I had my first tutoring session with Katherine today at the LeRoy library. She's a US Citizen over the age of 50 and has lived in the United States for over twenty years. Her and her husband are originally from Taiwan and have three children. Two live at home and the oldest is studying Economics at NYU. Katherine works for the Department of Finance here in Tallahassee and is now pursuing her Masters degree in Information Technologies. As we talk, I notice her English is really broken and she has a strong accent. She tells me that at home her and her family only speak in Mandarin. Perhaps this is why her English has not progressed after so many years?
Katherine wants my help mostly with writing and describing things in detail. She says at her work, when she needs to communicate, she is as brief as possible in her emails and communication. Now that she is in pursuit of her Masters degree, the program requires many long papers, which is why she is seeking my help. She wants to email me papers and would like my assistance with proofing her papers and then wants to go over the papers in person. I am concerned with how I can help her. I don't know anything about Information Technologies. My brother is a computer engineer, but he won't care to get involved. I am also concerned if I proof the papers, will she then just turn in what I wrote, sort of using me as her translator? I am going to wait to see what she emails me, and then will talk with Karen Gotti if I'm not comfortable with the situation.
My CP wanted me to correct stuff she'd written, also, but I told her we could do that together. I asked her what she would prefer we do; talk during our session or go over her written work, but that we needed to work on both together. This might be a good opportunity to work on tutoring in writing, just as though you were in a writing center doing this with college kids. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget about the error correction symbols we went over in class. You can use these with your students. Remember that your job is not to be an editor, but to gradually teach student show to edit their own work. You are doing them no service, in the long run, but editing their papers.
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