Tutoring and Working with International, Non-Traditional, and First-Generation Students

As a first-generation immigrant from Mexico who completed her entire schooling in United States, speaks better English than her native language Spanish, and has had the fortune of traveling and studying various cultures and languages, I always thought my career trajectory would lead me to something “exciting” like the United Nations or UNICEF. I never intended to end up in higher education, or education in any sense, for that matter. As life would have it, however, this is where I find myself. I oversee a tutoring center at a small, public, urban institution in Texas with a 75-80% student population composition of first-generation, culturally diverse (34% African-American, 43% Hispanic/Latino, and 23% Caucasian, Asian and other), and low-income students. I have been at this institution under various titles for the last six years, and I absolutely love what I do. My interactions with international students are very limited at the moment, but the three practices and strategies I discuss below have been successful in my work with international, first-generation, and non-traditional students. Before jumping into those practices and strategies, let me provide some background on my journey and how my work has led me to these observations.

As an undergraduate student, I worked part-time as a writing consultant (a glorified name for a writing peer tutor) at the university writing center. Working with international students was, by far, my favorite part of my job. Interacting with brilliant and brave students who often came to our large research institution in a very small and secluded town to continue their studies always motivated me. Often experiencing imposter-syndrome and sometimes seeing myself as a “foreigner” because of my Mexican roots helped me to identify with international students. While my colleagues complained about working with these “difficult” students because of their accents, cultural norms, academic backgrounds, and writing styles, I thrived. Even during our 45-minute appointment times, I worked hard to build relationships with each student, understand their culture and engage with their language. On a peer-to-peer level, international students were often very surprised to know about my travels and language acquisition (the lack of a Spanish accent and ability to speak four languages fluently), but it helped us find a common ground that leveled our interactions; I would share how, at times, learning each language, including English, had been a struggle, and that language acquisition is an on-going endeavor. It is my inherent belief that one never truly masters a language, particularly if one is multi-lingual.

When I graduated and left that position, I was hired on to develop and oversee a writing center of my own. I had little experience working with non-traditional and first-generation students who were under-prepared and under-resourced, so naturally, I was terrified. While my department was still growing, I often found myself in the tutoring center tutoring students on top of completing my administrative duties. Thanks to this time entrenched with my students, I was able to also develop relationships with these students and understand both their strengths and areas for improvement in terms of academic writing.  Interestingly, I found that some of the same approaches I used when I worked with international students in my previous job translated to my work with this new student population.

 Below are the three strategies have worked well with both groups of student populations. They might seem incredibly simple and even overtly obvious, but even as I conducted research for my graduate program, these best practices have gained traction in academia. 

Meaning-Making, Discrete Skills, and Scaffolding

Scaffolding, or reciprocal teaching, is an incredibly effective strategy to implement with students. This concept is at the root theory and practice we use in our tutoring center. I work with my professional and student staff to develop an understanding of how to effectively scaffold with our students during tutoring sessions, but the same approach can be applied for the classroom and even faculty mentoring.

First, we focus instruction methods such as meaning-making (helping students understand what they are reading and/or writing about and connecting it students’ personal or academic needs and interests) and developing discrete skills (the explicit teaching of locating main ideas, making inferences, understanding vocabulary, and articulating their understanding of the material both orally and in writing). This is important for both international and first-generation students because their academic backgrounds might not have prepared them with the type of discrete skills needed at your institution. Spending time working through these concepts lays the foundation for proper scaffolding.

Think of scaffolding as modeling or working through examples with a student. In our work, we usually provide an example for the student, we then work through a similar example alongside the student, and then ask the student to attempt one last example on their own. This approach allows students to ask questions along the way and develop confidence in their own skills while still in a safe environment. According to Hart and Speece (1998), this type of interaction results in a significant increase in reading and writing comprehension skills such as summarizing, clarifying, predicting and asking questions about information in text, all of which are important skills and concepts in an academic setting.

