[aaniskina]

Hey everyone,

I start lessons with a 7 year old boy soon. The lessons will be from Mon - Fri 3 hours a day. I have never had such a consistent schedule. I feel like 3 hours will be a bit intense since the lessons will be after he gets back from school. The mother did say that she just wants me to interact and play with him while having some lesson structure.


Does anyone have any advice? I realize I need to have lots of back-up activities. Any game/book/cartoon suggestions for a boy?

Thank you in advance!


Allison
(Moscow)

[TechieTeach]

That's a large amount of time but there is one advantage to that — lots of chance for exposure. It sounds like they want the kid to learn fairly 'naturally' through playing etc. This doesn't work too well if you're only teaching a few hours a week - but in your case it works out well. Make sure there are a lot of exposure activities like: playing in English, reading books in English together, watching TV programs together in English (and talking about them), singing English songs together.

[Beatrix]

One thing has always puzzled me, and that is how can anyone, be it a child or an adult, learn any language through ''exposure" , without any translation or help in their mother tongue, as well as without a lesson structure. Does anyone have any experience with this type of teaching and could they please explain this?

[Adam888]

Best thing is just to relax and take it slow. If you don't know his mother tongue just play some simple games with him. Building things with lego or colored blocks is a good place to start.
As you build things just start talking to yourself and the child will start to listen.
Most children can pick up the numbers 1-10 easily and a few basic colors. SO you just say to yourself "oh i need to red blocks to build the wall" but make sure the child hears you. Then when u get the red blocks repeat "o i have 2 red blocks" and then when u construct the wall say " I am building the wall with two red blocks."
Repeat the process with different colored blocks and numbers and eventually the child will start to comprehend. You can say "o where is the green block?' And the child will start to help you and start speaking.
Just repeat the same process for all the actions you do when with the child and then the English will start to kick in.

[Adam888]

Another way is to use a ball like a soccer ball or a smaller basket ball.
You can teach question and reply this way.
Before u throw the ball say "how are you" then let your student catch the ball.
But the student cannot throw the ball until s/he enunciates an answer such as "I am well."
If u are not using their native language then the student tends to just repeat everything you say. But a slow and patient approach to the ball game and will break this habit fairly quickly.
Just keep it slow!No answer No throw! And just keep guiding the student until they understand the concept... question:How are you? answer: I am well.
Once you do this you can use the catch and throw ball technique to build the students understanding of question then answer, question then answer, (throw and catch, throw and catch)

[Adam888]

Did this activity with 7 year olds yesterday.
Have them sit down in a group (i had about 49 students). Work slowly with some animal flash cards. Ask them what they see, ask them to imitate the sounds and actions of the animal, have them describe or repeat a sentence about a particular characteristic of the animal. Review a few cards.
When your ready tell the children that they are going to be one of the animals. I had 7 photocopies of 7 different animals and so I distributed them randomly to the students. I then instructed them to form groups with their fellow animals. After this i called the groups up one at a time and they had to line up in front of the class and say with increasing volume which of the animals they were. After each group had completed the task, I walked up to the back of the room and commanded :"all elephants and tigers come to the back of the room and form two circles." The students needed assistance and got confused ocassionaly but after a few attempts there listening skills improved and they were able to perform the commands successfully. As the students were well behaved I let each student take their animal flashcard home.

[Spladebeforn]

thanks for those ideas, i really appreciate it. my son is suffering from ADD ADHD and it's hard for us learn..