Today, I took the opportunity to observe Raphael tutor one of his year 6 English students. As a maths tutor primarily, I find it especially interesting to observe English sessions to see how they differ in structure. What I first noticed was how quiet the lesson was. Raphael assigned his student a text to read through and allowed him ample time to process all the information and understand the key parts of the text before attempting to ask him any questions. This quiet environment allowed the student to focus well and comprehend the main features of the text himself, rather than constantly interrupting to point out key ideas.

Raphael also broke up the lesson with a quick game of UNO to keep his student focused for the remainder of the session. After reading through the text, Raphael ensured the student had a thorough understanding of the story by testing his knowledge with various questions involving the characters, as well as figuring out definitions of unfamiliar words together with his student. He did this by breaking down the words and focusing on their context within the text to see if his student could roughly guess the meaning. He would then clarify the exact definition and provide specific examples to help the meaning stick. Raphael took his time and listened to his student’s responses carefully, whilst encouraging him to add additional details in his answer to make it more sophisticated.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed observing this session and will implement some of the strategies shown.

Katherine Mavrolefteros