Tutoring ESL - Reflection #5

Before starting my freshman year at Michigan State I applied and was accepted into the Global Educators Cohort. As a member of this cohort I was placed in special courses that focused on globalization in the classroom and given field placements working with kids in multicultural education settings. One of these field placements was at Eastern High School in Lansing, MI tutoring immigrant students. The Refugee Development Center, which is also located in Lansing, provides an after school program to the immigrant students that attend Eastern High School in order to make their transition to the United States as smooth as possible.

The student’s that attend the after school program varied in ethnicities and had a variety of first languages. A large majority of students that I worked with were Somali, however there were students from places such as China and Mexico. Every week I would spend a couple hours a week working with the students on their homework that they were assigned in their classes. Week after week I found myself struggling with the same problems. The students were so behind in their classes that they didn’t have any desire to do their work and catch up. Each week I would ask the students to get their homework out and they would claim they had none to do. It wasn’t until the students warmed up to me that admitted to having homework but were discouraged to do it because they were so behind. After talking to the students and realizing their daily struggle I made it a point to have a better understanding of what they were constantly going through when they attended class in order to better help them.

The more I volunteered at Eastern High School the better progress I made with my students. I quickly discovered that the way to motivate the students was to just show them that I cared about their education and I was dedicated to helping them catch up in their classes. Every day that I would go in to help them with their homework I would give them some incentives. They really enjoyed going on youtube.com and listening to music produced in the countries they previously lived in, so I would promise them time on the computer as long as we finished all of their homework. Not only was I able to motivate them to do their homework with this incentive but also I was able to learn about an important part of their culture.

This experience at Eastern High School is what inspired me to add on a TESOL minor to my degree. When I did my field placement my freshman year I didn’t quite have the skills that I needed in order to teach ESL students. I had to spend a lot of my time at my field placement trying to figure out which techniques worked best while tutoring the students. Now, after taking multiple courses at MSU for TESOL I have many skills that will help me in the future. For example, this year in LLT 307 I have learned about the different types of feedback. I’m very excited to use the set of skills I have obtained in the last couple years in my future classroom.