Freedomain Radio

I have a 4 year old kid I've been tutoring English for several months.

I only see her once a week for one and a half hours.

Her mother is now complaining that she thinks her daughter hasn't made any progress.

I don't have much experience, so I'm not really sure where she should be based on her age and how long she's been studying.

She knows the alphabet song, but can only sometimes identify letters out of context. For example, if I write the letter "G" and ask her which letter it is, there's only about a 50% chance she will answer correctly. She's pretty good with nouns. I can point to pictures of animals and objects and get her to say the name. She knows all the colors. She knows "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" but often forgets "eyes, ears, nose, mouth". I can give her something and say, "Here you go!", she'll reply, "Thank you!" then I say, "You're welcome!" then we can reverse and she'll say the opposite lines. I'm sure there are some other things I've taught her that I can't think of at the moment.

I feel like she's doing well for being so young, but her mom seems frustrated.

I would love to hear your input / experiences!

Not to be confrontational, but how does the mother know whether or not the child is progressing at all? Does the mother speak English?

You mention in your post that you don't have much experience....would you please clarify this a little more?

Dave Bockman:

Not to be confrontational, but how does the mother know whether or not the child is progressing at all? Does the mother speak English?

The mother speaks a little bit of English, although her pronounciation is poor and her vocabulary is not great.

She wants her daughter to be able to put sentences together and answer questions.

For example, I tried to teach her "How old are you?" "I'm 4 years old." and "How are you?" "I'm fine, thank you! How are you?"

She has a really hard time differentiating between the two questions. Half the time you ask her, "How old are you?" she will answer "I'm fine, thank you! How are you?"

She is VERY good at repeating what I say (her pronounciation is great) but her mother and I think she might not understand what she's saying. Maybe we aren't giving her enough credit? I don't know.

Stephen:

You mention in your post that you don't have much experience....would you please clarify this a little more?

I'm a native English speaker from the US living in China, so I have a lot of English experience.

However, my "teaching" experience before coming to China is limited to tutoring Chemistry and acting as a teacher's aid in Pharmacy Lab. I've never taught English and I've never taught children.

I've been tutoring an 8 year old boy for a few more months than the 4 year old. He's been getting very good grades in his English class in school (high 90s) and I think I've seen some improvement from him. I guess you could say he is my "standard" although their ages are very different. He also has trouble saying sentences, but his understanding is very good. We started watching the movie Ice Age together on Friday and I would pause it every once and a while to ask him what was going on and he seemed to be getting it.

Some things to keep in mind.

1) You are providing a service.

2) Imagine yourself as a consumer of ESL services for your 4 year old child. Chances are pretty good that you would like to see your service provider's track record, and would like to see a syllabus and/or reasonable markers of progress for your child, or reasonable for children in that age group and demographic.

3) Here are some common facts that may prove helpful.

•Second Language Learners who do not live in the country of the target language don't progress as quickly as those who do. They are not encouraged to engage in conversations outside the classroom.

••Second Language Learners who do not speak the target language with others at home will often regress.

4) Consider discussing the above points with the client (if language is not a barrier) and consider drafting up, and agreeing upon a reasonable time frame for progress and learning relevant to the child's abilities and age.

5) If the parent does not know English, suggest that they too become your client, and that you will teach both the parent and the child for only a small increase in your fee....or even better, for free. This way the parent can experience first hand how difficult it is to learn a second language such as English, and will hopefully gain some patience with you and more importantly, their child.

Let me know if this is useful info.

 Lastly, this book will provide you with nearly everything you will need to know about the field of teaching ESL /EFL

Not sure if this video is relevant, but worth posting if you haven't seen it yet.

Have you asked the mother what she thinks the child "should" know or be able to say/do by now? Getting a baseline for the mother's expectations and trying to figure out whether they're reasonable or unreasonable would be a good start.

Others here have mentioned a couple of salient points: with only speaking English 1.5 hours out of a 168 hour week, the girl is not going to make much progress at all. If the mother wants her child to make more progress, she needs to speak English with her child at every possible opportunity and set reasonable expectations and try to make the process of learning fun, and not super stressful -- which she seems to be doing now. The more the mother tries to shove her child into doing something, the more the child is going to resist. The best thing the mother could do would be to learn English herself, and have her daughter see her studying. (Good luck with that suggestion!)

The main problem, frankly, is that the child does not necessarily want to learn English. It's the mother's project, and the mother is frustrated and angry with her daughter not coming up to expectations, and you're catching the blame. (Of course, you never know what she says to the child about it behind closed doors.) There's nothing you can do to fix the mother, but if she's going to continue to make the child take lessons, you can at least make it more pleasant for the child.

