Hi,
since nobody has made any suggestions as to where they wanted to go next with the training, I have made the decision for us. – For the next couple of weeks we will look at tutoring students from a different cultural background from your own.
When working with international students, like all students it is good to establish a rapport. Here are a few initial questions you may wish to ask your student to help you to do this.
- Tell me about your travels in other countries and NZ
- What are your impressions of life in NZ.?
- Why did you decide to come to Otago Polytechnic?
- Have New Zealand customs been a problem for you?
- What do you miss most about your country?
When you begin tutoring an international student, be aware that sometimes the student will become dependent on you for more than just tutoring. The student might see you as a much needed new friend, or as a source of information about not only, scholarly interests, but social interests. How would this make you feel? Would you welcome it or not? If not how would you deal with this? (comment to this blog please).
The following are tips for working with English as a Second Language (ESL) students:
- Speak clearly, naturally and avoid using slang.
- Use repetition.
- Frequently ask the student if what you are saying makes sense.
- Ask students to become the tutor and explain the concept to you.
- Use restatement to clarify the student’s response–I think you said…
- If the student does not understand you, write down what you are saying.
- If you do not understand the student, ask them to write what they are saying.
- Encourage students to read and to use their dictionaries.
Go to this page in the course wiki and post the answers to the questions in your Blog.
For those of you who are international students, do you have any suggestions or stories you could share?
I think it’s the same as when you meet anyone in life who is a little “needy” in some ways, you have to pretend to be a very busy person! A couple of white lies might work if you don’t want to become their best friend.
I think if they want advice about certain things outside of course related stuff, it depends on what they are asking and how intrusive it gets.
I’d always try and be a bit subtle, and if that doesn’t work, maybe get a little less subtle.
It’s always hard to do as an adult, but you have to try not to hurt feelings while feeling obligated to help in other ways. I would just try to remeber that I am there just to be a peer tutor, not a life coach.
I’m with Mark on this one. I work with many different cultures and it’s about respecting who they are and where they come from.
In terms of peer tutoring, I agree with Mark here too, in that, an hour isn’t long enough to engage with them on their life histories. However, you may need to spend a lot more time on proof-reading their work to ensure the grammer and spelling is correct.
When I am with people from a different culture, or who have an intellectual disability I try to use uncomplicated, non-jargony language. In my job as a nurse I often have to interpret medical knowledge for clients and so use those skills with peer tutoring.
I think this has to do with having clear boundaries in a work situation. For example, if you are working with a new boss, is it appropriate to go out for a beer or start talking about his/her family? I don’t think so ~ especially if you want to keep your job!
Now of course, there are some cultural variations – in terms of the work culture at the place, the social culture, and the country culture. But I think most people would agree, that it does take time until some trust is built up, and there is respect on both sides for boundaries…
One of the questions that I might ask a student, is to share something special about his / her culture – i.e., identify it, and then do some self-reflection / sharing about ‘why’ it is important for him / her.
That’s gives a good entre for the peer tutor to share something meaningful about the why – for the tutor… it’s a kind of appreciative inquiry meets cross-cultural communication. After all, really good communication begins with active listening, dialogue and sharing on verbal and nonverbal levels, particularly over time.
Cheers,
Randy
How would it make me feel if an international student wanted to befriend me? Hopefully this would not be very likely unless we really hit it off from day one, and then maybe I wouldn’t mind, within reason – so long as nothing improper develops to compromise the tutor to student relationship. Otherwise, I might be saying things like, “have you checked out such and such”, pointing towards other people, activities or resources.
re cultural assignment. Sorry I have forgotten how to add to my blogpage so will put my comments on here.
1. My cultural background is pakeha/european influenced by english/irish/catholic traditions. Celebrated birthdays/Xmas etc much the same as others.
2. Advantages/obstacles in tutoring students from different cultures. An advantage is that I have traveled quite a bit thru Asian countries so am familiar with many of the communication differences within cultures. i read the communicating with non-english speaking students in the next assignment and agree with all of these, e.g being aware of eye contact and what that means etc. The other advantage that I can see is that it means that as a tutor you have to be very clear with what you are saying and not using colloquialisms or ‘kiwi words’. this can only be good when proofreading essays. This helps to keep essays tight and succinct.
Obstacles include language barriers that others have mentioned.
3. Promoting positive enviros. I guess this is by giving time .
and being clear about what you are saying. In nursing this might mean clarifying nursing language. plus looking out for non-verbals that might indicate the student hasn’t understood you and giving the student plenty of space and time to explain their views.
1. I am Muslim and my culture is very important to me.
2. Language might be the major obstacle here. However, coming from SA and learning to adopt other culture to a certain degree will hold me in good stead in dealing with this kind of an issue. Not imposing my views onto others and keeping in mind other peoples’ cultural views is very important.
3. Allowing sufficient time from the time a question is asked to the time an answer is generated might make a student actually think, rather than being an “answer giver.” Being clear and paraphrasing to ensure that the student has understood you. Encouraging the student in whatever little effort he has undertaken would be positive. Looking out for non-verbal cues to get a feel of how the student is taking things will be a positive attitude.