6th November 2012 - Visit to the Writing Center

Today, was a free morning for all of us as scheduled. However, after having a lovely breakfast of ham and cheese sandwiches  at 'Doutor' we proceeded to the University.

Breakfast at 'Doutor'

We made arrangements to meet the concerned tutors at the writing center at Waseda University. This Center was first established with the sponsorship of the School of International Liberal Studies in 2004. Currently Professor Sadoshima Saori Associate Professor, Center for International Education is the Director of the Waseda University Writing Center. At the Writing Center they deal with different types of papers, and do not specialize in particular subjects.Here they conduct eight sessions per day of 45 minutes each; frrom 10:40 am to 5.15 pm. Besides the Writing center also offers some workshops on basic skills of writing for their students.

At the Writing Center there are around 20 tutors who work on contract basis and advise papers written in English and Japanese. They have a range of research fields, nationalities and backgrounds. Here the Student Tutors do not necessarily hold specialist knowledge related to the academic content of each paper. However, one learns  from the advice given by a tutor who has specialist knowledge of writing itself. Here the tutors work to help writers notice and understand for themselves what they might do to make it better.  That is their not teachers but coaches. It is a collaborative task, whereby writers and tutors think and work together. By working in this way, the writer gradually learns to notice the problem areas in their own writing and how to correct them independently.

At the Writing Center there are around 20 student tutors, who advise papers written in English and Japanese. They have a range of research fields, nationalities and backgrounds. The atmosphere at the Center brings out the strengths of all tutors, and encourages tutors to learn from one another.Sessions  a the writing center can be booked  using one of the following methods:

Selection of the student tutors is based on a number of factors like good writing skills, good personality, friendly nature, mock interviews and so on. We learnt alot and hope to implement some of it in college too.

                                                                                                                                         - By Dorothy Furtado

Student tutors at the writing center