This paper reports effective tutoring and writing center instruction for science students in Japan. The results of analysis show tutors are expected to possess expertise in science research as well as familiarization of Japanese/English academic papers. They also need to build a collaborative relationship with tutees in writing science papers.
Amid a growing number of writing centers in universities in Japan, writing centers supporting students in the science department is limited. The Life Science Department in Ritsumeikan University in Japan has introduced a “project-based English program” where students are engaged in analysis and research, often with some experiments, of science projects. The results of projects are demonstrated with papers in English. This program is considered the base of students’ future research because 60% of them go onto graduate school. In the writing center SAPP (Support for Academic Projects and Papers), which was launched in 2017, graduate students have been hired as tutors. However, because of this unique nature of the English program, the specific role of tutors remained unclear. This paper examines the Japanese tutor’s expertise and strategies used in SAPP in order to clarify tutor’s instruction that is expected in this science project-based program. The author focuses on scaffolding strategies (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) used by four tutors, and their recorded conferences were analyzed with the coding scheme adopted from Mackiewicz & Thompson (2018); namely, instruction strategies, cognitive scaffolding strategies and motivational scaffolding strategies. The results of analysis showed that tutors mainly discussed direction, content, and logical development of the project in the papers with the students. Tutors were expected to possess expertise in science research as well as familiarization of Japanese/English academic papers. Strategies differed depending on the tutors. One tutor mainly used instruction strategies, and tended to be dominant in his conferences. The other tutor used a more cognitive and motivational scaffolding than the others, trying to build a collaborative relationship with the students and encouraged them to work on successful projects and papers. Based on the results, this author will discuss effective tutoring and writing center instruction in the university in the field of science.
