Success in one Tutoring Partnership: Small steps, laughs and facing fear

By Tutor Sharon Bailey-Bok
with English student Luz Maria Rahlwes 20 August 2008

Luz Maria and I did not bond right away. She was suspicious, withdrawn and somewhat cynical that she would find a tutor that she could count on. Her past experiences with English classes had not been stellar. Over the years, I have tutored children and young adults. Later I taught college. I was better suited to that and so I purposely sought out a student who was older and female. Luz and I are close in age, in our mid-fifties. When we first met at a local cafe, I could see that Luz was not optimistic. Luz Maria is a proud woman with a college degree (in Spanish) from the University of Bogota and so she did perk up when I acknowledged that I know the people of Colombia are known for speaking the most beautiful Spanish in all of Latin America. That made her smile and I could see an opening...a chance for mutual respect. And we ended up doing better than that.

Initially, we found that meeting in Luz's home (she works nights and her husband works days) worked for us. We could share tea and be expressive. Her English was in that stage of verging on intermediate with large gaps. We needed to work on the basics to fill in those gaps and pronunciation issues. Yet it was clear to me that for Luz to progress in English, the study had to be relevant to Luz's life NOW. We used workbooks and drills AND I had her write down any phrases or words she heard at work that she did not understand (as a caregiver for an assistant living facility). That was eye-opening for both of us. The subtle and not-so-subtle racism and classism that non-native English speakers face in our society can be appalling. I won't "go" there" now, but it was clear those clients/patients and coworkers could be quite abusive. We worked on what Luz heard AND on constructive responses. And we slowly built trust.

We worked on phone calls – both making and receiving them. At the beginning, Luz was terrified of answering the phone for fear of not understanding. We worked on this from day one. Part of her homework was to call me. At first we just confirmed our next meeting. Gradually, we talked more. We worked on saying the alphabet since it reads differently in English than in Spanish. At work, she was often asked to find one client or another and the caller would spell the name. So on the phone, I would spell names and she would have to write them down correctly. Progress was made in spite of setbacks. 

One day Luz received a call from a doctor's receptionist who admonished Luz for missing an appointment saying Luz would still be charged $80 for the visit. This time I intervened. It turns out Luz had heard "28th" instead of "20th" for the appointment date. We were able to convince the billing department to forgive the error and reschedule without the penalty fee. And the receptionist promised to speak more clearly!