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gcfales-blog · 9 years ago

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Navigating the L2

An exploration of my time as an L2 student, and my role as an ESL writing tutor within the writing center // reflection on IWCA 2016.

My first 24 hours in Spain were probably some of the most exhausting of my life, both physically and mentally. Physically, jet lag is a very real thing. A 7 hour time difference and almost a full day of travel with no sleep can definitely wipe you out. The city of Seville is also very walking-as-transportation centered. So my legs were tired and I was ready for bed. But mentally, my brain was working overtime, trying to think both in Spanish and English as I attempted to close the language barrier some.

I began taking Spanish classes in seventh grade and continued to do so all through college. I loved the language and was pretty decent at it, so I decided to minor in Spanish in college and continue my language education. While I still did well in Spanish classes, actually being in Spain was a whole new ballgame. Here’s what no one tells you about study abroad in a Spanish speaking country: no amount of classes can prepare you for being thrown into the real culture and language of a country.

My entire Spanish education until college was based on Spanish spoken in Mexico. So when I got to Seville, I was completely at a loss for how to use the vosotros form that’s so commonly used in Spain and I struggled to understand the fast paced and heavily accented language of the Sevillanos.

But trying to understand the Sevillanos was only half the battle- the few times I was able to tell what someone was asking me in that first day, I was too focused on understanding them to compose an answer in response. It was like everything I had ever learned about Spanish instantly was drained from my memory.

When speaking to my host family, I struggled to provide adequate conversation. While they were trying to get to know me, I was focused on giving a grammatically correct answer in the right verb tense with my limited vocabulary. So when they would ask what I learned in my class that day (I took a course called History and Culture of Spain while there) over dinner, I could only offer limited answers that barely skimmed the surface. (I was lucky enough to have a super kind host family who was patient with me, encouraged me, and tried to meet me halfway with their limited English).

And the worst part? This lasted almost the entire 3 week trip. At the end of each day I would flop into bed (after my 9:30 pm dinner) and feel incapable of thinking. I tried to journal before bed each night throughout my trip, but found myself unable to think of the words I wanted to use. My brain was exhausted and in this liminal space of trying to navigate between two languages.

When I was asked to write a 5 page research paper for the class I was taking abroad, I actually felt relieved because I could take my time figuring out the language and not be pressured to come up with content on the spot.

Traditionally, writing in Spanish has been a struggle for me. As someone who enjoys writing and typically excels at it (in English), trying to maintain my voice and style when writing in Spanish seemed almost impossible with my more limited vocabulary. I also tend to be a bit of a perfectionist- so knowing that I would have grammatical mistakes in my Spanish writing was both irritating and kind of embarrassing for me. I felt like I had a writing reputation to maintain and I didn’t want to ruin it.

But in this instance, I was happy for the opportunity to have a break from verbal communication, so I took comfort in writing. The slower pace took off some pressure and made the process less exhausting than everyday communication and conversation. It felt safer and almost relaxing.

As a writing center tutor, when I was writing this essay for my study abroad class, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have a tutorial in Spain. It would be the reverse of my typical writing center reality- I’d be the student instead of tutor, and the tutorial would have to take place in my L2 instead of my L1. That exhausting element of having a conversation in Spanish would be present again and take away some of what appealed to me about writing in Spanish.

My time in Spain ended 4 months ago, but just a few days ago I found myself exhausted again from traveling. This time, I was only a little jet lagged and sleepy as I attended the first day of the International Writing Center Association conference in Denver. I love attending these kinds of conferences because it helps to put writing center work into perspective- we are not just one center at one university, we are a part of a larger community/network of people who are all sharing in the struggles, joys, theories, and nuances that make up writing centers. Not only is there this aspect of commonality that makes the conferences appealing, but they are also jam packed with great information and ideas, too. This year there were literally hundreds of presenters ready to engage with anyone who wanted to listen.

