Tutor Training
While not all tutors refer to handbooks, such as the Allyn and Bacon guide, tutor
training in general is of interest. Powers‘ 1995 study of 75 writing centers across the US
looked specifically at how tutors were being trained and how they were additionally
being trained to adjust their tutoring for their NNES student clients. Of these writing
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centers, only 8 had staff members with any ESL experience. ―In-house training‖ was the
method used by most writing centers to improve tutoring for the NNES student writers,
but even so, 14 centers had no ESL or L2 writing training. In an open-ended question on
the survey, most centers revealed that they felt the training they did provide for tutors was
minimal. Solutions to this issue, as provided by the writing centers on the last question of
the survey, included: more workshops and training in ESL; more knowledge on the part
of the university faculty in the area of ESL writing; administrative funding for more
training for tutors; improved student attendance.
Few studies were found which evaluate tutor training as it applies to the success
of sessions. Peer tutoring in general was looked at by Topping (1996) and he found that
the style of tutoring was more influential and that the experience or background of the
tutor was merely one of many characteristics that led to success in tutoring.
Nevertheless, the training and experience of the tutor is an element of the success of a
tutoring session.
Aspects of the non-directive approach in tutoring.
The approach typically used by tutors in university writing centers is a Non-
Directive Approach. According to Blau and Hall (2002), leading tutor-training handbooks
for university writing centers consistently advise a Non-Directive approach. This
approach includes: collaborative tutoring in which tutor and student work together as if
they are peers; avoidance of proofreading; and putting High Order Concerns (HOCs) over
Low Order Concerns (LOCs) during the tutoring session. HOCs include working on the
organization, development and focus of the essay while LOCs include focusing on
grammar and mechanics. These suggestions in the handbooks are made regardless of who
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the tutor is working with. Though handbooks often briefly recognize differences between
NES and NNES, the advice for tutoring practices remains the same. Indeed, Blau and
Hall quote the Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring as including the following as
―myths‖ of tutoring: ―I need to clean up the grammar in NNES writers‘ papers before we
can get to higher-order concerns and I‘ll need to be a much more directive tutor with
NNES writers‖ (p. 24). These suggestions seem to go against NNES student perceived
needs, which will be discussed later