First Mentor Session

I'm not really experienced with this, but here it goes. I just had my first mentor session with Tim. We spent the time talking about the last session that he had and how he handled it. It was a drop-in session where a student brought in a grammar worksheet dealing with adjectives and adverbs. He told me that he didn't really remember the rules too well. So, he looked up the rules and was better able to help the student. He also told me that the student was a little apprehensive about the assignment because she was "not a writer" but an artist. For a boost of confidence, he told her that she just needed to think about writing as the same kind of process as drawing (which was the assignment; the correlation between images and writing). He handled the situation well. Instead of just faking his way through the session, he utilized his resources and helped the student to achieve her goal. Troubleshooting a session can be difficult, but he has figured out just one of the ways to do that. This will be a subject that we discuss for a little while because I feel that it is important to learn those skills. As different situations or hypothetical situations arise, I will relate to him my experiences and how I have or would handle them. Then we will discuss the methods and what he thinks he would do similarly or differently and why.

After we had discussed the session, we got to talking a little bit about ESL students. This is a subject that he has had very little experience with. I told him about the difficulties of trying to communicate grammar rules and things of the like to someone who won't necessarily understand what you are trying to talk about. A lesson that I have learned over the course of my time here is that it is much easier to teach an ESL student by example than it is to explain rules. Once they have grasped the concept visually, it is easier to communicate it orally.

We didn't discuss much after these two subjects. He wasn't really prepared for the session this week, but he has assured me that he will come next week with questions about the center and tutoring. Things should go a little smoother next time for we both now have a week to prepare for the next session.