Please, Just Follow the Directions and Write

New approach to getting Yosuke to write: I'll do the assignment myself to show him what the writing should look like, and he can use my example as a model to follow. (Up until now, I've only been doing outlines for him and have helped him brainstorm ideas. I guess he needs even more help, even though these assignments are so easy.)

I'm at my wit's end trying to get him to follow the directions - he just refuses to write the correct thing, causing him to rewrite these very simple assignments over and over - so I'm hoping this solution works.

It took me about ten minutes to write something he's spent hours on and still hasn't produced anything anywhere near acceptable. I know he's ESL, but I could have written the same thing in Japanese in thirty minutes. And that includes the time I spent revising.

So, has Japan produced a country of literate citizens who are unable to write?

Sorry for the harsh tone. I had a horrible day, and I haven't recovered yet.

Natsu

It's been a busy month! I've been too tired to do much blogging. Yosuke's summer classes have been placing more and more demands on my time, and now I'm tutoring him about 22-24 hours per week! Miki's tutoring sessions have been unofficially put on hold because her older sister, Natsu, is struggling with her English I online summer course. I've been working with Natsu 5-6 hours per week.

I enjoy teaching Yosuke, and the time flies by. But Natsu is so utterly different. She's prone to painfully long bouts of silence in which she is unable to speak a word. I don't know if this is due to painful shyness, fear of making mistakes, or adolescent sullenness (or perhaps some lethal combination of these factors).

My first impression was of sullenness, as she would just stare at the paper with what seems like an insolent look (although it's difficult to see through the long hair draped in front of her face). Later, I began to expect that a fear of mistakes was keeping her mute. The only sentences she speaks or writes are surprisingly well constructed. She clearly has a high level of standards.

In that sense, she reminds me of myself when I was learning Japanese. Until I studied abroad and was forced outside of my comfort level, I would only reply to questions in Japanese after carefully formulating a response in my head. As a result, I rarely spoke up in class, and the students more willing to take chances progressed faster.

I haven't decided what Natsu's problem is, and she has resisted my questions when I've asked her about it (just as she resists all other questions - I have to ask about five questions or more before I am able to get a response).

While I find myself dreading our sessions, I always manage to be positive and hopeful. After all, my initial sessions with Miki weren't enjoyable, but once she opened up and I got to know her, they became fun.

Summer School Update

I haven't had time to post recently. Last week especially was rather hectic. It was the first week of summer school, and both Yosuke and I were overwhelmed by the fast pace. Miki's sister is also taking a summer class - English I - and I helped her out substantially as well. I found out that she has a different tutor; I was only helping out because her regular tutor was on vacation. However, her mother has asked me to continue helping her occasionally after I finish tutoring Miki, so it may become a regular thing.

I'm enjoying the extra work and the challenges. There is one downside: Yosuke's Algebra 2 teacher is neither intelligent nor helpful. It would be manageable if she was one of the two, but the combination is lethal. Her online course is riddled with both errors and technical problems, and she is of little help resolving these. I don't have time for any specifics at the moment, but maybe I'll be able to post a list of her shameful failures later. I'm happy to say, though, that I'm enjoying the summer courses overall.

Algebra II Nostalgia

Yosuke's summer Algebra II class is nostalgic; it reminds me of when I took Algebra II over the summer. It was the summer before my freshman year at high school. I took it over three weeks at Duke University through the TiP program. At the time, it felt helplessly over my head. I honestly believed that I had reached my "math limit" and was incapable of learning the material. In the end, though, I managed to grasp the concepts, and I even scored 97 on the EOC.

Now I see myself in Yosuke, who was able to yawn his way through his regular math classes. He's struggling with Algebra II, and I can even sense a bit of hopelessness in him. I'm glad I'm here to help him, though, so he doesn't have to struggle by himself.

...
Well, he has to struggle by himself a little. We spent a long time working on this problem, and he's close to figuring it out. I left before we finished, asking him to try and complete it on his own.

Here is the problem:
1. You scored 92 and 90 on the first two tests. There is one more test. What range of grades should you get on the third test for your average to be between 88 and 93?
2. Repeat #1, only this time the third test counts twice as much as the other tests.

Yosuke worked out #1 with a bit of help from me. I recognized that the second problem is more difficult, but I didn't think he would have as much trouble with it as he did. I gave him several hints, but finally I just had to leave him to work it out on his own. I want to help him, but I can't just tell him the answer, so I had to leave him struggling and feeling helpless. This is going to be a rough summer for both of us!

A Fine Balance

I had a good day yesterday. We've had several rough sessions recently, but yesterday Yosuke seemed able to think and learn.

This is good news for me because I find myself unable to teach him when he can't think. When he doesn't think, "teaching" would consist of just telling him the answers, just explaining the author's purpose and meaning. That's both dishonest (he should be doing the work himself) and unproductive (he can't really absorb that much information). When he's thinking, though, I'm happy to give him some of the answers. I don't expect him to understand 100% of the material by himself.

On the other hand, my presence seems superfluous if he understands everything already without my hints and directing questions.

Yesterday was the perfect mix of understanding and confusion that allowed me to smoothly lead him to comprehension. It was one of the (sadly rare) tutoring sessions where I could walk away with the feeling that I had clearly made a difference in Yosuke's academic success.

Cultural Barriers to Understanding

I had the most infuriating tutoring session last night. Yosuke had to read a speech by JFK for his English II class, and I wanted to make sure he understood this important quote from it: "The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened." He didn't understand what it meant, and it became clear that he had no concept of 'rights.'

So I gave examples - voting, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc - and went into detail about freedom of speech. After a while, he interrupted me saying that he didn't believe that rights exist. Puzzled, I asked him to explain, and he said it was because "everyone makes mistakes." I had to emphasize, again, that 'right' doesn't just mean 'correct' and resumed my explanation.

He told me he disagreed with the freedom of speech because people might yell or say inappropriate things. I told him it was okay to disagree; I just wanted him to understand what rights are. And yet he continued to argue that they don't exist. I still don't think he understands what a right is. It took an hour and a half to read about three paragraphs of the speech.

It's probably not his fault. That a sixteen-year-old can have no concept of human rights can only be a result of the group-minded Japanese society. Individual rights are not important in Japan, and Yosuke's stubborn indifference to them illustrates this. Japan and the US seem so alike to me sometimes that I tend to forget how huge some differences really are. (Did you know that in Japan, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent? And proving innocence is prohibitively difficult as the court system is nothing but a farce.)

I find myself in a difficult position - I need to help Yosuke understand this speech, but the ideas in it are completely alien to him.

EOC Requirements?

Well, the EOCs were rather anticlimactic. Yosuke's Geometry teacher told him he would be excused from the exam because he has been in the country less than two years. He asked his English teacher about this, and she told him the same thing. He'll receive credit for both courses, so that's great.

That's assuming his teachers are right, and I have some doubts. I can't find any information about it now, but I was under the impression that only students who have been here for less than a year were exempt from standardized tests. (That was Miki's case, thankfully.) This information contradicts our previous experience. When Yosuke tried to take English I last summer, he passed the course but failed the EOC, so he didn't receive credit. Also, earlier in the school year I spoke to his current English teacher and asked her for help preparing Yosuke for the exam, and she gave me a practice test. If he was exempt, wouldn't she mention it to me? But so long as he receives credit for the classes, I guess it doesn't matter, at least for now.

