Teaching English, reading and writing to a 15 yr old street kid who's never been to school.

December 1, 2009 5:42 AM

Do you have any advice for teaching English comprehension, as well as reading and writing, to a fifteen year old Filipino street kid who's never been to school a day in his life?

I run a nonprofit in the Philippines, and a 15 year old street kid has sort of adopted me. His mom is incarcerated for life, and his stepdad abandoned him, so he'd been sleeping alone on the streets outside a fast food restaurant. He's never been to school, and doesn't know how to read or write (although he knew how to spell his first name and I've taught him how to spell his last name). I've been pretty impressed, however, with how quickly he learns things (and it's astonishing to see how well he's basically parented himself).

The problem with most ESL learning tools I've found is that they either assume you know your alphabet and can sound out words, or they assume you're a baby.

Right now, I can't afford Rosetta Stone, but I've used Rosetta Stone in the past to help myself learn Tagalog, so I sort of just started recreating the basic flashcard style concept so I can work with him online, over the cam while I'm in the states, and my assistant helps him in the Philippines.

I've also been reading books to him like The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish… etc., but he'd much rather watch older kids' cartoons like Dragonball Z than childish books like these. I also have many age levels of the Kumon books on ESL, but again, the ones at his education level are mostly for kindergartners.

Can you recommend any good activities, books, DVDs, web sites, online videos, games, anything that teaches reading and writing in a way that doesn't patronize an older child?

I think I'm doing pretty good at teaching him (and he's doing amazingly well at learning), but I know there's room for improvement and I've always gotten amazing results from asking questions here. Toss me some of your most creative ideas. Or some of your most obvious ideas. Sometimes it's the obvious ones that most elude me.

posted by ferdinandcc to education (13 comments total)

Most obvious one to me: pirate rosetta stone, but that obviously has its own caveats.

Slightly less obvious: this is clearly a compelling story this kid has. Set up a web page accepting donations towards Rosetta Stone, popularize it with your friends and on Projects, and I'm sure you could get it in a short time, or at least subsidize. I know I'd give 10bux.

Sorry, not much help in the actual teaching materials part!
posted by CharlesV42 at 5:56 AM on December 1, 2009

You could try English reading materials meant for illiterate native speakers learning to read.
posted by availablelight at 6:00 AM on December 1, 2009

Turn on the subtitles when he's watching TV shows.
posted by kcm at 6:08 AM on December 1, 2009

How about Live Mocha? It is like Rosetta Stone, but free and offers some social aspects as well. I used it to gain some basic German.
posted by chiefthe at 6:09 AM on December 1, 2009

I might consider teaching him to read and write Filipino before diving into English grammar. Understanding basic grammatical concepts (e.g. nouns, verbs, etc.) in his own language first may make it easier to explain things like pronouns and verb conjugation later in English where the vocabulary is totally new to him. That being said, there are lots of fun ways to learn phrases and vocabulary.
posted by defreckled at 6:10 AM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thanks, guys. Charles, we'll be doing another round of fundraising soon, so if we buy any teaching materials to help him, we can use those to help other street kids as well. I've never used MetaFilter Projects before; I know it's for self-links but are fundraisers frowned upon there?

availablelight: That's a great page of resources.

kcm: We don't actually have a TV, but he does love YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube can be a major distraction when we're trying to get him to focus, but that's not unlike any other kid (or executive director, actually)

chiefthe: I'll have to give Live Mocha another try, with me and my assistant to help translate it for him. I had tried it for myself in the past when I was learning Filipino, but it doesn't actually offer an official Filipino course.

defreckled: Yeah, I meant to mention that we're working on reading and writing in Filipino with him as well. We're trying to get him to learn English at the same time, though, because he wants to learn it right away, and because my Filipino is far from fluent yet. I can get my point across in the language, but I'm often incorrect myself in my grammar and sentence structure. Alwyn, my wonderful assistant, is working on reading and writing with him in Filipino, and I'm teaching him basic English.
posted by ferdinandcc at 6:32 AM on December 1, 2009

Just hopping into say that it might be good to let him read whatever English books/watch whatever shows he wants, even if he needs a TON of help with them-- I remember I used to sit in the corner and cry when I was little because I couldn't read, but I absolutely refused to read the books my parents bought for me. Once they realized the reason was because they weren't interesting, they got me some non-language-level appropriate (but actually fun) stories, helped me with them, and, well, I've never looked back. It was needing to know the end of the stories that made me learn, not learning for learning's sake.

Another thing that helped me a lot was reading out loud-- I used to read stories to my parents while they were doing boring manual things, like the dishes or the laundry. That way they were right there when I needed help and I gave them free entertainment.

I have no idea if this will be of any help to you, but hopefully it's something to ponder. Thank you for what you're doing, and please let us know if/when you set up a donation site-- I would be happy to contribute.
posted by WidgetAlley at 6:52 AM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Have you tried graphic novels or comics of any sort? Some of the ones, like Dragon Ball Z, with more explicit actions along with dialogue (and lots of grunting) could be quite useful.

Also, maybe a typing sort of game that has one actually typing out words, and make him sound out the words as he goes along to improve his phonetics and symbol recognition

What an awesome thing to be able to do over the internet, he’s a lucky kid (except for, you know, all that bad luck of growing up on the street and all)
posted by Think_Long at 7:15 AM on December 1, 2009

My suggestion is to use Montessori Sandpaper Letters to teach him to identify the letters, learn their sounds, and how to write them.

The site I linked to shows how to make them (you can also buy them from any Montessori supplier or many educational sites) and how to use them. While the lessons are normally taught to kids in the 4ish age range there is nothing "baby-ish" about them.

Using this method of teaching the alphabet means you can teach them out of order "c, a, t" instead of "a, b, c" so he'll be up and reading before mastering all 26 letters.

I need more coffee before I can write more comprehensively. Please msg. me if you want more info. I am currently training to be a Montessori teacher and recently taught my 3 year old to read this way.

All the best.
posted by Abbril at 7:17 AM on December 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

As a side note, it's easy to get frustrated when people don't learn fast enough or how you want them to.

Reward effort, not progress, and let him be one step ahead of you so he's pulling you instead of you pushing him.

Check out high-low books (books specifically for educational use are also sometimes called "readers"). You want the books that have high interest level and low reading level. Example, this book is about teenagers drinking beer and being scandalous, but the reading level is for an early second-grader.
posted by kathrineg at 7:47 AM on December 1, 2009

Why buy Rosetta stone? It's a technological (and expensive) solution to solve a basic problem.

Start simple, and teach the alphabet. Use a chart. Create your own using crayons.

Move on to basic words. Teach phonics and simple reading strategies for these simple words.

Then read books.

Don't worry about stuff like teaching nouns and verbs - don't teach the concept, because it is meaningless, and as speakers of language people understand that sort of stuff anyway.

You can teach different verbs (jump, sit, stand, eat) as part of a game.

But keep it simple.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:58 AM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

mefimail me-- I'm at work right now but I just got back from two years of teaching English in Cavite.
posted by ropeladder at 9:49 AM on December 1, 2009

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!
posted by ferdinandcc at 12:58 PM on December 1, 2009