Empowering multilingual writers: Challenging the English-only tutoring ideology at university writing centers

Abstract

The English-only principle is widely adopted in classroom instruction in U.S. universities and blended
into writing center (WC) tutoring, where it is focused on the practice of tutoring multilingual writers
whose first language (L1) is not English. Although some WC scholars value multilingualism, whether
English-only tutoring is optimal for multilingual writers is less established. This report questions the
authority of English-only tutoring pedagogy and explores the possibility of employing multilingual
writers’ L1 in tutorials from both multilingual writers’ and multilingual tutors’ perspectives. The study
findings indicate that multilingual writers’ L1 is often needed in facilitating the development of their
writing and English skills, suggesting that WCs help to empower multilingual writers through
transforming to become multilingual resources.