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.
Showing posts with label lesson plans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lesson plans. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
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.
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.
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