for development, and resources and strategies for training multilingual tutors. In an internationalized world, Lape invites us to acknowledge that it’s time to internationalize writing centers.”—Muriel Harris “Reading Noreen Lape’s book, you will realize what an innovative, interdisciplinary pedagogical and research space the Multilingual Writing Center can be. No other college writing center tutors writing in over ten languages and produces scholarship demonstrating the need and techniques for integrating higher order and linguistic concerns into writing tutorials.”—Carol Severino About the Author Noreen Lape is Associate Provost of Academic Affairs and Director of the Writing Program/Norman M. Eberly Multilingual Writing Center at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Her work in the field of writing studies has appeared in journals such as Writing Lab Newsletter, Composition Forum, WAC Journal, and Praxis: A Writing Center Journal. "Going Global, Becoming Translingual: The Development of a Multilingual Writing Center,” which first appeared in the Writing Lab Newsletter, was chosen for inclusion in The Best of the Independent Rhetoric & Composition Journals 2014. Contents Preface | Introduction | 1 Multilingual Writing Centers in Context | 2 Holistic Tutoring Practices: Toggling Between the Parts and the Whole | 3 Holistic Tutoring Practices: Creating a Supportive Learning Environment | 4 Helping Writers Understand Writing Culture Shock and Develop Intercultural Competence | 5 Working with Stakeholders to Develop and Administer a Multilingual Writing Center | 6 Developing an MWC with Foreign Language Faculty | Appendix A: The Arc of a Tutoring Session | Appendix B: Directive and Nondirective Tutoring Techniques | Appendix C: Tutoring for Language Acquisition | Appendix D: Google Translate Exercise | Appendix E: Creating a Positive Learning Environment by Sharing Second Language Learning Experiences | Appendix F: Practicing Intercultural Competence in a Writing Center Session | Appendix G: What Would You Do? Holistic Tutoring Scenarios | Appendix H: Holly and Leila: A Problem-Based Learning Exercise | Appendix I: One-Day Tutor Training Agenda and Monthly Staff Training Schedule | Notes | Works Cited | About the Author | Index