Teaching English
June 5, 2008 5:08 AM Subscribe
How to teach a disadvantaged, left-behind student English?
There's a freshman at my high school with whom I had a conversation in which I learned that he was never properly taught English and didn't have a strong command of vocabulary. He could read, but stumbled over words such as "romance" and "renown" in a reading sample he showed me. I'm leaving school this year, and I don't want him to be left behind. What can I give him and tell him so that he can become the learner that he wants to be?
There's a freshman at my high school with whom I had a conversation in which I learned that he was never properly taught English and didn't have a strong command of vocabulary. He could read, but stumbled over words such as "romance" and "renown" in a reading sample he showed me. I'm leaving school this year, and I don't want him to be left behind. What can I give him and tell him so that he can become the learner that he wants to be?
There might be some relevant advice on this question of mine from a few years ago.
posted by danb at 6:28 AM on June 5, 2008
posted by danb at 6:28 AM on June 5, 2008
It is super awesome that you want to help this person.
I don't want to discourage you from being helpful to him. However, there may be some resources at your school/in your community that may help him as well. Number one, is there an ESL program at your school? Is s/he enrolled in it?
posted by k8t at 7:05 AM on June 5, 2008
I don't want to discourage you from being helpful to him. However, there may be some resources at your school/in your community that may help him as well. Number one, is there an ESL program at your school? Is s/he enrolled in it?
posted by k8t at 7:05 AM on June 5, 2008
Response by poster: Oh, clarification: I'm graduating, not teaching.
posted by LSK at 7:59 AM on June 5, 2008
posted by LSK at 7:59 AM on June 5, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
If you could find out what type of books he might be interested in (his taste in movies might be a good clue), and then walk him through the process of finding, acquiring and reading those books, that'd probably give him an excellent start towards building his comprehension and vocabulary. It's a lot easier and more pleasant to learn what hard words mean by osmosis, as it were-- coming across them several times in context, maybe skipping over the first few times, eventually getting curious because their meaning is important to the story, looking them up and having those satisfying "aha!" moment, etc.-- than by memorizing some SAT vocab list. Bonus points if his tastes would allow him to work up through "classics" or older literature with exotic language (Bunyan, Dickens and Defoe are great easy-reading choices) , but even reading disposable detective or romance novels is going to strengthen his mastery of English considerably if he keeps at it.
posted by Bardolph at 6:16 AM on June 5, 2008