My first
tutoring session was a nerve wrecking because I didn’t know whom I was going to
get and how the session will go. I
called my tutees’ name and directed to the area where we were gong to start the
session. I could see that he was
nervous just as I was, so I relaxed and took deep breaths. I had read his essay beforehand and
knew where we had to work. As soon
as he settled in his seat, I told him to read his essay out loud so that he noticed
or be aware of the small errors he had done. I thought that the reading out
loud strategy was going to be helpful because the tutee would noticed some of
the mistakes that he may have done. After reading out loud, he had expressed
that he was aware that he had made some poor word choices and that he needed
help in that area. He had also
mentioned how he gets nervous when the professor tells him that he has a
certain amount of minutes left. I
tried explaining to him that this feeling was completely normal and that he
should take deep breaths and try to relax and forget that there is a time limit
to complete the essay.
His
essay had a strong summary of the article and had a good developed a good personal
experience regarding the topic of the article. During the session we were working on his LOC’s and we had a
discussion on the importance of including the name of the article in the essay
and giving credit to the author when quoting of paraphrasing. He was aware that he needed to work on
these minor mistakes. After
correcting the mistakes on his essay, we worked on developing his introduction
where he can practice including the name of the article and author; since this
was an area he completely forgot to do in his essay.
Overall,
the tutoring session went well. As
the session progressed, I started to feel comfortable tutoring and my
nervousness started to fade. I
felt confident in helping develop his essay. My tutee left the session knowing what he had to do next
time and knowing which area he has
to develop and work on more.
So it sounds like you are saying your tutee's main issues are word choice / vocabulary and testing anxiety.
ReplyDeleteIf those are all, then you may want to give him a chance to practice writing during your session, and see if he freaks out and if you can guide him through dealing with that. If that doesn't seem like the right thing to do when you actually sit down Thursday, then don't do it. But if he needs some coaching about anxiety, it may be helpful if you can at least chat about it a little and work on the power of BREATH!