10/04/09-10/10/09

This week began my first official time on the Center's schedule and things are off to a decent start so far. I did have a no-show for my first consultation but ended up helping another student during my break instead. I don't remember much about that particular consultation but the one after wards was memorable. The student was putting together a paper and had both concerns over conciseness and grammar and admittedly had good reason. He was nervous about the experience and I did what I could to make him feel more relaxed but unfortunately I don't think I made it to that point. I did, however, give him some useful information to take with him, as well as had him get out of his shell a little bit to see if he could make some corrections on his own.

Thursday I had both my consultations show up. Both were Communications papers but each handled incredibly different. My first consultation had only a single page written but lots of ideas. We discussed what he had and then turned to possibilities to further research and development of his paper since he needed it to be 5 pages or so at the end. Since he began the paper talking about a six person group he was a part of I made a suggestion that the communication between he and his group member's could new research to the topic and his eyes just had that "Ah ha!" moment we all hope for. More importantly it was his first time at the Center and he had a positive experience, I'm thinking we'll start to see more of him.

The second consultation almost went out of control. The student was entirely overwhelmed, uncertain on what to do with the assignment, overwhelmed, stressing, overwhelmed etc. She wanted to do nothing but talk about all the things she had to do and while I sympathized with her I knew that if we didn't work on this paper she'd just have more to worry about. I read through the material and syllabus and looked over what she had. It was okay work but she admitted that it was written when she didn't have a key piece of information. Learning that and after some consideration I decided it was time to suggest my first "huge" revision. Since she had written only a page and a half and was stressing out about it I suggested she put it to the side and start fresh, offering some tips connected to the syllabus to put together a "battle plan" for her. She still seemed nervous but I think I've gotten her out of a rut and on a new path that will do better for her.

The reading for this week was a considerable amount, but still very valuable. ELL students definitely seem to be the most common frequenters of our Center and it's important we know various strategies to help them. It really is important to remember that they are students just like us and not some sort of segregated group, although I find it ironic that scholarship on helping students from other countries can't help but group them together under a title, which the text speaks against. I find myself trying to decide between Bedford and the ESL guide on how to handle consultations and find myself leaning more towards the former. Grammar and punctuation is something you can pic up over time, but if the piece itself is a mess concerning content then it will do little good for the student. As was mentioned in class, though, we can't have a system of absolutes, if the paper itself is truly well put together save for punctuation and surface level edits then it is fine to focus on them. It's rarely been the case so far with me, though.

I just sense this nervousness the guides continue to talk about and I'm hoping as I gain practice I'll be able to work my way past it and get them more into a comfort zone. They have enough to worry about without needing to wonder if they'll be judged at the center.