Thai :-) Teaching English as a second language....

[NayfiesMama]

Hi There,

We are taking care of a 5 year old, once a week for a few hours.... He's been in the States for about 9 months. He's in PS and his mom "doesn't know what he's learning there" and so she after schools him. He came to the States knowing 2 digit addition/subtraction and he also knows how to multiply. (Two 2's are 4.... ) or (Two 2's plus 1 is 5)

She also had taught him cursive letters, as she said she doesn't like printing... After all, she was never taught to print. :001_smile:

So, yesterday she let me know that what she really wants me to do is work on English with him. She wants me to have "English Conversation" with him....

I only have him for about 5 hrs, which includes time for him to eat, learn and play the Wii.... He's about 1 year younger than my son, and probably ahead of him academically. (The boy reads and writes Thai, too, and is working on English)

I have no idea what I should do other than read books with him and see that he's pronouncing words correctly. I'm not sure if I should invite him to come over a couple of more times a week for an hour to practice? I could have him do copy work with my son... he seems to like to write.

His mom is already giving him 5 Thai words and 7 English words a day, but perhaps copy work would help?

His mom seems very excited for me to do anything with him. I'm wondering if he's in a mainstream class, or stuck in an ESL class. Poor kid... .when the mom said that she doesn't know what he's learning.... I can't think of anything he COULD be learning....

Any hints for helping? For how often I'd need to "tutor" him and what I should use??

Thanks for any hints:-)

[Friederike in Persia]

Reading books to him sounds good and maybe you could play games with him too (stuff like pictinary junior,....). The more often the better, if you've got time for it.
Don't cut out all of the Wii though, it sounds like he could do with some fun!

[Laura Corin]

My sons learned Mandarin through board games - you might try that. The vocabulary is limited at first, but that builds confidence and fluency.

Laura

[CleoQc]

My daughter learned a lot of English with Webkinz. He can learn quite a bit of English with the Wii. But the mother probably doesn't want that.

I've been quite happy with Sonlight as ESL. Not only do you work on English, but you work on history and geography and character issues, and social sciences. In short you work on general culture. If you choose books that are in the States it will help his integration too.

[Renai]

I've been quite happy with Sonlight as ESL. Not only do you work on English, but you work on history and geography and character issues, and social sciences. In short you work on general culture. If you choose books that are in the States it will help his integration too.

This is very true. The students I tutor mostly come from an immigrant parent background, and even if they've been in English classes I find there are gaps in general cultural knowledge of the US. I've had to stop some planned activities to go back and teach the knowledge behind the activity (ie, I did a cause and effect activity with 5th graders that used Mother Goose rhymes as a base. They didn't know the rhymes, so couldn't complete the activities as presented.) Certain sayings and idioms are misunderstood due to this lack of basic cultural knowledge. Heck, I miss(understand? take?) stuff my husband says, and we've been together speaking our languages for 11 years!

Oh, yeah, sorry, started rambling. I just wanted to say, "what she said" :iagree:. I keep SL (prek/k) on my bookshelf because I go back to it in my tutoring.

[Nan in Mass]

Could he do the Developmental Math workbooks? And lots of puzzles? The Anno math books are good, too. I'd try to get lots and lots of children's science books from the library to read to him, also. Our library has a shelf of "your community" books that might be good, too, that deal with handicapped people, policemen, construction workers, going to the dentist, etc.
-Nan