Okay she wasn't quite a toddler, she had just turned 4. I tutor this 6-year-old (the girl's brother) and his mother at French, and I noticed that, at their house, there's a communal iPad mini that's shared between all members of the family. Were those my children, I would be constantly worried that someone would drop the iPad and break it into a billion pieces on my hardwood floor, but I guess that hasn't happened yet with these kids so it's all good. I almost feel like they understand how valuable the thing is. Another part of me is sure I'm going to walk in one day and the thing's going to be broken.
I was teaching this child French, and found out very early on that he can't read ... at all. He's in a French immersion program, which makes this realization even more confusing for me. I later understood that he doesn't actually take studying seriously, doesn't understand that each day of homework and proper studying and material takes 2-3 hours of time and focus to complete effectively. He's 6, he probably can't even spell "effectively" , but he needs to start understanding the concepts of study and practice.
I tried to make the study process more interesting for him because it otherwise resembles water-boarding. At least those were the sounds coming from him when I would say "Write it out again. Spell it correctly this time." I found a website where, if he doesn't know how to say something, he can just type it into the search engine and a speaker icon will come up that he can click in order to listen to the word in French. Proper pronunciation practice achieved without the use of a continuous tutor, liberating the child to learn independently. He will, however, still need someone to watch over him and make sure he's actually doing his work when he's supposed to be doing his work. For now, at least, he was quite excited to hear the lady or man in the iPad telling him what the correct pronunciations of the words are, so hopefully that will work out for him. His mom's French is a lot better, but her pronunciation needs some refinement. Eventually they'll get to the point where she teaches him, and he teaches himself.
Visiting these people for tutoring is my only excuse for getting out of the house. Tutoring them is a barrel of laughs, lots of fun. It's also extremely rewarding, and in teaching, much is learned.
Other quick things today ; Got almost all my work done, not concerned that I fell a very small bit short of the daily goal, and I went looking around for new phones and found that Android was the best system for me mainly because 1) it allows me to use my phone as a USB and 2) I can manipulate the home screen in any way I wish. Anyone who wants to argue apple or windows is free to do so here, I'd be interested to hear differing viewpoints.
No comments:
Post a Comment