Finding Materials vs Making Materials

Usually when I'm tutoring, I have a specific goal and don't need to make a lesson plan. For example, I usually help with homework, or I help Yosuke prepare for the English EOC test or help Yuki with her book report.

On the rare occasions that I do need to plan and create content, I have used the Internet to find materials. There's so much available (type "ESL lesson plans" or something similar into Google and you'll see for yourself) that I pick and choose things I like and put something together myself. I haven't yet found one source that's provided me with everything I need, so there's always a bit of hunting that needs to be done.

The main problem I have with finding materials is that the English is often unnatural. I hate teaching unnatural English. In school, I could tell when I was being taught unnatural Japanese, and I'm sure kids learning English feel the same. I much preferred being taught a natural phrase or sentence that required an explanation in order to understand it. As a result, I treat my students the same way. When I find a dialog or a lesson plan I like, I go through the English parts and make sure it all sounds okay. I'll often change parts or add on extra stuff.

For example, I was teaching Yosuke's mother an English lesson one day using a dialogue about a trip to the grocery store. It was a decent dialogue, but I had also added some extra phrases that I thought were useful but didn't fit into the normal English education. One of them was "Did you find everything okay?" which, as we all know, several cashiers will say before you check out (at least here in North Carolina). Yosuke's mother had been going through the dialogue without much reaction up until then, but at that point she became excited because she had heard the phrase at the grocery store every time but didn't know what it meant or how to answer. We then discussed it for a while, and I walked away from the lesson happy that I had taken the time to teach her something of value instead of just using a generic lesson plan.