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Tara2117 · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 89 Location: Gunma, Japan

So I've combed the idea cookbook... and still need help.

I've had this private lesson once a week for about a year and a half now. It's a girl, age 12, who has pretty good conversational English skill, having lived in Singapore when she was younger.

She takes a regular, juku-type english lesson once a week as well, so her mother doesn't want her to use a textbook in my lesson. She wants her to have conversation practice so she won't lose what English she already has.

Here's the problem... I'm TOTALLY out of ideas. Every week, I have to fill 40 minutes with... something... and I'm reeeeeally scraping the bottom of the barrel now.

The girl is very sweet and smart, but I find it hard to get her to really talk to me. I'm sure she doesn't wanna talk about school or her friends with the gaijin teacher. When I try to get her talking about her weekend, she always claims to have forgotten what she did. (Yeah, riiiight...)

Any ideas???? She likes games... but I've done all mine to death...

Help!

chinagirl · Joined: 27 May 2003 Posts: 235 Location: United States

Have you tried using authentic pop culture? Bring some Japanese and/or American teen magazines. Have her tell you about who is popular now. The articles, horoscopes and advice columns should give you some ideas.

Dialogue journals might be a good way to share reading outside of your meeting times, and get her to open up a little.

I had a private JHS student much in the same situation and this worked well for me.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

"Tell you what, Akiko, let's not have a regular lesson tonight. Let's just chat." Then pull out some pictures of your family/friends, or start telling her about one (short) incident. Use words you know she doesn't understand. If that doesn't coax questions out of her, be point blank..."Sorry, I'm just speaking naturally. Did you understand what I said...?"

Or do pronunciation practice where she needs it.

Or show a 20-30 second video clip and talk about what the characters said. Use Friends or Full House if you have to. Turn off the sound and let the Japanese subtitles show, then ask little Akiko to translate for you. Or let her watch the video clip behind your back and explain what is going on (with no sound or subtitles on).

Find out what she's interested in, and have her do some Internet searching that's related.

Trivia games. Scrabble. Charades. Pictionary.

Ashtonmd · Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:35 am Post subject:

In situations like that I am always a big fan of controversial/totally random topics. I like whale hunting, ghosts, organic foods, tattoos, spaceships, revenge, global warming... Another good one I like to toss out is "When you were very young what did you want to be when you grew up?" Why? It seems so simple and yet perplexes so many. Sometimes they dont remember what or why and then you ask them why whey didn't become that or aren't going too. That's just my two yen, g/l!

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

Have you played Jeopardy with her?

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

cornishmuppet · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 642 Location: Nagano, Japan

Mothers often don't want their kids to have a textbook. Half the time its because they're too tight to buy one. I'd suggest you get hold of a couple (the cheapest way is to log on to Oxford Uni Press or a couple of other publishers and get some sample copies) then photocopy bits and pieces to make a lesson. If you find something that works you might be able to convince the mother that a textbook is best. In my opinion its always better to have a structure. Half the time these parents that want their children to 'just practice speaking' have no idea what they're talking about.

Anthony Krese · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 3

First, I'd suggest trying to do a few classes (or as many as it takes) where you build a relationship with the student. I usually do something that involves us creating something. Maybe it's a silly movie (you could even use your cell phone camera if you have to), a book, a recording, drawing, anything. Create a bunch of ideas and let her choose the one she likes. It might not be the most communicative lesson(s) but you may have to sacrifice that to get things going the way you want.
After you've established a good relationship, you may want to take another stab at finding out what she likes. A fun way to do this is to chat on a piece of paper as if you two were chatting online. My younger students, especially, tend to enjoy this and seem to open up a bit more.
Finally, get back to normal classes doing games, activities and having conversation that you find appropriate for her. There are a billion other websites (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link them in here) that offer tons of free games/activities/conversation ideas.
Anyway, this route might be worth a shot if you find nothing else is working. Good luck and keep us updated on how things are going.

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

Good post, Cornishmuppet. I agree. Another thing you could do to add structure and improve her vocabulary is have her make word cards each week. Print her out a copy of the GSL 2000 and let her highlight the words she doesn't know and use those. Each week when you see her start out with a quiz. Have her make five cards a week and choose three and ask her two questions about each one. Make up a score sheet and keep track with points awarded to the questions. Perhaps, the two of you could work on the cards together. They should include on one side; the word in syllables with the stress, a word number, the word family and an original sample sentence. On the other side; the part of speech, the meaning in Japanese and the Japanese word family. Also, you may want to work on conversation strategies with her. Get her to start with a one minute conversation where she has to open, continue and close the conversation with you. You can work your way up to 2.5 minutes and design a rubric for her including; openings, closings, reactions, change of topic words, reductions, follow-up questions, etc. If you build these things around a bit of text you can get your hands on, things should go more smoothly for you and relieve you of the burden of winging it with her day in and day out. Hope that helps, Tara!
Enjoy,
s

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Anthony Krese · Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 3

"It's a girl, age 12, who has pretty good conversational English skill...The girl is very sweet and smart, but I find it hard to get her to really talk to me."

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many great ideas, games, activities or textbooks you have. Some students just aren't going to open up (and talk) until you have a more concrete relationship built. It's never too late!

guest of Japan · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 1601 Location: Japan

focus on comics, movies, TV shows

work on summaries, opinions, persuasion, role plays - speaking and writing

do activities in terms of fluency and then later editing for alternative means of expression

Tara2117 · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 89 Location: Gunma, Japan

Thanks for all the ideas. To clarify, yes, I do have a pretty good relationship with the girl. She's told me about her family, her hobbies, her friends, all that... she's not shy, it's just that, like many Japanese students, she answers questions, but doesn't really do much to keep a conversation going.

I've actually done about 90% of the ideas posted, ha ha. Trivia games, Jeopardy, all manner of word games, card games, question games, guessing games... I've done creative writing projects, crafts, made copies from almost every textbook my school has... combed the internet for ideas...

I'm actually going to talk to my boss about having another teacher take over the lesson. I hate to lose such a sweet student, but it may just be best to have someone new and fresh. I've taught her about 75 times now... I think I'm just all tapped out. Wink

Tara2117 · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 89 Location: Gunma, Japan

Actually, an idea just came to me... tonight I'm going to take in some restaurant menus... then have her practice ordering... then create her own menu for her own restaurant. I may even get two or three lessons out of this... after THAT, I'm out of ideas... ha haha

wintersweet · Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:42 am Post subject:

English-language manga?

If you can get online in the classroom, there are things like http://www.onemanga.com/Chiis_Sweet_Home/

Pre-discussion (who's in this story? what's going to happen? what do you wish would happen?)
Discussion as you read it together (idioms, slang, reduced speech)
Post-discussion (what happened? who said what to whom? what made you excited/sad/worried/amused? what do you wish had happened instead? what might happen next?)

Related activities: writing a letter to the translator, recommending an unpublished letter to a publisher, copying and whiting out dialogue bubbles and having her write her own dialogue, writing her own alternate story, writing or telling you about what happened to other characters who weren't shown during a certain scene, interviewing each other "in character" (allow prep time and notes on cards), so on and so forth.

You could do it with a TV show or something else, too.

Just a thought!