Writing Center Observation #3

To be perfectly honest, I was not impressed with the first consultation I observed today. The client was an ESL student, and the assignment was an open research paper where she was to explore a topic she was interested in and propose some questions for further research. She wanted help with grammar and the general content.

The session started like any other with the quick questions about the assignment and the reading out loud. They went through the paper paragraph by paragraph, unlike the other sessions I've observed.

The similarities seemed to end there. The consultant didn't mention anything good about the student's paper, except for giving a quick, "Overall I think it's pretty good at the end." I didn't think it seemed like the consultant really wanted to be there. Her tone sounded very confrontational and uncompromising, and she was very quick to judge and point out what she thought was wrong, even though sometimes in the middle of speaking she realized that it was okay after all.

One ongoing issue she brought up with the paper was the student's use of the word "academy" where usually "university" would have sounded more "correct." The consultant would not let it go each time the word came up even though it was obvious the student didn't really understand what the problem was. I eventually intervened somewhat and went to get a dictionary for them, but the student still didn't really get it and the consultant didn't seem to care. Had I been in this situation, I would have tried to give more of an explanation besides "this isn't right," or "we don't say this." The consultant was getting frustrated with the student and just wanted to be right, and I think it was obvious.

Also, after the student left, the consultant gave me a little rant about how she was sick of dealing with ESL students and grammar editing all the time, which then progressed into complaints about native English speakers who only wanted help with grammar and would get angry when she tried to suggest any other changes. I didn't find this very professional at all, and I'm glad when 10:00 rolled around and I was able to go shadow someone else.