What worries me, however, is that the English I EOC is required for graduation. I'm afraid he might have to take it later on, although I suppose he would have a better shot at it in a year or two than he would now. I emailed his counselor to ask about it. I'm hoping she'll reply. It's always frustrating when people ignore your emails.

Miki's Math Progress

On Tuesday, Miki's tutoring session was divided in half - I tutored her mother for the first half and then Miki for the remaining time. Both were enjoyable but also frustrating.

Her mother had homework from her adult ESL class. She had a list of weather-related idioms (under the weather, any port in a storm, etc) and had to use them to complete sentences. It was difficult to explain the meaning of the idioms in Japanese, a difficulty that was compounded by her constantly interrupting my examples. In any case, though, tutoring her was fun because she's working hard and she has a good sense of humor.

Then I worked with Miki on a math lesson I'd made. It was intended to be easy, but she made several mistakes. Why is she unable to add and subtract negative numbers? Something about negative numbers really confuses her.

Up until now, I was under the mistaken belief that some practice would clear it up for her. I'm trying a different approach now in which I reteach the methods as if she was learning them for the first time. I actually had to check out a book from the library for this because I wasn't sure how to teach adding say, -7 + 3. It's always seemed pretty natural to me.

Thankfully, this approach seems to have helped. When I tutored her Thursday, I gave her about fifteen short math problems at the end of the lesson, and she got all but one correct! Before, she probably would have gotten only half correct. I guess all she needed was to be retaught the material and to learn to slow down and be careful. We're still working on that last one, though!

A High Note

While the beginning of this week was a low point for me, Thursday was a refreshing change. Both Yosuke and Miki have been in something of a slump recently; for the past two weeks or so, they've been unable to come up with answers to anything. While I can handle a bad day or two, it starts to drain me after a while.

I went prepared with a math lesson plan when I went to tutor Miki yesterday, but she had a huge homework assignment that took up all our time. She had to answer several questions related to her physics project. I cringed inwardly, thinking that teaching Miki the material and then getting her to solve the problems might as well be a fantasy. But she surprised me in her ability to work them. She wasn't perfect, of course, but her problem-solving ability was better than I've ever seen it. Either she was having a good day, or she has a knack for physics, or both. (Or maybe it was my amazing teaching ability! ...) I left feeling like we accomplished a lot.

Then I had to do some English EOC practice with Yosuke. Usually trying to get him to analyze is nerve-wracking at best, but it was actually enjoyable yesterday. He was better than usual, and he even surprised me at one point by how well he understood one of the sentences he had to analyze. (He wasn't able to answer the question correctly, however, because he didn't understand the choices very well. Alas!) He seemed like he learned a bit, too, which makes it all worth it.

This week definitely ended on a high note. This weekend, I'll plan lessons for both Miki and Yosuke so that next week won't be as stressful (hopefully).

Miki's Problems Become My Problems

It's been a slow week, so there hasn't been much to write about. That, plus the cable internet has been out for several days (damn you, Time Warner!).

My students haven't had much homework. The teachers have been giving them a break to prepare for EOCs or have been assigning projects (which the students can complete during class time). I found myself completely unprepared for this down time. Had I known, I would have made a lesson plan, but I had to wing it. That works well with Yosuke, luckily, because there's a lot of things we can work on. The problem arises with Miki; she gets bored and tired easily, so I need to come up with something to catch her interest.

Also, the past two times I tutored her, she seemed to have something bothering her. Yesterday, she suddenly seemed like she was going to cry while we were reviewing some math topics. I thought she might be getting frustrated because she keeps making the same mistakes, or perhaps there is something else making her sad. I switched to English anyway just to be safe, and she seemed to get better.

The time before that, she seemed to be having a fight with her mother when I arrived, and she sat down at the table sullen and on the verge of tears. I had no idea what I should do. I decided to let her relax a bit before we started learning anything and just talked to her a bit about school. Then I transitioned into the topic I wanted to review, and halfway through the tutoring session she seemed to be back to normal (whew!).

The past week has just been exhausting! I'll need to make a lesson plan for the sessions from now on since they will no longer be dominated by helping the students catch up with homework. Once I've got a structure to follow, things should be a bit easier for me.

Upcoming EOC

As Yosuke's English EOC rapidly approaches, I feel a stronger and stronger sense of dread. I am probably more nervous than he is!

The test is in exactly one week. Yosuke still has serious problems reading and understanding both the passages and the questions. The good news is that he is allowed to use his electronic dictionary/translator to help him understand the English words. The bad news is that for some reason, he doesn't use it much. When we do practice questions, he is more likely to guess the meaning of the sentences (usually incorrectly) rather than look up unfamiliar words, even though I encourage him to check words he is unsure of.

Well, if he doesn't pass, there may be hope anyway. His school's handbook is vague on the matter, but it seems like if you do not pass the EOC the second time (and this will be his second time taking it, by the way), then the principal will make a decision about whether you receive credit. But there is no information about how lenient he is or what is involved in this appeal process - perhaps because it happens so rarely.

I continue to hope that our training and practice will help Yosuke so that it won't come to that. But truthfully, it does not seem likely that he will pass.

Chaotic Math

Miki's worse subject is probably math. I feel like because math comes so naturally to me, I probably shouldn't be teaching it. I mean, what could I possibly teach them? I've never struggled with things like fractions, so I'm a bit at a loss when Miki demonstrates a repeated and baffling inability to understand basic concepts like these. (She is about 13 years old or so, by the way, so she should have these basics covered.)

Her problem seems to stem from a lack of organization. She can't organize her work and as a result, her math is just chaotic. She either tries to do it all in her head or she scribbles down messy and illogical things on paper.

I will teach her how to set up a problem and solve it, step by step, and ask her to copy this method when she solves a problem on her own. She doesn't seem to have trouble understanding the method I teach her, but then when she is solving on her own again, she reverts back to her chaotic system.

Don't get me wrong - I would totally support someone making their own system of solving if it worked for them. But it doesn't work for Miki. She mixes up multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction so often that it becomes clear she's not really thinking about the problem; she's just trying to race through it. For example, if presented with the problem 3X=9, she would most likely subtract 3 from each side, coming up with the answer X=6, even though if she followed my method she would see that the last step is to divide by the number in front of X.

What can I do for someone who simply refuses to follow the given method and make up their own (incorrect) one? I try to be strict with her, telling her to use my method every time and write down her work, but she just keeps lapsing.

This summer, I am planning to go over math basics extensively and try to reteach her everything in a much cleaner, more organized way. I'm really, really hoping she will absorb some of it.

SUMMER BREAK!!

The reason I haven't updated is not that I've been busy. My schedule's been different now that I'm on summer break, and I haven't set aside a time for updating my blog. I keep forgetting! Whoops.

Yosuke has an English EOC soon, and I'm worried about his chances of passing it. We've been preparing with an 8th grade reading EOG prep book, and he hasn't been doing well. As I've mentioned before, he has no analytic ability. It makes me want to cry!

He's having to write a paper for a history project. His topic is his grandfather's experience in World War II. He is unable to write a thesis, or even understand what one is. I've explained it many times, and one angle I tried one time was to tell him to "find meaning" in what he'd written. His reply was that his paper had no meaning - it was only about his grandfather and WWII. Argh!

