I met my adult tutee, Ahmed, for the first time last
Saturday. I have to say that I was quite
nervous about the impending tutoring session from the moment I had scheduled it
with him earlier in the week. I was
worried that I wouldn’t be able to help him or answer his questions, I was afraid
of my lack of knowledge on specific grammar terms would be apparent, and I was
nervous that he might be a lower level student and not be able to understand me
very well - you name it and I was worried about it.
On Saturday, I looked over my needs
assessment handout prior to our meeting and decided that I was not going to allow
my fears to overtake me and just try to remain present. Upon meeting him I explained that I was brand
new to tutoring and asked if it was ok during the session for me correct him,
to which he was agreeable. I began asking him questions from the needs assessment
and let my genuine curiosity come out as well as my desire to help and just
like that, my worries and anxiety started to melt away. I had a wonderful time getting to know Ahmed
as well as helping him.
During the
session we went over his weaknesses and things that he would like to improve
upon. Creating this list took some of
the pressure that I had felt off of me because now I had a direction to create
lessons for our future sessions. I had
learned through the course of our conversation that he didn’t speak much
English outside of class so, for homework I gave him the assignment of starting
a conversation with at least one person outside of his English class.
Overall, I was impressed at how well he spoke
English after learning he had only been studying it for the last eight
months. I did notice that he struggled
with verb tenses and I was able to correct him and he usually understood why it
was wrong rather quickly. Some of the
grammar correction just came naturally to me, such as when he would use the
wrong verb tense and I, with no premeditation, asked “excuse me?” And some, well, let’s say did not come
naturally and I had to resort to looking it up on my cell phone. I really appreciated Ahmed’s patience with me
when I needed to look things up or take my time explaining something to
him. It gave me a sense of confidence realizing
that I, just like Ahmed am learning and that it will take time to build this
skill and that just as Ahmed was being patient with me, I have to be patient
with myself.
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