One-on-one conferencing
Example of telling, not leading a students: “I see that you have a mistake in this sentence in your essay. Instead of writing, ‘He was gave a reward,’ you should write, ‘He was given a reward.'”
All over the world and on almost every campus, there is a need for well-qualified teachers/tutors who understand grammar terms and who can “lead” ESL students to discover and correct their own mistakes, and by so doing, become better at self-editing. Unfortunately, many teachers/tutors merely tell students what their mistakes are and how to correct them. This approach has been proven to be ineffective at making students aware of their mistakes and at helping them become independent. The purpose of this posting is to give a brief introduction to an innovative and at the same time straight-forward techniques which teachers/tutors can use when conferencing individually with students about their writing assignments.