I've Let Yosuke Down

As I mentioned earlier, when I left Yosuke Tuesday night, he still had a limerick and a sonnet to write. I taught him the rules and wished him luck. As I was driving off, it occurred to me that since we had worked so hard on the other poems, it might be okay to "fake" the sonnet. Would the teacher really count the syllables of each line? Of course not! She might not even read them at all! I felt guilty for not thinking of it earlier.

I felt even worse yesterday when I asked him how hard it had been. He said he stayed up until 2:30am! His ESL teacher is also to blame for giving such a ridiculous assignment, but I can't stop feeling guilty for not realizing sooner that he didn't have to try so hard. Hopefully next time we're in a situation like this, I won't let him down.

Poetry Panic

Yosuke had some bizarre homework tonight. It was for ESL of all things. I think I may have mentioned this, but the ESL program at his high school is a joke. The teacher is almost entirely worthless. He doesn't learn anything. He's never had ESL homework before today.

Well, today's homework assignment reinforced my low opinion of this teacher. Yosuke was given 14 types of poetry and had to write one poem of each type. Fourteen poems! In one day! Can you imagine anything more insane? It was a daunting task, even for a native speaker.

And that's not all. Some types were easy - haiku, free verse, etc - but some were more complex. For example, one was a sonnet. He was supposed to write a sonnet - can you believe that? In case you're not familiar with them, they're fourteen lines long, they have to rhyme, and each line is ten syllables long. They're considered one of the more difficult types of poetry to write, and it's simply insane to ask an ESL II student to write one.

Anyway, Yosuke and I got through the poetry the best we could in two hours. He had a lot of trouble rhyming, so when I left he still had the limerick and sonnet to finish. I hope he managed okay.

His poems were pretty bad (most took complaining about homework in general or the poetry assignment specifically as their topic), but a couple turned out well. One of the poems he had to write was a ballad, which I explained was like a love poem/song. He said, "Like Romeo and Juliet?" and I explained that the whole play wasn't a ballad, but some of the soliloquys are similar to ballads. So we came up with this poem (Yosuke used food as a topic for several of his poems):

Wherefore art thou, food?
Deny thy father, Vending Machine, and refuse thy cost;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my snack,
And I'll no longer be hungry.

You can find the original here for comparison.

So the homework was hard, but we managed to have some fun with it. Darn that ESL teacher, though!

Forgetting High School

Recently, Yosuke's Geometry class has moved on to material that I don't remember at all. It's kind of embarrassing having to ask him to teach me how to solve the problems! Whoops. I really should check out a Geometry book from the library and pre-teach myself each section beforehand. I will definitely do that for Algebra II this summer since the class will be intensive. Situations like this remind me of how much high school material - math, science, history - that I've forgotten. One of the perks of tutoring is that I'm forced to review all this stuff that I wouldn't otherwise.

Summer Project

The other day, I was thinking about my growing frustrations with Miki. On the one hand, she's become more open to being tutoring. While she's never been unfriendly, it was clear at the beginning that she resented my presence. Now she's much more laid-back, and she even enjoys herself occasionally. On the other hand, though, she continues to resist learning English. She won't speak English unless it's repeating or reading something. I know her English level is low, but she is able to make simple sentences. She just refuses to try.

I thought a possible solution to this would be to make her write a journal. I would have her write a little bit every day or perhaps every other day in English. I think I would use an online journal - perhaps Livejournal or Blogger - so I could check it and comment outside of our tutoring sessions. I would also have Yuki do this as well. Yuki doesn't refuse to speak English, but she's just so darn shy that she hardly speaks at all.

I haven't figured out the details (for example, will I give them prompts to respond to, or could they just write about whatever they like?), but I'm excited. It seems like an excellent way to finally get these two girls to use a lot of English.

My Fascination With History

Okay, so I never really went out of my way to take extra history classes or read any history books, but I've always had a soft spot for the subject thanks to a couple of influential teachers. On the other hand, Yosuke's least favorite subject is history. I think it's because how dryly the subject is approached in Japan - just memorization of dates and such.

We don't often work on history together because his teacher takes time to give him some individual help, but occasionally we find ourselves catching up on his assignments. In the rare instances where we're working on history and have some extra time, I'll usually take time out from filling out worksheets to go over one or two topics in detail. Thankfully, Yosuke doesn't seem to mind the diversions and is open to having conversations about whatever history topic I latched onto.

For example, when he was studying WWI, there was a short section in the textbook about the runaway inflation in Germany. I tried to explain how burning the paper currency became cheaper than buying fuel, and while I'm not sure he totally understood (I remember myself that inflation is a difficult topic to grasp at first), the idea certainly captured his attention.

Today we talked a bit about political parties and Nazis. At one point, we were talking about Kristallnacht and he asked me, "Who was wrong - the Nazis or the Jews?" Hmm, what could you say to such a question? I just turned the question back on him and made him answer it. He eventually came to the conclusion that the Nazis were wrong. I wonder if his lack of opinion on Nazis until this point is a cultural thing?

Book Recommendation

I read the most lovely book yesterday. It's called I Am A Pencil by Sam Swope, and it's about a writer who spends three years volunteering to help a group of gifted kids improve their writing. He begins when they are in the third grade and works with the same group until they finish fifth grade.

What's especially fascinating about the kids is that they are all either immigrants or the children of immigrants living in Queens, New York City. There are so many nationalities, languages, and religions, and one of the themes of the novel is the children's and their parents' struggle to maintain their cultural identity amid the chaotic mix.

The author, Swope, uses his interactions with the children and parents to create a rich narrative about each child's life and situation, and he colors and augments these narratives with excerpts from the children's (often surprisingly good and mature) writing.

I gave the book four and a half stars. It fell short of being a five-star book because I thought the writing could have been a bit tighter, but that's just me being nitpicky. This was a great book, and I definitely recommend it!

I picked it up randomly when I was in the public library the other day. I was browsing the educational/test-prep section looking for a book that would help Yosuke with taking standardized tests in English. I didn't find anything, although I did pick up several books about teaching. The one I'm reading now is called Genius Denied. I might post about it when I finish.

Waiting For Miki

One day last week, Miki had to stay after school to work on a group project. Her mother thought she would be home soon, but Miki ended up not coming home until after I had left. Instead of tutoring Miki, I helped her mother with her ESL work for the hour-and-a-half session. Her mother has a great sense of humor and is really smart, so it was lots of fun to work with her. And of course, teaching someone who wants to learn rather than someone who is being forced to makes all the difference. I wouldn't say I prefer adult learners, but it was nice to have a change of pace.

Basketball Camp

Yuki's ESL teacher recommended against her taking Geometry over the summer, stating that her English level was just too low. I agree that her English is lacking, but I feel like she can manage math, especially since she'll have me helping her. I feel a bit guilty about it, but I told her mother that my opinion is that Yuki can take Geometry regardless. I don't know if Mrs. Kikugawa will decide to register Yuki despite the ESL teacher's concerns, but if she does, I hope I don't end up regretting my advice!

If she doesn't take Geometry, I suggested a basketball camp instead as a way to keep up the English practice over the summer, and Mrs. Kikugawa was enthusiastic about the idea because Yuki had already expressed interested in basketball camp. She missed the registration deadline for the camp offered through her middle school, but I assured Mrs. Kikugawa that there were other options, and I said I would do a bit of research on it.

