Tutor the tutor

September 14, 2006 9:41 AM

Tutoring Filter: first-time tutoring a young boy in French. He's in grade 4. Naturally, there's

A co-worker wants me to help tutor her child, specifically with his French. He's not in immersion and this is his first year in public school, so I reckon he is probably above-average, and his mum would like him to stay that way. How can I best help him excel?

For our first meeting, I'm going to have him do some reading aloud, to get a sense of his proficiency, and look at some of his assignments to see what the class is doing. Does this seem prudent? Anything that I should avoid? I assume keeping the sessions short would be good?

I did French Immersion, so I know that he won't be where I was in grade 4, but any pointers about working with younger kids would help. Links to some good exercises too. I'm in Ontario, Canada btw.

posted by glip to Education (5 answers total)

I did this very thing with a child the same age when I was in college-- I'm a native speaker of French and the child was studying French in school. What we did worked really well: we took lots of little trips around campus and worked on mini-projects (like making sandwiches for a picnic), talking through everything exclusively in French as we worked on it. I thought of it a chance for him to have a few hours of immersion a week, even if that's not what he got at school.

It ended up being a lot of fun for both of us and helped him learn vocabulary and grammar (like conditional tense, future tense) without turning it into homework.
posted by yellowcandy at 12:13 PM on September 14, 2006

Sing French songs. Learning a language is fun with music. Frere Jacques, anyone?
posted by orangemiles at 2:10 PM on September 14, 2006

Do regular school work, but in French. Which is essentially what immersion is. Plus reading French easy-readers. My French has improved a lot since my kids started immersion.
posted by GuyZero at 2:35 PM on September 14, 2006

Talking through a book with lots of pictures would be a better way to get a feel for his standard than asking him to read aloud.

Explore with the parent whether she expects you to stick close to the school teaching, or whether yellowcandy's style would be better.
posted by Idcoytco at 3:37 PM on September 14, 2006

I've never taught languages, but I have tutored a variety of people in a number of subjects for over a decade. When it comes to kids, they don't know how they learn. Take the shotgun approach and hit him with as many different ways of learning as you can dream up, such as the aforementioned songs. See what sticks and begin to capitalize on how he learns.
posted by adipocere at 3:51 PM on September 14, 2006