As a part of my tutor-in-training duties, I observed my second Writing Center session yesterday. An ESL senior came in to go over a short biography that she had been assigned, with the goals of improving her grammar and clarity.

The consultant I was working with seemed to be methodical in his approach; he was in control of the session and how it was going to run. The client had brought her paper in on her computer, but this consultant preferred to work with a printed document--he made three copies (he was extremely fast, which made me think he was used to doing this) of an older draft that the client had brought with her. This was a bit confusing when the client had to refer to a sentence that she had modified in the more recent digital draft on her computer screen. On the other hand, we had about ten minutes left after we had finished going through the first paper, so we did a brief run-through of the client's cover letter straight off of the computer, and it was impossible for me to see the computer screen. I think, as a consultant, it is easier to work with printed papers because everyone can have their own copy and it's easier for the consultant to mark it--both for herself and for the client to use after the session.

I really liked a couple of other "methodical" things that the consultant did:

1. About halfway through the paper, the consultant checked to make sure the client was OK with things so far: he asked if she understood his comments and if she had any questions. I thought this was an excellent way to gauge if the client was satisfied. It also gave the client a chance to voice any overarching concerns she had at that point.
2. When we finished talking about the first paper, the consultant asked if the client had any questions or any other issues she wanted to resolve before we moved on. It was a much better strategy than saying, "Well, looks like we're all done!"

I think that I will incorporate these techniques into my sessions when I start [co-]consulting soon. I had a bit of a hard time sitting through two sessions without saying much, so I'm excited to try things out on my own!