Today I observed Jessica’s Year 5 English session. Roza had initially suggested that I observe a Maths session as this is what I typically like to tutor but I requested if there were any English sessions available to observe. I was really keen to observe Jessica’s English session and learn from her as I personally struggle with tutoring english and don’t have very much experience tutoring primary school students.
Jessica was really fantastic in maintaining an encouraging and relaxed environment, despite her student not being very engaged in the session and a little tired (as expected, its first week back and a Monday!). Jessica could sense this in her student and would give encouraging feedback like “you got this” and “you are very creative” and make amendments to her original plan to make the session more fun for the student, such as starting a new story rather than continuing an old one and taking turns in reading a comprehension passage after noticing it was quite long.
Throughout their revision of a story her student had written her leading questions were very clear and helpful in prompting her student when she was confused. She also gave her student great advice to improve her story for the following week by explaining how to translate the images in her head to the reader.
I was really impressed with Jessica’s ability to remain encouraging with her student which allowed the student to eventually warm up and become more involved. Great job Jessica!
Teoni Antonopoulos
