Serena TS #13

Date/Time: October 10, 7:30-8:30am

Location: Skype

Topic/Skill: current events, Presidential debate, family and work/ speaking & listening

Feedback provided to tutee: I remember feeling more confident about his speaking and listening skills and after the improvement I noticed in the last session. This session, however, I found myself asking Dojun more regularly to repeat himself or clarify what he had said. At the end of this session I asked Dojun if he felt like the tutoring sessions overall have been really helpful so far, and he confirmed that they have been.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: I think I jumped the gun on interpreting the amount of improvement I saw in Dojun's speaking and listening skills. When I noticed more mistakes, I realized that students must naturally have ups and downs in their performance levels. From this experience I also noticed that I adapt my speech pace based on the number of errors the tutee makes. When he was speaking very well I began to speak faster, though when he made fewer mistake I began to speak almost at a beginner level pace. This has it's pros and cons. The pro is that I can recognize the level of my audience and adapt to it. The con however is that his speaking level may not directly correlate with his listening ability because productive and receptive skills differ. At the same time, the difference in topics may also affect his base knowledge and vocabulary on the topic.