The Writing Centre at the Sultan Qaboos University

Editor’s note: as part of our ongoing attention to highlight the work done by our colleagues around the world, I’m glad to share the following interview with Ryan McDonald, WrC Coordinator at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman and chair of the Middle East North Africa Writing Center Alliance (MENAWCA) in April.

Hi Ryan! Can you tell us more about your Writing Centre and the Sultan Qaboos University?

This is a unique place in the Middle East. We have a seemingly homogeneous student body comprised of 99% Omani nationals, yet their backgrounds, needs, and attitudes towards education and writing are as diverse as any multicultural university in the States. Even though it’s a small country of 3 million people, there are several languages and cultural norms affecting literacy and composition at all levels. Not all students are proficient writers in their L1, and we are asking them to be able to use academic English to communicate effectively – no easy task!

On top of that, the WrC shares a space with the Tutorial Centre, run by Susan Finlay. Her staff is comprised of Omani students who have shown excellence in their studies and their grasp of English. They work up to 5 hours per week and work one-on-one with the students in any language skill or system. This is contrasted sharply with my staff, about half of which have advanced degrees in applied linguistics, education, or language. The rest have advanced degrees in other fields. They represent 9 different countries and speak well over a dozen different languages between them.

All of this takes place in the context of a Language Center at the biggest university in the country. The Language Center has more than 250 teachers from over 30 different countries. The way rhetoric and composition is taught varies from person to person, culture to culture. This can create interesting challenges for the WrC consultants as teachers have different pedagogical strategies, which, of course, imprints onto the students.

We are also trying to be research based, so we are piloting a portfolio program this semester in the WrC. Additionally, I am working on a project where consultants audio record their own sessions and then reflect on their methods in an attempt to determine if there truly are “best practices” in our contextual microcosm.

Can you tell us more about the students you work with at the Centre?

Our students are between 17 and 19 years old, generally. The classrooms are technically mixed but the students sit on opposite sides of the class and don’t really interact with one another. They enter and exit through different doors. The students are a mix of traditional conservative students from different regions and more progressive students coming from Muscat, Rustaq, Sur, or Sohar (major cities in Oman). Students take a placement exam when they first enter the university, which puts them at a level in the Foundation Program (or they pass directly on to their BA programs). For many of the students, this is the first time a group of women or men have been taught by a man or woman, respectively.

This creates a really cool dynamic in the Tutorial Centre, which shares a space with the WC. In the TC, 29 of 31 tutors are female, and an overwhelming percentage of their tutees are male. Some tutees are shocked, shy, or embarrassed about having a session with a woman, but soon become more relaxed. Others dive right in and seem to love the dynamic.

In the Foundation Program, the students are roughly divided into 6 levels and a student completes two levels a semester. By level 3 (equivalent to a per-intermediate language learner) they begin to write descriptive essays, guides, and plans. This is the level they begin to use the WC.

The higher level students (5/6) have to write a research report which requires paraphrasing, citation, summaries, and analysis of research articles. To say it is a leap from level 4 to 5 is an understatement. In the WC, we see their biggest problems are organization and reading comprehension. The first is because culturally the system of rhetoric is different from the Western style. This means they are struggling linguistically with the reading and composition aspects and culturally with the argumentation style.

Students are often recommended by their teachers to visit, but they are not mandated. We have approximately 1200 sessions a semester, in addition to small workshops and presentations.

How do you train your staff?

First, I have to say that Susan and I have the most amazing staff.  We are lucky to have tutors and consultants who are knowledgeable, dedicated, and genuinely concerned about student progress and achievement.

Most of the WC tutors (we call them consultants) have been living in the region for some time, so they are aware of the general cultural problems that the students have. However, they do require training on elicitation, non-directive teaching strategies, and local vs global concerns. Even these, which are pretty standard, are difficult though. For example, a student may often have such systemic language issues a paper requires grammar help long before meaning, because there is no discernible meaning! So, the local problems become a global concern. We also have to often use direct teaching methods for mini-lessons as students have problems with gerunds and infinitives, count/non-count nouns, reduction of clauses, passive/active voice etc. Our consultants with ELT backgrounds really love it, but those without that training, require professional development sessions on how to teach that material. Other students have an amazing grasp of the grammar but have difficulty with coherence and cohesion, brainstorming, or thinking of appropriate reasons, details, and examples.

The recent audio recording project was an attempt to bring some clarity to a situation that is inherently foggy. We hope to find that we have reflective practitioners, effective methods, and available pathways forward for training and developing our practice.

Can you tell us more about the audio recording project?

I have always felt that direct observation of a consultant creates a strange dynamic within the sessions. There is a sense of “what is he writing/thinking” that can create stress or anxiety in a session, which is the opposite of what you actually want – especially when working with non-native English speaking (NNES) populations. I’m also very new to writing center management, and I want to have a better sense of what is happening in the sessions. So, audio recording of sessions seemed like a nice way to mitigate the stress of an observation, while still providing me with a level of quality control.

But, the question was still there: What am I going to do with all of these recordings? So, I started to do some research. I came across a number of interesting articles dealing with observation and self-reflection, but they were focused more on teacher training, not WC specific. Also, being a member of MENAWCA, I read Jodi Leforte’s lit. review about rethinking the non-directive approach in writing center sessions with populations of NNSE

This led to more research and the process began to take shape. Here are the basics: 5 of my consultants (and myself, but I am recusing myself from the actual study) audio record 5 sessions during the first half of the semester. They are given a reflection document for each session, and they listen to their session, reflect on how it went.

The first aspect of the analysis of the reflections is how the consultants reflect. In order to do this, my research partner and I will be modifying a research analysis done by Amani Bell, Rosina Mladenovic & Reuben Segara (2012); we are looking at the rate of critical, technical, and practical instances of reflection to determine what type of reflection the consultants are actually doing. The reflection questions are broad enough so that a reply could be categorized into any of the above categories.

The second aspect is an analysis of consultants’ methods and the success/failure rate of those methods. As I mentioned, the reflections are a series of open ended questions and will guide but not restrict answers. We are trying to determine if methods are consultant specific, tutee specific, contextually specific, or a general mix. If there are “best practices,” for the region, what are they? There is also a pre and post questionnaire to determine the validity of the process, from the consultant’s point of view.

That’s a brief description. We hope it gives us some interesting findings! I’ll be presenting on the process at the MENAWCA conference and the findings later in the year.

Questions or comments for Ryan? Respond below!