Steps 2 - Identification of the Task

Once you have greeted each other, and arranged the seating, the next step is to figure out the purpose of the tutoring session. Given the opportunity, nearly all tutees will voluntarily state what it is they wish to work on.

Providing Opportunity

Let the tutee direct your attention to their needs on their terms and at their pace. This keeps them in charge (does this sound familiar? Promoting independence of course!).

Follow Up

Follow up questions allow tutee’s to make statements which clarify their immediate concerns and reinforce the fact that the tutee does know something. This is empowering to the tutee.

Restatements

This is just restating what the tutee says. If a tutee says

“I need help with my writing”

you can simply repeat this statement,

“You need help with your writing.”

Then PAUSE. The tutee will then clarify. A typical response might be, “Yeah, I got this essay and the teacher said something about transitions.” The key here is the pause.

Empathetic Statements

These types of statements promote the tutee’s independence by giving them the opportunity to define the topic of tutoring.

An example of this might be :

“Writing a good paper for Professor Putun can be really frustrating.”

Steps 3- Breaking the Task Into Parts

Skillful tutors behave in ways that allow the tutee the opportunity to break the task into parts. (Can you say promoting tutee independence? I knew you could!) The key here is “Providing Opportunity.”

So, how do you behave in ways that give the tutee the opportunity to carry this out? Here again, re-statement is a useful technique.

If a student states: “I’ve got to understand the cell, be able to diagram it and label the parts.” You could restate what the tutee just said…then PAUSE. This approach reinforces that there are distinct tasks and a sequence to them.