Photo by Vanessa Jones
That was the subject in a recent email sent to me. The ESL teacher at my daughters school started a wonderful evening program at the school. Family Learning Nights, you can learn English, Spanish, get help with preparing for your GED, get tutoring help for your child's homework. D, the ESL teacher is also a master trainer for LVNJ and just a really cool person, and this idea he had is so fantastic. When he sent the word out looking for help with tutoring I immediately signed up.
I haven't had a student to tutor for about 6 months, it has been a busy time in my personal life so I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with the tutoring. It was so difficult for me to drive almost 30 minutes to get to the tutoring sessions before and it was so inconvenient, and then my student rarely showed up, or if she did she was always late. It clouded my experience.
But the thought of being able to tutor a student at the school which is just around the corner from my house, in the evenings when my husband can take care of the children. And to know I am working with parents of my kids friends. People in my community. This idea completely appealed to me.
The thing is I had only ever done basic literacy tutoring, and the training I had for ESL tutoring was a year ago. I told D I would tutor a student, thinking I can handle one on one. Then I got an email from D the day before the first FLN:
"Brenda,
Umm, PANIC! So the LVNJ training mainly focuses on one on one tutoring, but we did touch on the small group training. But like I said that was a YEAR ago! How could I possibly say no though? The parents wanted to learn, and I repeated to myself that first empowering thought I learned in training "If you can speak English, you can teach someone to speak English." So yeah! Yes I will take that small group, and I will do the best I can, I am totally willing and able!
The day came, and I poured over my training manual, and a great manual my boss J suggested and I went online and came up with a very basic lesson plan. I did not know the level these students were at in their English speaking skills so I had to go on the assumption that they were very beginner.
I decided to start with a grid, and use the Repetition Drills I had learned and practiced in training to have them practice saying: "Hi, my name is," "I have three children," "I have two girls and one boy." And I would have them introduce themselves and then their neighbor using the grid to help them.
I also found pictures of different scenarios on google, Talking to your child's teacher, At the bank, At the grocery store, and At the doctor. I would poll the students and say: "I need help speaking English when I am..." and then I would show them each picture while saying what it was and then ask them to each pick a scenario they wanted to work on. Then we would work on things you might need to say in those scenarios, using the Repetition Drill and the Response Drill.
So I had a plan and I was scared but hopeful.
I got there and started drawing out my grid on the board and then waited. Then the students started showing up. And showing up. And showing up. I had a total of 11 students that night! Yikes, I am sorry but that is a large group in my opinion!
Photo by Vanessa Jones
But I never skipped a beat, and I went through my lesson plan and oh my gosh the students were so awesome! They were eager, upbeat and totally accommodating. LOVE teaching ESL!
As I was gathering my things at the end of the class, one of the ladies said, "Thank you teacher!" Heart melting!
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