Tutoring Reflection
Instructor Amy Stolpestad
Celeste Avery
CI 5644
Tutoring Reflection
Celeste Avery
CI 5644
Youngwoo Kim
Introduction:
The student that I tutored attends school at Brimhall Elementary school in
Roseville. His name is Youngwoo Kim. Youngwoo is from South Korea and is in the
fourth grade. Our tutoring sessions occur twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays and
last for thirty minutes. Our main focus during these sessions has been on reading and
comprehension. We have also worked on specific projects that Youngwoo needed to
finish for his fourth grade class assignments.
Youngwoo is a very outgoing student who enjoys learning. In our conversations
he was willing to share personal information with me. He relayed to me that he had
attended school in South Korea before moving to the United States with his family. His
family came to the States several years ago so that his father could attend college here,
which is one of the most common motivations for Koreans relocating to the U.S. (Whelan
Ariza p. 47). He related that his family does not speak much English in the home. His
mother and father rarely speak any English to Youngwoo and his younger sister. His
father speaks Korean and Japanese, and his mother speaks mainly Korean. Youngwoo
was very excited to work with me and he worked diligently every time that we met which
could be a reflection of the Korean cultural value of education.
In addition to meeting with me, Youngwoo also attended ELL class as well as
Title I. He expressed that he enjoyed these classes very much and felt that he was
benefiting from them. He attended Title I immediately following our sessions and was
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very distressed if he was late. Youngwoo indicated that he as an individual was not
receiving any support outside of the school, but was unsure about any support or
resources that his family had access to.
Tutoring Sessions:
During our tutoring sessions Youngwoo would read a story to me and then
complete comprehension activities that were provided by the ELL Specialist. To begin
each session I would ask Youngwoo to preview the pictures and think about what the
story might be about. Any ideas that we came up with we would discuss. He would then
read the story out loud, and at certain points I might stop him and clarify or ask questions
about what he read. After he was done reading we would have a brief discussion in order
for me to assess if he understood the story. We would then complete the assigned
activities together. I would encourage Youngwoo to read through the questions and
answers before making his response. Often I would suggest that he reread a section of the
text if he was unsure about a concept. We would also talk about any personal connections
that he could make to the reading (such as, had he ever played baseball or gone fishing?).
Youngwoo is very particular about his written responses. His handwriting is very
neat and he is very concerned that he spells every word correctly. Other areas that
presented challenges were prepositions and creating timelines. Often we would encounter
perplexity over simple subjects such as when I observed his obvious puzzlement over the
use of the words lamp and light bulb in a text. After coming to a tentative agreement of
what a lamp was, I finally asked him to draw me a picture of what he thought a lamp
looked like. His face lit up in an “Aha” moment and he began to draw a picture that
resembled Aladdin’s lamp. He still didn’t understand what a light bulb had to do with the
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lamp. Using various other pictures we finally reached an understanding of the intended
meaning of lamp in the story.
For the most part Youngwoo is reading very well. His reading is fluent and he
uses the punctuation to read with expression. Areas that cause him some difficulty are
proper names. He often struggles to pronounce them correctly and he does not know
gender specific names. For example if the name Mary is used in a story he does not know
that it is most likely to be referring to a female character. Certain other words were hard
for him to pronounce as well. I learned from reading in our textbook Not for ESOL
Teachers (p 51) that there are certain sounds that do not exist in the Korean language.
There are also some English sounds that are more difficult for the Korean students to
hear. Pronouns such as her, him, hers, and his were also confusing some of the time.
Instead of correcting Youngwoo’s grammar and pronunciation I modeled the proper form
and gave him time to practice in a fun and comfortable environment. I made every effort
to make sure that during our time together Youngwoo felt secure and unthreatened, as per
the Affective Filter Hypothesis that was discussed in the textbook and during lecture.
When mistakes were made I made sure that he knew that it was okay and that everyone
makes mistakes, even me. When I made mistakes I made sure to point them out to him as
well as how I recognized that I had made a mistake and how I thought about ways to fix
the mistake. I did this by expressing my thinking out loud to demonstrate the cognitive
process that was occurring.
Strategies:
When working with Youngwoo I was always aware that I needed to give him
adequate “wait time” when asked a question. This gave him time to understand the
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question and formulate how he was going to answer. It was very rewarding to see him
work through his thoughts to come up with the answers.
Other strategies that I used included having a variety of pictures to explain
concepts and I also provided Youngwoo with a varied selection of interesting reading
materials that had been approved by the ELL Specialist. We drew many pictures, both on
paper and on the chalkboard. Reading strategies that we used included picture walks, text
structure, questions and predictions, monitoring comprehension, and rereading. In
addition to reading comprehension we worked on the concepts of adjectives and
prepositions. We also spent some time making a timeline of Youngwoo’s life for a
classroom project.
I also tried to incorporate Youngwoo’s first language into our learning activities. I
encouraged him to connect English words to their Korean counterparts. When creating
his timeline I invited him to write the events in both English and Korean. I did this for
several purposes, one to show him that his Korean language was valuable, when he took
this project home his family would be able to appreciate the work as well, and to make
further connections between the two languages.
I used other activities with Youngwoo to further his understanding of adjectives
and prepositions. For both of these concepts I tried to incorporate the Total Physical
Response method from the textbook. I would direct Youngwoo to locate a pencil that was
under the chair, or beside the desk. He might be asked pick up the paper on the table and
place it into the recycling bin. We raced toy cars across the floor. We then added
adjectives to our nouns in the sentences. He might have to select the scratched car or the
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wrinkled paper. These activities were a lot of fun and I feel that his understanding
increased.
Reflection:
I feel like this activity was a valuable experience for me as a future teacher. I
know that as a classroom teacher it is doubtful that I will have the opportunity to spend as
much one on one time with all of the ELL students in the class as would be optimal, but
this experience has taught me to realize that we need to make a special effort to
continually view each of our students as individuals with individual needs. Although
many of the ELL students will benefit form ELL programs or Title I, not all of them will
have access to these programs, and there are so many ways that their needs can be met in
the classroom if the teacher is sensitive to those needs.
References:
Whelan Ariza, Eileen N. (2006) Not for ESOL Teachers: What Every Classroom Teacher
Needs to Know About the Linguistically, Culturally, and Ethnically Diverse Student.
Boston: AB Longman.
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