Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello

My name is Leah and I just graduated from High school. I am doing an internship right now working with internationals where I live. My plans are to major in ESL this coming fall.

I am volunteering my time twice a week for an hour to help a girl who is about 9 years old with her English. She just moved here with her family about a month or two ago from Korea. She is in school. I would like to be able to help her with her homework, but she doesn't speak English well enough for me to explain it to her.

Right now I am just trying to help her with English, but I'm not sure exactly where to start. She knows the alphabet, and a few words, but she cannot put them together to form sentences very well. What are some simple exercises that are fun, but would help her be more verbal? Where could I find a listing of the basic word that would be most helpful to her at home and at school?

Even though this is not really a job, I want to do my best. The opportunity of being with this Korean family and learning how to teach English through this hands-on experience is amazing! Any help here would be truly appreciated!

Thank you in advance for your help!

Leah

Flash cards.

I just spent a fair amount on some nice flash cards made by Teacher Created Materials and they have proved very good for my young kids.

Step one: use the pictures until they can say the name of all the pictures.
Step two: Use the words to get then to be able to recognize the word in it's written form.

I've been using this tutoring and progression is very rapid.

Alternatively, if you don't want to spend the money or can't find them, you can make them with 3x5's and magazine cut outs or drawings if you are artistically inclined.

Flash cards are great for nowns, and for verbs there are some excellent verb books out there with pictures of people doing things with the verb written below.

Without any materials, you can begin work on the basics, colors and shapes, then things you can point to.

Hope this helps.