Corbin Ryan: Tutoring Session with Christian #1

            We all met at Sifa and Innocent’s house last Wednesday for our first tutoring session with the boys. Colleen began an activity with Christian, my student whom I have been assigned to, in which he was supposed to match words to the letter they began with. She was very encouraging with the children, and had a way of interacting with them that I definitely must work on myself if I continue teaching children in the future. In this, I have yet another skill to hone as I continue the TEFL course.

            What I expected to be just a meeting between my classmates, the students, and the students’ parents turned into a lesson. I was unprepared for this, but I got some practice in teaching nonetheless. Learning from how Colleen taught Christian, I improvised a few activities for him, one involving matching numerals to the words that represent them, another requiring him to write out the name of a color above a line of the same color.

            Colleen said to focus on numbers, colors, as well as the students’ immediate world all while familiarizing them with the letters of the English alphabet, which they already seem to have a grasp on, so that’s good. She pointed out that the boys have pretty short attention spans, so perhaps I will give Christian a five-minute break in the middle of our lessons, to give him some time to recuperate. She also pointed out that the boys, like many children will resort to guessing the answers so that they can get the activity over with as soon as possible, which I noticed Christian doing.

            Something else I found was that children are pretty easy to read; it’s easy to tell what they’re feeling. From looking at their body movements and what their attention is drawn to, it’s very obvious to tell when they’ve mentally checked out of the lesson at hand.