As to what you can do to possibly make a bit more headway with the child and make lessons more engaging, definitely try to mix some kinetic activities into the lesson. A good rule of thumb I heard when I was an English teacher is that a child can sit still 1-2 minutes for every year of age. This was borne out when I tutored a 4-year-old Russian child. I'd ask her to sit for 5-8 minutes coloring in English coloring books (teaches colors, of course, and then whatever the theme of the coloring book is, like household objects or body parts), and then have her stand up and run to touch whatever object I named in the room ("chair!" "lamp!" etc) for 5 minutes or so, and then settle back down to listen to a story and answer questions about what happened in the story, and then stand up and sing the "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" song and then point to her other body parts, etc. The "run to touch..." game was super popular. Of course, 1.5 hours is way too long to keep that up. Half an hour 3 times a week would be much better. (Good luck with that suggestion, too.)

Sorry you're in this frustrating situation. Best of luck getting through to the mother. Even if you lose the client, if you know you've been supportive and friendly to the child, you've done a good job.

Stephen:

2) Imagine yourself as a consumer of ESL services for your 4 year old child. Chances are pretty good that you would like to see your service provider's track record, and would like to see a syllabus and/or reasonable markers of progress for your child, or reasonable for children in that age group and demographic

 

 

This is basically my question. I don't know what is reasonable for children in this age group and demographic.

I have no idea what is "normal" or expected.

I have no idea what kind of progress (if any at all) is typical for a child with such little exposure to the second language (1.5 hours out of 168).

Charlotte:

Have you asked the mother what she thinks the child "should" know or be able to say/do by now? Getting a baseline for the mother's expectations and trying to figure out whether they're reasonable or unreasonable would be a good start.

This is a great suggestion. I might need to get someone more fluent in Mandarin to facilitate that kind of dialogue.

Charlotte:

Others here have mentioned a couple of salient points: with only speaking English 1.5 hours out of a 168 hour week, the girl is not going to make much progress at all. If the mother wants her child to make more progress, she needs to speak English with her child at every possible opportunity and set reasonable expectations and try to make the process of learning fun, and not super stressful -- which she seems to be doing now. The more the mother tries to shove her child into doing something, the more the child is going to resist. The best thing the mother could do would be to learn English herself, and have her daughter see her studying. (Good luck with that suggestion!)

I agree completely and I've told the mother similarly. I believe she does try to review with her daughter sometimes, but I'm not sure how regular that is. There's also the problem that the mother's pronounciation is worse than the daughter's. I recommended getting some English DVDs to let her watch during the week. I think another obstacle is the fact that Chinese children's lives are SO regimented and full. I doubt she has time to sit down and watch a cartoon. She has to do hours of homework, study her instrument, and so on.

To her credit, the mother does want to learn English herself. I have been breaking up the 1.5 hour lessons into 1 hour for the daughter and 30 minutes for the mother. She told me last time we met that she is going to start taking lessons at EF (English First), a language training school.

Charlotte:

The main problem, frankly, is that the child does not necessarily want to learn English. It's the mother's project, and the mother is frustrated and angry with her daughter not coming up to expectations, and you're catching the blame. (Of course, you never know what she says to the child about it behind closed doors.) There's nothing you can do to fix the mother, but if she's going to continue to make the child take lessons, you can at least make it more pleasant for the child.

I try to. I try to keep in mind how young the girl is and how much pressure she is under in all the other aspects of her life. I try to make it fun and not be too strict. The mother "sits in" on our lessons though and I think she doesn't appreciate / like this approach. She will sort of threaten her daughter if she isn't being serious and studying hard. I think this tends to create resistence and avoidance in the child in the long term. Short term, it satisfies the mother.

Charlotte:

As to what you can do to possibly make a bit more headway with the child and make lessons more engaging, definitely try to mix some kinetic activities into the lesson. A good rule of thumb I heard when I was an English teacher is that a child can sit still 1-2 minutes for every year of age. This was borne out when I tutored a 4-year-old Russian child. I'd ask her to sit for 5-8 minutes coloring in English coloring books (teaches colors, of course, and then whatever the theme of the coloring book is, like household objects or body parts), and then have her stand up and run to touch whatever object I named in the room ("chair!" "lamp!" etc) for 5 minutes or so, and then settle back down to listen to a story and answer questions about what happened in the story, and then stand up and sing the "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" song and then point to her other body parts, etc. The "run to touch..." game was super popular. Of course, 1.5 hours is way too long to keep that up. Half an hour 3 times a week would be much better. (Good luck with that suggestion, too.)

I'd love to see her more often, but I honestly don't have time. I started tutoring English as a favor for one of my Chinese teachers. At the time I wasn't very busy, but now I have almost no free time. I study Chinese 4 hours a day, work 4 hours a day and tutor 3 students. There is really only one time that we can meet, which is on Sundays.

The kinetic suggestion is definitely a good one. All the kids love "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" and I recently started teaching her "The Hokey Pokey" which teaches a couple of verbs and Right & Left. I definitely didn't have the attention span that these kids do at their age. I think they are pushed very strongly by their family and teachers to be little robots.

Charlotte:

Sorry you're in this frustrating situation. Best of luck getting through to the mother. Even if you lose the client, if you know you've been supportive and friendly to the child, you've done a good job.

I am actually not too attached to the idea of retaining the client. It's more for personal satisfaction. I want to know that I'm doing a good job at whatever I'm doing. If she stopped taking lessons, I think it would be bad for the daughter, but it would be good for me. I'd love to have my free time back.

