To Conclude

Thursday was my last tutoring session with Elodia and I was excited to accomplish a lot. Thirty minutes before our session she called to cancel. When she said she couldn't make it, I tried to not let the disappointment show in my voice. When she said she needed to take her father-in-law to the hospital, my disappointment turned to worry. I asked if everything was all right and she just said that he was old and didn't feel well. I told her I hoped things would be okay and said that I had enjoyed tutoring her this semester. She thanked me and we said good-bye. I can't help feeling disappointed about our last session being canceled, especially since last week's session was cut short. Anyway, I still know that I helped Elodia with the time that we shared together.

Little Time, Little Work

Elodia was forty minutes late. I didn't call her because I had thought she was running late again like last week, and I didn't mind working on other things while I waited for her. When she arrived, she said she had thought about not coming, but decided to in the end. Her grandson had been born last weekend, and she had been taking care of him during the week, so had not done her homework. We started going over the present tense handouts that was her homework last week, but were only able to finish one activity. I told her to finish the rest of the activities, as she had done well after some explanation for the first one, and that next week would be our last session. I asked if there was anything she wanted to work on for next week, but she said there was not, so we agreed to work on past tense verbs. I know Elodia is busy with her family lately, and I know that I cannot teach her everything in the course of our meetings, but I do want her to walk away with a deeper confidence and understanding of the English language. I am looking forward to our next and last session, as I think we will be able to wrap up our time together and continue to make some more progress.

Moving Along Slowly

Today seemed unproductive. I know the weeks left are limited and I want to cover as much as possible with Elodia before our tutoring sessions are over. Elodia was late which is not like her. I called her after fifteen minutes and she said she was on her way, explaining there was no parking. She seemed a bit frazzled when she sat down at the table I had snagged for us in the crowded, noisy library. I asked if her grandson had been born yet, and she said he hadn't, but that the doctors said tomorrow was the day. She'd brought all her homework, including what she had forgotten last week. I had her finish the contractions activity that we'd begun last week, while I looked over her homework pages. She had answered most the questions in the activities correctly and most of her errors were with verb tenses. We went over her mistakes and I made her explain why she thought she'd made them, which made her further think about the questions and grammar. We went over the rest of the contractions activity, which she did well on and moved on to talking about present tense verbs. We weren't far into the lesson when Elodia started coughing badly and had to leave to get water. When she returned she explained that her allergies had been really bad lately and she had not been feeling well. She was having trouble with the worksheet and I asked if she ever spoke English at home. She said she only spoke Spanish so her children wouldn't forget it, as they speak English all day at school. I told her that was good, but that she should speak to them in English every so often like over dinner or something. I said it was just as important for her to practice English as it was for them to practice Spanish. She was struggling with the spelling of "likes" when she had to leave again because of coughing. I felt bad for her because she clearly didn't feel well and she was still worried about her daughter and her soon-to-be grandson's birth. She was gone for a while and it was almost time to go, so I did the first two activities so she could use those as a guide when doing the rest for homework. She returned and I told her to study the packet and finish the activities and we'd go over past tense verbs next week. I hope she feels better next week. She was sick a few weeks ago, so I hope she does not get that again. Anyway, I know the timing was not my fault, but I still wish this session had been longer. I really want to utilize the next two weeks and accomplish a lot.

Time is Short

On my lovely afternoon walk to the library, Elodia called me to say that she had to be somewhere at 3:00 and was unsure if we should meet at 2:30. I said that since she had to be somewhere on campus that we could still meet and get as much done as possible. I arrived at the library and snagged a table on the loud side near a window. As I waited I watched people. People reading, people working in groups, people coming and going on their way to study or to take a break from the long day. I soon realized that Elodia was headed toward me with a bright smile. I was glad to see her and as she sat, she was already explaining her day. Her daughter had called her that morning to tell her that she was due on Saturday. The baby boy would be Elodia's third grandchild, but first grandson. Elodia said it had been a rough pregnancy and she was worried for her daughter. I said things would be fine and she should try not to worry. She then explained that she hadn't brought anything with her because she had left the house stressed that morning, and even though she had completed the homework she was disappointed she had not remembered to bring it. I told her not to worry and since we only had a short time we started working on an activity that I had made on contractions. The first part had several sentences with many words that could be made into contractions such as "I am" to "I'm" and "did not" to "didn't." Elodia had a lot of trouble finding them. I think maybe it was because I had put so many in each sentence, but it became easier for her as she worked through them. She had to underline the words that should be changed and write the contraction below. She had a lot of trouble spelling them even when she knew what contraction it should be. I explained that most contractions were putting the two words together and only omitting one letter like most of the ones with "not," like "wasn't." We moved on to the next part of the activity, which contained sentences with lots of contractions and parenthesis by the contractions for the words to be spelled out, such as "shouldn't (should not)." This part was easier for her, but I wondered if she had studied the contractions handout I'd given her last week. Time was short, and she soon had to leave. I gave her a handout on helping verbs with an activity for homework since she had struggled with them in our other sessions and I thought it would help as we are going to work on verbs in the weeks to come. I told her I hoped things went well with her soon-to-arrive grandson and that she should write a short paper on his delivery if he did come on Saturday like the doctors predicted. She smiled with an overwhelming joy that one only sees come from a grandmother and I smiled back and said good-bye.

