Tutoring with WyzAnt... and reflections on teaching

A few weeks ago, I was up late at night and found WyzAnt, a tutoring agengy.  I signed up on their website to be a tutor for Spanish and French in our local area.  I also petitioned to be an ESL/ESOL tutor, based on my experience, learning, and training for that.  I ordered a background check done on me (I passed).  That is optional, but they encourage it.  I was accepted as a tutor.

This past Sunday, I got an e-mail from a potential customer.  I e-mailed back.  They needed to set a few things up on the website, and they did.  Then they sent me their phone number, so I called.  It was a mom looking for a tutor for her daughter.  Her daughter was preparing for a college Spanish exam.  She needed someone that day and possibly the next few days leading up to the exam.  My schedule was open.  We talked a little bit and she gave me the daughter's name and I called her.  We set up a time and within 45 minutes, I was over at the college library, ready to tutor.

We spent a total of 8 hours over the three days working on Spanish grammar.  It was a great experience for me, though it was bitter-sweet.  I love teaching.  I miss teaching.  (I don't miss grading papers though.)  I enjoy the classroom setting.  I enjoy working one-on-one.  I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be right now in life, but working with this young lady touched something.  Maybe it was just a reminder once again to me that I am a teacher, through and through.  Maybe it was a reminder that I'm pretty decent at what I do.  I say that humbly, based on results and comments from students.  There have been many students come through the doors of my classrooms that have had bad experiences with languages in the past and when they went back out after the learning experience, they had learned something new or restored their joy of learning (many, not all).  Maybe they struggled learning.  Maybe they had a teacher that didn't work with them.  Who knows the reasons.  Many students have told me that I restored their enjoyment of the language.  That is encouraging!  To help a student be able to learn a language sufficiently to communicate in it and enjoy it (and hopefully continue on with learning it), then that is job done!  (In fairness, I've not pleased every student nor been able to help every student.  There have been conflicts along the way.  However, for the most part, my teaching career helped students learn (at least for the time being), allowed them to have fun while doing it (for the most part), and most students would have decent things to say.  I would even hope that the disgruntled student might look back years down the road and see something good from the classroom experience. :)

I taught for 24 years.  Primarily Spanish.  French too.  French for eight years total in that time frame.  Primarily college, but also K-12, home-bound, adult education, tutoring, volunteering teaching for my daughters' 1st and 2nd grades.

Why did I retire/stop?  Primarily because one day my daughter asked me to be more available to her.  So, after considering her request and realizing there was more going on in the world than I knew, I acted on her request.  After that first retirement, I did go back into teaching fairly soon after when another institution had an emergency need.  That opportunity gave me online experience.  I was able to expand what I knew about online learning.  It was a great experience.    Then, it was time to stop again.  I didn't really understand why, but I knew it, I could feel it.  So I did.

If you've been reading my blog, you know I'm in seminary.  So, I'm fairly busy as a student.  I'm also busy with my family.  My daughter is active in life and keeps me on my toes in many, many ways.  I have the opportunity to teach sunday school every now and then, but that's not the same thing as teaching a language.

So, to have had this recent opportunity through WyzAnt to tutor Spanish has been a blessing.  Working with someone to see what they knew, what their learning style was, and to go from there..... teaching them the grammar, little "tricks" of learning along the way.  Hopefully I was able to not only help fill in the gaps of learning, but help restore some of the joy that had been lost for the language.  That was hard to see.  That makes not teaching difficult.  To know that I bring enthusiasm for the language and learning into the classroom, to know that I can make a difference..... makes it difficult when I hear of situations where it's not happening, where students are becoming apathetic and losing their desire to learn.  I don't get it, I don't understand.  Yet, it's not where I'm supposed to be.

I am, however, given the opportunity to make a difference one by one through tutoring, while I pursue my own studies in preparation for who knows what. 

So, I've been able to get some hours of Spanish teaching in recently.  It felt good.  And, on Sunday, I actually got to do three things I enjoy most all in one day:  preach/teach the Word of God, speak Spanish in a rattling off conversation (very unexpectedly with the music director at the church where I spoke), and teach languages (Spanish) that afternoon/evening through tutoring that student. 

I enjoy speaking French and teaching it as well!  It just doesn't come up as often.

Check out WyzAnt when you get a chance.  Just don't ask me how they pronounce their name.  I'm not sure. :)  I would like to say 'wise'.  But then, I think 'whiz' as in 'whiz kid'.  However, I realize the word 'whiz' (at least phonetically, I don't know how it is spelled) has other connotations.

May your journey include some language learning along the way,

~Debra
http://www.wyzant.com/1QZJAE