Monday, September 21, 2009
Blog 2 The Tutoring Process
I found this reading to be very helpful. I'm still nervuos about working with students who speak English as their second language, but I now have a better understanding of how to help them acheive their goals by working with them and taking their personal experiences and background and applying it to their writing. The scenerio we read that included Steve ( tutor) and Shafik (an ESL student who came to the writing ceneter with a paper on the Muslim religion) makes me a little nervous after reading it. I'm not familiar with working with people who speak ESL and I'm definitely inexperienced. I like the fact that Steve had him read his paper aloud, then asked him what he was having trouble with. I'm not sure what I would do if I saw that the paper was made up of only one single paragraph that was ten pages long. I would probably freak out. The minimalist approach did not work in this situation because the problem was a lot depper and just correcting the structure and ideas in the piece would not resolve the overall issue. Steve had to look at Shafik's needs and make his own judgement on what to do. If I was Steve, I would have just gone through step by step as thoroughly as I possibly could and try to help him with each issue. I know that learning these steps takes years. If I was learning to write another language and follow their rules, then I would be in a lot of trouble. I would try to help him to the best of my ability and hopefully he would catch on and get a better understanding of a couple topics. I found the posttexual stage to be the most helpful. I agree that stimulating independant learning is the best there is. I feel so much more confident when i learn something and can connect it to my future writing, or relate it to other things for that matter.
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I never thought about minimalist tutoring with ESL students...that really wouldn't work. If an ESL student doesn't understand the basics of the English language, how can we expect them to repair their papers? In this scenario, we become more than a tutor--we become a teacher. And, we all know good teachers don't just TELL the student knowledge; they demonstrate it. However, how can we do this in the little time alloted? Isn't just easier to fix their papers and send them on their way? It could take several precious minutes to explain when it is okay to use a question in a paper and when it is not, and even then a student may not understand it.
ReplyDeleteIt might take longer time and more detailed explanation for ESL students. However, at college level, I think ESL students have acquired a considerable understanding of English. Yeah, it's much easier to just fix their papers and let them be on their way. But thing won't improve because they will keep wondering what wrong with this and that, why using this word is better than that. Besides working on the paper, i think we can tell them what the major problems are and suggest some ways to improve them. This is a pretty much help tutor can do for ESL learners.
ReplyDeleteWe will get more into tutoring ESL students later in the semester, but I'm pleased to see you thinking about the tutoring process in terms of "flexible," student-centered strategies.
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