During this session, Dimi and her student worked on answering short questions for English and History. Being an engineering student, these two subjects were not my favourite at school, but I really appreciated how Dimi explained how to structure paragraphs for short answer responses and I learnt alot about Chinese history and Confucis!

Dimi and her student focused on finding sources for the students upcoming history exam and spoke alot about bias. During the session, Dimi really enocuraged conversation and discussion about different topics to help the student understand about bias in the media compared to now and during the and the 20th century. They spoke about Polio and Covid, and how the media impacted societies differently for both events. Here, Dimi really encouraged her student to see the impacts of social media and how it allows us to have instant access to information, which can be both good and bad. For instance, Dimi highlighted the importance of using information from reliable sources for examples surrounding vaccinations. This would include getting information from the manufacturer and accreddited medical professions, rather than from a blog post.

When explaining the context behind foot binding, while the student found it hard to understand why they would do it, Dimi explained social customs very well, explaining to the student that because of years of tradition, the people would participate in the practice regardless of the pain.

With this information, they began to talk about the structure of paragraphs for history, and how they are really similar to the PEEL paragraphs that they have been working on in English. Dimi guided her student to choose the topic of the paragraph which he wanted to write, and helped him to find reliable sources as evidence.

Overall, this was a great session to watch and listen in on. Thank you for letting me observe!

Emma Birrell