Reflection on Tutoring at the ETC, Summer 2012
    Upon ending my first semester of the MA Composition program, I was eager to get started and delighted to be given a chance to tutor over the summer. I consider myself a natural teacher -- I’ve always been good at explaining things and using analogy to help make a topic relevant to the student. I figured tutoring writing wouldn’t be that different from any other tutoring I’d done. There were some concerns I had, such as grammar. I have no problem writing with good grammar, but explaining to someone what it is and how to use it perplexed me. What gave me confidence to try tutoring anyway was learning that grammar was something we set aside till the end. It is considered part of mechanics and not necessary for someone to write with voice, authenticity and clarity. Worrying about grammar at the first stages of a writing assignment can be stifling.
    I’d chosen to tutor over the summer because it fit best with my schedule but in retrospect, it wasn’t the best choice for the students. Not that many students require tutoring over the summer, so I only had one session with one student. That one session, however, was a great introduction for me and I learned so much. I spent about two hours with a Gen 1.5 student whom I will call Lisa. Lisa’s heritage is Filipino. She wrote a personal narrative about her life growing up in American schools. I was deeply moved by her narrative, not only for its clarity and originality but for her bravery in sharing such a difficult story. I found it hard to put down the paper, let alone tell her what needed improvement. We ended up reviewing the paper, line by line, looking for typos and odd turns of phrase that wouldn’t fit with Standard English.
    My confidence with tutoring began to wane as I noticed grammatical errors, and since the prompt from the instructor was to “clean up” grammar issues, I suddenly felt that I was in over my head. I moved on and asked the student to read passages I felt needed grammatical tweaking. She read a passage a few times then came up with the answer on her own, thankfully, and I could see this boosting her confidence. We never actually discussed specifics, and I was glad that my lack of terminology with grammar was hidden although in retrospect, I realized that if I wanted to continue tutoring, I’d need to relearn all those rules I’d put out of my head back in high school.
    Lisa and I were moving on at a steady pace and had gotten about halfway through the paper when Jessica told us that the office was closing and that we’d spent two hours working! I was absolutely shocked. It only seemed like a few minutes and I felt bad that I was not able to finish with Lisa. Yet she was very thankful for the help I did provide and was confident she would be able to continue editing on her own. After Lisa left, Jessica went over with me the normal procedure for working with students. That we usually only spend half an hour with them and that during regular semesters, the place was quite hectic. That I would be working with three or more students a week and that I didn’t need to revise their entire paper for them. I only needed to use a few examples to get the point across and I needed to encourage them to work on their own. I was relieved to hear this and it seemed so obvious. Much as I loved working with Lisa, I realized that it was better for me to let her work alone and come back for a quick checkup. This is what tutoring should be, I remembered.
    Jessica also gave me some great pointers for how to start conversations on grammar and encouraged me to get the Longman Student Grammar Manual. I thank Jessica and Lisa for the lessons I learned last summer and hope to become a better, more efficient tutor now that I'm finally taking ENG704.