Tutor Session: March 13, 2014

Time: 1.5 hours

Plan: Before our last session together I assigned some homework for my two clients. They were to read an article of their own choosing and present it to the class. I required them to do four things in their presentation:

-       - Summarize the article that you read.

-       - Describe your own opinions in regards to the article.

-       - Find two new vocab words and teach them to the class.

-       - Supply discussion questions.

I will give the students 15 minutes at the beginning of class to prepare or finish their homework. Then we will begin their presentations.

Actual: Wub went first. She introduced her article, which was about the differences between men and women.  Cake read an article about some strange inventions around the world, including some from her home country of Thailand. Both students summarized their articles very well and talked about which parts they agreed/disagreed with or liked/disliked. Their discussion questions were pretty generic (ex. “So what do you think?”) but they were effective nonetheless. We had some very intriguing discussions about each article.

Each student also taught two new vocab words to the class. They used the “Word Study” exercise as a guide and gave us synonyms, examples, sentences, and illustrations to help us understand each word. The words they chose were quality words, although one of them was possibly not as useful as the others.

Changes: My plan for this class was pretty relaxed so there were no real changes. I basically let the students use the entire hour and a half in whichever way that they wanted. I did help to guide discussions, especially when they got too off topic. I also helped to clear up confusion or add information about the new vocabulary words.

Analysis: I think I am a genius. This was a great way to finish our tutoring sessions together. The students were able to find articles that they enjoyed and, without realizing it, practiced all of the strategies that we had used during our sessions.

I was somewhat worried that both students would chose articles that were extremely easy, just to get the project finished. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I saw that both students had read fairly difficult articles. This shows that they are gaining in confidence when it comes to their reading skills. This is great to see!

Tutor Session: March 4th, 2014

Time: 1.5 hours

Plan: Our last class session was cut a little bit short because of poor planning on my part. So, the schedule for this week’s session is full of material. The focus of today’s class will be the word study exercise from the previous session and introducing strategies for the TOEFL test.

The word study activity from last week will be turned into a strategy to help front load the vocabulary from today’s chosen text. While reading the text I will introduce 3 strategies that they can use when they take the TOEFL reading test.

Actual: I started class today with a discussion about the TOEFL test. Both of my students have taken it before so we talked about their difficulties as well as what parts were easier for them. After this brief discussion I introduced the topic for today and that I would give them some help with understanding a text in English and answering questions about the text.

At this point I handed out the “Word Study” worksheet and wrote our 5 new vocab words on the board. The worksheet instructs students to describe a word in many ways. It prompts students to brainstorm the meaning of a word including the words synonyms, word parts, examples, and non-examples. The worksheet even has a space for students to write a sentence that uses the word and to draw a picture that encapsulates the word’s meaning.

I also gave a mini lecture about how to find the meaning of a new word. I laid out steps that they should take to find out the meaning of new vocab. The steps are as follows: 1. Context clues inside text  2. Remove word and replace with synonym  3. Ask Tim  4. Use your dictionary.  With this framework students went about completing word studies for our 5 new vocab words.

After completion of the word study I introduced the article for today and our reading strategies. Student’s were tasked with reading quietly with a set of questions in mind: What did I just read? What do I think about what I just read? What will happen next?

At time intervals I instructed students to stop reading and discuss their answers to these questions.

Finally, after they finished reading they answered the comprehension questions that followed the text.

Changes: My changes were minimal. While we were reading I noticed that Wubayheu was reading at a much faster pace than Cake. So, instead of stopping every 5 minutes I decided to have the students stop after reading 3 paragraphs.

Also, while we read I noticed that the student’s interest in the comprehension questions decreased quite a bit. As a result, I decided to have an informal discussion about the strategies at the end of class. I asked if they were helpful and if they preferred one of the questions. Both students said that the predicting question was too hard for them and quite boring.

Analysis: These students are both English language learners with hopes of attending college here in the US. While the text today did not align with their interests, they stayed engaged because it related directly to their needs. The article that they read was directly from an online recourse that gives out sample TOEFL reading tests. The comprehension questions at the end were also useful because they gave me a chance to highlight some of the tricky questions that are often found on the TOEFL.

We did the word study exercise in response to some of their exit pass responses. Cake mentioned that she wanted to know how to better memorize and use new vocabulary. I love the word study because it is very useful and surprisingly fun. Drawing pictures always livens up a class.

Overall today’s class was great. It was full of a lot of information but we packed it all in. I think students appreciated the fast paced class today.