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Advice on tutoring a kid that is learning to speak English

Rach91

Hi I have been offered a job from my old flat mate who is from China. Her cousin is learning English at school he is 10 years old and is living in China with his family. Today I had a trial session with him this morning and I was absolutely terrified I wasn’t confident at all. I did get better towards the end and the family were really impressed and have paid me to do 9 more sessions with the boy. I need advice really on how I can improve my sessions today we just spoke and I had to slow down and use simple words but I really want to improve next weeks session make it more fun can anyone help me out on this please I need the money because of the cost of living crisis and this is a great opportunity for me to gain experience working with children in a sort of teaching environment. 

  • in reply to Pixiefox

    Thank you so much I have just had look and it looks really useful. 

  • Hi Rach, I used to reach English to foreign students some years back - here is a good website that might help you with planning lessons:

    https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources

  • Hi I tried to respond sooner but my response disappeared.... 

    Maybe you should ask the parents what they want for their kid to achieve in these 9 weeks. 

    You know you can download a lot of elementary material for teaching online, and often for free? Scrobt. com could be a good start.

    If you do decide on a book you might be able to share the screen or if not, adlways make sure the kid is literally on the same age as you. 

  • You did well to get this far, congratulations! 

    My experience of working with Chinese kids online is that they like to see 'fluency' in the teacher's ability to use the screen on Skype, being able to show little videos, listening material, and so on. Certainly that is the case with little ones. But with a kid of ten, you could probably hunt around for a book you can both share without maybe needing to download anything onto a shared screen. 

    You should maybe ask the parents what aims they have for their child, and agree on a plan for the time you have him. You might be able to agree on a textbook for elementary students, and focus on vocabulary and pronunciation. 

    If you can't afford that you might be able to download a textbook for free, on places like Scribt.com. The most important thing is to keep on establishing the rapport you have with them, try to find some fun games and videos you can share with the child. 

  • in reply to Martin

    In today’s session we just got to know one another I know a few of his interests 

  • Find out what interests the child has and work the lessons around the interests. Prepare some visual aids, Powerpoint or suchlike, visuals will help to retain the child's interest and reinforce learning. There a many EFL podcasts on Youtube, it might be useful to look at some.