I observed a session where the tutor was guiding a primary student on how to write a persuasive text. The topic chosen was ‘should there be regular breaks at school?’, the tutor outlined ideas onto the board including an example of a school day with breaks included as well as reasons to why regular breaks help learning. Giving the student some ideas to start out with, allows the student to get started but also expand on these ideas alone which encourages them to take charge of their learning as well. The tutor also put multiple quotes onto the board, allowing the student to pick quotes they like and encouraging the student to incorporate them into their paragraphs. Along with this, the tutor would also guide the student on how to incorporate these quotes into their paragraphs. There was also synonyms of words like ‘more’ or ‘means’ written on the board, which allowed the student to expand their vocabulary and incorporate them into their paragraphs to be less repetitive. The student also had a vocabulary book that the student added on whenever new vocabulary is learnt, this expands a student’s vocabulary to be used in further tasks. As the student was writing their persuasive text independently, the tutor was continuously helping when the student had question on ideas, grammar or the format of their text. This process allows the student to feel supported while also encouraging them to create their own ideas and write. After the student finished writing their text, the tutor looked over it and discussed feedback on length, ideas and quote usage, which the student then worked on fixing afterwards. This direct and fast feedback allowed the student to work on editing the work with clarification, rather than confusion if the tutor wasn’t there to clarify any extra questions.

Cynthia Lam