Key Takeaways from the PD Roundtable on How to Use ESL Tutors Effectively

Last Friday, Gary and I co-hosted a PD roundtable where 22 faculty from ESL, English, Business Education, and Counseling brainstormed together and offered their best advice on how to use our ESL tutors effectively. Below is the gist of the notes I took.

Using an Embedded ESL Tutor in Your Classroom

Siegrid, a lead tutor (via Heather):

• Please take advantage of us.

• Give guidance, and ask us if we’re comfortable with doing an activity in class.

• Don’t forget to give us a copy of your textbook and your handouts.

Susana, level 1 teacher:

• Have students raise their hands when needing the tutor’s help.

• Have the tutor help with dictation.

• Prepare a “flipper” chart for the tutor for easy reference to key sections of the textbook.

Heather, level 3 and level 5 teacher:

• Relinquish your power as a teacher in the new dynamics in the class.

• Organize two reading circles so that the tutor can work with one of them.

• Have the tutor circulate with the teacher during the practice phase of a lesson, helping students with short answers, vocabulary, spelling, correct grammar, etc.

• Have the tutor work in peer review groups, helping students with the content, organization, and grammar of their papers.

Colleen, academic writing teacher:

• Give the tutor a teacher’s manual of the textbook with answer keys for exercises.

• Appreciate your tutor taking notes in class.

• Work as a team with an eye on student success. For the past year, I’ve found myself giving more A’s because I’ve had embedded classroom tutors in my writing classes.

Katrina, level 3 teacher:

• Prepare a plan and go over it with the tutor quickly.

• Have the tutor anchored in a corner to help go over something (words, sounds, pronunciation, practices, etc.) that individual students really need but I cannot do individually.

• Create a rapport with your tutor from the get-go.

• Give a tutor who is overzealous a moment of glory.

Angela, level 1 teacher:

• Get to know a tutor’s qualifications ahead of time.

Richard, academic writing teacher:

• Make personal contact with your tutor. It’s very important to have a rapport with your tutor.

• Don’t patronize your tutor. Don’t make your tutor the student.

Nimoli, level 3 and academic writing teacher:

• Don’t give your classroom tutor work to do out of class.

• Realize that not all tutors are prepared for academic writing.

• Realize that it does not take much to develop a rapport with your tutor.

• Have your students show the tutor your classroom rules.

• Have your tutors help with checking student sentences.

Roberta, level 1 teacher:

• Have your tutor help translate for your students if strategically necessary.

Using ESL Tutors Outside of Your Classroom

Heather, level 3 and level 5 teacher:

• Have tutors give after-class workshops.

• Limit error finding and treatment to 3 per session. Have the tutor circle 3 errors, for example.

Colleen, academic writing teacher:

• Write specific feedback comments asking your students to go see a tutor for assistance with their writing issues.

• Require students to see a tutor and return with a tutor’s signature on their papers.

Tamar, English 10 teacher:

• Make visiting a tutor a requirement for certain needy students and demand proof.

• Send along an outline for a tutor visit.

• Take your class on a “field trip” to the tutoring center.

• Emphasize that it’s A students who hang out at the tutoring center.

• Showcase the best results of the students who have been to the tutoring center.

Heayoung, level 2 teacher:

• Take your class to get to know the tutoring center physically.

Richard, academic writing teacher:

• Realize that just writing a suggestion to go see a tutor does nothing.

• Devise a tutor slip to attach to their papers every time your students have a tutoring session.

Nimoli, level 3 and academic writing teacher:

• Realize that a tutoring session can’t take care of everything, so focus on a selected chunk.

Katrina, level 3 teacher:

• Design your own tutor slip with your email address listed.

Mariko, academic writing teacher:

• Realize that some students will complain about their teachers. So tutors should not go along with this negativity. Instead, focus on the task, the prompt, and the assignment instructions.

Tarma, English 10 teacher:

• Welcome any contact from tutors with feedback from students they have seen.

Gary, level 2 teacher:

• Develop DLAs (Directed Learning Activities) as additional practice for your students to do at the tutoring center. (Note: Santa Barbara City College has used DLAs extensively. Click here to see.)