The Mentor

What is a Mentor?

The mentor or tutor is someone who qualified to work with grammatical intricacies, syntactical issues, and advanced, formal vocabulary. The mentor holds individual 30-minute meetings with each student enrolled in a half-course and two such meetings with students enrolled in a full course.

Format of a Tutorial Session

Beginning with a review of the homework that the student has prepared to hand in at the meeting, the mentor works with the student on the areas of the weekly assignment that the student found confusing. Unlike a traditional classroom-based lesson, the mentor does not decide what s/he wants to teach but rather responds to what the student identifies as problem areas in the week’s lesson or to what appears as a problem in the student's homework and work during the session. The mentor has thoroughly prepared the lesson, so s/he can perform spot drills to test the student’s knowledge and retention from week to week. The language of interaction during this meeting should be a mix of the target language and English.

Homework Correction and Reports

The mentor retains the student’s homework, corrects it and hands it back at the next individual meeting after having scanned it into the student’s homework portfolio, which is housed by the coordinating body. The mentor also meets with the program staff on a weekly basis to discuss the progress of the students and to alert the staff to any individual issues that many have developed among the students. Because the mentor is often a young teacher, this interaction is imperative

Best Practices and Tips for Mentors Conducting Individual Tutorials