Journal 2
Journal 2
This week, I spent an hour assisting a student in the Reading and Writing Center revising a research essay to submit in an application for a History MA program. We spent a significant amount of time on restructuring her background and introduction, as well as refocusing each of her body paragraphs. Reading it aloud, she caught on to most of her grammar errors and awkward phrasing, so I noted a few and taught her how to fix them so she could go back later and catch the rest.
Summary: Working one-on-one with students is one of the most rewarding parts about tutoring English. I felt that I was able to help the student understand her paper from an outside perspective and highlight areas that were confusing or misplaced, but I was not able to get to the end of her essay by the end of the hour. I need to work on better pacing, and part of that will come from explaining my thoughts more clearly. I learned plenty about her research topic, and I walked away feeling more confident in being able to help a variety of students.
Challenges: As I entered the internship, I was not certain how to start or where to begin. Luckily, I had previous experience tutoring students, so I had a good basis to work off of, but I did feel as if I had been dropped into it. From this point on, I expect that I will have a better idea of what I am doing each week since I now have experience in the center, but I plan on exchanging some information with fellow interns to get a better sense of their normal routine as well.
Ideas or theories: When we first started talking, I made sure to open up with questions about how her day went and personalized myself to make her feel comfortable. While it was still a little awkward to begin with, as we got more into the flow of things and I started asking questions about her work, she seemed to open up more and grow confident in asking questions. This has mostly been my experience, so I was glad to see that my idea of casual chat in the beginning encouraging the growth of a learning environment was correct. I was surprised at how insightful she was into which areas her work needed development in. I was guiding her more than I was outright teaching her.
At this point in my internship, I expect to gain more experience with a greater variety of students and subject areas. I would also like to be able to cultivate a relationship with a few students and monitor their growth throughout the semester. With a dedicated time each week I can work with a specific student, I will better be able to adapt to their learning needs and grow as a tutor myself. While tutoring many different students in single sessions can be beneficial, I expect to learn a lot more about the learning process from spending extended amounts of time with a single student.
So far, the internship has met my expectations. I expected more drop-ins rather than appointments and shorter sessions, but otherwise it has fulfilled my expectations.
I would like to better explain structural problems in essays as well as how to fix them. For a long-term student, I want to be able to grow their grammar skills and help them learn some of the rules they currently break. I want to work with at least ten different students throughout the semester, and three on a semi-regular basis, though that might not be feasible.