Lexical issues in writing center tutorials with international and US-educated multilingual writers

There is very little research on lexical issues in writing center tutorials with second language writers, despite the impact that lexical strengths and needs have on the ability to make meaning with text. Further, we have come to realize that L2 writers come from many backgrounds and may have very different strengths and needs based on their prior experiences with English and writing. With this in mind, the present small-scale study of four students (two international students and two US-educated students) aimed to empirically examine whether, and how, these two groups of students exhibited differences in lexical strengths and needs during writing center tutorials. Further, the study aimed to explore the tutors’ orientation toward linguistic aspects of students’ texts. Among the findings were that US-educated learners demonstrated superior strengths in the areas of lexical facility, lexical flexibility, and lexical intuition, perhaps related to their experiences as ear learners. International students and tutors spent relatively more time on discussing lexical issues in their sessions, but tutors did not articulate this in post-tutorial reflections. Tutors’ orientation toward writing as consisting of “content” and “grammar” may have influenced both the way they provided feedback and the way they reflected on their own feedback.