Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 19, No. 2 (2022)

Review of Internationalizing the Writing Center: A Guide for Developing a Multilingual Writing Center, by Noreen G. Lape

Mustapha Chmarkh
The Ohio State University
chmarkh.1@buckeyemail.osu.edu

Lape, Noreen G. Internationalizing the Writing Center: A Guide for Developing a Multilingual Writing Center. Parlor Press LLC, 2020, pp. 230, ISBN-10: 1643171658.

Internationalizing the Writing Center offers a roadmap for how to transition from an English-centric writing center to a multilingual writing center (MWC). The book “provides a rationale, a pedagogical plan, and an administrative method to maximize the potential of writing centers’ nascent multilinguality” (Lape 3). One of Noreen G. Lape’s goals behind writing this book was to streamline a response to the questions she received from Writing Center Administrators (WCAs) regarding foreign language (FL) tutor training and overall operation of the MWC. Specifically, Lape makes a compelling argument for implementing MWCs, especially given the author’s position as the director of the M. Eberly MWC at Dickinson College. Established in 1978, this MWC is currently offering peer tutoring in eleven languages.

Before Lape’s publication, the idea of a MWC received scant attention. In 2000, John Trimbur was among the first scholars to mention WCs’ “neglect of writing in languages other than English” and to suggest “making alliances with modern language teachers, promoting bilingualism in writing, and transforming writing centers from English Only to multilingual ones” (30). In Europe, Liesbeth Opdenacker and Luuk Van Waes reported on the University of Antwerp’s (Belgium) online WC that was designed as a multilingual environment where students receive writing support in Dutch, English, French, German, and Spanish. Moreover, Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands operates a writing support service called Worldwide Writing where students are tutored in Dutch, English, Spanish, French, and German. It is noteworthy that Internationalizing the Writing Center is not the first time that Lape explored multilingualism in WCs. Her 2013 article “Going Global, Becoming Translingual: The Development of a Multilingual Writing Center” had already established her as a pioneer in multilingual WC practice.

Moving from tutor training related issues to administrative considerations regarding implementing an MWC, the book is comprised of an introduction, six chapters, nine appendices, and an extensive reference list. Appendices serve as a training guide that is equally useful to WCAs and tutors. In a notable characteristic of the book, Lape derives interwoven narratives from tutorial case studies and tutors’ interviews. The M. Eberly MWC tutors’ experiences and voices are echoed in every chapter. They represent the richest evidence the author uses to make her case for MWCs and to also acknowledge the contributions of the multilingual writers and tutors to the everyday conversations at the Dickinson College MWC. 

The first chapter addresses the hegemony of English, a language that is increasingly becoming the de facto lingua franca of globalized WCs. Lape’s main concern here was to challenge monolingualism by delineating a rationale for MWCs, namely that they promote linguistic diversity in an increasingly globalized world. Most importantly, the chapter enumerates what the author sees as benefits of MWCs. In her view, MWCs provide students with additional access to foreign language besides in FL classrooms, complement the instruction offered by FL faculty, and decenter the dominant status of English.

Chapters two, three, and four examine FL tutor training through the lens of holistic tutoring. Chapter two explains how English-centric WCs tend to distance themselves from the grammar fix-it shop label. However, in the FL context students write in part to learn the language, so a focus on correct language use is inevitable. In this context, Lape notes that a holistic approach to tutoring is judicious since it allows FL writers to simultaneously compose and acquire the FL. Chapter two also addresses one of the most intractable problems in MWCs: FL writers’ use of translation services such as Google Translate. Predictably, Lape makes a compelling argument against the use of translation since it sabotages FL learning and complicates the task of tutors.

            Chapter three emphasizes tutor training and building rapport with FL writers. FL tutoring is complex since FL learners are writing in part to learn the FL. The chapter focuses on holistic tutoring by training MWC tutors to facilitate writers’ learning to write and writing to learn in the FL. Lape argues that we cannot reasonably expect FL tutors, who are used to nondirective approaches to tutoring to effectively negotiate FL tutoring. At issue here is the fact that FL tutoring requires a constant back and forth between lower and higher order concerns. FL tutors should also be aware of the challenges related to FL students’ writer’s block and writing anxiety However, without explicit tutor training, WCs will continue to fall short from effectively attending to FL students’ needs. Lape invokes the stories of two FL tutors to illustrate how simple rapport building strategies (i.e., active listening, creating a nonjudgmental space, being supportive, etc.) contribute to positive FL tutoring experiences where FL writers feel safe to take risks, make mistakes, and learn.

