My first tutoring observation at the writing center.

In my first observation, I felt a little awkward because the tutor had two tutees. They were kind of looking at me like why are you here? I felt like they might have felt that I was going to take time away from their session. So I introduced myself and let them know I was just there to observe. The tutor was an older woman who had an interesting tutoring approach. She introduced herself and was very alert and friendly. The tutees were both students whom English was not their first language, and didnt know the meaning to alot of words. 
            The first student was from China, and she came to get tutoring to interpret a poem she was reading for poetry class. The second student was of middle eastern nationality and had to write a paper for history class.  Why I found the tutors methods interesting was that she found a way to use the definitions of words from the dictionary to define it under her own way, such as using curse words and sex as analogies to get the student to understand the words she was trying to understand.  The student as well as I really enjoyed her comedic behavior, but she was able to get her point across very well.
              Needless to say, the student will always remember what she learned because the experience was fun and interesting. The second student was not prepared to sit with the tutor for more than 15 minutes, as she believed it shouldn't take too long to help her. The opposite was obvious because she had many errors in her paper, in terms of grammar, spelling, and her thesis. The she told the tutor that she had class in 15 minutes. The tutor informed her that she had many errors on her paper, and in order to thoroughly help her, she needed the whole period, if not more than one. The tutee then told her that she had been to the writing center numerous times in reference to this paper throughout the week. The tutor then asked, if you were here, why weren't the issues in your paper addressed? The student looked perplexed and confused and said that she thought the paper was ok but she knew there were still issues because even though the tutor before never addressed it, her professor did. She explained that this was the tutor she had been using for a while, but the reason she was here was to get a second opinion and input on her final draft. The tutor then explained that if the student doesn't feel comfortable with the input she was receiving, that it was her right to ask for another tutor that she feels would be able to help her. The student then gave her a time of when she could come back to thoroughly go over the paper and they rescheduled for her to come back to go over it.   
          I found that the methods the tutor used were both collaborative and teacher centered, and I agree with this approach, being that the student she was able to help really needed help in learning about the meaning of words, and reading in between the lines of her poem.