One of my favorite sessions from the whole conference came from an undergraduate tutor from Saginaw Valley State University entitled “Revisiting the ESL Frontier: Tutor Perceptions of Multilingual Students in the Writing Center”. Alison Barger presented her research on tutor perceptions of ESL students in the writing center. Her research suggested that tutors typically don’t feel as successful or confident in their tutorials when working with ESL students. This stemmed not from reality necessarily, but from tutors feeling uncertain about whether or not the ESL student understood their feedback. So, a tutorial could have gone very well in actuality, but if the tutor couldn’t gauge the student’s level of understanding, then the tutor left feeling unhappy with the session.

While I can’t say that every international or ESL student experiences trying to practice and learn their L2 (or 3 or 4) the same way I did, my experience in combination with Barger’s research has given me a new perspective on tutoring ESL students: learning a language (and how to function within the culture and community associated with that language) is exhausting and complicated.

So I don’t have a perfect plan, but I hope to use this research and experience to take a new stance in tutoring- one where I take the focus off of me and my success within a tutorial setting, and instead remember what it’s like to feel stuck in that liminality of language. Writing is a completely different experience for everyone, and adding language into writing just creates a new layer of complexity. There is no method or fix or theory that can teach me how to perfectly work with ESL students, but now I feel capable of coming from a better place. A place where I have the capacity for compassion and can remember that we’re all just humans trying to navigate this crazy, exhausting, exciting world made up of many languages.

–Gabbie Fales

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gcfales-blog · 9 years ago

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Leadership

Hello! My name is Rachel Carroll and I am a tutor coordinator in the Writing Center. In simpler words, I work at the front desk. Last year I was asked to join the student leader board (SLB) which has impacted my semester a lot and has given me a lot more leadership roles. In choosing to write a blog post, I wanted to write something related to the Writing Center, but I also wanted to write something that would impact other students.

By definition, leadership means the action of leading a group of people or an organization; the state or position of being a leader. As an SLB member, I have been given leadership roles over the new tutor coordinators that we have hired this year and creating the schedule, training them, and answering their questions. This would have been a challenge last year when I was afraid to speak up for my opinions. However, being in a leadership role has helped to nudge me toward being more authoritative and confident in myself.

When I first came to Marian and started working in the Writing Center, I was very quiet and shy. I have always been introverted and starting in a completely new atmosphere was quite terrifying. As the year went on, I became more comfortable with the people around me, but I also became more confident in my ability to communicate with others. In taking on a leadership role, I needed to trust in my own ability to communicate and be confident in myself. This was difficult at first. However, as I look back at last year and then look at where I am now, I realize how much progress I have made. Now I am able to be myself at work and I can joke with the other students. Being a leader doesn’t make you separated from the rest of the community; it just gives you something more that you can do within the community.

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gcfales-blog · 9 years ago

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Who’s the Hero?

A Reflection on Social Justice in Writing Centers

By Gabbie Fales

There are many components to every story, but two in particular stand out above the rest in my mind: a conflict and a hero. Without conflict, there is no story. Without a hero, there is no resolution. With a shift toward social justice in writing centers becoming increasingly prevalent, it is important to take a closer look at where the conflict lies and who the hero is in the stories that we produce every day. At ECWCA 2016, the most fruitful and engaging sessions in my opinion were two that centered around social justice (and incidentally two of our own presented at these sessions…but no bias, I promise).

One session began with our fearless and strongly bearded leader Mark Latta. The title of his presentation was “Can’t Fix Anyone: Our Historical Love Affair with Deficit Thinking”…bold title, I know. Mark was honestly pretty bad ass. There’s this saying in writing centers that “we make better writers, not better papers.” Which sounds great, right? Well, actually Mark tried to turn this concept on its head. And I’m not sure that everyone bought into it, but I sure did. The problem with this phrase (that has become ‘almost holy’ and a slogan of virtually every writing center) is that it implies two things:

that it is our job/right/duty and

that there is something wrong with the student writer.

To break it down simply, if we say that we have the ability to make someone a better writer, we are implying that they are flawed in the first place. While everyone can always improve their writing, to think of the students we work with as needing our help to improve is kind of a self-righteous way of thinking of ourselves- and thinking of the student not as a writer, but as a flawed writer.

Now you might say, okay I kind of see that and most of the people in the discussion afterwards did say that to an extent. Some questioned Mark’s offered solution (a change from deficit thinking to funds of knowledge) and challenged his resistance to this revered phrase. But somehow Thing 1 (that it is “our job” to “make” better writers) got totally brushed over. People could buy into the idea that our mindset toward the student and their writing abilities should change, but not a single person mentioned the verbiage of 'our job’ and 'make’.

I am ashamed to admit that I was thinking these things in my head but did not raise the question out loud- and looking back I wish I had. But to me it seemed obvious! Yes, treating the student as if they are flawed is totally a problem, but so is thinking that it is our job to make better writers. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why this felt so wrong to me. My Communication major/Rhetorical Critic mind felt the word colonial lurking around that phrase. It seems to promote the idea that we are above the students, no longer peer, but a source of power. I felt that this topic was important, but I didn’t have the words to continue the conversation myself yet- I needed time to process.

The next day, I attended KC Chan’s session, “Serving the Community, Serving Us.” KC spoke beautifully (seriously beautifully) about the importance of writing centers engaging with the community beyond the campus. When working with a group of women in the Indianapolis community, KC told one of the women who said she could not write that “We are all storytellers.” Like…whoa. Such a simple statement, but so true and powerful. THIS was what Mark was getting at that I couldn’t quite put words to. We are all storytellers; students, tutors, and community members alike.

Now after hearing these two presentations that seriously kicked butt, I was feeling super excited! I felt like our Writing Center had truly hit upon something so important. But in the 2 weeks that have passed since the conference, I’ve decided the conversation needs to be taken a step further. Yes, we need to revisit the way we view students and their writing, yes, we need to be active in the community…but what is it that ties these two ideas together?

As a communication major, I have taken many classes on rhetorical theory and criticism. It wasn’t until taking a class called Identity and Pop Culture, however, that I realized what the point of everything I had been studying was. In Rhetoric in Popular Culture by Barry Brummett, he writes “…critical studies is explicitly concerned with intervening, or getting involved in problems in order to change the world for the better.” The first thing I thought after hearing this was simply social justice. That’s what it all came down to. The purpose of studying culture, identity, power structures, and colonialism isn’t just to write a paper. The purpose is to make a difference.

After this “ah-ha!” moment of mine, I realized that there needed to be more to it than just a realization. If the papers I had been writing for two and a half years in my Com classes could really make a difference, couldn’t all of my other writing? And if all of my writing could be powerful, doesn’t that mean other people’s writing can be just as powerful?

Writing is in and of itself an act of justice.

This mindset of writing being powerful and capable of social justice is a mindset that needs to be carried over into writing centers and tutoring practices. Over the past year, I have heard many presentations advocating for social justice in writing centers…but the agents of social justice were the tutors. However, as I think Mark was getting at in his presentation, our goal as tutors should be to encourage and empower students to take ownership of their writing and advocate for their beliefs. The student should be an agent for social justice, too. The writing center is not just a place where writing is improved, it should also be a grounds for using literacy to make a difference, whether that difference be personal, communal, societal, or global.

Every piece of writing seen in the Writing Center is a story in the sense that it should have a conflict and a hero. Now these components may be difficult to determine in some types of writing, but they are there in one way or another. Like any good story, the Writing Center has a conflict and a hero. In a tutorial, the conflict will vary based on the student’s needs. Maybe their thesis isn’t quite working with the rest of the paper, or maybe the student doesn’t know how to cite in APA. There’s the conflict- but no flaw.

But who’s the hero?

We are. They are. Writers are. Like KC said we are all storytellers, we are also all heroes.

'Our job’ as tutors isn’t to make a better writer or a better paper. We are there as a peer, a fellow storyteller, to help the student take ownership of being a hero.

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gcfales-blog · 9 years ago

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“Writing Centers are already multi-cultural, cross-curriculum, barrier breaking entities as it is.”

So proud to be a part of the Writing Center, and even more proud know, work, and be friends with Superhero KC.

No One Remembers Easy.

“We’re superheroes.”

Grey’s Anatomy’s Amelia Shepherd says to Stephanie Edwards. Shepherd stands with her hands planted firmly on her adult diaper in the ever-familiar “superwoman” pose as she prepares for a 20+ hour, impossible, never before dreamt of surgery on a world famous fetal surgeon’s massive butterfly tumor.

Edwards’ response?

To join her, of course.

And when Shepherd, who is the one and only neurosurgeon with any dream of holding a scalpel to this masterpiece tumor, asks Edwards, her protégée, who will be subbing in for after 12 hours of standing in one spot, Edwards responds with the same endearment.

“We are superheroes.”

It is amazing that, only in retrospect, I am remembering this moment. Because for 3 days I had been telling Gabbie that we needed to do this pose, this X-Formation before our presentations and had received a few looks of confusion.

I had developed a few new interests in the semester leading up to this conference, you see– one of them being Ted Talks, and the other being Female Empowerment. In the weeks leading up to the conference, and cracking under my nerves to create something new or groundbreaking, I was grasping at straws for something that would help me to…create… in the way that everyone expects me to be capable of. And then Netflix brought me something amazing—a Ted Talk series called Life Hacks featuring a social psychologist Amy Cuddy. Her talk “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” discusses how our use of body language affects, not only how other people perceive us, but how we perceive ourselves. “Fake it til you make it,” she would chant, explaining that the longer you appear confident, the more likely it is that you will become confident—citing specific amounts of time subjects spent in open, “traditionally masculine” positions and surveying them for their self-proclaimed level of confidence afterwards.

I flashed back to a discussion in the sister section of my Responding to Student Writing course and the distaste I had experienced when it was pointed out that the one particularly outspoken male in the group was sitting with his legs spread, elbows on his knees, and forward, in a position the speaker was describing as “masculine”. Me? Well, as a girl who had literally just identified as genderblind, I was incredulous to find myself with my legs and arms crossed like the other women in the group, physically morphing myself into a recessive role.

So naturally, I experimented.

And it was extremely uncomfortable.

I tried making sure my knees, in the very least, didn’t touch. I tried making sure my arms were uncrossed. I tried leaning forward. But the second I finished speaking in a session, and someone else took the reins, I found myself back in that same defensive position.

I had mentioned this X-Pose to Gabbie, saying we should definitely do it on the day of our presentation. I sloppily explained that Cuddy suggests spending a few minutes prior to a job interview or a presentation standing in a position that makes you feel larger—specifically in this X-Formation—in order to feel more confident and empowered.

But I don’t think I took it seriously until I remembered the dream I had preceding ECWCA. I was Amelia Shepherd and the other girls were the Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital squad and we were “dancing it out” the way that they always do after a loss or before a big event—jumping and gyrating in a way that was neither sexy nor comical, but simply a way to release pent up energy back into the universe. I realized I had only half-heartedly attempted this X-Formation, suddenly, in the Session right before Gabbie’s presentation, which was the session right before mine, it became very urgent in my mind that we pulled this off. I ran to her presentation room in a tizzy and said “We have to do this now.” And as Lydia snapped pictures, I noticed enviously that Gabbie had that little sweetheart smile on her face, and that she was “out cute-ing” me as usual. But I tried not to pay attention to that, and instead closed my eyes and got lost in this moment—arms raised and exposed to take in the universe and all of the power it had to offer.

Because in that moment, we were superheroes. We are superheroes every day. As a senior, I am well aware that this may be my last opportunity to present for Marian University and the Writing Center that has transformed me into a now self-proclaimed superwoman. I am aware that I have only one more semester this, whatever this is, and while I like to talk big and dream big and have faith, I am still unsure of the legacy I will leave behind when I fade from the spotlight in a less than a year’s time.

And how could I not be?

Every day I walk into our basement home– the one we joke about daily, the one that we have made our own—and I am reminded of how little I feel we are valued by our University. I am aware that, though we have taken amazing strides in the past two years towards recognition, that soon it will be the responsibility of those I leave behind to keep this battle going. I have to question how, at my own University, I can justify asking people like my sister, who is the epitome of perfect for my Writing Center’s mission, to come to a school where “Liberal Arts” is barely mentioned as a major for a room full of high schooler’s questioning whether they should apply.

And while I know that this blog post is supposed to be some kind of academic recap of my conference experience, I am finding now that it wasn’t just that I feel I experienced nothing “ground-breaking” at ECWCA that makes me feel like I didn’t bring home as much as I would’ve liked. I am finding, as well, that I was perpetually distracted throughout my attendance. While the fact that my Liberal Arts School and, particularly, my Writing Center’s physicality have not changed should be something I can just “suck up and deal with” for a few more months until I graduate, the reality is that I missed out on an educational opportunity because I realized I only have a few months left to do my part in making sure our Writing Center gets the recognition it deserves. ECWCA’s Host school, who really really struggled to pull this conference off due to time constraints and a few other factors, at least had a Writing Center above ground, in the library with access to reasonable computers. I realized that, if we were the host school that I, personally, would actually avoid showing other school’s the space that we have to work in, except to mention that “we are able to do all of the amazing things we do, even in this space.”

I think I took ECWCA’s theme of making Writing Center’s multi-modal as a cop-out that I am just not willing to settle for. Other schools found some solace in the fact that, by becoming multi-modal, they were becoming more marketable of an asset to the University—and I do recognize the value in that, I do. But to me, I struggle with the idea that we, as Writing Centers, should have to compromise our identities in order to preserve our existence. Writing Centers are already multi-cultural, cross-curriculum, barrier breaking entities as it is. Why should we be expected to shoulder more of a burden? Are we not valuable enough?

So I came back from ECWCA with a bit of a broken spirit.

And I remembered.

We are superheroes.

And this is a battle.

And our cause is noble.

In the words of Amelia Shepherd:

The key, though, win or lose, is to never fail. And the only way to fail is not to fight. So you fight until you can’t fight anymore. Hold up your head and enter the arena and face the enemy. Fight until you can’t fight anymore. Never let go. Never give up. Never run. Never surrender. Fight the good fight. You fight. Even when it seems inevitable that you’re about to go down swinging. Why do we even try when the barriers are so high and the odds are so low? Why don’t we just pack it in and go home? It would be so, so much easier. It’s because in the end, there’s no glory in easy. No one remembers easy. They remember the blood and the bones and the long, agonizing fight to the top. And that is how you become legendary.

I only have one semester left to build a legacy that can sustain itself, and I don’t want to be remembered as the girl who was “all talk, no action.” I am obscenely frustrated with the fact that during my first conference where I aimed to get my feet wet, and I ended up redefining water to a couple of people, I come back home to feel like I am struggling to stay afloat.

The strongest action I can take here is by speaking, when, much like Dr. Shepherd’s brain surgery, the stakes are high, and the time can only be now.

So here is what I feel needs to be said:

Somedays I don’t feel valued by University because they seem to forget that we are a Liberal Arts school.

Somedays I feel guilty when I know how hard my Director and the rest of the English department has to work to make sure that I get the educational opportunities I deserve.

Sometimes, when I see the amount of work they have to do, I feel like I don’t deserve these opportunities. To me, this is parallel to wondering if I deserved to compete in the science fair as a child, because of the cost it elicited for project supplies.

Somedays, I feel like the days where I was proud of attending my school are behind me—days when I have to worry about censoring my writing, or an artist censoring their paintings.

And somedays, I am afraid.

Because there was a time when I was the underdog. I am sure that anyone who hears that now may be a little surprised because anytime someone hears my name the recognize me as “that girl from the Writing Center” and often associate me with some level of success or scholarship.

But even superheroes get scared sometimes. And now, at the end of my undergraduate education, I am beginning to feel like I am incapable of returning the favor—not because my own power limits me, but because my University doesn’t see us.

And when the University doesn’t see the entity that made me who I am, how can they recognize me?

How can they recognize that, when the University swats that fly that keeps pestering them with the same ideas—“Move the Writing Center out of the Basement!” “Please build us a Liberal Arts School!”—that they have actually done something wrong? That they have dismissed something valuable?

But it is my responsibility to keep buzzing, to keep speaking, to keep advocating. To uncross my ladylike legs, slip on my red power pumps, and stand up for those who cannot, even when it is unfathomably difficult.

Because this is how legacies are created.

Because no one,

No one remembers easy.

–K.C.

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