Today Tim and I had a session about patience. We started off the session as we normally do, talking about the sessions that we have had since our last meeting. This week we both had ESL sessions and I had a student with disabilities session. ESL students were the topic of our first discussion.
Tim's student was more of a regular session than an ESL session because his student had a rather good grasp of the English language. Mine, however, took a little bit of patience to get through. Both of our students had come in for help with grammar. Now, this was where our conversation got rather interesting. We talked about how good ESL students are at getting their ideas on a page. His student had a better grasp of English, as I stated before, so he was able to get through their papers (she had two) rather quickly. My student took a little longer, though. He had a seven page paper with lots of grammatical errors. Most of the time, by reading his paper out loud, he was able to hear the mistakes that he had made. The rest of the time, though, took a little longer because I had to explain why some of the mistakes were wrong. On occasion, I had to explain things a few times before my student really understood what was being said to him. This was an important lesson, I thought, to impart on Tim. It takes patience to work with ESL students because of the language barrier. However, with perseverance, the session runs a lot smoother.
The next topic was about students with disabilities. I had my first session with one of these students last Friday. It was interesting because I found that it was a lot easier to work with this kind of student than I had thought. He was very aware of what was going on and grasped the concepts and ideas that I had thrown out quite easily. There were a few times where I had to repeat myself, but overall it was a rather smooth session. Yet another lesson, don't judge a book by its cover (I know it's cliche, but it's true). We talked about how preconceived notions about people and sessions should be disregarded. All sessions are to be taken and handled on a case-by-case basis. Different types of students are very useful to us as tutors because we learn different methods of tutoring when in sessions with them. That was the main lesson of this week's mentor session.
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Alex,
ReplyDeleteNo doubt you have noticed on this blog that many tutors post about working with ESL or LD students. We devoted some time to this at our Mentor/Mentee meeting on Friday. I think a few comments are in order here. You are indeed right in stating that working with ESL and LD students requires a great deal of patience on the part of the tutor; this is of course necessary if we are to assure that each of these students can write effectively on a college level. While it may be true that ESL students have a firm grasp of the English language, caution should be exercised here. Yes, sometimes such sessions are almost like working with a native speaker and many times our ESLers know more about English than we do! There are those sessions, however, where such students pretend to fully understand the ideas that we as tutors are trying to convey. Such attitudes are conditioned by cultural background; for example, seeing the tutor as a "teacher" or authority figure, or perhaps issues of gender come into play. It is crucial to remember that it is not only a different langugae that such students must negotiate but also a strange culture (of which the school is only a part). So, in a desire to do their best, speak and write English like a native, and become part of the larger society, ESL students can be inclined to co-operate with ease just to "fit in." This is perfectly understandable--wouldn't most of us do the same if the situation were reversed? This is does not mean that your session was not smooth and effective but we should have a concern and an awareness that such easy sessions do not make us complacent in our tutoring practices. As a mentor, you should be very aware of this for the benefit of your mentee. I think most of my comments can apply to LD students as well.
Once again, remember the resources available here at the WC, including ESL tutors, and the resource room. If possible, observe one or more of these sessions to see for yourself how "easy" these go..
Steve