I tried the YMCA first, but there were no summer basketball happenings. I got a bit worried that there might be nothing, but silly me - I live in Chapel Hill, for Pete's sake. A second, more general, Google search resulted in four possible camps. I'll print them off and talk to Mrs. Kikugawa and Yuki about them tomorrow.

I'm probably more interested than any other person would be because I remember enjoying basketball camp myself (in elementary or middle school?). I hope Yuki can also have some enjoyable experiences and, of course, get some excellent English practice.

Google Reader

If you don't know about Google Reader, you should definitely check it out. You can use it to check all of the blogs or webcomics you read without having to visit each individual site. It's quite useful if you subscribe to a blog written by someone lazy who might go more than a week without updating...

I'm Still Here

Sorry about the lack of updates! I just moved, and there's still no Internet access at the new place. I've also been exhausted.

Tutoring is going great. I'm looking forward to an exciting summer. Yosuke and Yuki are gearing up to take some demanding summer courses. They're both showing a lot of ambition. They remind me a bit of myself when I was in high school. I'm worried about Yosuke's course load in particular, as he's planning on tackling both English II and Algebra II, but I believe that because it's his choice to take the courses, he'll make it through.

I'm not sure what Miki will be doing - probably nothing, if she has her way - but I imagine her mother will want me to continue our English lessons.

My Best Friend?

This week, Yosuke has been working on writing journal entries for English class. Last night, we worked on one with the following prompt: "It is often said that dogs are man's best friend. Do you agree? If you could choose one animal to be your best friend and to talk to, what animal would you choose? Why?" (Can you believe this is a high school assignment?) Anyway, Yosuke wrote that he agreed because he had a dog back in Japan that was very important to him. He also chose this dog to be his best friend; his reason was that he would like to be able to talk to the dog to find out what she thinks of him, what she is doing back home in Japan right now, and what she would like to do. Very sweet, right?

After the tutoring session was over, I chatted with Yosuke's mother a bit about the dog. I asked her why she didn't bring the dog to the US with the family. Mrs. Kikugawa paused for a moment trying to find the right words and finally offered the explanation "She isn't polite." She explained that the dog is scared of humans and often bites. I mentioned my own dog that occasionally has problems with biting strangers, but Mrs. Kikugawa clarified that the dog bites both strangers and family members, and not with harmless nips like my dog, but often hard enough to draw blood. What a traumatized dog!

I commented that I was surprised that the dog bites even family members, and Mrs. Kikugawa said that the dog especially likes biting Yosuke! Apparently, Yosuke used to tease the dog when he was young. I couldn't help laughing! It makes me want to ask him about the journal entry. Does he like the dog even though she doesn't seem to like him at all? Or was it all just a convenient lie to get through a school assignment? Probably the latter!

March Madness!

I found out today that Yuki enjoys playing basketball.

Earlier this week, I noticed a basketball by the front door. I had intended to ask whose it was, although I figured it belonged to Yosuke because he's into sports, but it slipped my mind. Then today when I was tutoring Yuki, the subject of basketball came up and she told me it was her ball. I asked her if she was interested in joining a team, and she said she wanted to try out next fall when she's in high school. I hope she's good enough to be on the team because I would really like her to play. Playing a sport on a team or club is a great way to learn a foreign language, or so I'm told. It has to do with focusing on the sport rather than the language, so that you lose your inhibitions and nervousness when speaking.

Shopping Mall Super Powers!

For the question "If you were a god/goddess, what would your area of influence be? What special powers would you have?" Yosuke wrote "shopping mall."

He had misinterpreted the question somehow because the word "area" was confusing, but I thought his answer was great! I had to try really hard to not laugh, though. After I explained the meaning of the question to him, Yosuke laughed and embarrassedly erased his answer. I wanted to persuade him to keep the answer and respond to all the other questions (Make up a story about how you got your power; Where do you live; How would you punish those who defy you; etc) as a God of Shopping Malls, but I decided Yosuke is probably too straight-laced to appreciate the humor. Oh well!

Summer School

This week is going pretty well. Yuki continues to do well with Algebra, and I now have no doubts that she could take Geometry. In fact, Mrs. Kikugawa is making plans for both Yuki and Yosuke to take summer classes. Yuki will take Geometry and Yosuke will take English II. Both classes will be intensive, so it looks like I have a busy summer coming up!

Exhaustion

Tutoring was fun today, but it was exhausting! I tutored Yuki for two hours. I thought the time would drag by, but it was actually pleasant. Two hours turned out to be perfect to cover a whole chapter in her Algebra textbook. Teaching the material and doing some practice problems took about an hour and 45 minutes, and then the last 15 minutes was spent doing some problems from the chapter review to make sure she learned it all. I was impressed with her ability to pick up on all the material and handle a massive amount of new ideas.

I tutored Yosuke for two hours, and that's when I ran out of energy. I made it through okay, though. We spent the first part of the session discussing his courses for next year, and then we read some of The Odyssey. We were in the middle of a boring part of the story, though, so it dragged a bit. Tomorrow I'm going to skip ahead to a more interesting part. We should be able to fill in any necessary details later.

Wow, I'm so tired!

Alas, Spring Break Homework!

Miki was in a foul mood today when I went to tutor her. Her ESL teacher had given her, and only her, homework over spring break. It's frustrating enough to have homework during your break, but to be the only one who has to do the homework is just rough. Miki hates homework, so she was really frustrated about it. I think she also may have been embarrassed.

I can understand why her ESL teacher gave her the extra work. Miki is stubbornly resisting learning English, and her ESL teacher just wants to help push her to learn a bit more. But I can also see Miki's point of view - why should she have to do work over spring break if the other students don't have to? It's humiliating.

I remain neutral.

Hurray, Spring Break!

Well, my spring break was last week, but the kids' spring break is coming up soon. Normally, these breaks mean a cut in my tutoring hours, but this time it might not be the case.

Yuki is behind in Algebra because she missed a few days of school when she had orchestra performances. This is made doubly problematic because she wants to take Geometry over the summer to get ahead. Her teacher's opinion is that taking Geometry using the accelerated summer session will be too difficult, perhaps even impossible, for Yuki. I'm not sure how difficult it will be for her, although I'm confident that she can manage if she's willing to work at it.

Anyway, the upshot is that next week, I'll be working a lot with Yuki reviewing Algebra topics. I'm looking forward to this. Yuki is a fast learner, but not as fast as Yosuke. Teaching Yosuke math topics seems almost pointless; he picks up on them immediately and just zooms through the problems. It makes me feel rather superfluous! Yuki, on the other hand, actually needs instruction, but she's not as clueless as Miki. Essentially, she's just right.

Happy Ending to Last Week

Miki received an extended deadline for the science project, and her science teacher left useful comments on her rough draft so we were able to finish it fairly easily.

After that, we worked on her new project, for which she had to pretend like she was an expert witness in a crime scene trying to prove that some fictional person is guilty for murder. She had to make a story for the circumstances of the crime. I thought she would come up with something bland, but Miki got really into it and wanted to use an elaborate murder she'd seen from a mystery/detective drama. I thought she went a little overboard, but I just went along with it since she was having so much fun.

