MKOs and Others

My experience with tutoring did not begin with Weber’s Writing Center. I began tutoring back in high school for a local middle school. The program itself was funded by a government grant that was issued to a level-one school that had not been passing their government standards. The students were comprised largely with ESL students, with only a few needing remedial tutoring in reading and writing skills. The program emphasized one-on-one instruction for reading comprehension, vocabulary building, and writing instruction. The sessions emphasized not only the student’s own ability to read out-loud and produce written works, but to model the correct reading and writing behavior. Throughout our training, we were shown why this was so important.

The program was designed with psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development in mind. His theory attempted to explain how learning is developed and maintained. The student begins with the schema (thoughts and understanding about a certain subject) and try to apply it to a new situation. Vygotsky contests that learning can only take place with the assistance of a “more knowledgeable other” in a socially interactive environment. These “more knowledgeable others,” or MKOs, can be an advanced peer, a teacher, or any person that can help the student master the new skill. It is the responsibility of the MKO to take the knowledge that the student already possesses and try to bridge the gap (in the zone of proximal development) between their existing schema and the new concept. We were told to remember that all children have not been read to out-loud like most people assume. Those in ESL families often have parents who do not speak English at all, so any reading that they would’ve been doing with the students would be in their native tongue. The student’s reading skills would be based solely on their interaction with English speaking peers and teachers. It is important for the students to see the relationship with the words on the page to the tutor’s natural rhythms and intonation.

The ESL students often had trouble discerning one sentence from the next. The program used the tactic of grammar metaphors to help the students relate some grammatical markers with something that they already had previous knowledge of. The students were told to use the red, yellow, and green light method. We told them to think of periods as red lights because they indicate for you to make a complete stop. We used yellow for commas and semicolons because they only tell you to slow down for a second. And we used the green light to emphasize when coming to the edge of a page (or the margin) that if there are no reds or yellows then they should proceed through the sentence in the next line. Similarly, we had students view papers (from previous students that were on the same level) that received good grades in order to show them how to apply their skills to produce quality work.

This, in combination with our immediate feedback, helped students begin to master their own reading and writing skills. I often first let the students read their papers aloud to me, and then I read it aloud to them, if there is time and the paper is short enough. This allows them to hear what the paper sounds like. (Something that is hard for ESL students.) Often, they can recognize errors more effectively when they are assisted. I used to try and have them go through quality papers to evaluate what can make effective writing. Because this often takes a bit of time, I gave it as an assignment that they can take home and model their essay after.
I thought that just sharing some of my other tutoring experiences would perhaps be of interest.