Blog Post #3 How: Tutors as Cultural Mediators -Consuelo Guayara Sánchez

The case study explored in “Crossing Cultures” expands on Ryan and Zimmerelli’s ideas (2016)  of the many hats that a tutor may wear.  Not just as a collaborator and a learner, a tutor is expected to be a cultural mediator, a 'Contact Person in the Contact Zone,' following Pratt’s idea.  It seems to me that as a cultural informant, the experiential and intellectual background of the tutor becomes central in building cultural bridges approaching a diversity of experiences, ideologies and social imaginaries that permeate the lives of students. I found particularly helpful to be a second language learner when helping writers as a tutor because it brings my first-hand experience in the complexity of translating ideas, thoughts and knowledge into other languages and cultures.  Would it be too simplistic to think that many of writing mistakes by international students are just a matter of difficulties in translations? 

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2019 at 9:49 PM

    I think you raise multiple important points. Before I started tutoring in the Writing Center, I did not realize that a writing tutor has so many important roles, especially when it comes to international students. It is very important to consider ways to be a cultural bridge for international students. International students may be struggling simply because they need some basic information about American culture. It is essential that tutors be aware of potential cultural differences so that they are able to converse with students and diagnose problem areas.

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