Chapter four explores the problematic topic of culture. Learning an FL and learning about its culture often go hand in hand. Let’s face it: if there is a notable distance between the FL student’s L1/culture and the culture of the target FL, tension, or what Lape calls writing culture shock, is likely to happen. In this instance, Lape encourages FL tutors, especially those who had FL learning experiences abroad, to mediate FL students’ writing culture shock. Mirroring Judith Powers’ recommendation for WC tutors to adopt a cultural informant role (Powers 45), Lape focused much of this chapter on the value of having interculturally competent tutors help FL writers develop an interculture competence and demystify intercultural encounters due to unfamiliar genres and different writing rules.

Chapters five and six address the administrative and collaborative components of MWCs. Chapter five distinguishes between three types of appeals that WCAs could utilize to convince stakeholders—Lape refers to stakeholders as FL faculty and senior academic administrators—that the idea of an MWC is worth pursuing. The cultural appeal uses qualitative data to reimagine the value of a WC, the quantitative appeal uses statistical data to support requests for better budget, space, and equipment, and the value-added quantitative appeal examines how the WC improves students’ learning experiences. These appeals emphasize MWCs as assets to students’ learning and to universities’ commitment to multiculturalism and global education. Of course, the collaboration between WCAs, FL departments, and relevant university offices is indispensable. Lape views these partnerships in terms of committees whose mission evolves in nature from planning MWCs to advising once the centers are operational.   

The last chapter articulates Lape’s vision for a collaborative governance of MWCs. Lape views collaboration through the lens of a community of practice framework. Characterized by reciprocity, the partnerships between the MWC and FL faculty are informed by communicative language teaching (CLT) which prioritizes interaction rather than a narrow focus on grammar. Specifically, CLT considers that the four skills—speaking, listening, reading, and writing—are interrelated; hence, there is value in implementing instructional approaches that integrate the four skills in FL classrooms. These insights go some way toward explaining why WCAs and FL faculty’s collaborations are complementary: FL instructors “shape the MWC, and the MWC, in turn, shapes the culture of writing in FL courses” (12).  

Overall, Internationalizing the Writing Center articulated a clear, solid, and evidence-based argument for the value of MWCs. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in developing an FL writing curriculum and for WCAs considering expanding their English-centric WCs to include multilingual writing support. Similarly, FL faculty would find in Lape’s book a sincere invitation to collaborate with WCAs and a concrete incentive for doing so. As its title indicates, the book has a broad scope and addresses a global audience. In this sense, I recommend this book to emerging WC scholars and graduate students researching WC pedagogy.

Undoubtedly, Internationalizing the Writing Center illuminates our understanding of FL tutoring: an issue that received scant attention before this publication. To her credit, Lape starts this conversation about the value and need for a multilingual approach to WC administration, but there is scope for other scholars to expand this conversation in the hope of disrupting the current hegemonic monolingual WC narrative. Notwithstanding Lape’s brilliant argument for MWCs, the book did not clearly address challenges related to logistics, personnel, and finances that WCAs would have to reckon with if they want to make the MWC dream become a reality.

In short, Lape expressed an eloquent vision for MWCs and provided the reader with relevant theoretical, pedagogical, and practical underpinnings involved in undertaking such project. Certainly, the experience of the MWC at Dickinson College provided her with a success story to share, but, most importantly, with a rich source of evidence to support her argument for MWCs. Indeed, one means of raising awareness about MWCs lies in their potential as research sites. It is remarkable, in this respect, that Lape’s MWC is not only a place that supports FL writers, but it serves as a research laboratory that examines FL peer tutoring as well.

 Works Cited

Lape, Noreen G. Internationalizing the Writing Center: A Guide for Developing a Multilingual Writing Center. Parlor Press, 2020.

---. "Going Global, Becoming Translingual: The Development of a Multilingual Writing Center." The Writing Lab Newsletter, vol. 38, no. 3-4, 2013, pp. 1-6, https://wlnjournal.org/arch ives/v38/38.3-4.pdf

Opdenacker, Liesbeth, and Luuk Van Waes. "Implementing an open process approach to a multilingual online writing center: The case of Calliope." Computers and Composition, vol. 24, no. 3, 2007, pp. 247-265, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2007.05.003

Powers, Judith K. “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 13, no. 2, 1993, pp. 39–47. www.jstor.org/stable/43441929

Trimbur, John. “Multiliteracies, Social Futures, and Writing Centers.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 20, no. 2, 2000, pp. 29–32. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43442098

Wilson, Sheena. "Campus Saint-Jean’s Bilingual Writing Centre A Portal to Multiple Cultures and Cosmopolitanism Citizenship." The Canadian Writing Centres Association, 2010, pp. 9-12.