The IALLT Language Center Evaluation Toolkit: Context, Development, and Usage

In the summer of 2014, a committee composed of members of the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT) began discussions toward accomplishing the following charge: Design a tool that internal evaluation committees can use to evaluate and make recommendations for the improvement of their institution\u27s language center. We emphasize the fact that it is the university appointed evaluation committee that will use this evaluation toolkit, not the language center directors themselves (although the LC Director should have input on how the toolkit should be deployed). Such evaluation committees might be composed of language department Chairs, TA/Language coordinators, Dean or Assistant Deans. We need to keep in mind that those put in charge of evaluation language centers might not know much about language centers in general. (excerpt

Writing Centers and Disability: Enabling Writers Through an Inclusive Philosophy

In its Position Statement on Disability and Writing Centers, the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) recognizes and emphasizes the relationship between writing centers and disability and “encourages scholarship that explores the ways disability intersects with writing center work.” The IWCA further encourages writing centers to be inclusive to all writers by adopting “communication that takes into account various learning styles or ways of processing language.” We too, argue that writing centers should be welcoming environments for all writers and that they should engage with their writers as unique beings, making accessible to them the individuation of instruction and support. Writing centers should be spaces where the multiple barriers that students experience in their writing are addressed and a variety of options are provided.University Writing Cente

Does Language Determine Our Scientific Ideas?

SummaryThis paper argues that the influence of language on science, philosophy and other field is mediated by communicative practices. Where communications is more restrictive, established linguistic structures exercise a tighter control over innovations and scientifically motivated reforms of language. The viewpoint here centers on the thesis that argumentation is crucial in the understanding and evaluation of proposed reforms and that social practices which limit argumentation serve to erode scientific objectivity. Thus, a plea is made for a sociology of scientific belief designed to understand and insure social‐institutional conditions of the possibility of knowledge and its growth. A chief argument draws on work of Axelrod concerning the evolution of cooperation

Form, Function, and Relevance of Contemporary Language Resource Centers

This dissertation was conducted in order to better understand the interplay between form, function, and relevance regarding contemporary language resource centers (LRCs). Five language centers housed by four different institutions of higher education in the western region of the United States were examined. Two representatives from each of the five centers were interviewed either in-person or over the phone (N = 10). Data were collected in the form of semi-structured interviews, on-site visits, and research journal entries. The data were analyzed using a flexible combination of multi-level qualitative coding, descriptive statistics, and narrative analysis. This study confirms recent findings that have shown LRCs to be a highly diverse group of institutions, particularly with respect to form and function (Kronenberg, 2017). The study also builds on previous investigations of language centers as contemporary reincarnations of the former audiolingual-style language laboratories (Liddell & Garrett, 2004; Wang, 2006). With respect to relevance, a common framework for discussing different language resource centers is outlined in the form of three paradigms: center/department, center/institution, and center/community

Afterword: Narratives that Determine Writers and Social Justice Writing Center Work

Recently, I took over as my campus’ writing center director. I’ll be honest. I haven’t worked in a writing center since I was a graduate student at Oregon State (that was in the early 90s). I have a lot to learn. While I’ve helped assess and review the writing center at Fresno State and the one I’m currently directing, I haven’t read carefully in the literature for two decades. This summer has been one of rereading the literature on writing centers, and reading newer scholarship (to me). When I left writing centers and its scholarship in the early 90s, the discussions were about encouraging writers to take control of the consultation, to find ways to have them read and write on their drafts. It was about collaboration, agency-building, and student control. I remember working hard to find ways to be collaborators, not teachers, to have the writer read and mark on her draft. But we never talked about race or racism in writing center practices, never discussed the ways whiteness and whiteliness saturated writing centers and their practices. While in 2007 Geller, Eodice, Condon, Carroll, and Boquet identify the limited ways that writing center training texts address race and racism, the discussions I find in the literature today are ones that at least approach such concerns. These more recent discussions are ones about multilingual writers, diversity in writing centers, and the complexities around working alongside the growing numbers of international writers in U.S. colleges and universities. Many of these questions were initiated by Nancy Grimm in 1999, with other voices contributing important ideas, such as Victor Villanueva’s on the new racism, Paul Kei Matsuda’s on “the myth of linguistic homogeneity,” Vershawn Ashanti Young’s on “codemeshing,” Ben Rafoth’s on engaging with multilingual writers in writing centers, and of course, Greenfield and Rowan’s important 2011 collection, Writing Centers and the New Racism. But as Geller et al. discuss, there still is much work to be done around identifying white privilege and, I’ll add, white language privilege, in writing center practices.University Writing Cente

Dismantling Neutrality: Cultivating Antiracist Writing Center Ecologies

There is a temptation when working in writing centers, composition classrooms, and other language-focused sites for us to say that we want students to be stronger communicators, stronger writers, stronger speakers. Yet, in the writing center at least, this notion of “stronger” is often understood as adherence to the rules of “Standard American English” (SAE). There are other names for this so-called standard: the Language of Wider Communication (LWC), the dominant discourse, academic discourse, and so on. We who work in writing centers often convince ourselves that because we are focused on language, then we are free from bias, and that language and literacy are neutral skills. We want to help students, after all. We tell them that, yes, you’ve been writing for years now, but we can teach you to write better. Or, and somehow this seems worse to me, you have a home language, but that language is inadequate for your new setting. In this article, I explore the potential complications of running writing centers at minority serving institutions (MSI), with special attention to Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) and how thinking of writing centers as ecologies can provide keener insight into the real work of writing centers.University Writing Cente

Alternative Venues: An EFL Writing Center Outside the University

Recent years have seen an increasing presence of writing centers in diverse English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings, particularly in East Asia and in Europe (Bräuer; Chang). These new centers face familiar issues such as a lack of resources, the need to adapt pedagogy to the local context (Reichelt et. al.; Broekhoff), and ideological resistance to the idea of peer learning (Turner) or even providing support for writing at all (Bräuer). In some cases, these difficulties may force potential writing centers to seek a platform entirely outside of the university, bringing both challenges and new possibilities as the center adapts to a community setting and clientele (Rousculp). This article describes the founding of a writing center in Niš, Serbia, in an alternative venue - an American Embassy-funded resource center. This institution has offered significant advantages, including a central location and strong preexisting member base, but it has also shifted the writing center’s focus away from university students towards the diverse writing needs of the broader community. This article discusses how these factors have affected the writing center’s mission, the tutors’ training and experiences, and the development of local pedagogy and concludes with suggestions for other writing center administrators on working in such alternative spaces.University Writing Cente