More Science Teacher Frustration

It's a neat coincidence that the last post is so topical - once again I find myself trying to communicate with Miki's science teacher.

Miki is working on a science project this week. Unfortunately, my ability to help her has been severely limited. All she had for me was a print-out showing the structure of the report: hypothesis, method, materials, background info, results, conclusion. She did not have any information on how to actually do the report, and, more importantly, no data. The teacher must have gone over all that during class, which excludes ESL students like Miki.

Maybe I'm being unnecessarily harsh on this teacher, but it seems so ridiculous. He knows Miki can't speak any English. He should try to help her more, and if he doesn't have time, why not assign a student to help her? I'm almost positive that most of the science project was completed in class. Why not ask one of the students who finished early to help Miki? She won't understand them, but they could at least make sure she gets a copy of the data.

I ended up writing a note to him and asking Miki to turn it in along with her laughably incomplete project explaining her situation. I asked him to give Miki more time to complete the assignment and to write down the instructions and data for her, or to meet me sometime if that was inconvenient for him.

I really can't think of anything else I could do. This situation is so frustrating!

Useless Teachers

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole week since I've posted. I came down with the flu, and I can now say that I'm finally over it, although I'm still coughing regularly.

When I started tutoring, I imagined my students' teachers would be happy to work with me. I imagined that they would want to help their struggling ESL students, and because they're probably stretched too thin to spend any time individually helping them, they would be happy to spend a few minutes helping me. It hasn't worked out quite like that.

Miki's mother asked me to preteach Miki topics from science class, since that's the class she's struggling the most with. To do this, I need to know what her science teacher will be teaching ahead of time. Miki was unable to remember her science teacher's name, so her mother suggested I email Miki's school counselor for the information. I did so, being sure to mention that I was Miki's tutor and I was emailing per Miki's mother request, but I never received a reply.

A few days later, I found out the name of Miki's science teacher from her progress report, so I emailed him directly. I began by informing him of the concerns Miki's mother expressed to me and her proposed solution. I asked him for information about what he would be covering next in class, offering to come by and see him directly if that was easier for him than email. And... no reply. Ever. Not even one to say "Sorry, can't help you."

What is with these teachers? Do they not care?

I was ready to go by and see him directly so that he couldn't ignore me, but Miki's mother said she had a teacher-parent conference planned so she would handle it then. During the conference, the teacher said that the information was on his website. It's not. I checked back when this started, and Miki's mother and I checked it again today together. I looked at every bit of his website, and there's no class schedule or anything like it. What a sorry teacher...

Go Fish English

I had a blast tutoring Miki today.

While the rest of the 7th graders were taking the standardized writing test today at school, Miki had three hours of free time because ESL students are excused. The end result was that when I went to tutor her, she had already finished her homework.

Rather than stretch our usual thirty-minute English lesson to one and a half hours, I taught her how to play Go Fish. We spent the entire session playing. Each round, I would change the rules a bit so that we would be practicing a new grammar pattern. For example, initially we used the standard, "Do you have any ---s?" "No, go fish." Then I changed it to, "I want some ---s" and "No, I don't have any ---."

With two players, it was a little dull, but we managed to make it fun. Toward the end, her mother came by to watch and we convinced her to join us. It was more fun with three players, and everyone was having fun. I was happy that her mother had a chance to see Miki use English, as usually Miki clams up when her mother enters the room.

Today was the most enthusiastic Miki had ever been about English! She even asked me some grammar questions related to the game. For example, at one point she asked me the difference between "Can I --?" and "May I --?"

My next step is clear - I need to research more games we can play that are good for practicing English.

Not Invincible After All

Every member of the Kikugawa family has been suffering from a cold for quite a while. So after an entire week of being coughed on with no effect, I finally came down with a cold this past weekend. Ironically, when I tutored Yosuke today, he wore a mask so that he wouldn't cough on me, after a whole week of coughing in my face. I almost started to tell him he could take it off, but I didn't want to let him know he made me sick because he'd probably feel bad.

Slight Changes

Mrs. Kikugawa's English is much better than I thought. Either I misjudged her initially or she's progressed a lot recently. Or both! Anyway, this makes me very happy. She expressed a desire to start speaking English with me rather than Japanese. This means I'll lose my free Japanese practice, but I'm so happy to be helping her. When she doesn't understand something, she asks and we talk about it. She doesn't give me that glazed look and tune me out like the kids might do. That's the difference motivation makes, I suppose. The kids are learning English because they have to for school. But she wants to learn, so she's much more fun to teach.

Overall Good Day

Today was overall pleasant. I worked with Yosuke for one hour and then with his mother for the second hour. I don't usually tutor Mrs. Kikugawa, but when I went to her house today she asked if I would spend an hour with her because she was behind in her ESL class.

Yosuke was alright today, but I had this one really frustrating moment.

We were working on a geometry word problem and I couldn't get him to just concentrate on reading the problem to set it up properly. The problem involved a rectangle, and one of the dimensions was 9cm and the other you had to find by setting up a proportion with a similar rectangle that was 2cmx3cm.

Now, if you were careless, you might glance at the problem and say the 9cm is the long side of the rectangle, so the other side is 6cm. That's what Yosuke did, which I was expecting, so I asked him why he made the long side of the rectangle 9cm. He immediately changed his work so that the short side was 9cm. No, that wasn't good enough - I wanted him to read the problem and find for himself where it tells you which side is which. It was stated fairly clearly (the exact phrase was "9cm on the shorter side" and I know he can understand that). So I asked him this time why he made the shorter side 9cm. He pointed out that the problem asks at the bottom for the student to "find the length of the longer side." That's an okay response, but it's not good enough. It could just as easily as said "find the unknown side," so he needed to be able to figure it out without relying on that guess. He just kept repeating that answer, even though I told him to read the problem slowly and carefully. He just refused to read it! The word problem was only about 3 sentences long.

Finally, after pressing him for a suitable answer, he found the part where it said "on the shorter side" and I accepted it and we moved on. Please, Yosuke, next time when I ask you to read something carefully, just do it and get it over with!

Whew, sorry about the rant. I should add here that even though it was frustrating for me, I don't convey my frustration to the kid I'm working with. I'm actually very patient. But that doesn't stop me from ranting when it's all over!

Otherwise our session was not frustrating, and working with Mrs. Kikugawa was actually pretty fun.

Music and Learning

I've often wanted to use music for learning a second language. It seems like such a powerful tool - you can find a song in a second language you enjoy listening to, learn some or all of the words in the lyrics, and then listening to the song is as educational as listening to those language-learning conversation tapes. The great part, of course, is that when you do repetitions, you're not forcing yourself to listen to a boring, awkwardly scripted and perhaps even unnatural conversation again and again; you're doing what you probably would do anyway - listening to a song you like.

The English textbook Miki and I have been using is nearing the end, and I suggested that we move onto learning with song lyrics. Unfortunately, she was only able to provide me with two English songs she likes. I need to introduce her to more music so she can find more songs she likes, but now I'm faced with the realization that I'm woefully out of touch with the middle school music scene. When I was that age, my friends and I were into Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys (no, really!). I wonder who the pop icons are nowadays?

