Reflection, discussion, use of video

Materials and equipment

TV and VCR Video: Creating Learning Partners – First Meeting

Preparation

Cue the video to the First Meeting segment.

STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

  1. Ask tutors to brainstorm about the first meeting with the learner: what they might do, where they might meet, what materials/resources they might have on hand, and so on.
  2. Let tutors know they can use the first meeting just to get to know their learner and to share something about themselves. They don’t need to start delivering a planned lesson. That will come later. Emphasize that tutors and learners getting to know one another extends beyond the first meeting and is an ongoing process.
  3. Another goal of the first meeting is to establish rapport and trust. Ask tutors how they can start and continue to build rapport and trust between themselves and their learners.
  4. View the video section on the First Meeting.
  5. Ask tutors what they thought were good points that helped the first meeting be successful.
  6. Based on the video and the previous activity of getting to know your learner, have tutors draft out a plan of what they might do at the first meeting. Have those who want to share their plan with the rest of the group do so.

Variation

You could also ask tutors to consider first encounters from their own experience, particularly situations where they were seeking support from someone helping them. What feelings and thoughts can they recall? What questions tended to open dialogue? What questions shut them down? Why? What attitudes and beliefs on the part of the helping person were helpful or created barriers? Why?



The student approaches that first lesson with dread; the first-time tutor feels a mixture of panic and despair. The carefully prepared activities suddenly seem too much, too little, wrong, wrong, wrong. Knowing I was supposed to be a role model, I felt completely inadequate. I felt that I didn’t know enough. What if I did something absolutely dreadful?

Victoria Perry