Lindsay Androy (#2) ED.

692 July 21st 2013 Tutor Report #1 Last session in 691 I tutored a Japanese boy named Yo, and I was fortunate to have him come back for tutoring with me this session. Yo is sixteen years old and has been in the United States for two months. In the fall he will be going to a high school in Portland, but since his native and primary language is Japanese, he is at the ELCI taking summer classes to improve his language skills. He is currently living with a host family in Dallas, but in the fall he will move to a new host family in Portland. As for his academic plans, he will get his high school degree in the United States and then go back to Japan for college. Getting to know Yo over the past few weeks, I have learned of his loves for soccer, riding bikes, and biology. Proficiency wise, Yo is at a somewhat complicated level. He studied English at school in Japan, but he only practiced reading and writing. He explained that his teachers rarely spoke in English or gave the class opportunities to speak in English, which is why he is so insecure with his speaking and listening skills. In our last sessions, Biology was the focus of our tutoring, but this time I would like to focus a little more on his speaking skills, since they will be so important once he starts school in the fall. For the introductory activity, I made a modified version of the game Catch Phrase for us to play. I chose this game already knowing his English background because it involves speaking, listening, and reading skills. I wrote basic high school level words (mostly nouns) on separate pieces of paper, folded them, and we took

turns choosing a word and trying to get the other person to guess what the word was. Some of the words he could guess right away, but some of the others it took a lot repeating the descriptions for him to comprehend what I was saying. On occasion, if he was struggling, I would tell him the word to make sure he knew what that word was, and he always did. This is when I identified his problem with listening comprehension. It was also through this game that I was able to administer the SOLOM. His overall score was 15, which places him in phase II. In a breakdown of his overall score, I gave him 2 for comprehension, 3 for fluency, 4 for vocabulary, 2 for pronunciation, and 4 for grammar. Starting with his higher scores, he only occasionally has to rephrase ideas because of lexical problems and has a very strong English vocabulary and grammar base that does not take away from the meaning of what he is saying. And although his speech is frequently disrupted by him trying to figure out the best way to express his thoughts, he is not often forced into silence, which is a very good thing. As for his lowest scores, he has a very hard time comprehending spoken English, both conversational and academic, and he has a tendency to hard to understand due to his lack of opportunity to practice speaking English. As Yo is about to go into an English speaking high school for the first time, I think it is very important for him to focus on improving his speaking and comprehension skills. His strong reading and writing skills will be very beneficial when he has to take paper and pencil tests or any other sort of reading and writing activity of homework. But he may be in classrooms in which teachers have lecture-

based styles and may not be providing the necessary scaffolding he needs. If that is the case, Yo could be missing out on a lot of expose to the content of the class while his focus is on comprehending what the teacher is lecturing about. Along with this but in a different scenario, Yo could be put in a classroom in which group work is a major part of the class. If this is the case, Yo needs to be able to listen to his group members comprehending what they are saying, and be able to respond and participate in the group discussions and not be limited to his basic speaking skills. Either way I would like to focus our tutoring sessions on improving his communication and comprehension skills on the academic level. My objective for next session: student will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of nouns, verbs, and adjectives by writing them, describing them, and identifying them. Yo is a very smart boy and can handle working on a lot of different things at the same time, he just needs to proper scaffolds. This objective will be beneficial because it incorporates grammar, spelling, speaking, and comprehension. All things he will be encountering in the classroom. For my next session I plan on using the same activity as before, but with some modifications. After the necessary review or teaching of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, Yo and I will both be writing various nouns, verbs, and adjectives on pieces of paper. I will pull from the pile of words Yo came up with, and trying to get him to guess what each word is. Because Yo has such weak comprehension skills, it will be helpful for Yo to have an initial exposure to the words I will be describing. And in the reverse role, having Yo pick from the pile of words I created will help avoid using only words he very comfortable with talking about.

Tutoring Session One Scoring Guide Student profile. Detailed description of student & context (e.g., proficiency level). Description of all traits on SOLOM. Description of ELLs strengths and weaknesses. Objective. Appropriate for student proficiency level. It is based on standards. Plan for next session. Activity connects to objective. Learning strategy included. Editing, Presentation, APA, and Timeliness Uses correct grammar and punctuation and the paper is between 3-4 pages ( plus references). Follows APA format. Total PP Self 4 4 2 2 3 3 1 .5 10 9.5 IA