Dissertation
Arabic Students’ Perspectives on Writing Center Use and the Impact of Tutoring on Their Writing
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005172
Abstract
How to effectively help learners of English as a second language (ESL) at writing centers in the United States is still a topic of discussion. North (2014) and Rafoth (2015) call for paying closer attention to the needs of multilingual writers when tutoring them by addressing both their higher-order and lower-order issues in writing. The writing center doctrine that is commonly followed in writing centers is to help tutees with writing as a process, not a product by focusing mainly on addressing writing higher-order issues (North, 1984). The help provided to them in writing tutorials also derives mainly from tutoring experts’ lore, and tutoring experience without enough empirical evidence to rely on (Cheatle, 2017). In this dissertation, I address this gap by sharing the results of a qualitative case study that aims to examine ESL Arabic students’ perspectives regarding the writing center’s assistance and to evaluate the currently used tutoring strategies to address their writing issues. Six Arabic students had tutoring sessions with five writing tutors. Each tutor had a minimum of two tutoring sessions with students over two months. I held semi-structured interviews with tutors and tutees as well as stimulated recall interviews with tutees only. These interviews were coded to identify the features of the students’ strengths and weaknesses in writing, and their expectations and perceptions in terms of tutoring. The students’ drafts were also coded to identify their writing issues. The tutoring strategies that tutors used to address the students’ writing issues were identified. The results showed that students were satisfied with the help provided to them in writing centers with some exceptions. The characteristics of Arabic students’ writing and needs are common among other populations of international and domestic students. Arabic students had higher and lower-order issues in their writing. For example, paper organization is the most common issue for all students. The tutors provided some effective tutoring strategies: instructional, cognitive, and motivational. The strategies could be implemented by writing teachers during student-teacher conferences with ESL students.
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Details
- Title
- Arabic Students’ Perspectives on Writing Center Use and the Impact of Tutoring on Their Writing
- Creators
- Nouf Alqahtani
- Contributors
- Nancy NB Bell (Advisor)Wendy WO Olson (Advisor)Ashley Boyd (Committee Member) - Washington State University, English, Department of
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 171
- Identifiers
- 99901019634301842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation