Tutoring Second Language Writers (17 page)

Courtney and Maria were good friends who often visited the writing center together. Aileen and I felt they would be more comfortable talking with us together, so we decided to interview both of them at the same time. Courtney was a twenty-year-old senior prelaw major who arrived in Miami from Cuba when she was thirteen. She explained that she believes that since the writing center is an academic environment, she should only use English. She said, “I pretty much come in with the mindset to speak English. I have a lot of friends that I speak Spanish to, but I try within the confines to speak English as much as I can.” For Courtney, there is a clear distinction between using the two languages: English is for academic and professional purposes, and it is the language that will provide her with a better future. Spanish, on the other hand, is reserved for situations involving family and friends who do not communicate well in English.

Maria shared several of Courtney’s opinions about using Spanish in the writing center, only Maria felt more strongly against it. Maria, who emigrated from Peru when she was four, explained that she did not think it would be appropriate for a bilingual tutor to use Spanish to discuss academic work with her. However, she would not mind if a tutor used Spanish during a more social moment, such as greeting her at the beginning of a session. Maria said,

Similar to Courtney, Maria expresses a clear distinction between the functions of each language: English is for professional and academic settings, and Spanish is for socializing. She believes using Spanish in the writing center will hinder her professional progress.

While the students Aileen and I interviewed provided us with reasons they both liked and disliked code-switching in the writing center, we knew it was important to hear the voices of the tutors as well. What were their experiences using a bilingual approach to tutoring, and what were their experiences using two languages during one session? The first tutor we interviewed was Roberta, who had used code-switching techniques frequently with Stephanie and other students. We conducted the interview in my office, as it would be quieter there than in the writing center.

Roberta, a double major in professional writing and English, started working as a writing center tutor during her junior year, a semester after the staff had started discussing bilingual approaches to tutoring. Roberta was born and raised in Miami, but her family still had very strong ties to the Dominican Republic, where they lived prior to moving to South Florida. Roberta said she spoke English to her mother at home but that her mother “would still respond in Spanish.” As the oldest child, Roberta said it was difficult at times while growing up because “everyone else got help from their parents on homework, and I had to stick it out on my own because [my family] could never help me with English or vocabulary, or explaining ‘what does this mean?’” Roberta became the most fluent English speaker in her home and often had to translate conversations and documents for her mother.

Roberta favored code-switching and code-mixing as pedagogical tools, as mentioned earlier in this chapter. During her interview, she discussed how she approached situations when students produce problematic translations.

While Roberta often had success with this approach, bilingual students she worked with were not always receptive to her introducing Spanish into sessions. Roberta reflected on one session when she spoke in Spanish and the student replied, “I don’t want to hear it in Spanish because I want to improve my English.” She said she complied with the student’s request and only used English for the rest of their time together.

Roberta felt it was better to invite students to decide whether or not Spanish should be spoken during a session than to not allow Spanish at all. She said, “I understand the student has to learn English, but why [create] frustration. They know you speak the language, but you refuse to help them using their native language?” For her, “The only drawback is if the student only communicates to you in their native language and refuses to try to communicate in English” because then they “are using it as a cushion.” As a tutor, “you have to know when to draw back and say, “Can you say it to me in English? How do you write it in English?” As Roberta mentioned toward the end of our discussion, her approval of code-switching and code-mixing went back to her earliest educational experiences when she struggled to learn English and had no one to communicate with in Spanish. She said her sense of feeling lost and hopeless was something she did not want her students to experience.

Marco grew up in Rosario, Argentina, and started studying English there when he was around eight years old. He moved to Miami with his family when he was fifteen and enrolled in ESOL classes at a local public high school before being placed into gifted classes. Marco, a communications major, began working in the writing center during his junior year, and he was initially opposed to code-switching and code-mixing in the writing center. He said his opposition stemmed from his experiences in his ESOL classes, where he felt as if he needed to completely immerse himself in English in order to communicate with classmates.

As more tutors and students used Spanish in the writing center, Marco said he slowly started to speak Spanish more himself. He discussed his experiences with one student, a female from Venezuela whose
frustrations with English prompted him to use Spanish during one of their sessions. Marco said, “I realized when I started talking with Natalia in Spanish, she felt more comfortable writing in English because she could go back to me and ask me in Spanish.” Marco realized that building linguistic rapport with this particular student helped her feel more relaxed during sessions and, hence, more productive, so he continued to code-mix with her during subsequent sessions. However, that experience did not necessarily change his opinion on using a bilingual approach to tutoring. Even after experiencing success with Natalia, Marco said of his other sessions, “I make an effort to not speak Spanish because I really feel like I am not helping them fully.”

After each interview, Aileen transcribed the session and the two of us reviewed it together. If we had any questions, we followed up with the participants and asked for clarification. Once we completed the interview process, we reviewed all the transcripts and coded them based on emerging themes.

These interviews reinforced our initial understanding that Hispanic students’ and tutors’ opinions about whether or not Spanish should be used during sessions can be quite complex. It appears there is no clear distinction between students who prefer one style over the other. We found that the amount of time spent in the United States did not determine whether or not a student preferred one style over the other, nor did family proficiency and educational background. These findings lead to a conclusion that, to paraphrase Hudson, we can be sure no two multilingual students have the same preferences for tutoring styles because no two multilingual students have the same educational and linguistic experiences with English or Spanish (
Hudson 2001
, 11).

