Harry Olenick
LCI Tutoring Journal
Language and Catechetical Institute Tutoring Partnership Weekly Assessment
Adapted from the Ohio Department of Educations Strategies for Diverse Learners Using the UDL Model
Cultural background of the
student.
Use of her cultural knowledge and
experiences as teaching/ learning
resources
Level of students heritage (native
or home) language skills in all
four communication modes
(listening, speaking, reading and
writing)
How I will use her strengths and
build upon her weaknesses.
Consultation with the students
English as a Second Language
(ESL) teachers or tutors and
shared ideas on how to support the
Focus on English Language Learners(ELL)
This semester I had the privilege of meeting many students from Eastern Europe through the
education departments partnership with the LCI program. For this fall, I was asked to tutor English
to Yelena. Yelena is from Kazakhstan, where they mostly speak Kazakh and Russian. Yelena lives
in an area which predominately speaks Russian, yet she does know the Kazakh language. However,
Yelena did not know any English when I met her.
I plan on taking a slow, steady approach to tutoring her. I plan to focus on teaching her the basics of
the English language. I will use informal conversations, common interests, and her schoolwork to
explain and demonstrate various grammar lessons, vocabulary usage, sentence construction, and
correct pronunciation. I plan to ask her how she learns best; I will utilize her preference to visual,
audio, and hands-on learning. I look forward to the challenges of teaching Yelena. I also hope to get
to know her and learn about her home country.
When she arrived in Gaming, Yelena did not know any English. She struggled with basic greetings,
phrases, and words such as meeting, tutor, and the weekdays. The limited amount that she did
speak came in choppy, broken sentences. She often forgot words within a sentence and at times, she
could only say a word or two when trying to communicate her thoughts. Her writing skills were the
same; she would often forget to write in proper grammar. However, her listening and reading skills
were better. I only needed to explain myself once or twice before she understood what I was telling
or asking her. Her reading skills were similar; she could read a passage or sentence and quickly
understand many key words. She simply needed clarification on various vocabulary words and an
explanation of the grammar.
Yelena and I planned to focus on developing her speaking and writing skills while, at the same
time, improving her listening and reading capabilities.
Yelena arrived in Gaming a few weeks late due to trouble with her passport. Shortly after she
arrived, Dr. Healy and the other ESL teachers asked me to come to their office so they could
introduce me to Yelena. I introduced myself to Yelena and she responded shyly. Dr. Healy
explained that she did not know any English and was overwhelmed with the amount of it that she
was hearing. Dr. Healy and the ESL teachers asked that I help her with homework and reviews
students learning in both the
content classroom and the ESL
classroom.
whenever I would meet with her. I was asked to help teach and clarify grammar and sentence
structure. Toward the end of the semester, when Yelena had greatly improved in her studies, I was
asked to have an informal conversation with her. Her ESL teachers asked if I would gently correct
her mispronunciations and if I would correct her sentence structure. They want her to work on
constructing complete sentences.

Date Time Multiple Means of Representation: To Multiple Means of Action and Expression: Multiple Means of Engagement: To tap
provide students various ways of acquiring To provide options for students to individual learners' interests, challenge
information and knowledge demonstrate what they have learned them appropriately and motivate them
to learn

10/07/14 5:30- For this tutoring session, John, another
6:00 education major, and I met with Yelena
since she arrived a month into the semester.
We both wanted to introduce ourselves and
work with her together for the first meeting.
Yelena asked if we would help her with
chapter one of her textbook because she had
a test coming up. This chapter involved
days of the week, some basic introductory
phrases, and to be verbs and their
contractions.
We started the session with looking at her
workbook. However, Yelena seemed a bit
confused. I asked her if writing on the dry-
erase board would help; she said yes and that
she was a visual learner. We used her
textbook as a foundation and guide. She
pointed out the sections that confused her
and we worked through these. We would
write on the board and then provide a verbal
explanation of the content. We also allowed
Yelena to practice the lessons by providing
prompts for her to complete. She struggled
with the lesson at first but improved more
and more as time passed.
Because Yelena told us that visual aids
and writing helped her, we allowed her to
write on the dry-erase board. After
explaining the concept, we would provide
examples for her to complete. For
example, we helped her to memorize the
days of the week. I put the numbers 1-7
on the board and she would fill in the
days, starting with Sunday. She often
struggled with remembering and spelling
Wednesday and Thursday. We repeated
this until she wrote the days without
mistake. In a similar manner, we practiced
the to be verbs. After explaining to be
and its conjugations, we would give her a
prompt such as you ____. Where she
would place the word are in the blanks.
We worked through these and then moved
to the contractions of these verbs; we
practiced them in the same manner as
above.
10/21/14 5:00- Both John and I met with Yelena again.