Mrs. Kikugawa's ESL Struggles

I don't talk about it much, but often (once a week or so) after my usual tutoring sessions I'll talk to Yosuke's mother a bit about English and ESL. (Come to think of it, I mention her enough that she deserves her own nickname. I'll call her Mrs. Kikugawa.)

She's taking a free ESL class for adults at a church, and she usually has a question or two for me. I love how it works out - a bit of free tutoring for her, free (much needed) Japanese practice for me. I enjoy the discussions, too. We complain about the difficulty of learning a second language while simultaneously complimenting each other on her progress.

Mrs. Kikugawa doesn't speak much English - I'm not sure if it's lack of confidence or ability - but she appears to be pretty decent with grammar based on the work she's shown me. I really respect how hard she is working. She's a homemaker, so she doesn't really need to learn English because she can get by without it. In fact, she may be fighting a losing battle. She'll be back in Japan in three years. Is three years enough to learn English for an adult? Most of her time is spent at home, immersed in a Japanese-speaking environment. As far as I can tell, her only English practice comes from the ESL class.

I'll make a point of trying to help her more, and maybe see if I can get her to speak English with me so she can have a chance to practice. The only reason I haven't is that I imagine if I spend too much time helping her, she'll want to pay me for it, and I don't really want to earn a tutor's pay for being a conversation partner. Anybody could do that! I'd just like to continue helping her for free, especially considering that she provides me with the only Japanese practice I've ever gotten in the US.

Rewards and Motivation

I was looking for this article for a different reason, but I found it was related to tutoring so I thought I would link to it here:

Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator

The basic premise is that if you pay someone to do an activity, they become less likely to do that activity on their own. This cute joke illustrates the point nicely:

An elderly man, harassed by the taunts of neighborhood children, finally devises a scheme. He offered to pay each child a dollar if they would all return Tuesday and yell their insults again. They did so eagerly and received the money, but he told them he could only pay 25 cents on Wednesday. When they returned, insulted him again and collected their quarters, he informed them that Thursday's rate would be just a penny. "Forget it," they said -- and never taunted him again.

This article has relevance both for me and my students.

In one study, girls in the fifth and sixth grades tutored younger children much less effectively if they were promised free movie tickets for teaching well. The study ... showed that tutors working for the reward took longer to communicate ideas, got frustrated more easily, and did a poorer job in the end than those who were not rewarded.

In other words, volunteers performed better as tutors than those being paid.

While I find myself occasionally getting frustrated and having trouble communicating ideas, I think for the most part I've managed to avoid this pitfall. (I've been aware of this psychological quirk thanks to a class I took in college.) Whenever I find myself thinking of tutoring as a job and wishing that the hour would end soon, I try to trick myself into thinking I'm just a volunteer. It doesn't work perfectly, but it helps the time go by faster when I'm bored or frustrated.

Now, how to use this psychology to benefit my students? I don't directly give rewards for good performance such as grades or treats, but I do praise good work. After reading the article, I wonder if I praised the students too much, but I'm not convinced that's the case. After all, the article makes the following distinction:

There's a difference ... between saying, "I'm giving you this reward because I recognize the value of your work" and "You're getting this reward because you've lived up to my standards."

The first one is good or at least okay, whereas the second one is the motivation killer. Luckily because my students don't have to worry about meeting any expectations or getting passing grades when they work with me, I think I'm safe from destroying any motivation they might have. At least, I hope so!

V Day

Sorry about the late update. I've been forgetful this week, and there's not much going on.

Valentine's Day was fun. The night before I went to the mall and bought some small chocolaty things and gave one plus a little Valentine card to each of my students. They were all surprised and appreciative.

I really like the little Valentines Day cards that every store sells around this time. I tried to pick out easy ones with no puns. Maybe they could figure out a pun, but I doubt they would really put that much effort into reading a Valentine card, so I wanted to keep it really simple. Miki's card was just Taz (the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes) spurting gibberish (because he can't speak English, y'know?). It occured to me later that she might not get the joke; she might think he's just saying words she hasn't learned. Hmm.

Dumbed-Down Books

I have a love/hate relationship with those versions of classic novels that are simplified for little kids. On the one hand, it's great for ESL students to be able to enjoy a classic that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. On the other hand, all the things that made the classic so likable in the first place are taken out - the beautiful writing style, the descriptions, the complexity.

Yuki has to read a book and write a book report for her Language Arts class. There is a list of books the students can choose from, so she doesn't have unlimited freedom. Her ESL teacher gave her a dumbed-down version of Little Women, and we read some of it together. I was less than impressed, but c'est la vie. The original version is practically a tome.

Japanese Negotiation

When I acquired my first tutoring job, I had just graduated from college. I didn't have experience with teaching in any form. My only qualification was my mediocre Japanese abilities. I knew good tutors could charge $20/hour or more, perhaps up to $40/hour for specialized teaching. But when Yosuke's mother asked me what hourly pay I expected, I asked for $15/hour. She offered $20/hour, but I told her that I didn't have enough experience and $15/hour seemed more appropriate. She insisted on $20/hour, and I accepted.

I once read that this is the way Japanese people negotiate: they will offer more than you ask for. I'm not sure if the reason Yosuke's mother offered me $20/hour was cultural; it could be personal - she valued her son's education enough that she thought it was worth more than $15/hour. Perhaps if I had tutored Miki first and negotiated my pay with Miki's mother instead, I would be making $15/hour.

I'd like to think it's a combination of both - cultural and personal. Yosuke's mother has always seemed both very friendly and very Japanese.

When Frustrations Become Something Else

My job is fun and easy because I get to build relationships with my students and watch them progress. I know what I'm doing is working, albeit slowly, and I don't lose hope. Unfortunately, not all teachers are so lucky.

I have a friend who is doing the JET program, where he assists English teachers at public schools in Japan. He wrote in his blog that yesterday, one of the English teachers he worked with committed suicide by jumping from the junior high school building:

"I finally found someone to tell me that the one who fell was one of the teachers at my school – the English teacher I was about to call – and that it was suicide. After an incident with a trouble making student that morning he said "I'm tired." and jumped out of the window in the middle of a class."

It's one of those shocking stories you just hope and pray isn't really true.

To say that his students were the cause of his suicide would be untrue. The teacher obviously had emotional problems, and in Japan, it's nearly impossible to get diagnosed for depression. But it makes me thankful for my job. Sometimes I feel that my work is too small scale to matter. So what if I teach three kids to speak English? But I'm grateful for my position - it may only be three students, but the relationships I build with them are very special to me.

I wish my friend's English teacher had not viewed suicide as the only way out. I can only hope that his death helps lead to improvements in the Japanese medical system.

Let's Relaxing

Despite my frustrations, I really enjoy tutoring Miki. I can't decide if I'm more like Yosuke or Miki, but I think Miki reminds me more of myself. Yosuke is rather straight-laced, and while he appreciates a good laugh every now and then, for the most part he keeps the tutoring sessions formal. Miki, however, can relax and have fun.

Her interactions with her mother also remind me of myself. For example, today her mother served us some yummy chocolate mouse stuff. Miki was too busy to eat hers while we were working, but when we finished she grabbed it and walked around eating it. Her mother said, "I wish you would sit down while eating that," and Miki sarcastically sat down on the floor right where she had been standing. It was a funny little gesture, and it made both her mother and me laugh.

Miki is such a sweet, lively girl that I can't help being fond of her. Now, if only she would stop resisting learning English...!

