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. 

New Semester, New Partner

As I stood in the entryway of the library, I wondered what this semester's tutoring would be like. I enjoyed last semester in sophomore comp with my partner then, and was looking forward to new experiences and tests of my knowledge of the English language. There was that anxious feeling as I watched people continue to enter the library and branch off in different directions that maybe I would not be the tutor Elodia needed. I wanted to stop looking at my watch, but to no avail. At 2:35, I decided to call her, just in case she was late or forgot, as our scheduled meeting time was 2:30. I called and she said she was already there, and quickly found her and we introduced ourselves. She had arrived early as well and we were waiting for each other. She said she didn't have my number, so I made sure she had it written in her notebook before we parted later. I began by telling her I was going to help her with the reading and writing sections for the GED, and asked where she was in those areas. She said she could read better than she could write, so I talked about reading comprehension and we went over a reading passage and questions that followed afterward. I had her read one exercise out loud and we went over the first two questions. She read well and seemed to understand what the questions were asking. I gave the rest of that exercise and two more like it to her for homework to look over and said we'd go over them next week. I then had her write a short paragraph to know where she was in her writing. She wrote about her children, having 3 daughters, 2 of them at TCU, and one son. We started talking about her life, and she said she'd worked at TCU for seven years with housekeeping in the Bass and Dan Rogers buildings. She was so sweet and eager to learn, I felt silly being nervous before. I went over her few mistakes in her writing and said she could write more during the week for practice and we could go over it next week to better utilize our time together. I quickly explained sentence structure and we did a short activity about what was missing in certain sentences that made them fragments. The time passed quickly and I gave her some pages I had copied from the GED book that explained sentence structure and parts of speech, so we could pick up there next week. I was glad everything went well and pleased she was not afraid to ask questions during my explanations. I think this is going to be another great semester. Stay tuned!