5:45 This time Yelena had an already graded test
with her; certain sections were marked
redo. Her professors wanted her to
reexamine these sections and correct her
mistakes. Yelena asked if we would help
her on the sections that confused her. The
first section involved pronouns and the
second focused on the negation of
sentences. She also had difficulty with
words such as do, did, does and helping verbs, we used similar charts and
have in relation to action verbs.
11/18/14 7:00- Due to our classes, workloads, and
8:15 schedules, Yelena and I were not able to
meet for many weeks. Unlike previous
tutoring sessions, I met with Yelena alone
this time because John and I grew to have
conflicting schedules. We decided it was
best to split apart our tutoring sessions.
Yelena had another test which had sections
marked as redo. This test focused on
asking questions and giving appropriate
answers. The sections she struggled on
dealt with asking questions based on
provided answers and using past tense in
questions and answers. Also, she did not
We approached this tutoring session in the
same way that we taught the last one. We
used visual representations to teach the
grammar lessons. In order to teach the
pronouns, we made charts. We explained I
and you. And then explained how he, she, it,
we, and they replaced nouns. We also used
the previous tutoring sessions focus on to
be verbs to help with these concepts.
Because she was having troubling with
on the board and guided her in making it
examples to teach the concepts. In order to
help her with negation, we provided many
examples of positive sentences and their
corresponding negations. Again, we used her
test as a basis for guiding the session. We
worked through all the questions that she
missed and provided supplemental examples
when needed. Yelena improved quickly; she
is learning at a faster pace than she did in
our initial meeting.
Because charts seemed to help Yelena in
previous tutoring sessions, I continued using
them. I tried to work from simple concepts
to the more complex ones that confused her.
First, I provide the infinitive of the word and
have her conjugate it in past tense. I worked
with action verbs first. Then, I instructed her
to conjugate to do because this was the
helper verb that was used on a majority of
her test. Eventually, she provided me with
the conjugated past tense of to do. I was
trying to show her how we can arrive at the
past tense verbs. I then explained how and
when helping verbs were used. Although she
We continued with the methods that
Yelena said she liked and seemed to work
best for her. Again, after explaining the
concept, we would provide Yelena with
practice questions on the dry-erase board.
We would reexamine her questions from
the tests and guide her in finding the
correct answer. For example, she had to
make the following sentence negative:
She lives in Spain. We put this sentence
negative.
Also, I noticed that Yelenas
conversational English greatly improved.
This tutoring session occurred after our
ten day break. She asked comprehensible
questions to us about where we traveled
to and what we did. She was also able to
answer us when we questioned her about
what she did. She was able to express her
thoughts but is still having difficulty
forming complete sentences.
Yelena asked if we could continue using
the dry-erase board. I utilized this in order
to explain the charts and various concepts.
Because she improved so much, Yelena
wrote on the board more than I did. Her
listening skills improved to the point that
I could simply tell her what to write. I
also provided many practice exercises for
her to complete. Finally, we worked
through her test and corrected the answers
on the board before she wrote them down
on paper. Once again, I noticed that
Yelenas conversational English
improved. While she still skips words
 understand why the helping verbs like did
were used in questions like Where did she
live? but not in answers like She lived in
Spain.
11/19/14 7:00- This session was a continuation of the day
7:45 before. We had to complete the last section
that she was required to review. This was a
simple fill-in-the-blank activity which
required vocabulary and prepositions. Then,
we worked on her homework assignment.
The assignment was a worksheet in which
she had to take long sentences and reduce
them to as few words as possible without
losing any of its meaning.
11/20/14 7:00- This tutoring session was the most
8:15 challenging for me. Yelena asked me to
help her write a 3-5 minute speech that was
seemed frustrated and confused with the
English language at times, she continually
improved as we worked. By the end of the
lesson, she corrected her test with minimal
prompts from me.
Once again, I used her test as a foundation
for explaining the vocabulary and
prepositions that Yelena did not understand.
We orally discussed these concepts. In the
same way, we examined her homework and
discussed the concepts. Yelena did not
understand her homework at first. She did
not understand how to shorten the sentences.
After orally explaining it, Yelena wrote the
answers on her paper. As the session went
on, she became more independent in
answering the questions. Towards the end,
she only needed a small amount of guidance;
every once in a while, she asked me if two
parts were repetitive or not and which to
remove from the sentence.
I used my laptop to help her look up the
answers to her questions. She said she
understood my explanations but she did not
when forming sentences, she was able to
ask me more complex questions. For
example, she asked me about my Rome
and Assisi trip. She asked me what I liked
about it. She also told me that she talked
with some of the other American students;
she said that they told her the trip was
very busy and tiring. She also asked me if
I would meet with her the next day.
