I met my second tutoree the other night. I will probably work with him as I feel there is a work ethic that I appreciate. Not that I am personally some badass ninja but I could see how he was kind of open and willing to do repetitions to try to find the pattern or "el modelo" as it is called. He's quite a beginner and I find myself trying to recall more and more Spanish to communicate basic points. We were working through some simple present tense uses of "do" and "does" and he was starting to get it. I could feel the "flow" coming through. Then he blew me away by asking me to show him the past forms and the future forms and then he proceeded to write them all out. Since I know a little handwriting analysis I could tell that he was gaining confidence by the changing slant in his middle zone. That made me happy.
The resistance in myself I encountered was the inability to communicate and wanting to just place my brain in his brain. But when I saw that he didn't understand simple things I was saying and got very frustrated and self judging, I slowed down a little. At this point, I realized that he was started to write out repetitions of the the simple assignment and even though I was losing patience with myself he was actively learning. So I had to essentially get out of the way and let him take some time writing the repetitions. Transforming in this way was useful.
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I think the key phrase you used here is "get out of the way". Give your students something (grammar, vocabulary,activity) and let them play with it and apply it. Then you can come back in for guidance and feedback.
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