November 19-20

        This week was severely shortened due to the impending break on Wednesday, but I still managed to get several appointments on Monday. In fact, two of my appointments were with an ELL student, however their English was at a much higher level than the ELL student I had last Monday. Since they took the majority of my time, I will be focusing on this student and their work - as the last student I had just wanted me to look over a quick proposal assignment.
        The ELL student came in for both a 1:00 and 3:15 appointment, which I was actually amused by since my 3:15 had been clear until after my session with them. According to them, after our first session, they had turned in their paper to their professor and gotten an A - so naturally they felt like the dialogue we had was helpful, and immediately came back for help on another paper.
        With that said, I will discuss the type of help the student was looking for, and what I was able to provide, as both assignments were similar in this regard. As an ELL student, the type of help they were looking for was similar to the student from last Monday - sentence structure, tense, number, etc. However, it is worth mentioning, and emphasizing, that this student's writing ability was more practiced. So instead of discussing simple present and past tense, we focused more on specific word choice and syntax. There were certainly areas where sentences got confused because of a word that, to me, clearly doesn't fit, but one could understand how they came to use it because its meaning is close to what they were going for. This is something that I've noticed as a common problem for ELL students, and reminds me of myself whenever I try to write a German essay for class. The word used contains the right meaning, but is incorrect when placed in the wrong context. 
         During the session, I mostly took the position of asking leading questions and giving word suggestions in areas where they seemed confused. I'm starting to get more comfortable with helping ELL students, but there is still a definite anxiety that I'll be able to adequately explain everything I want to say. But, if this and last Monday are any indicator, ELL students are some of the most receptive students I've had the pleasure to speak with. So, at the very least, they almost always pick up what I'm trying to say because they are wholly devoted to the helpful discourse we have.

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