Tutoring report.
First the boy. He said there will be an ESL test in school soon. It'll be reading something and then writing an essay about what he read. So I said we should practice writing. He really hates to write even worse than doing worksheets. So we discussed what he should write about. The movie or play that the kids wanted to go to turned out to be a movie shown in school. So I asked him to write about it. He didn't remember anything about the movie except that there were zombies. I asked what he was doing, daydreaming while the movie was showing? Yes, he said. So I asked him to write about what he was daydreaming about. He couldn't remember. So then I asked him to make something up. He had no ideas. He didn't seem to comprehend that you could write fiction. The concept just didn't penetrate, it seems.
He wanted to read some of a book he's reading, Diary of a Wimp, I think it's called. I said I was planning on having him read something about April Fool's Day, and he said there was something about it in the book. He went back maybe 10 or 20 pages and showed me. So I had him read that part, noting and explaining words he didn't know. One thing he didn't know was that there were professional athletes, people who get paid for playing football or basketball or whatever. He was amazed. He thought they had to pay to play. The book also mentioned a paintball gun, and I told him what little I know about it. I have a friend whose son is into it, but I never found out much of what he did except that they shoot at each other with paint.
Anyway, after reading the few pages that concerned April Fool's jokes, I asked him to write about what he just read. It was like pulling teeth. He'd write a sentence. I'd say, "Then what happened?" He'd write another sentence. I'd prod again. Another sentence. He mixed up verb tenses, and I pointed out to him that he should stick to the past or the present, not put them both in the same sentence. He said, "But the book uses that word" -- referring to a present tense verb he used with past tense verbs in a sentence. The book is written in the present, sort of odd, but I guess it wants to be conversational. You know, "And then I say to him …" That kind of thing.
Lord knows how he'll manage the test without me hovering over him. He said it didn't matter, that it was just for the teachers to see how he's doing. So I gave him a lecture about wanting to do well, about working hard, how if he wanted to go to college, it was going to mean lots of studying, and how the work would just get harder as he progressed. Therefore, he had better start working now. I said a college wouldn't take him unless he had good grades. I just don't know how to get
through to him!
Then we did a worksheet. I had made it challenging, and he was obviously floundering, so after a struggle with about half of it, I let him go.
The girl had 2 short, easy books to read from her purple folder from school, which we did. I asked her if she liked those books, and she said no. I pointed out that they were easy for her and they were short, so it shouldn't be such a burden. I also discussed with her why she forgets things, and what we could do so she'd remember better. She had no ideas. I didn't either, other than to tie a string around her finger, which sounded silly to both of us.
Then she did a worksheet with words she didn't know last time. She needed a little help, but she did pretty well.
After that, she read something I had printed out from the Internet. I use 2 sides of the paper, so the other side had a maze on it I had printed out way back when for her brother. He lost interest quickly, but she wanted to do it, so she whipped through it. It was a pretty complex one, too. She didn't want to do a word search, she wanted another maze, and I found one on the back of something else. She asked me to print out more mazes, and I told her that they aren't really English work, so I could print them out for her, but she'd have to do them on her own time. I rescued a bunch that were in my pile of papers with only one side used.
I had made them for the boy when the word "maze" came up in his reading, and I thought he'd find them fun. But no. They were too much work. What will I do with him? How do I get him motivated? He doesn't even get interested in movies. And I took some tongue twisters today, thinking they'd be fun, but when he slipped up pronouncing them (the whole point), he didn't want to do it. I tried them on his sister, but she found them too challenging, too. I'll save them and try again at some point before giving up on the idea.