The Story our Body Language Tells: Nonverbal Aspects of Communication during Tutoring Sessions

Alumni Boardroom

As tutors we aim to assist student writers in successfully completing their writing and reading tasks as they navigate academia. We concentrate on communicating our ideas related to text organization, ownership, and feedback, often forgetting about the communication that happens without us actually saying anything – nonverbal communication. This 15-minute individual presentation will focus on the nonverbal aspects of communication during a tutoring session, its meaning and implications. The presenter will discuss such aspects as position of a tutor in relation to a tutee, eye contact, and body movement, supporting the arguments with research results from literature (Bower, Kiser, McMurtry, Millsaps, & Vande, 2002; Brooks, 2008; Janney, 2011; Ryan & Zimmerelli, 2010) and personal examples from writing center sessions. This session will also present the best practices of nonverbal communication in a writing lab, how they might be perceived by students from different backgrounds and cultures, and what impact tutors’ body language could make on tutees. Being aware of the above-mentioned aspects will allow tutors to understand the significance behind a writing session which might often mistakenly seem as “a smooth flight pattern with little visible movement.”