Afifa Farooq, 51241

14th January, 2015

Rapport-building Essentials: The Tools of a Peer tutor

Abstract:
This research paper shall focus on the habits of successful peer tutors and the attitudes or
approaches that lead to productive sessions. It identifies four main rapport-building behaviors:
attentive, imitative, courteous and common grounding; then explores the tutee perception of
each. It further, analyzes the initiative moves, conversational turns and the topics that
differentiate directive from non-directive tutoring and establishes the idea that both should be
applied, especially since research indicates that only facilitative tutoring proves inadequate for
non-native speakers. This paper extends the idea of rapport-building from just behavioral to also,
based on the knowledge imparted in sessions. Personality types, their implications on tutoring
and how knowledge of each can improve both the tutors and tutees organizational skills. To this
end, the research in this paper involves the use of secondary sources such as journals, books and
web documents. The purpose of this paper is to help peer tutors identify strategies they
unconsciously use to establish rapport identify, help enhance and develop them through
awareness of these methods and introduce them to new aspects of approaching tutee papers.
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Afifa Farooq, 51241

14th January, 2015

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