Today I had my first session with a child tutee, P.J. It was definitely a rewarding experience because children are very eager to learn and are also excited to share their thoughts and opinions with adult tutors. When we first started our lesson, P.J. seemed a little shy. Fortunately, I had many materials and examples from his school work to help aid in the main areas that needed work: vocabulary and spelling.
P.J. has a very firm grasp on conversational English, so the main focus is on expanding vocabulary and giving him a productive command of advanced words. I had a helpful dry erase board where we spelled the months of the year, and we also talked about Saint Patrick's Day, which helped segue into more of the lessons in his school work. This definitely helped build report between myself and P.J., and soon we were building a conversation. I think with child tutees, the hardest part is keeping the tutee (and the tutor!) focused. There are times when P.J. would want to talk about different subjects, and this was actually helpful, because there are ways to tie the conversation back to the subject while keeping the student interested. However, it is important to stay focused and to achieve the goals set out for at the beginning of the lesson.
I had an Ipad during the lesson that was helpful. When we were reading a story about bowling, and the author mentioned the pins were like "mule's ears," I was immediately able to bring up a picture of a mule to show P.J. what we were talking about. This visual aid is indispensable while teaching vocabulary. I have used the Ipad while tutoring Ayoub and Mubarak, and it really helped with P.J. as well so I would recommend brining a google image search to any lesson.
I look forward to tutoring with P.J. again, and I think the most important lessons I can teach will be building a context in order to grow Receptive command of vocabulary by using tools in the reading.
I think your experience is going quite well :) Like you said, the hardest part with teaching children is that their attention span is very short and narrow; keeping them focused is the hardest thing. But, if you trigger an interest factor for him, he can stay focused for longer periods of time. Like, if you know that he really loves cars then your lessons can be about cars, but fit that in with how you're teaching him. Having him write journals on cars while expanding his vocabulary is one "sly" way to get him to improve vocabulary skills. I really like how you're using the iPad because I think that's innovative and kids are so much exposed to technology these days it's second nature to them-- I wish I had one to use as well!
ReplyDeleteJude, it looks like a great English AND culture lesson! You did a superb job! :)
ReplyDelete