I tutored three students (names have been changed) over a period of nine weeks. In our sixth week together, I gave each of them an online quiz to find out their preferred learning styles. I suggest doing the same with your own tutees soon after you meet them!
Before employing visual/non-verbal techniques: Jessie, an intermediate ESL student, had immense difficulty with her grammar, and was unsure about essay structure or content. My auditory teaching was unsuccessful because she lacked advanced English skills; we were successful in tackling the overall structure issues, but I was hopeless when sentence-level grammar was involved.
After employing visual/non-verbal techniques: The easiest change to make in our sessions was the introduction of note-taking. I reminded her to write down what I said, and encouraged her to return to the notes that evening to highlight and color code. Another easy change was to draw pictures representing overall sructure ideas for essays and paragraphs. Grammar remained a struggle, and in the end, her lacking English verbal skills prevented our indepth conversations. I referred her to websites, which helped her.
Before employing auditory techniques: Alex was in a high-level English class (EWRT 1A), but still had improper language patterns that his ESL classes hadn't fixed. His main problem, however, was that he lacked details in his essays - his ideas were present, but underdeveloped. For once, my instinct was not to approach the issue verbally. I suggested visual clustering, and though we achieved moderate success, I knew he had more in him.
After employing auditory techniques: My sessions with Alex became increasingly enjoyable once I approached his brainstorming verbally. Each session became an in-depth conversation, and we learned more about each other every week. Rather than mapping out his ideas, we discussed the topic at hand. We asked each other questions, and shared our both our common and conflicting feelings. While we maintained a professional tutor-tutee relationship, we were able to have fun and learn at the same time.
Before employing kinesthetic techniques: I was assigned Carrie very late in the quarter, and only met with her twice as a result of external problems. Therefore, our first meeting involved getting to know each other and realizing her learning style.
After employing kinesthetic techniques: At our second and final meeting, I helped her create flashcards that she would use to study for her final exam. She also needed help brainstorming for a topic response. I had her take out a piece of paper, and told her to doodle or write whatever she felt like until she felt ideas coming to mind. This was very successful; after doodling for a couple of minutes, she was able to focus on her paper's subject, and had a better idea of what she wanted to say.