So here is my first solo attempt at tutoring over the phone. I also use the journal as a means to reflect on the situation we’ve found ourselves in. Take a read,
4/7/2020
Today was the first day I worked one on one with Fabrice. We went through unit one of the workbook. This unit went over verbs and gerunds which I don’t think I had every heard of or if I had its been since I was in second grade in 2006. Fabrice had a hard time using the table provided in on of the section to answer the questions provided. The operations that I would normally be able to do are extremely hard over the phone. For example, when I worked one on one with a student before I was able to draw it out for them. Pointing to specific example on the sheet I was working with. Over the phone I had to tell him to use his finger to point to a specific part of the page and then using that information instruct him to move his finger to the part of the page I was talking about. This was exacerbated by the fact that he was having trouble understanding what I was talking about.
This is a unique time to try and teach especially over the phone. Working with Fabrice is an experience though because he is a character. He likes to crack jokes about people in the photos of example problems. He’s making the isolation feel a little less isolating and I appreciate him for it.