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Establishing rapport
The links and materials in this section relate to the skills involved in establishing rapport between tutor and tutee.
Some personal tutors find the most difficult part of the role is to establish an initial rapport with their tutees which will provide a solid basis for the tutor-tutee relationship. It may be particularly a problem with a shy, monosyllabic eighteen-year-old. Making the effort to meet as soon as possible after the student’s arrival may seem like hard work but it should pay dividends if the student needs later to seek support for an issue which is personal or sensitive. Such a student is less likely to be intimidated if he or she has already been welcomed as an individual by a freindly tutor, possibly in the tutor’s own room.
If the first meeting is a group meeting, a group exercise may be appropriate to introduce everyone to everyone else. Here is a very simple example: Introductory Group Excercise
With a first one-to-one meeting, it may help to ask the student to complete a brief preparatory exercise. This could be brought to the meeting but could also, if the instruction is to email it in advance of the meeting, be used to check that the tutee knows the tutor’s email address.
Here is a set of very typical questions which many students are asked to think about at induction. When personal tutoring is linked to personal development planning (PDP), the answers to such a set of questions could well form the first reflection or personal record that a student makes. This will then allow a student to reflect back at a later point and help him/her to recognise personal change and progress.
However, the key to establishing rapport probably lies in non-verbal signals such as a welcoming facial expression, eye contact and an open posture. Together these signal interest and receptivity, conveying a willingness to listen and not to be judgemental (see Effective listening/questioning skills).
The videoclip below shows a tutor welcoming a first-year student to a scheduled tutorial meeting, using her preparatory work as a basis for some introductory dialogue before moving into the meeting’s main agenda.
