Matt TP #2

On Thursday, I had my first session with my child tutee Jeffrey at the public library. I met his father , and as we took our seats in the children's section, we spoke about Jeffrey and what we hope to accomplish in tutoring. Jeffrey (or Jun-hyeok, a name I mercifully needn't butcher) is a five year-old boy whose parents moved here from Korea four years ago. Jeffrey speaks exclusively Korean at home, but in Kindergarten and at activities like Taekwondo he uses English. Jeffrey speaks English with relative fluency, with the same simple and adorably inflected sentences you would expect from an average five year-old.

At the start of our session, Jeffrey's father informed me that “the relationship is more important” than the strength of the lesson plans I prepared. As I soon found out, this tip was more than just an empty cliché. Being five, Jeffrey was full of curiosity. But with this fascination came a bit of a jumpy attention span. I quickly learned that the best way to keep Jeffrey focused was to engage his natural curiosity through fun, 'Jeffrey-centered' activities. I wanted him to see our time together as exciting, rather than as routine slogging through dry assignments. So after learning about his love for superheroes, we read together a book titled Our Hero Beowulf, an illustrated children's version of the Nordic epic. Unfortunately I had forgotten how seriously gory and like bleak that story was. Happily for me the book was a bit above Jeffrey's reading level, so I was able to gloss over at least some of the violence. Next time I'll be sure to select a book with fewer disembowelments.

All in all, Jeffrey and I had a great time reading and getting to know each other. In fact, I think I enjoyed the lesson as much as he did. For our next session I plan to incorporate a bit more structure while still hopefully retaining a fun and exciting learning environment.