Group Workshops: Saving Our Writing Center in Japan

Writing centers in universities across Japan are on the rise. These centers are commonly understood to be for remedial language help, deterring students confident with their language ability from attending. Over the past few years the number of student appointments at our writing center had been decreasing. Students were expressing no need for the center since, in their understanding, it was meant only for correcting grammar. To increase awareness of the writing center, we decided to conduct workshops to provide basic frameworks for learning aspects of writing outside of grammar. Since running the workshops, reservations for tutorials have been increasing, suggesting the workshops to be successful.