I don't have much experience in this area. As Charlotte touched on,It is difficult, and unreasonable to apply "a standard" on a child who has no choice but to do what the parent is forcing them to do. The trouble with learning a second language is that in order to learn it, mistakes are required. In many cultures, especially Chinese, failure is interpreted as a major embarrassment to the parent, and other family members. In your situation, it seems that It's something that needs to be carefully, diplomatically, and sensitively addressed. Check here and here (Dave's ESL Cafe) for ideas on how to best proceed, at least with lesson plans. There isn't one perfect answer since every child's needs are specific....and those needs are sadly, not aligned with power hungry parents who insist on submission and obedience from their offspring.

Stephen:

I don't have much experience in this area. As Charlotte touched on,It is difficult, and unreasonable to apply "a standard" on a child who has no choice but to do what the parent is forcing them to do. The trouble with learning a second language is that in order to learn it, mistakes are required. In many cultures, especially Chinese, failure is interpreted as a major embarrassment to the parent, and other family members. In your situation, it seems that It's something that needs to be carefully, diplomatically, and sensitively addressed. Check here and here (Dave's ESL Cafe) for ideas on how to best proceed, at least with lesson plans. There isn't one perfect answer since every child's needs are specific....and those needs are sadly, not aligned with power hungry parents who insist on submission and obedience from their offspring.

Hmm, thanks for the help

I'm afraid the material I looked at from those links seems too advanced / difficult for my youngest student.

I'm making some materials myself this morning. Hopefully if I have more of a plan, the mother will be put at ease.

Charlotte:

Others here have mentioned a couple of salient points: with only speaking English 1.5 hours out of a 168 hour week, the girl is not going to make much progress at all. If the mother wants her child to make more progress, she needs to speak English with her child at every possible opportunity and set reasonable expectations and try to make the process of learning fun, and not super stressful -- which she seems to be doing now. The more the mother tries to shove her child into doing something, the more the child is going to resist. The best thing the mother could do would be to learn English herself, and have her daughter see her studying. (Good luck with that suggestion!)

This is a good point, time is important. I was tutoring a child and we were doing it once a day for an hour, and it took 30-45 hours to see any signifigant improvement.

I'm not a teacher, so take this with the largest grain of salt you can find...

Young children have a natural propensity for learning languages.  They can pick them up easily.  (When exposed to them, and when they have opportunities to practice them... 1.5 hours a week may not be enough.)  Young children also don't have much patience for lessons.  It troubles me to hear that her 4-year-old life is already filled with lessons.  I'd definitely try to warm the mother to the idea that her daughter will be able to learn English just fine in a more relaxed environment.  And that watching some television in English will not be a waste of time.

I wonder if she's a bit too young for you to be focusing on letters.  Language is primarily spoken.  Written language is a secondary representation of spoken language.  In the case of English, our written language is a highly imperfect means of expressing our spoken language, what with the plethora of rules and exceptions to those rules.  Therefore, written English is not something that comes as easily to people as spoken English (even to children who speak English fluently).

It's probably good to expose her to the alphabet at this stage, and ability to read and write certainly will become important to focus on over time, but I think a better starting place would be ensuring she has an intuitive grasp of English sentence structure and grammar.  That's the foundation upon which everything else is built.

I think it will be important to keep in mind that tone serves a very different purpose in Mandarin than it does in English.  Read up on it if you haven't already!  Regarding your "How are you?"/"How old are you?" anecdote, I'm led to believe that the tonal stress you put on the word "old" (i.e. I expect it had the highest pitch of all four words) didn't signal to her that it was the "topic" word for that sentence.  You could do something like "How old are you?"/"How tall are you?"/"How hungry are you?" to demonstrate to her that the word that gets the stress indicates how she should answer the question.  Understanding English intonation will be absolutely crucial to her making any real progress, and I imagine that once it clicks for her, a lot of other things will fall into place.

Good luck!

I'd also mention that in addition to an hour a day of "lessons" (which mostly involved playing with blocks and toy cars and such.) She also watched some English videos for several hours a day.

Anyhow I agree with Annabelle that being gentle and giving her a stress-free environment is crucial for good language learning.

It also doesn't hurt if the student really likes you... :D

Today we studied pretty seriously for about an hour, then her attention was just impossible to capture. So instead, we pulled out some rollerblades her parents bought her and I held on to her arms so she wouldn't fall. She "skated" around for about 20 minutes, then we sang a couple of songs and let out class. If her mom isn't there, I am all for just messing around a bit and having fun. She does study incredibly hard, especially for someone her age.

Regarding learning the alphabet, I do think it is really important. If she can read, she can learn English very quickly. The most natural way to learn a language is not by studying the grammar, but by just reading lots of material and sort of soaking in the way things are done. Chinese schools focus heavily on reading and writing, so I also think it is important to give her a good base to work from in that aspect. I certainly agree having her listen and speak to English speakers would be the fastest way to pick up the language, but I can't think of any way to make it feasible.

Thanks everyone for all of the feedback and input, it is really appreciated.