Alright, I know that this is my first real posting this whole semester, but its taking me awhile to get reflexive about tutoring again, as I haven't tutored since I was an MA TA...and that seems like years ago. What I have been reflexive about, though, is how much I love being able to really work with students' writing personally again. These past few years I have been only teaching, and as much as I cajol students to come and see me in office hours, etc., most of my work on student writing is from the distance of reader and author- and as much as can be said in marginalia and end notes, nothing is as nice as really sitting down with someone.
What I wanted to comment on today is an experience that I had this past week- a student with really, really bad mechanics- I mean, unreadably wicked bad, came in to work on a two page paper. She had failed the first draft and was in the writing center to get help. Now, even though I actually spent an hour and a half with her, there was absolutely no way I could even begin to address her difficulties with standard English grammar, spelling, syntax, etc. I quickly realized that she spoke much more fluently than she wrote, so I basically had her dictate to me what she meant at every sentence while we sat at the collaboration station, and I typed as she wrote. The final, much-discussed results weren't perfect (or maybe even passable, it was a 200 level class), but it was about 50 times better than her first draft. Here's my question- was it still her writing? She definitely couldn't have done it on her own, and I did suggest and supply a fair amount of vocabulary words and offer ways to re-word things that weren't standard. I know that the problem is fixing problems for people doesn't help them not make the same mistakes the next time, but in a case such as this, I almost felt like just modelling alternative wordings was as effective as anything else would have been. I did try to have her practice ways of writing her own spoken words, but she is just so far from being able to produce her own academic prose...I have been mulling over it ever since, and would love to hear what you all think. How do you handle difficult ESL cases? I wonder if there is any way to get quick training or info about what to do? Does anyone know more than me about this?
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Wow--that sounds like an extreme case of what I've experienced so far. The ESL students I've worked with have really been pretty competent but just uncertain.
ReplyDeleteI think this falls under our discussion from last Wednesday, when we mentioned that when tutoring ESL students, it seems more acceptable to be more directive. At what point do you draw the line, though? I really don't know either. Maybe jumpstarting her the way you did will make future sessions less intensive in that way.
I know what you mean, and like Jess said, I don't have an answer either. I was tutoring someone (not sure if they were ESL) that had poor grammar. She kept saying she had a hard time putting things down on paper. She would explain what she meant perfectly in spoken word--and I had to keep stopping her and say "yes! that's clear! write down what you just said." I think for extreme cases it might be helpful to have a tutor work with them in their native language. Sometimes the barrier is just too much to get work done.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting point you make in this post, Rose, is that speaking and writing are different and separate skills. When one speaks well, that does not always mean she writes well; the reverse is also true. If you helped the student to see that her writing can be better if she speaks her ideas aloud and then transfers them to the screen(even if it is only a quick fix for now), I bet you did her a lot of good. If you had given her so much "help" that she'd been ready to hand in a polished piece, then perhaps you'd need to worry that you'd crossed a line. It certainly doesn't sound like you did, though. Great post!
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