Could've, Would've, Should have

Elodia brought a writing sample this week, so I checked her grammar while she finished the worksheet from last week over pronouns. Her paper was over her family and mentioned when her children were born and when she moved to Texas after living in Houston. She would start each new sentence with "and" and she didn't seem to understand helping verbs or when to use commas. I corrected her mistakes, which were few compared with the length of her paper, a whole handwritten page. She seemed shocked she'd made so many mistakes, but I told her it was well written and it gave me a better sense of what she needed help with. I checked the worksheet she'd finished and she had answered most correctly. We began with contractions since she had expressed an interest in them last week. I found this amazing website with worksheets on practically everything regarding English parts of speech, englishforeveryone.org, so we started with a page on the common contractions. I had her read the definition aloud and then made her repeat the pronunciations after me. There were about ten fill-in-the-blank questions that gave the whole phrase like "should not" and wanted the contraction "shouldn't." I told Elodia to try to answer them without looking at the list of contractions. She did well, but I told her to study the list for an activity next week. The next thing we went over was pronouns, starting with subject pronouns. Using an explanation worksheet from the same website, I again had her read the explanation aloud. The activity on the page was a list of sentences and you had to underline the pronouns. Elodia struggled with this activity because she kept underlining the verb as part of the pronoun. I explained that the verb was a different part of speech and she understood a little bit better. Time passed quickly, and for the last ten minutes of the lesson, we went over present tense verbs as an intro to next week, where I had planned to continue talking about other types of pronouns and more verb tenses, since she struggled with different verb tenses in her writing. I explained that the three major types of verb tenses in English were present, past and future, explaining that present was what she was doing at the time, past was events that had already happened, and future was what was going to happen. We went over the present tense worksheet, but did not have time to complete it. I told her we would pick up there next week. I gave her some multiple choice questions over contractions and pronouns as homework, along with studying the list of contractions. As we walked out of the library into the brisk afternoon air, I asked how her other sessions were going, She said she was working on reading, but she could not meet with one of her partners on Tuesday because she had something else. I said I was able to meet with her then since it was important to keep meeting and studying and to not miss a session. I said we'd start on what we were working on and that she should bring something to go over what she normally worked on during that session for the other half of the lesson. She smiled and seemed shocked that I would offer to meet with her outside our meeting time. I told her it was no problem and that I wanted her to be able to learn as much as possible. She thanked me and said she'd see me Tuesday. I waved good-bye and we parted directions. 

New Focus

Elodia called me the week before spring break to cancel our session. She said she was feeling overwhelmed and wanted to take an ESL class because she didn't understand a lot of the homework and was struggling. I was confused because I thought she was doing well in our meetings. I told her to call me if she changed her mind and I would gladly help her. I called her last Wednesday, and spoke to her after having the week of break to let her think, and said we could put off working on the GED and just work on English. She said that would be good and we met at our usual time on Thursday. I didn't use the GED book because I knew some of the activities were too advanced, so I found verb and pronoun handouts online that had a piece of the sentence missing and multiple choice answers with what should go in the blank. There were questions with different verb tenses and some with pronouns that I thought would give me an idea of where to begin with grammar. First, we spoke about what she wanted to work on and she said writing and grammar since she could read better than she could write. Then we worked on the handouts and made it through 11 of the pages. She had some difficulty, but I explained the ones she struggled with. She was confused on questions with contractions in them. I explained that don't was do not put together and we talked about other contractions for a bit and I told her I would bring an activity and a more in-depth explanation of them next week.  At the closing of the session, I asked what she wanted to focus on in the coming weeks and I asked her how hard she thought the activity we'd worked on was for her. She said it was of medium difficulty and that she wanted to work more on verb tenses and pronouns. I said I'd bring other activities next week and we'd take things week by week, working on what she thought she needed to work on. I told her to write a few paragraphs about a favorite something, like a favorite pet, toy, vacation, ect., that she had in the past since she was struggling with most of the past tense questions in the activity we'd just done. She said she would write something and bring it next week. I think this meeting went well because we slowed down and focused on some trouble areas today. I hadn't realized she was so confused with the activities from the GED book, so I'm glad she said something and we are able to just focus on English for now.

Second Semester, Second Meeting

Elodia and I met earlier this week, and instead of the library we met in the language lab in the basement of Reed. I had to cover an extra work shift there, and my boss said I could tutor there, since that is one of reasons for the lab. I met Elodia at the Horned Frog statue and we went to the lab. She had done most of the homework I had given her. We went over the fragment sentence exercise first, and she had some questions over sentences like "When Dave came home early from work." I explained that it wasn't a complete thought, and was an introductary clause. It needed to say what he did after he came home from work. She understood and I checked the rest of her homework, which was mostly correct. The next thing we went over was complete and compound sentences using conjuctions. She read the questions aloud from the exercises and I explained when her answers were wrong. There were 3 sections of exercises, so I think she understood it well when we finished, as she continued to answer correctly with each activity. Afterward, we went over subordinate clauses and conjuctions, which is the fancy name for the sentence type that she'd struggled with in her homework. Sentences like, "After the strike ended, the teachers went back to work." Some, however, did not need commas, like "The teachers striked while the students stayed home." We did the activities  that followed and she started to understand why some had commas and some did not. I explained that after a long first part of a sentence you would take a natural pause instead of reading it all together. That helped her understand, and we moved on to the reading part that she was to do for homework. This was more challenging for her because while she can understand what the paragraphs of a story are saying, she has trouble answering the questions about moving sentences around to make the story sound better. The first one we went over was one we'd started last week and her answers varied between right and wrong, but she could not answer why she thought that was the answer. We went over it in detail and did the next two as well. She started understing the concept of essay organization, as I explained one question that was asking what sentence of the five provided would start a new paragrah. I said that since it started a new thought, it did not belong in the paragraph and needed to start the next one. The rest of the questions varied in difficulty and I explained the ones she struggled with. Time passed quickly as we worked through activities and questions, and it was soon time to wrap it up. I gave her the last reading one as homework and told her to bring a writing sample next week. We agreed to meet in the library next week at our usual time and parted.