Venus TS #14

Date/Time: Friday, June 27th at 1:30 PM

Location: Dirac Library
Topic/Skill: Reading, Vocabulary, and Grammar (Present Perfect vs. Past Perfect)

Feedback provided to the tutee:
In this session, Wei and I jumped right into skill-building using a real-world article from the BBC on why we procrastinate. We began with a warm-up prompt to get her talking about something she recently read in psychology or business. Her response was thoughtful and gave us a great lead-in to the day’s topic, procrastination.

During our reading activity, we skimmed for the main idea and highlighted key academic vocabulary words like “procrastinate,” “avoidant behavior,” and “motivation.” Wei quickly picked up on the context clues and offered insightful comments about how these concepts show up in her own life as a student. She related to the article in a meaningful way and was especially reflective when we discussed the emotional and cognitive roots of procrastination.

We wrapped up with a grammar spotlight on present perfect vs. past perfect. Using examples from the article, we walked through when and why these tenses are used. Wei grasped the patterns quickly and was able to come up with her own examples, showing growing comfort with more complex grammar structures. Her homework is to write a few sentences using both tenses to describe something she procrastinated on this week.

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned:
This session reinforced how powerful it is to ground language practice in content that feels relevant. Wei didn’t just read she connected with the reading, and that made the vocabulary and grammar stick. I also saw how helpful it is to scaffold grammar within real-world contexts; even tricky tenses like present perfect and past perfect became much clearer when tied to a shared experience

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