Editor’s note: We would like to thank Chang Liu, Research Student at University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield (UK) for providing this piece. To contact the author, please email Chang Liu. If you would like to share your writing center’s experience during COVID-19, please submit via WLN.

Chang Liu

Writing centres became part of the UK higher education support in the 1970s and are increasingly a feature of the higher education support to help students who have difficulties in academic writing, particularly international students (Ganobcisk-Williams, 2010; Leyland, 2020; Wang & Machado, 2015). Due to the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK, the one-to-one writing consultation (Writing Advisory Service) in our university has shifted online, in which students upload their written works one day in advance and on the day of their appointment, they state their needs and the writing tutor will make comments on the students’ writing and share these through Google Document. As a Chinese international student/user as well as a researcher on one-to-one writing consultations, I felt this online interaction has enhanced my experience of learning in the following aspects:

A. Timeliness and convenience

The first advantage of the online consultation is its timeliness and convenience. Compared with the traditional face-to-face writing consultation offered by the writing centre, this online service provides users with more in-time feedback as it does not require students to book it 14 days in advance and it seems to have more slots available for online consultation and no restrictions in terms of advance booking. This is because it does not require writing tutors and students to show up at a certain fixed time so the flexibility of time management is high and students could get feedbacks in-time more easily. Moreover, it provides improved accessibility and convenience to students, as long as they have access to the internet connection. This is especially important as due to the pandemic, many international students decide to return to their home countries and continue their studies remotely. The online writing consultation allows the service to be available for international students who are even in their home countries. From my own experience of using it, I booked the consultation 2 days in advance and uploaded my writing one day before. On the day I booked the consultation, I get my feedback in the morning (earlier than I expected) and I feel satisfied about the timeliness as well as convenience.

B. Effectiveness

Through my experience of using the online writing consultation, I find the system rather effective. On the shared Google document, it initially asks students questions aiming to collect students’ needs and background information of the students’ writing. Typical questions include what the writing is part of, what is the title of the writing and what would the student like the tutor to focus on. Comments made were very clear and easy-to-read. Especially for research students like me, this has made the consultation more effective. However, I believe that it would be better to have follow-up video meetings so that students can have effective discussions with the writing tutors if he/she is unclear about some of the feedback/comments.

C. Relaxed learning

According to Huijser, Kimmins and Galligan (2008), emotional support is one of the key learners’ needs that writing tutors need to meet during the writing consultation. This is where tutors provide students with a sense of safety and self-confidence. The online writing consultation gives users such as me emotional support since it enables students to get extra help with academic writing despite the pandemic and lockdown enforced. Online study supports become extremely important for students at this period, both pedagogically and emotionally. Moreover, the Google document-based method of implementing the consultation in our university makes it especially less stressful as it’s more flexible and focuses more on written feedback.

Overall, I feel the online consultation with feedback through Google document offered by the university writing centre provided me with a more time-efficient, effective, convenient, and relaxed learning experience. A suggestion for improvement would be to add follow-up video meetings for students who need further explanations for the feedback.

References

Ganobcsik-Williams, L. (2010). Academic writing in higher education: a brief overview. Research Intelligence, 113, pp.10-11.

Huijser, H., Kimmins, L. and Galligan, L. (2008). Evaluating individual teaching on the road to embedding academic skills. Journal of Academic Language and Learning, 2(1), pp.23-38.

Leyland, C., 2020. Academic Writing Tutorials for International Students: Deferring to an expert and follow-up advice. Language and Education, 34(3), pp.212-230.

Wang, P. and Machado, C. (2015). Meeting the needs of Chinese English language learners at writing centers in America: A proposed culturally responsive model. Journal of International Students, 5(2), pp.143-160.