Science Book Shenanigans

Yuki and I didn't get to finish Sugar Cane today, unfortunately. She had some science homework that took up all of our time. Strangely, the science topic was the same one that Miki just learned a couple of weeks ago. Yuki is in the 8th grade and uses a standard 8th grade science textbook. Miki uses a standard 7th grade text book. The portion that Yuki is studying is, word for word, the same in Miki's textbook. They don't go to the same middle school, but they're in the same school system. I'm still not sure what the explanation might be. But in any case, it was helpful because I had experience explaining it very simply to Miki, so I was on the ball with simple English and easy examples to teach cells and the characteristics of life to Yuki.

Leisurely Day

Today was a fun day. I only tutored Yosuke, and we spent most of the time studying for his geometry test tomorrow. It's really fun to teach someone with a natural talent in the subject. To use an analogy, if you want to teach someone to fish, you would normally show them how to bait the fishing rod, wind-up, and then later how to remove the fish from the hook. Teaching someone with a natural talent, on the other hand, is like taking them to the pier, showing them the rod and bait and seeing how they work it out on their own. If they make a mistake, you only need to show them why it won't work, not the correct way of doing it. They can figure out the correct way on their own.

We also finished Act II of Raisin in the Sun, which has the dramatic climax. Yosuke was actually interested in the play for the first time! It's so much easier to teach him when he's interested because then he'll actually think about it.

New Book

Last week I mentioned a book I had Yuki read a bit. There were only ten minutes left in our session because she had some homework that took up most of our time. I shouldn't have had her start a book in ten minutes - it didn't give her enough feel for it and as a result it wasn't much fun. I also may have underestimated the English level of the book.

This week I tried a new book. It's a book with gorgeous pictures called Sugar Cane, based on the story of Rapunzel. Yuki had some math homework, but she had a good grasp of the topic and finished it quickly, leaving us with about 45 minutes to read. She got through half of the book. It was very enjoyable because we managed to get past the introduction and exposition to the heart of the story. She seemed to like the book, too. I hope next week we'll have time to finish it.

Things Are Looking Up

After Monday's frustrations, I had some better sessions. Miki showed remarkable progress. She won't speak English to me, but she has demonstrated that she can understand some of the commands I give in English. If I say something like "What's the answer to #3?" and she gives me the answer, even in Japanese, I think it's okay to consider that progress. It's much better than getting a blank stare.

Miki also demonstrated some ability with proportions. Previously, all types of math problems had been difficult for her. This week, she had a worksheet filled with proportion problems, front and back... all word problems. As soon as I saw this, my heart sunk and I knew it would be a long session. But Miki really surprised me!

All the problems were basically the same. Two sentences - the first one allows you to set up a proportion, and the second one asks you for an unknown. For example, "Every year, 10 people die from dog bites. How many people have died of dog bites during your lifetime?" So you use the first sentence to make a proportion... 10 deaths/1 year. Then you get the unknown from the second sentence and solve.

Once I taught Miki the basic set-up, she was remarkably good at picking out the important parts and making the equations, despite not understanding the meaning of the sentences. She couldn't always solve them correctly - she often didn't know whether to multiply or divide - but she was much better than usual. It was quite refreshing.

Japanese Education System

I believe I've mentioned that Yosuke is good at math, but the sad truth is that he's not good at much else. His mathematics abilities astound me, and of course that's partly because he's naturally good at math, but it's also a result of the Japanese education system. In Japan, schools place a lot of focus on math and memorization, whereas here in the US, there's more focus on analysis.

As a result, my students have zero analytical abilities. For example, when Miki had to write a response to a poem, no matter how we approached it, she was unable to say anything but "It's weird." "Okay, but why do you think it's weird?" or "What's weird about it?" ... "It's just weird." (sigh) I can forgive Miki, though, because she's just in 7th grade.

Yosuke, however, is expected to have a bit of analytical ability in his 9th grade English class. Last night, we were discussing a character from a play who is described as "exploring her African-American identity." I explained that this meant she was asking "Who am I?" Yosuke asked if she had amnesia.

Another example is when I was attempting to explain a passage in the play where the aforementioned character had a discussion with her boyfriend about the purpose of school and books. Her boyfriend told her there was only one reason to read books - to pass a test, to get a grade, to complete the course, to get a degree. That's all. She called him a fool. Even after we discussed this conversation three times, for a combined total of two hours, Yosuke can still not understand the reason that the character thinks her boyfriend is stupid. He cannot understand that there is a reason to learn outside of getting a degree.

Yosuke also can only see things as one extreme or the other. Characters are either happy or sad, stupid or smart, rich or wealthy, lazy or hard-working. This is partly because of his lack of English abilities (it's easy to say somebody is rich or poor, but saying they're "middle class" is a bit advanced), but his inability to see complexity is also to blame.

Shopping

Today was an interesting day. Miki's mother asked me to come 30 minutes earlier than usual but did not say why. When I got there, she told me that Miki needed a calculator for school, and she wanted the two of us to go pick one together. I directed her to Staples and recommended the TI-83 plus, because it's what all the cool kids are using. (Well, it's the standard for high school students, so all the kids are using it. That includes cool kids.) It was a nice break from the usual routine, and I got to talk to Miki's mother a while, which was fun.

Yosuke and Yuki's mother was working on a presentation for her ESL class. Each person had to make a presentation about something from their culture, and she was talking about Japanese charms. She asked me to look over her presentation and make corrections, and we talked about charms and I asked her some questions. It was quite enjoyable.

The Perfect Book? Or Not?

I thought I had found the perfect book for Yuki's level: here.The English is simple, the chapters are short, there are lots of pictures, and, most importantly, it's interesting. It's a children's book, but I enjoyed it, so I figured a 7th-grader would as well.

I had her read chapter one today, but I don't think she liked it. I may have overestimated the level. It seems easy to me, but I think Yuki had problems understanding it. Whoops. Part of the problem was that we only had ten minutes left after we finished her homework, so I didn't have time to stop and explain things and ask her questions. I'm going to give the book one more try next week, and if it still doesn't work, I'll try another one.

Posting Frequency Update

I think I've discovered the perfect posting schedule. I will update every week on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On these days, I will post about what my students are doing and anything interesting that happened.

However, rather than just limiting myself to three posts a week, I will also occasionally make extra posts about ESL learning in general and ideas I have.

The reason I am keeping this blog is, mainly, to track my progress and organize my thoughts. I'd like to use it as a sort of living bookmark, in which I write about ESL-related books or articles that I've read so I can look back on it later, rather than just reading and forgetting. However, I also want to track my students' progress and let others read about my tutoring experiences. I think my new posting schedule will cover all of these points nicely.

So, in short: I will update at least three times a week, on M-W-R. But there may be extra posts.

Thanks for reading! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu~

Happy MLK Jr Day!

I had a great time tutoring tonight. As I mentioned before, Yosuke is currently reading A Raisin in the Sun for his English class. I imagine most people also read this in high school. In case you don't remember, it's a play about a poor, black family in the late 1950s who attempt to improve their lives by purchasing a house. The house is in a white neighborhood. I had completely forgotten about it, and I was happy to have an excuse to take some time out and read it. I remembered not especially liking the play when I read it in 9th grade, but I loved it this time. The play ends right before the family moves into the new house, and I think that may have frustrated me. It's like you're missing all the action and the conflict that comes when they are the only black family in a white neighborhood right at the brink of the Civil Rights Movement. But now I think I can fully appreciate what the story means.

