Job Discussion Forums

[TK4Lakers]

Hello all,

I will be tutoring two 4-year olds in English in the coming days. With no prior knowledge nor experience in dealing with such a young age, I have to admit I'm a bit nervous.

I have done some research on the web and have gained valuable information. Things such as sing a lot of songs, keep it simple and fun, and play easy, simple games seem to be common.

I havea few questions I would like to ask anyone who's had experience tutoring preschoolers/kindergarten:

How long should my session be? I think 1-hour might be too long, so should I tell the parents 45-minutes?

What would be a good first-day lesson plan? I was thinking: Greetings, and body parts. Any suggestions?

What should I focus on the most? Having fun and making sure the kids are enjoying themselves? Getting my point across and making sure the kids memorize what is being taught? Any advice would be welcomed.

Thank you =)

[earthmonkey]

[JohnBankier]

Some general points I would have liked to have been told before I taught kids:

1. Keep the classroom tidy and free of all distractions (toys lying around, low-hanging posters etc). Anything that's there should be something you're using in your lesson.

2. Be active, jump about. Be silly, fall over, exaggerate everything. Don't raise your voice except to be funny.

3. When you find something they really like which practises your target language, repeat it. Young kids love repetition. Do it every day with a new theme.

4. Sing. A lot. Find a goodbye song, or other songs to break up the lessons.

5. Remember the kids have absolutely no native interest in what you're teaching. It's all about the games, so in order to complete the game they have to say the language.

6. Kids don't care if your worksheets look amateurish, but they do love completing them, especially if you give them a gold star or draw a funny picture on the sheet.

7. If you want the parents to like you, have the kids show them what they've learnt at the end of the class (ie. produce some of the language with a flashcard or whatever). Parents don't want their kids to have fun, they want them to learn, but of course from a teaching point of view the two have to go together.

8. Kids love being the teacher and copying what you do, even if it's simple like slowly uncovering a flashcard to reveal the picture. Having two kids in your class is great. Boys also like doing sit up and pressups, plus it tires them out which is only a good thing!

9. If you know Japanese, use Japanese a little. For classroom management, and just for having the kids actually understand what you're teaching - otherwise they're just parrotting and will retain nothing. So if you teach them some grammar like "I want a dog", they need to know that what they're saying is different from "It's a dog" or "I like dogs". Sure you can explain it through gesture or examples, but that's kind of hard when you're students have no interest in that!

10. Remember kids are no different from adults - you need to build a good rapport with them before they'll respond to you and they're probably just as nervous as you. So on the first day, spend some time making name badges in Roman letters and make sure they learn your name. When you first meet them, get down to their level and give them a big handshake and teach them "I'm so-and-so" and "nice to meet you".


Good luck!

[kdynamic]

I have a standard MO for 4 year olds. First, an opening routine. Mine is to get up there and speak in Japanese for a minute to get them warmed up. I say something like "boy, it's hot today! Hey, by the way, do you know how to say hot in English??" and then i tell them and we say it a few times. Then we do self introductions. My 4 year olds can do "hello, my name is Taro. Nice to meet you" fairly consistantly. I also shake their hand every time to get them used to that. Then we read a bilingual picture book. They usually have a shlef full of them at the library, so pick some up. I don't worry about explaining the English because I read it in both languages and they know what's going on. Then I pick out a couple things that appear in the book (like animal names or colors or whatevers in there) and practice them with big flashcards. For kids that age I'd say no more than 5 words. Then I use those words and play a game like duck duck goose using the words (like red red red BLUE! instead of saying duck duck goose) or fruits basket or even a game that doesnt use the words at all, but simply declares a winner and then I quiz the winner on the words. They also love the game What Time is it Mister Wolf? And they can use that to practice counting. Then we sing a song (head shoulders knees and toes is a good one. I always do it one normal, then in a small voice, big voice, and then progressively faster until everyone is falling over. they love that). At the end we do goodbyes and say "see you next time!" and stuff and that's that.

I have no idea what you can do if you don't speak Japanese. My lessons go very smoothly usually but I speak 95% Japanese with them.