English Articles

Yesterday I worked with a student on his sick make up work in Japanese and English, two of my favorite subjects in high school. I speak conversational Japanese and I took Japanese language in high school and college. As a kid I also went to Japanese school on Saturdays for a short period. I still don't speak the language fluently, however, and haven't really studied it since my undergraduate college days but I am definitely competent in most high school level Japanese 1 and 2 courses. Tutoring basic Japanese for me is like teaching someone to ride a bike. It is something that is ingrained in my ethnic culture. My desire to learn as much as I could about my people’s culture and language never really manifested itself in perfect fluency but was always a goal throughout my schooling years. I was "eliminated" in the college round because UC Berkeley’s Japanese program was very challenging and bad grades outside of my major were going to be too detrimental, so I had to drop the course.

It is something that I still love and enjoy teaching to others. Yesterday was a great lesson because it helped ME to revisit one of my passions. When you become a high school teacher you have to choose a SINGLE subject to specialize in and English was the subject that I chose. Once you pass your single subject credential tests, you are not really allowed to teach other subjects outside of your specialization unless you substitute teach them. Japanese is also not the most common language taught in high schools either, especially in Latino/a saturated California schools. Tutoring has allowed me to access many many subjects that I never formally studied how to teach. I believe that I have done them well and that my students have been satisfied. I have been pleasantly surprised at my ability to use my mastery of instruction and curriculum to be a great tutor in all of the subjects that I have taken assignments in to date as it is something that I was not able to to do when I was a high school teacher.

Both tutors and students (and maybe their parents) may wonder how to actually see student progress. In the case of English or ESL, there are subtle and indirect signs, but seldom anything stark or quantifiable. Therefore, I have to pay careful attention to notice when a student has actually "learned" something, such as new vocabulary, sentence structure, or how to read a complex article. Yet the signs are there.

Here are a few examples. One student who I helped with writing first showed me some essays written for various classes, which were frankly failing papers in my estimation. They were full of sentence errors, mechanical errors (spelling and punctuation), and generally failed to make a strong point. I helped her by showing her the types of errors, and having her make corrections and do other practice exercises in her weak points. At the end, I asked her to produce a new paper from scratch, and with essentially no help from me, she produced a decently-written three-page essay on her university experience. This was progress.

In another case, a student also working on writing had serious errors with her sentence structure, as a non-native speaker. I've worked with her to show and explain the basic rules, and give her practice. Now she is making far fewer errors, and is able to analyze and catch some of her own mistakes. This is another kind of progress.

Sometimes, a student may feel frustrated and not see any obvious improvement, any leaps of skills. But ask your tutor, who should be paying careful attention, and hopefully he/she can show you some clear examples of where your work has improved. Tutors, do the same: show your students examples of progress you observe whenever possible. Help them see how they have learned a particular skill or concept. Your students will appreciate you for it.

Sometimes, it is essential to provide students with additional perspectives, besides the tutor's. As I tutor more and more, I realize that even with the one-on-one benefits of tutoring, there is a need for interaction with other students. However, the problem is, there are no other students to provide this feedback when you are tutoring a student. I have found that creating relationships with other students is a remarkable enhancement to the tutoring experience.

I have used Pen Pals to meet this need. There are a variety of websites that offer pen pals for different purposes. If I am tutoring a student in Social Studies, Geography or History, a Pen Pal is an amazing resource for FREE and REAL information about the study topics. This is usually an exciting concept that is well-received by the student because they thrive with interactions with others and they think it's amazing to connect with people like them all around the world! Using the right resources for this is essential, so I suggest that tutors spend some time locating the right program for their needs. Usually, those that are dedicated to teachers offer the most security and less potential for spam and unwanted leaks of information to the Web. Additionally, these sites allow the tutor more access to hand-picking the pen pals for their needs. The greatest benefit for this type of tutoring lesson is the ability to focus on the writing skills of the student while not needing to create writing assignments for the sake of writing! This makes the students more likely to give their effort to their tasks AND it allows the tutor to challenge the student to become eloquent in their writing efforts because it is directed at a "friend". I encourage tutors to give this a try in Foreign Languages, Writing, History and Social Studies, ESOL... actually, the possibilities are endless! I'd love to know how YOU are using Pen Pals in your tutoring!

Do you find yourself giving up or procrastinating on your reading and studying? Does it seem like there is an endless amount of work to finish between now and Christmas? I know you have heard a million times, "break it into smaller pieces". Maybe you need another way to do that.

Here is a way that has worked for some of my students. Let's say you have 9 chapters in your history textbook to read and understand by the end of the semester (and 3 exams---3 chapters per exam). Rather than be overwhelmed by that concept, what you can do is make up 3 separate index cards (one per exam--and write which chapters must be covered for that exam). For now, just refer to the card for the first exam. Take 3 post-its (and write 1 chapter on each). Stick the post-its on the exam card. Pick a deadline for each chapter. As soon as you finish a chapter--throw the post-it for that chapter away. There is something very satisfying and empowering to be able to pitch that post-it.

As soon as you feel like procrastinating, odds are you are focused on the 9 chapters. Re-focus! Grab your chapter cards. Tell yourself---I will finish 1 card; I will throw away post-its.

This may sound like an idea that cannot work. But it gets around the mental blocks that we tend to create and then use to procrastinate. This concept worked great for one of my students. He just couldn't get started on his reading assignments. As a matter of fact, we took a step backward from this strategy. I made a card for just 1 chapter. If the chapter was 21 pages long and he had a week to cover it, I would direct him to read only 3 pages a day. I added that if he knew he needed to take a day off during that week, he needed to have his page count for the week taken care of anyway. We would make a game of it, and try to estimate how many minutes it would take to thoroughly read those 3 pages. He began to see that no matter how huge the reading assignments, he could break it down into manageable sizes. If he had to read 140 pages during the week, but he could only bear to read 5 pages at a time, he needed to read 5 pages 4 times a day. Guess what? He quickly decided that he would rather read 20 pages at a time and be done for that day. But even if he needed to read only 5 pages at a time, he could get it done. Get the challenge or mountain down to the size where you almost laugh and say---of course I can do that much!

Success breeds success. Baby steps to the end of the course.....as one of my favorite students says, "slow and steady wins the race"!

You can succeed! Let me know if you try my techniques! I would love to tutor you and get you on your wonderful road to success!

This is for the child that has a hard time grasping simple English skills and finds it hard to retain those principles needed for reading, writing, proper sentence formats and proper grammar and punctuation.

I am making learning a fun experience by using games and small tricks as a way of remembering details about English. By using fun ways of remembering, a child will use this technique during studies at school and even exams. Your child will most likely be able to use this info over and over again. These techniques will help your child achieve better scores on tests.