Teacher Discussion Forums

I've been hired to teach a 4 year old English. She speaks no English at all.

My question is, How important is it to force her to repeat what I say? I'm normally talking the whole lesson, and she sometimes sings along to the songs and such, but many times she doesn't repeat what I say. Should I be continuously asking her to "Say banana, say apple, etc." or is it enough for her just to hear me saying it.

Before this student I had a boy the same age, and he just naturally mimicked the words he heard me say. This girl seems to be starting to understand, but I'm not sure how important it is to try to force her to actually repeat the words out loud. She sometimes does this and other times doesn't...

What do you think?

I would try to find out what she knows. You said that she sings some songs so she must have some former training. Start your lesson reviewing what she does know and praise her for getting it right.
Then set up a routine for learning new things - five repeats was my goal but not just repeating and her repeating but presenting it in different ways - a picture, the actual object or a toy, a flash card picture, a picture on a poster for her to find the object among others and a picture in the picture dictionary she can take home with a tape.

You play lots of games with six to ten words in one lesson -slap, memory, bingo, matching big and little, picture to.toy, hide in a bag and feel to pull out, hide around the room and find the one you ask for, she hides the objects and tells you which one to get and on and on until she really knows them but enjoys getting to know them.

The picture dictionary will give you guiding sentences. I liked "Let's Go"

You may bring a mirror so she can observe the shape of her mouth as she speaks