Job Discussion Forums

[Outsida]

I have a private class with a 10 year-old boy every saturday morning... good kid, quite smart, but I want to liven it up for him a bit. Games that I know don't work with one kid, and he's not going to sing or dance. We go for a walk sometimes and chat, we use flashcards, a kids' text and I play some card games with him for vocab. But what else?


The class goes for 2 hours. Any ideas what I can do with him? He likes me, but I don't want him getting bored.

[adamsmith]

find out his favorite computer game - you will be able to get him to talk about that for hours on end in english and he will definately be interested in it. It also helps to build up his vocabulary and he will start talking right away. you just have to be careful or he will start giving you detailed run downs of everything he has done over the past week in the game and you wont have time to teach him anything new.

[Shan-Shan]

I recall doing something similar while in Korea. A group of 10 year old boys knew nothing about English other than phrases from Starcraft. In the beginning, I'd announce, "Let's start" to begin class, and receive blank stares. Very soon, I found, "Ready to roll out" much more of an attention grabber, and responsive.

Instead of using Mr. Smith and Sally, I'd employ Starcraft characters/machines for grammar exercises. For example, teaching comparatives:

"A protoss drone is more expensive than a Zerg drone" (something along those lines. I haven't played the game, nor used the vocabulary, for some years).

The Starcraft English classes made my job less stressful, and the learning more practical. These kids were only exposed to English in class and through Starcraft. Making the language relevant to them increased motivation and lengthened attention spans.

[Mydnight]

Get some books that you can read together. I taught a kid in this situation and I picked up some books about various historical periods with a lot of pictures; you know the really large picture books. It was fun for both of us to read the book together and look at the pictures.

You can ask him to make up some stories about the pics too.

Other than that, get some book to follow. Pick up a copy of New Interchange (the yellow) and use that sometimes. It will help you have a more structured class.



Anyway, good luck. Those one-on-ones can become quite tiring after a while. heh.

[no_exit]

One on ones with kids can be hard. Instead of playing traditional in-class games, think of some lower key activities that can be done alone. Most of my primary school aged kids love word search puzzles for some twisted reason, so you could make up a few and look for words together to practice vocabulary (you can make your own puzzles on this site: http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/ . You've also got a good idea with going for walks and stuff, see if you can expand on that and make regular outings to different places, learning vocabulary and useful language for each new place.

I'd have to disagree with Mydnight about New Interchange yellow though. I think 10 is too young for that book, and it would be fairly dull itself for that age. Instead, try New Parade, which is good for that age group and has 6 levels, so you should be able to find something appropriate. It has a text as well as an activity book, so you should be able to find some puzzles, coloring pages and other activities that you and your student can work through together. It also gives ideas for crafts and drawings, projects you can do with your student (like making a model city out of shoeboxes and labeling your buildings "hospital" "police station" and whatnot). This can be fun and your student also gets the satisfaction of having made something he can keep and used his English at the same time.

[Outsida]

Thanks guys!

Some excellent suggestions.

His English is too low to really use a text just yet - I've tried Look/Listen/Learn with him, but it's still a wee bit above his level. Maybe later.

[Mydnight]

I'm using New Interchange yellow with some kids of that age right now and it's working fine with them. They enjoy seeing some of the funny pictures and you can make it interesting when only using it as supplimentary material. A class of only that book would be quite boring, though, yes.