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!