Yesterday around 5:40 pm I experienced my first day of tutoring a college student for an hour. I
was partner up with an ENG 99 student, she was Hispanic , short with honey blonde hair,
braces and reading glasses. I was kind of nervous since I'm usually the one
going to the writing center to get help from a tutor now I was in the position
of tutoring someone. She approached me very nicely, we walked to the writing
center and sat in a table located near the door. I told her Hi my name is Lizaeny I am your tutor for today what can I help you with ? She told me I am
having difficulties creating my thesis, I don't have my essay but, I have the
reading I am suppose to write about. I asked her if she understood the reading
and she told me yes, I can also summarize the reading so that you can tell me if
I am on the right track. She wrote the summary, I read it and realized she is
not organized because her thesis was at the end of her summary and she did not
summarize the reading enough. I asked her to verbally tell me what the passage
is about, she spoke more than she wrote. I noticed she understood the passage
but, had problems writing it down. We read the article and stopped at the end of
each paragraph so that she can summarize what she understood so far. Everything
was going pretty well, until she started getting off topic asking me questions
like " did you take the CATW exam? Was it hard?How long you have in college? Do
you think my teacher is cute? " I felt awkward and told Her not to get distracted. I waited for her to expand her summary, five minute into writing her summary she asked me if I can tell her what to write since I am smarter than her. I told her that is not true, her summary is good she just has to expand it more. After I was done tutoring she asked me if I can help her throughout the week ? And I told her I will see her next Tuesday. I was very nervous at first but, being my first time tutoring I think I did pretty good. I was able to help my student with her summary and make sure she understood how to write a thesis and take notes while reading.The only thing that bother me
was when the student was getting distracted asking me personal questions and talking about random things that didn't relate to the essay, other than that everything went smooth. Next Tuesday when i meet with the student again i am going to feel more confident and and on track.
