KyungAh TP #1

I had my first tutoring session last week on Saturday with a personal child tutee. Her name was Ye-eun Park and is a fourth grade student from South Korea. She is going back to Korea in the summer, but she wanted to come to America to improve her English for school. She is staying at her aunt's house, where we do our tutoring sessions. Because her ultimate goal is for school, I do feel our tutoring sessions will be less "conversational" and more, by the book teaching. I went to her house to teach and she had already grammar books and workbooks she had bought at the bookstore. When I first met her, she was extremely shy. I spoke to her in English so that she would respond back in English. I felt if I spoke Korean she would get used to speaking in Korean rather than English. I asked her (in English) what grade she was in, where in Korea she lived, and if she liked school. Her responses were short, but that was due to her shyness and lack of English. I asked her what she felt she needed most help with and she said vocabulary and writing sentences. I thought writing sentences were linked to a part of grammar, so I already knew this was very academic driven. Since she did have the books with her, I do plan to do the book; however, I do want to make it fun for her so she can learn English not just by the book (since she will be doing that in Korea) so, I am going to have to think of creative ways for her to learn. After talking with her for couple minutes, she also told me that she wanted to improve her speaking skills and so, I plan to converse with her in English as much as possible. Our tutoring sessions are 2 hours each twice a week (on weekend and on weekday). Since the sessions are 2 hours, I figured we can focus on grammar/workbook for an hour and focus on language speaking and listening for the next hour. I hope that I can make her feel comfortable around me and feel comfortable learning with me.