Sharon TS #7

Date/Time: January 22nd, 2022 from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Location: Just outside Strozier Library
Topic/Skill: Simple present tense with a focus on writing skills
Feedback provided to tutee: The tutee seems to struggle with basic conjugation and, similar to a different tutee of mine, likes to put extra but unnecessary words in his sentences. Time was spent explaining that while those extra words may make sense in his native language, especially in the order they were written, it confuses your message in English. I worked closely with the tutee, going sentence-by-sentence to try to explain that very thing to him. We also spent some time on grammar, since he seemed to be mixing up tenses when he intended to only use present tense.
Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: Encouraging a student to focus on the message of their words is important, but it seems that many will stress grammar no matter what you do and some would rather hear the correct answer than have the full explanation. So it is important to find a way to compromise, and roll all these philosophies into one as much as possible. As such, going forward, I will partner explicit explanation with validation for the student: grammar is important, but being understood at all is the first step.

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