Because of the nature of this assignment,
Yelena and I did not utilize the dry-erase
board. Instead, I talked through the
vocabulary sections with her. I used
simple English terms to explain the terms
that she did not know. I also provided
examples and some hand gestures to help
her. For her homework assignment, I
helped her answer the first question. I
showed what the directions meant and
how certain phrases were similar. She
quickly understood what I meant. I slowly
read the sentences out loud and asked her
what terms she did not know. After
explaining the terms, we discussed the
parts that were repetitive. In order to help
her understand this, I used examples that
she might experience in the Kartause such
as The short class did not last long. I
explained how the terms short and did
not last long meant the same thing. After
the homework activity, she said she had
nothing else to work on but asked to meet
the following day.
I tried to explain everything to her in the
simplest terms possible. Any vocabulary
words that she did not know, I tried to
 due the next day. The speech focused on the
history of the Berlin Wall; she had to
answer the following questions:
1. What is the Berlin Wall?
2. When, how, and why did it fall?
3. What lessons can be learned from it
today?
Yelena asked if I could explain these
questions to her and if I could help her
write grammatically correct sentences.
11/25/14 7:00- This was my last meeting with Yelena.
8:00 One of Yelenas ESL teachers requested
that I work with Yelena on conversational
English. She asked me if I would work with
her on proper grammar, sentence structure,
pronunciation, and vocabulary usage. For
example, Yelena would say I go store
instead of I go to the store. Though her
meaning is clear, her format could use
work. The ESL teacher told me that we
could talk about anything we wanted. When
I met with Yelena, I told her what the
teacher asked me to do. She seemed a little
bit unsure about it at the beginning.
However, she quickly warmed up to the
idea. She also asked me to help her with her
lines for a play for one of her classes. The
know how to write the information down;
she was worried about using proper
grammar and spelling. I guided her in
sentence construction. After she wrote a
sentence, we went over the grammar,
terminology, and spelling of the sentence.
We would correct any mistakes in order that
she could type up the information later. Her
understanding increased as the session wore
on. The average amount of mistakes she
made per sentence decreased by the end.
For the informal conversation, Yelena and I
simply sat at a table together. I started with
basic questions such as What is your
name? and Where are you from? She
laughed before answering; she knew that I
knew the answers. She realized I was trying
to make this fun. We continued talking for a
majority of our meeting. We would take
turns asking and answering questions. As
this went on, I would correct any mistakes in
her questions or answers. I helped her when
she struggled for words and I helped her
form complete sentences.
In order to practice her lines for the
Christmas Carol, I told her to read the lines
as I listened for correct pronunciation. I also
explained any words she did not understand.
relate to her. For example, she did not
know the word separated. I explained it
in simple terms, used hand gestures
between her and others in the room, and
used examples to explain this and other
words. In addition, over the course of the
semester, Yelena made great
improvements in the English language but
I knew she would struggle to understand
more complex political terminology.
When she first met with me that day, she
asked what the Berlin Wall was. I thought
she did not understand the English terms.
Later, I learned that her home country of
Kazakhstan is still under a dictatorship.
There is a great deal of censorship in her
country. I am unsure if her lack of
understanding was due to language or
historical knowledge.
I tried to let Yelena do most of the
talking. I asked her about her family,
likes, dislikes, her pets, and hobbies. She
told me about her favorite movies and
music. She seemed to enjoy talking about
home and listening to my answers to the
same questions. Yelena also talked about
the use of language in her country. I
learned that she speaks multiple
languages but that her primary one is
Russian. She explained that Russian is
spoken in her region but Kazakh is the
national language. I also discussed
traveling with her. Yelena told me about
all the places that she has been to and all
the places that she is going to go to next
semester. Finally, Yelena told me that she
 LCI students were performing the
Christmas Carol the following week.
Yelena had to memorize the lines of some
of the minor characters in the play. She was
worried about pronouncing the words
correctly.
Adapted from Ohio Department of Education, Lau Resource Center, March 2011
Her pronunciation was great. She simply had
to speak more slowly and clearly and to say
all the words of the sentence. She often
skipped small words.
thought the American students in Gaming
were very friendly and she was looking
forward to meeting more next semester.
After practicing the Christmas Carol,
Yelena told me that she was very nervous.
She feared that she would mess up her
lines because of stage fright. I reassured
her that she will be fine. She asked my
opinion on how to study and memorize
lines easily. I suggested that she practice
with the other LCI students who had lines.
She could practice the play with them.
Yelena liked that idea; she said she not
only would know her lines but also when
to say them.
Overall, this tutoring session was the most
enjoyable for me. Even though it would
have made sense to discuss all of these
things with Yelena when I first met her,
she did not know enough English yet. She
would not have been able to carry on such
a conversation. I am extremely grateful
for the opportunity to get to know her and
help her with English. I greatly enjoyed
watching her grow in her usage and
understanding of the English language.