The 3 RRR’s: Relationships, Relevancy, and Rigor

I had a much more simplified version of this, but I recently heard a colleague of mine, Damian Torres Director of the Multicultural Center at the University of North Texas, say this in a much more relevant and impactful way. Building relationships with our students is key regardless of our job titles or duties. The more we build personal and genuine relationships with our students and avoid the impersonal transactional interactions we tend to have with students when we are busy can help us really tune in to students’ needs and abilities. It can also help us find ways to make the content we are trying to convey more relevant to them. For example, I tell my current tutors that when I see students struggling with what might be a language barrier, I will ask them if it is ok to for me to transition to Spanish and explain the concept with that language. Students not only develop a sense of trust because they perceive I am “one of them,” but they also understand whatever we were discussing much quicker. I have also heard my student tutors explain complicated concepts or terms or change the wording in math word problems to include sports concepts, music concepts, or car concepts—whatever they can use to connect with the student. It really does work!

Another way to make something more relevant while building relationships with students is to integrate family or cultural concepts in our interactions. According to research, families from under-resourced and ethnically diverse communities strongly support students’ aspirations of going to college and successfully completing a degree. Despite this strong support, family and community members often lack the knowledge, experience, and information needed to help students successfully matriculate and succeed during their first year of college or their first year of graduate school in a foreign country.  In addition, research also emphasizes the critical role that families and communities play in the lives of college-going underrepresented and underprepared students. Fann, McClafferty, and McDonough (2009) found that by incorporating families in the college matriculation process via workshops and question-and-answer sessions, students and communities benefited tremendously and yielded a small increase in successful matriculation.

Finally, it is important to remember that even though students may be experience a potential barrier or block that prevents from the obtaining and retaining a concept, it does not mean that we should lower our expectations of them or our level of rigor. Our international students are often some of the most brilliant students we see on our campuses, and the barrier they face is not always intellectual.

Provide Reassurance and Encouragement (Grit)  

This might also be another very simple and intuitive practice or strategy, but I know it is one I overlook when I am stressed or overloaded with work. Providing constant reassurance and encouragement, along with constructive criticism and growth, helps build our students’ academic and personal confidence. It also helps establish or reinforce their sense of “grit” or resilience.

Angela Duckworth’s definition and work on grit refers to a quality that a person has that enables him/her to work hard and persevere to fulfill long-term passions and goals.  Resiliency generally refers to a person’s ability to recover from setbacks (Morales & Trotman, 2004; Wang & Gordon, 1994).  Overall (Dweck, 2015), whether a person has a fixed mindset (intelligence is inherited and unchangeable) or growth mindset (intelligence is malleable and can be influenced by effort) is related to a student’s grit and resiliency.

While this is a “hot” topic in higher education in the United States, these concepts may not be well known to some of our international, first-generation, or non-traditional students. Reassurance and encouragement is one way we can help establish, reinforce, and grow grit and resilience in our students.

I hope that these tips and strategies are useful and easy to implement. With practice, these strategies become engrained in to every day interactions not just with our international and first-generation students, but for all our students. I would also love to hear from other practitioners to see if these tips work or have been improved for different student populations. Good luck, and happy teaching/tutoring/learning!

Born in Mexico, Paulina is a first-generation immigrant and was the first in her family to attend college as a traditional-aged college student. Because of her love of culture and languages, Paulina earned her BA from Texas A&M University in International Studies with a focus in arts and culture and minors in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies and Italian. As an undergraduate, she served as a writing consultant for the writing center, a peer mentor for freshmen and first-generation students, a teaching assistant for her language courses, and a writing fellow for psychology and education courses. Her experience working with college students to develop and improve their academic skills led her to pursue a career in higher education. Paulina also has a M.Ed. in Higher Education with a concentration in Student Affairs and has been with UNT Dallas since 2013. She is dedicated to providing supportive and student-centered services that help students achieve their academic success and develop a strong sense of identity, leadership, and cultural sensitivity and awareness so that they can become responsible global citizens who make a difference in their communities.