My sociocultural/history characteristics sort of intersect with my students. I am from another country and when I first came to the United States, I lived in Texas. Since I volunteer with an ESL class, most of the students are also from another country. It can be incredibly difficult to adjust to your new surroundings, esp. when you do not fully understand the native language of your new country. I think that this gave me a -very- slight advantage going into this experience.
In one of the reading logs that we had to keep for our assigned group students, another volunteer had written that one of the girls was really rude and disinterested in learning. I have worked with that same mentioned girl for the entire semester and she has been nothing but pleasant and excited to learn. She is from an African country and speaks both her native language and French. She just came to the United States in September, so it is very difficult for her to speak English. WHen she gets a question wrong, she shuts down and becomes silent- basically refusing to speak. She initially did this a few times with me, and I just kept giving her questions or activities that she could answer correctly- this seemed to really build up her confidence. Since she wasn't at the level of the other two students, I had to alternate the reading level games to include everyone.
I'm not saying anything bad about the volunteer who thought that that one girl was rude. I can see how someone might think that she was being difficult. I do think that being in that same situation has taught me patience with non-native speakers of English, so I didn't mind working with her at all. I actually loved her- she would draw pictures of me with her and she always wanted to teach me how to dance.
Your lived experience is a great asset to the VIPS tutoring experience. Also, your comment is about "keeping an open mind" about students you are called to interact with regardless of what others might express (frustration, mistrust)!
ReplyDeleteI think that you made a great decision not to let another tutor's experience with your student effect your impression of her. Sometimes one tutor/teacher will change a child's perception of themselves by breaking through the false belief that they are simply not good enough because their English is lacking. I hope that as she gets more comfortable with her English she stops shutting down after one wrong answer. Learning is not always about getting the right answer but about the discussion that happens in order to reach that answer. Do you have a plan to help her except that she might not always be right? I hope you added you observations to that log book because I am afraid that if other tutors don't learn to understand her she might stop wanting to participate. She might to start seeing school as place she does not fit in. Great job not letting her become one of the silent.
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