Remember that the tutor is not expected to function as a teacher in the strictest sense. The tutor does NOT give quizzes or exams, assign grades, give grammatical explanations, talk about the language, or introduce new material. The tutor will demand and check for thorough mastery of dialogues, check on mastery of vocabulary and patterns, conduct exercises, constantly demand accurate pronunciation, demand fluent performance in oral work, and provide for a great deal of repetition at conversational speed, with constant correction. Your tutor will use only the target language in practice session.

Please avoid the impulse to ask your tutor for grammatical explanations and linguistic insights. Explanations, which would have to be in English, take time away from the learning process, and all too often require the tutor to fulfill a role for which he or she is probably not prepared. For example, consider a situation in which a foreign student asks you why there is no plural "furnitures." The chances are that you could not give a definitive explanation on the spot.

If you have a question about grammar, check your text carefully. Ask yourself if your question is really critical for mastering the material at hand. Many questions will be answered as you progress through the material. If you are not 100% clear on a grammatical rule, you need not have an exhaustive intellectual understanding of every grammar rule to learn the material at hand or to speak the language.

Keep tutors speaking their own language. Discourage grammatical explanations in English. Be prepared to work through the material, even if there is an occasional point of grammar that you do not fully understand. A rule which might seem harsh but which is very effective is this: During practice session ask questions only when you can both phrase the question and understand the answer in the foreign language. Anything else you must consider a waste of time for you, your tutor, and the other students in the group. We learn a foreign language largely

• by doing,
• by example, and
• by extension of example.