KyungAh TP#4

I met with my child tutee, Ye-eun, on Saturday at 9am. Though on the weekdays we meet at a later time in the evening, her aunt wanted me to meet her early on the weekends so that she can wake up early and start the day. When I came that day, she seemed tired and not fully awake. I didn't want to dive right into the grammar book, so I told  her she can go and get a glass of water or juice if she'd like. She went downstairs and brought up two glasses of orange juice- one for her and one for me. She was rubbing her eyes and I told her she can go to the bathroom and wash her face if she wanted.

This, in total, took about like ten minutes and then during those ten minutes I tried to converse with her so that we are working on at least listening/speaking skills indirectly. Though she didn't say much, at least she was responding with her actions. Once she actually woke up, we opened up the book and then started working on the pages. The first page was one of those "read the passage and then answer the questions below." It was like the FCAT. I told her to read the passage to her self first and then, circle the words she had a question about (like if she didn't know how to pronounce it or the meaning). After, I told her to read the passage out loud. Then, we went back and looked at the words and then I explained the words to her in English in simple terms. However, I felt she wasn't understanding the words very clearly. And it struck to me: she doesn't understand English very well and yet, I'm trying to teach her new vocabulary words in English. So, I started translating the words' definition in Korean. Her eyes said it all. She had that "ahhh-ha" moment when she realized what it meant in Korean. I also had her bring a Korean-English dictionary because I felt this could be useful for her on her individual study time.

I had told her that it would be beneficial for her to do some pages as homework before I get there so that, I can check the answers and we can go over the answers rather than us working through each question everyday. And so, that was the first day I assigned her homework. I told her I'll assign on Saturdays and it be due on the weekday, but I won't assign on the weekday for it to be due on Saturday because that wouldn't be enough time. I think I got a handle on the academic part of this tutoring session and can't wait to see her homework results the following week!