Martin,

Your peer mentoring scheme sounds amazing, is there anything on paper?
The major stumbling block to the scope and success of our peer language advice scheme is time and resources.  As it is we do manage to get enough volunteers but then again we operate on a relatively small scale (6-10 volunteers).  Although we don’t know exactly why students undertake volunteering, we try to promote the scheme by emphasising the essential employability skills/experience volunteers can gain which they can add to CVs and application forms and refer to in interviews. Plus, providing volunteers undertake their commitment professionally we provide references.  We also provide a £1 voucher for the university food outlets for every hour volunteered!

As you have said, students of all types tend to ghettoise themselves (understandably) and this is one of the ways we aim to facilitate ‘cross pollination’.  In my experience domestic students tend to have the least cross-cultural experience and on postgrad programmes where international students are the majority in our school, I try to foster a community of practice among students by positively promoting the unique learning opportunity working with other nationalities provides.  This helps a bit but we still have a long way to go!

Lynne

________________________________________
From: McMorrow, Martin [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 28 February 2014 04:01
To: Lynne Gornall; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: Proofreading

Thanks for that response, Lynne. I'd be interested in knowing more about the peer language advice service, which sounds like a great idea. Do you find you have enough volunteer language advisors, and what incentives are there for students to volunteer?

There is an example of a kind of peer mentoring of writing in the Speech Language Therapy programme here at Massey Uni, NZ. Second-year students, beginning their clinical practice, are paired up with fourth-year students. The second years learn a lot about clinical writing (through seeing examples, writing together, getting feedback on their examples etc). The fourth years are able to use this experience as part of their practice portfolio, as it can help them provide evidence of certain competencies they need to demonstrate by the end of the course. So, there is an inbuilt quid-pro-quo in the arrangement.

One challenge, I think, in the environment I work in, is that international students tend to be quite concentrated in certain programmes, which makes it particularly difficult for them to practise English in groupwork, to share cultural knowledge and to get second opinions on writing.

I would also be interested to know if any universities run orientation sessions and/or have produced resources on how to make the most of studying in a multicultural context - both for domestic and for international students. I feel that some of the domestic students might benefit from developing skills, and a stronger motivation to converse with international students even at a social level and there are frequent complaints about group assignments, in particular. Often there seems to be a 'glass half full' attitude, focusing on the challenges, miscommunication, lack of response etc, rather than seeing the potential benefits of cultural learning, networking, developing skills etc.

By the way, a while ago, I noticed quite a large crowd of students outside one of the bigger lecture halls on campus. A big group on the left appeared to be entirely Chinese; a smaller group on the right were European; and there was a huddle at the back of Maori and Pacific students. It was entirely segregated. I asked one of the students what lecture they were queuing up for: Cross-cultural communications. Of course.


Martin McMorrow, Learning Consultant, Massey University
Library Level 2 (Room LIB 3.50)  Phone: 09 414 0800 ext 41463
Academic English Podcast


Here at the Lancashire Business School we run a supervised, peer language advice service to try and redress the inequality and to provide work-type experience to volunteer language advisors.  We train volunteers and get them to agree to a simple code of conduct roughly as follows:
Advisors can:
*Discuss and revise written mistakes in spelling, punctuation, word choice, and basic grammar/sentence structure *Advise that other revisions may be necessary and refer to academic development tutor Advisors cannot:
*Edit paragraph structure and organisation of material *Alter, or offer comment on, the content of students' work.

In relation to dissertations, I advise students to get their work professionally proofread if they do not have any family or friends who can look at their work.

Cheers

Lynne

Lynne Gornall FHEA
Senior Lecturer
Lancashire Business School
Student Support team (Postgraduate & International) Greenbank 061 Ex  4615