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Tutoring Tips

Tips for Tutoring ESL Students

• Try not to focus on errors involving articles and prepositions. Other patterns such as subject/verb agreement, sentence boundaries, basic work order ar both easier to master and interfere more with communication.
• If there are many errors with two part verbs, encourage students to use the more formal verb which is easier to master--i.e. use "search" instead of 'look for," "investigate" instead of "look into," etc.
• As with native speakers, if a paper makes no sense, focus on the idea level. The more abstract the concept, the more difficult it will be to convey in proper English, particularly for non-native speakers.
• When sentences are very hard to follow, words are out of order, etc., ask the students if he/she is translating. At this level, students need to be expressing their ideas in English without translation. You could ask the student to try to explain it in their own words.
• Encourage students to use advanced ESL or English-only dictionaries. Bilingual dictionaries should only be used as a last resort.
• Highlight the sentences in which the meaning is especially hard to follow, so the student knows where to focus his or her attention. You could ask, "Can you think of another sentence?" so the student knows they can start over again. Instead of trying or fix very problematic sentences.
• Tips on how to work with a tutor, which questions to ask and to avoid and strategies on how to translate tutor comments like AWK and what to do about it (see above).
• Tense Problems: Different languages indicate time in different ways, so tenses are often a problem for non-native speakers. If the tenses are not consistent, you may want to circle a few verbs or ask a student to circle the verbs and ask what time the man (past? present? future?)
• Reading tips for ESL students: Focus on reading rather than error correction--the most effective way to acquire new language

Thank goes to CoM ESL instructors for sharing this list of tips.

 

Notations & Web Links

Guides tutors through various difficult scenarios, all with online video segments.  A truly outstanding training web site that will make you think. NOTE: Video segments on this site are very large files. A high-speed Internet connection is suggested http://writing.richmond.edu:16080/training/tough/

A comprehensive and solid "read only" (i.e. not interactive) manual for tutors Organized by type of tutee ("The Unpolished Student," "The Disorganized Student," etc.) http://www.montreat.edu/tutor/

Darmouth's online tutor training materials, including videos  Organized by issue (organization, logic, etc.) More interactive than the second link, but nowhere near as interactive as the first link). http://www.dartmouth.edu/~compose/tutor/

This page last updated April 11, 2005

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Technical Contact: Ingrid Schreck, Instructor of English – Tel: 415-485-7611
Content Responsible: Ingrid Schreck – Tel: 415-485-7611

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