If your mentee is an English Language Learner, or a low literacy student, below are some tips for communicating with them. You can also download the tips with this link.
When speaking over the phone, video, or in-person:
- Be sure to enunciate and slow down when speaking
- Use facial expressions and body language
- Avoid challenging vocabulary or slang.
- Try not to group multiple thoughts/questions into one sentence.
- Provide space and time between responses so your mentee has time to process and craft a sentence.
- If your mentee doesn’t respond, ask “Did you understand what I said? Do you want me to repeat or rephrase what I said?”
- Try using online tools like Google Translate or image searches to help with communication.
- Get to know your mentee’s background, cultures, and customs. This can assist in fostering mutual understanding and recognizing cultural differences.
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When Communicating Online:
- When asking your mentee a question, physically separate them from other thoughts (i.e., via paragraph break, bolding, underlining, numbering related questions,).
- Acknowledge any growth you observe outright, even if it seems small
- Model English writing
- Write messages you are confident your mentee can understand
- Don’t hesitate to use challenging vocabular words- just be sure to define them! Establish a consistent system for including definitions so that your mentee can easily process this, such as having the definition in parentheses following the word.
- Avoid slang and/or idioms
- If you are having trouble understanding your mentee’s message try reading it aloud. This can be helpful if a mentee is spelling phonetically or mistakenly used a world that sounds similar but means something different.
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