When I first entered college, I knew that I wanted to be an English teacher, but I did not know what that would entail. After over three years of taking both education and English classes, I have found myself even more motivated to pursue teaching. Being a tutor is important to me because I am helping students to achieve their learning goals, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. I have always enjoyed proofreading my friends' papers, and giving them tips on how to become a better reader, or a better writer. Watching them improve inspired me to improve myself, and it showed me that I can use the skills that I've learned over the past few years to help others achieve their desired goals.
My philosophy of teaching is that students are not inherently bad at reading or writing, but they may lack a grasp of certain skills or concepts that would help them to succeed both inside and outside the classroom. I follow the teaching model Bloom's Taxonomy and plan my lessons to focus on having students use higher-level thinking skills in order to become better at analyzing, creating, and evaluating both other's texts and their own. I also believe in scaffolding to help students gradually become independent learners so that they can feel not only supported while they learn a new skill or concept, but also like they can demonstrate their knowledge of that skill or concept.
I have experience with teaching a diverse inclusion classroom in a local vocational high school. I taught several lessons on "The Crucible" and learned how to engage and motivate students, which will help me to be a better tutor because the more a student is engaged, the more motivated they will be to learn material and apply it to their own lives.
I don't just teach these skills, I practice them frequently. I have been writing creatively for over ten years and have written three novel-length stories. I write every single day to keep my skills sharp and to make sure that I am always learning and always improving. I also read whenever I have the opportunity. I read anything from Young Adult Literature to classical literature in the canon for fun, so that I can become well-read and knowledgeable in certain areas, but also because I enjoy reading and analyzing different types of literature.
As a tutor, I plan on using all of the skills that I have learner as an education and English student in order to help my students achieve their learning goals. I will use my own experiences with teaching to engage and motivate my students, and I will use my experiences as a writer and a reader to show students that what you learn in an educational setting can be used in different areas of their lives. Being a tutor is a fantastic opportunity for me to help students achieve their learning goals, and I look forward to doing my best to help them.