|
back
to school
Tutors, workshops
offered at LAC
By Mei Yuan Chan
Special to the On-line Forty-Niner
Naney Vu, an engineering
major, drives from her work place near Los Angeles International
Airport twice a week to get tutoring at the Learning Assistance
Center at Cal State Long Beach, all in an effort to pass the
Writing Proficiency Examination.
"They provide
great help here," Vu said. "I started to come
three months ago and I improve my English each time. I'm confident
I'll pass the WPE next time."
Every semester,
about 8,000 to 10,000 contacts are made between students and
tutors in the LAC for academic supporting services, according
to a pamphlet from the LAC. In the LAC, about 10 professional
staff and 120 student tutors provide academic support, and
students have been coming in to utilize these services for
decades.
Students such as
Vu may not have to come to the center later because a new
tutoring program, online tutoring, is starting this fall,
according to Gen Ramirez, the director and learning skills
coordinator of the LAC.
"The plan
is to begin on a small scale first," Ramirez said. "We
will get it refined before we go to the full size of operation
that we eventually get to."
Ramirez said the
center would use the Black Board system for online tutoring.
Black Board is a software program used for distance learning
that allows students and tutors from different locations to
get online at the same time and work with the same screen.
The system also allows other students to log on to be part
of that same section. Ramirez said detailed information would
be announced at a later date.
Located in Library
East-Room 12, the Learning Assistance Center, Ramirez said,
is the main and the most comprehensive learning support center
on campus. It provides academic support services to all Cal
State Long Beach students. Services provided by LAC are divided
into four categories: learning skill services, supplemental
instruction, tutorial service and a conversation lab for international
students.
Learning skill
services help students to learn more efficiently, according
to Ramirez. Each semester, different study skill workshops
are offered.
Supplemental Instruction,
Ramirez said, offers one-unit optional supplemental instruction
courses to select subjects, such as mathematics and chemistry,
those are inherently difficult for students to complete successfully.
These courses, taught by advanced student, emphasize learning
strategies and critical thinking skills.
The tutorial services
program offers a variety of tutoring such as group tutoring,
drop-in tutoring and individual appointments tutoring; however,
unlike other services, Ramirez said students who use tutoring
service need to pay $35 per subject per semester for unlimited
use, because the university doesn't give the LAC funding to
hire tutors.
The conversation
lab is set up in the LAC for students who speak English as
a second language, Ramirez said. Started last spring, the
conversation lab has had a program called Holistic Language
Development Approach, which is designed for students who need
to improve their English or pass the WPE.
"When you're
writing, you need to think about the ideas," Ramirez
explained. "You can't at the same time think of the words,
the grammar, and all the technical aspects of the language
to express those ideas correctly.
We help ESL students
to become more correctly and fluently in using English so
that they are not hampered by technical problems in order
to think and express their good ideas to earn a passing score."
|