The writing center mentioned in this essay exists in a highly multilingual, multicultural environment that operates within an overarching “general political climate that excoriates non-‘standard’ varieties of English and policy that mandates against bilingual education” (
Rymes and Anderson 2004
, 130). Even in this diverse region of the country, some schools promote an English-only educational system that marginalizes large numbers of students, especially Hispanics. The center we worked at quietly challenged that monolingual norm for almost two years before we began openly discussing and researching the potential benefits of using multilingual pedagogies during tutoring sessions. We decided to develop a more formal understanding of how and when code-switching
and code-mixing could be used during sessions, and, perhaps even more important, whether students and tutors wanted to use two languages during their sessions. As Betsy Rymes and Kate Anderson continue, “The fact remains that every individual in the United States is entitled to receive an education. In order to ensure that the civil rights of every student are not violated, schools must be granted the authority to use students’ home languages as paths to school language and academic content” (
Rymes and Anderson 2004
, 130). As a result of this research project, we granted our students and tutors the authority to use their home languages and to code-switch and code-mix in ways that helped them become more productive during sessions. In doing such, we engaged in many conversations about working in a highly diverse environment, a dynamic “contact zone” (
Pratt 1991
), which heightened our awareness about the academic and social environments in which we live and work.

We learned that code-switching and code-mixing can be used as pedagogical tools during tutoring sessions between bilingual students. They can be used to create a sense of solidarity between a student and a tutor (see Yessica and Ashley, Marco and Natalia) so the student may feel more comfortable working in an environment that has historically marginalized them due to their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. They can also be used to clarify moments of confusion when a student can think of a concept in her L1 but cannot adequately express it in her L2 (see Roberta and Ashley). Both of these methods allow students and tutors to move forward with their sessions.

Though many of these bilingual tutors and students found code-switching and code-mixing to be helpful during a session, some expressed a sense of ambivalence regarding whether or not they liked using both languages. Most of the tutors and students Aileen and I interviewed expressed a sense of optimism about having the ability to code-switch and code-mix during sessions because it increased their ability to communicate; however, several stated that they wondered if code-switching may, at times, slow down an individual’s learning process, as it took time and experience away from the target language. Overall, though, it appears most have embraced the fact that they have the ability to think, write, talk, and teach in more than one language and that their work more closely reflects the multilingual reality that surrounds the university.

While code-switching and code-mixing during tutoring sessions may contribute to the creation of a more multilingual writing center
environment, a realization of the prototype promoted by Grimm, it still does not address the fact that students—and tutors—ultimately are faced with the challenge of having to write in Standard American English. Thus, in academic settings, code-switching and code-mixing may be relegated only to the center, viewed as marginalized acts that can only be practiced as conversations, not as writing. While these linguistic acts can occur in the center, they are often not tolerated in texts produced for the classroom.

If we can achieve multilingual writing centers, ones that employ tutors with diverse linguistic backgrounds and who promote linguistic diversity on campus, we can take a step toward challenging monolinguistic norms found on many campuses. First, centers can promote code-switching and code-mixing as effective pedagogical tools in an effort to challenge assumptions about English-only education. “Code-switching,” according to Ronald K. S. MacCauley, “used to be taken as a sign that speakers imperfectly controlled either or both languages. This turns out to be a misjudgment. In many cases, speakers who are fully fluent in both languages will switch back and forth for a variety of reasons, often connected to topic or attitude” (
MacCauley 2011
, 90). The tutors at our center often demonstrated great fluency when switching back and forth between English and Spanish, using each language for a variety of pedagogical purposes.

Next, if writing centers can challenge the ways we teach and tutor writing in multilingual settings, perhaps they can challenge the way writing is taught in classrooms. As Suresh Canagarajah states, “A classroom based on ‘standard’ English and formal instruction limits the linguistic acquisition, creativity, and production among students” (
Canagarajah 2006
, 592). Linguistically diverse writing centers can show how multilingual pedagogies can increase opportunities for learning, the way they did for Stephanie; for creative expression, the way they did for Diana and Yessica; and for production, the way they did for Marco’s student, Natalia. Perhaps, then, these learning moments can be shared in an effort to promote Canagarajah’s notion of code-meshing.

Similar to Hudson’s
code-mixing
, Canagarajah offers the concept of
code-meshing
as an alternative to
code-switching
. Code-switching implies using different languages for different situations; for example, students may use Spanish for social interaction, but they still need to write in Standard American English. Code-mixing, then, blends languages together, but mainly for the purpose of conversation or writing informal texts. Taking this mixing of languages one step further, Canagarajah suggests that code-meshing is process of “merging the codes” into academic
texts and environments rather than separating one from another (
Canagarajah 2006
, 598). The difference between code-switching and code-meshing, according to Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Martinez, “is that the former arises from traditional English-only ideologies that require multilingual/multidialectical students to choose one code over another while privileging codes associated with dominant races and further alienating the codes of traditionally oppressed peoples. However, code-meshing promotes linguistic democracy, as students are not called to choose but are rather allowed to blend language and identities” (Young and Martinez 2011, xxiv). If writing centers recognize code-meshing as a next step toward building a more multilingual educational environment, it may mean tutors and students, such as Yessica, Ashley, Roberta, Stephanie, and Marco, can transform their bilingual conversations into texts that become part of a classroom and academic norm that democratizes our educational systems.