Master in The Field

This week I observed a master in the field. The tutor for this week was extremely helpful to student in my opinion. She started off by reading over the students first draft and stopping to ask questions. I noticed the tutor made a personal connection to the student because she knew the assignment and she knew the student was in the right track. The only thing getting in the way was the language in which the student would think that something sounds proper because she thought it would be "okay" to translate from Spanish to English. The tutor took full control of the situation and shifted away from paper for about 5 minutes to explain to the student that verbs in both languages don't work the same way.



Once they got back to the paper the tutor asked for the student to provide her with the reading and with her second draft. The tutor read over it, and asked the student to explain to her why she was using the examples that she thought would be more relevant in the paper. The student explained her beliefs and the tutored praised her for having good understanding of the paper. They went over the second draft and made changes to the thesis which also allowed them to come up with a more understanding conclusion. She also explained to the student that every time she writes she should have an "imaginary audience", this would  create a  task in which that audience to needs to have an idea of what the passage was about without having to read it.

The tutor advised the student to come back for another sessions, with the same paper so they can work a little bit more on her verbs and adjective. She also took some time to explain the story from her point of view and to create connections to the writing.

What I found most interesting of this session was the way the tutor went above and beyond my expectations. She spoke in both languages, English and Spanish,  to create a much more comforting atmosphere for the student. She helped the student create new ideas, as well as she embraced the ideas the student already had. She made a personal connection with the student by relating to her struggle with English, and the connections she made to it in her native language (Spanish). Another thing that I learned while observing this session, was the way the tutor set a timer for herself and on the last five minutes she went over the things she thought would help the student the most.