Márcio Padilha

EDUC 110
Peer Tutor Training
Second Paper
4/30/2006

Learning Modality Analysis

For this paper, I have chosen to analyze one Russian female tutee who, besides
not being proficient in English, had only a third-grade education prior to coming to the
United States where, being registered in school according to her age rather than to her
previous educational level, she has been placed in the ninth grade.
Thus, the tutee in question is faced with two concomitant crucial and seemingly
paradoxical challenges, that of English Language acquisition, which is essential for
academic success to be plausible, and the understanding of, in her case, advanced
knowledge, which, in turn, is exacerbated given her handicap in the language of
instruction.
With that said, the tutee in question is under my tutoring for approximately one
hour and a half daily, which has given me the many opportunities to observe and work
with her within the academic setting.
Although, as tutor-tutee, we deal with the whole gamma of subject matters within
a Junior High School curriculum, I will focus on ESL and Math instruction, which expose
two distinct learning modality skills.
As a norm, the tutee in question is very talkative which gives her a greater natural
edge in ESL acquisition, a propensity which is further denoted by her poor handwriting
and visual memory. She is further capable to remember spoken words rather than written
ones, consequently having a sufficient oral vocabulary with a respective written deficit.
Concomitantly, associations and comparisons are indispensable for her to contextualize
new information to preexistent knowledge. Ultimately, regarding ESL acquisition, she
appears brighter than her tests indicate.
Thus, in order to help this tutee overcome some of her ESL deficiencies, I slowly
talk her through the instructions in order to insure understanding, further reinforcing the
instruction with verbal exercises and participation in controlled small group interaction
activities with the ultimate goal of promoting consolidation of the ESL topics covered in
class.
On the other hand, this tutee appears to learn better kinesthetically when math,
which calls for a different type of reasoning altogether, is being tutored. She then displays
characteristics innate to tactile learners such as being extremely active and athletic,
needing to write things down as to have the concrete versus the abstract, often
underachieving in Math tests as well.
In order to provide for these needs, the roles are inverted and I have her show me
how to solve the equations. By doing so, her difficulties are asserted more aggressively
and a sense of empowerment is instilled in her as it then becomes clear that she does not
know how to solve only part of the equation rather its entirety. Other instructional
methods include highlighting and underlining portions of the textbook as well as color-
coding the equation, such as 3x + 5x = 8x.
In order to establish effective communication with this tutee, I have resorted to all
available means such as English, some Russian, writing it down, limited sign language
and gestures. Although the communication process becomes quite interesting at time, the
messages seem to be getting through both ways.
In closing, although I had already been doing so instinctively, I believe that the
technical background acquired in the past two modules will help me in targeting the
tutees’ learning modality in a faster and more assertive way which, in turn, should allow
me to provide for the needs in question quicker, thus speeding up the process.