There seem to be two types of sessions in foreign language tutoring: one helping students understand differences in grammar (remember Jane working with subjonctivos for the 100th time?) and the other, helping them with compositions they’ve had to write, using x number of vocabulary words, or this and that verb tense. To me, the first is much easier than the second. The errors in exercises are finite; tutors can see what students do and don’t understand about the principles behind the concept of this tense or that one. Students usually bring their textbooks to these sessions, so the tutor and student can look through to find how the book explains this or that.

Dealing with compositions is a whole ‘nother matter.   Last semester we saw Becky deal with a 101 composition that was written as if the student were in 301–perfect, with advanced verb tenses, etc.  Whaaa???

Omar’s predicament was a bit different.  His client didn’t bring anything but the paper: no books, no dictionaries, nada, rien.  She had a two-page double-spaced composition.  And hers was far from perfect.  He soon realized something.  “You put this through the word translator, didn’t you?” ….”How did you know?” she asked.   Ai yai yai.

Here’s how Omar spent the next 35 minutes:

La methode:

He had her read it out loud (to practice pronunciation, with Omar repeating words here and there).

He asked, (if it wasn’t quite idiomatic or the meaning was really unclear), “What do you want to say?”  “This is what it says,”  translating into English from the French she wrote.   Or assumed she wrote.

and then, “Can you change it?” or… “These are the choices.” (for some verb tense possibilities), “Choose one.”

All upside down, even writing on her paper.  Whoa.  (Apparently Omar has been tutoring other students for years, classmates as he finished assignments early, and was encouraged to help others.)

She was ready to help him summarize what they’d done at the end so he could fill out the form: “I had lots of problems with that,” pointing to her paper, which was bleeding with what Omar and she had written on it.

In our debriefing, Omar and I talked about getting a bit more systematic start to the session.  I suggested he read over the paper very quickly, not out loud.  And underline any problem areas quickly.  And think about the kinds of errors he’s noticing.  All in a couple minutes.  Then doing what he did (La Methode), but marking on the form the first instance of this or that… like

If  subject   verb,  subject verb (the actual example)                   (and another type to the right)      Ils doivent aller

and then another Word Forms  (l’)  etude  vs.  etudier                                                                                    Likewise over her for this kind of error

He would be building databases of examples from her own writing in different corners of the form,  with the corrections.  Categories that will help her understand and then remember better.   And the third error, maybe she’ll even be able to figure it out all by herself as she reads it outloud.  And the fourth.

And to talk about each time that the internet translator has screwed up royally.

Still a difficult task…