Yosuke was doing a great job understanding the parts we read, or at least my explanations, and he was asking good questions (which always makes me very happy!). I didn't even mind getting sidetracked for about 20 minutes so I could go over the history of African Americans, from slavery to the present, so that he could put the play into context. I think he got a lot out of it, and I was pleased how relevant it was to the holiday.

Story Time

Things have been interesting this week, as I've become more focused on having the kids read rather than work in their textbooks/workbooks. As I mentioned before, Yosuke was reading Esio Trot, although we still haven't been able to finish it. He had a lot of homework this week that took up our free time. Now that his English class has started a new book (A Raisin in the Sun), it appears that, unfortunately, we won't be able to finish it anytime soon. I'll set it aside for later.

Yuki has an English workbook that we've been using. It was recommended by the tutor she had before me, and it's quite good. However, to break up the monotony, today when I met with her I had her read some passages from a nonfiction book about Martin Luther King Jr Day. It was a book for young children, so the print was big and the sentences were easy to understand. I think she was able to follow it alright. I would have her read a passage, and we would stop and talk about each one, and I would ask questions to see if she understood.

I'm also trying to get Miki to grapple with her first short-story (it's actually one in her English textbook, not one I picked out). I hope she'll try hard, because I know it'll be rewarding for her.

Pictures

I was disappointed that Yosuke and I didn't get to read any more in Esio Trot today. He had a lot of homework, so we spent the whole two hours just doing that.

One thing about Esio Trot that I both love and hate is the illustrations. The short story has illustrations on each page that clearly show what is happening. That's great for ESL students; seeing what they just read in picture form reinforces the meaning. But I also worry that, well, maybe they are too many pictures. You can practically tell the story from just looking at the illustrations, so I worry that Yosuke might not be learning as much as he could. Hopefully he's not relying on just the pictures.

In any case, it's fun to read something as quirky as Esio Trot. Tomorrow I'll stop by the public library again and see what else I can come up with.

I'm Back

I apologize for the lack of updates. I'm trying to decide on a good posting schedule: either every other day or Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I'm leaning toward the latter; we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday was a great week for tutoring. I had a great session with Yosuke, and Miki made some progress (I was so thrilled!). Yosuke and I had finished his school assignments and still had an hour left to go. I had been at the public library earlier that day looking at children's books, so I had a plan for our free time. (Usually we work on his grammar workbook or a practice test or something, but I think he's at the point where he can have some fun while he learns.) I let him choose between Roald Dahl's Matilda, a novel, or Esio Trot, a short story. He chose Esio Trot and we got through half of it.

It turned out to be a great story to use for learning English. There are lots of pictures and the sentence structures are fairly easy. And it's interesting, or at least more so than stories written for ESL students. I can't wait to finish it when we have free time again. After that, I might have him read something longer and more involved.

The Other End of the Spectrum

It's absurd how opposite Miki and Yosuke are; they're essentially at opposite ends of the spectrum. Yosuke is such an ideal student I actually feel guilty tutoring him. For one, anyone can do it. He just needs a little help understanding homework problems, and even then he only needs the question explained simply. Once he understands what the question is asking, he can figure out the answer. Secondly, I enjoy it - it's not like work at all. In addition to working on homework or studying English grammar, I can hold conversations with him. My focus on teaching has always been "real life" English, that is, what you actually use when speaking English as opposed to unnatural English you might use in a textbook. I love to have conversations with ESL students to practice this. I can hold simple ones with Yuki that mostly consist of me asking a question and her answering it, but Yosuke can actually be conversed with. He's also intellectually curious and asks lots of questions. Could you ask for a more perfect student? I can't wait until he reaches the point where he doesn't need me anymore, although of course when that day comes I'll be sad.

Cheering on Miki

Miki continues to make no progress, and it's mostly because of her refusal to try. The task in front of her is daunting, and she's choosing to give up rather than to struggle and eventually succeed. And I know she'll succeed if she tries. She's still young enough to pick up a second language easily, at least more easily than it would be for adults, even if she's too old to ever lose her accent (I've heard the cut-off for that is around 10-12 years old). She's completely immersed in the English language. Even though she has almost no knowledge of it to begin with, from here she can only sink or swim. And if she chooses to swim, she'll begin progressing rapidly. I just know it.

I want to pressure her to try, but I know if I do that, it'll likely do more harm than good. Her mother nags her enough for both of us anyway. I want my role to be more of a mentor or at least a helping hand for when Miki decides to start trying. Until then, I'll just continue trying to help her as she sinks, as unrewarding as it is.

Unreasonable Burdens

Today I tutored Yosuke and Yuki. It's nice to be working again. The middle and high schools in this area start again on Monday. I'm so excited! It'll be nice to be busy with homework and projects once again.

You know, I never cease to be amazed by my students. When I start to get frustrated, I just remind myself of the burden being placed on these kids. Their families moved them to a foreign country where they're immersed in a foreign culture and can't speak the language, and yet they're expected to go to school and pass their classes just like the native speakers. Can you imagine how daunting it must be? So that's why I have to have patience. These kids are overwhelmed, and it's my job to help them as much as I can.

An Uncomfortable Silence

Today I tutored Miki, officially ending my winter vacation.

I explained the material she was supposed to study over break to her in Japanese - in science, she is studying cells and DNA and in social studies, she is learning about world religions - and everything was going well. Then, when we got to the "English portion" of our tutoring session and it came time for her to read dialogues from the textbook, I realized when I heard her voice that she had not spoken a word the entire time until that point. During the hour I had spent teaching the class material to her, she had been completely silent. I had asked her questions, but she answered yes/no questions with a nod or a shake of the head, and other questions were answered by pointing to words. For example, "What are the three main world religions?" was answered by pointing to the words "Christianity," "Judaism," and "Islam" on the print-out.

The strange thing about all this is that Miki is not shy! When she is speaking to her mother or sister, she is bubbly and outgoing, and she has friends at school as well. And yet she feels she cannot talk to me in Japanese or English. I'm beginning to wonder if my initial optimism, my belief that Miki would relax and speak more, was mistaken.

Freedom, Part 2

My older sister just finished writing a thesis about how students respond to freedom in the classroom. You might think that students would work harder if they get to choose what to focus on, but her findings were actually the opposite - students worked harder and better when the teacher made the choices for them. For example, students performed better when a topic for a project or presentation was assigned to them rather than allowing them to choose themselves.

Essentially - giving students structure enhances learning.

I don't think this completely contradicts my previous post, however. I'd like to believe that while structure is beneficial in the classroom, it's okay for one-on-one tutoring to take a different form. I'd like to believe that between the rigid structure of the classroom and my more fluid tutoring sessions, my students are getting a well-rounded education.

Resolutions

Happy New Year's, everybody!

My resolution this year is to be more proactive with teaching. Rather than just playing it by ear, I'm going to start reading up on education, teaching ESL, and linguistics. I'll post any interesting and relevant findings.

My goal for 2008 is, of course, to be a better teacher. It's easy to teach students like Yosuke who are clever and hard-working, but I also want to help students like Miki who are average and hate school work.