Teacher Discussion Forums

[Dalene]

I'm new in this game and I'm doing reading with a private client who is 12 years old. His English ability is pretty high and I would like some advice on how to give my reading lessons more substance and purpose. Please help.
Thank you

[mdavis@tkcs.org]

Hi, Dalene,
I teach and tutor Korean and Chinese ELL's. I think tutoring them really allows for more in-depth discussion and understanding of any subject, which makes this kind of instruction interesting and a lot of fun; and, in itself, allows for more substance and purpose simply through the one-on-one conversation.
I was recently reading about teaching reading to ELL's and liked the suggestion of SQ3R: Survey (skim the passage), Question (as to what the reader would like to learn from the text), Read (read and look for answers to those questions), Recite (orally or in writing reiterate the main points), Review (assess and incorporate the learning). I believe most TESOL's automatically use many aspects of SQ3R in their instruction.
However, I think the Review part could be especially beneficial for adding purpose into lessons, and could be a jumping-off point for an extension to the lesson that would be based in real life, such as a project (e.g., interview, survey, further research).

[Sally Olsen]

You have a unique opportunity to zero in on your students abilities and interests. Find out what he is interested in and then read everything you can find about that subject. I often found the student's interests very different from my own and so I was always learning things myself and since I love to learn new things, think that rubbed off on my student.

I learned the names of the Pokeman people, the details of Star Wars, the rules behind fashion, and the rules of numerous games including camel bones and what it means when they land a certain way. There is a great deal of philosophy behind "The Matrix" and so on.

I used to make games out of the knowledge and then we would make the game and play it and the student could take it home and play it with his friends in English and his/her own language. We made a map of stars visitied in Star Wars, had characters (bought at a garage sale), weapons, and played a kind of Miss Scarlet with the lead pipe in the library - it was Luke Skywalker with the lightsaber on Tattoine and so on. We were trying to kill off the Sith. Or you could make a path game with bits of knowledge from whatever he/she is interested in. Make sure you have lots of "snakes" to the "ladders". We made a family tree for Donald Duck, Pokeman characters as they evolved and a Japanese cartoon that I have forgotten but the kids loved in Greenland.

Most 12 year olds have a collection of some sort. Even Barbie is doing exciting things these days.