RAIS is the Alaska Catholic Social Service's Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service. Last summer I volunteered to tutor English for them, but I decided that I did not want to go into someone's house regularly during COVID. They said some of their clients live outside of Anchorage and maybe we can do this online.
Several weeks ago they got back to me. A refugee living outside of Anchorage wanted lessons. (I'm going to be vague to protect confidentiality.)
In Peace Corps training back in 1966 and 1967 we got killer training for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The trainer in charge of the TEFL lessons was like a teaching machine. She had a technique and a style that, in hindsight, was a really good way to teach a foreign language AND the lessons were good for teaching any class. I can't believe her name escapes me at the moment. I used to have nightmares about her watching me practice teach. [UPDATE March 11, 2023 - It was Phyllis!]
A 50 minute class consists of
- 5 minutes of pronunciation drill
- 10 minutes of vocabulary lessons
- 20-25 minutes of grammar drills
- 20-25 minutes of reading the lesson in the text out loud and questions and answers about the text
The pronunciation drill would be related to some of the words in the vocabulary lesson. The vocabulary would come from the reading in that chapter. The grammar drills focused on lots of oral repetition using the grammar we were working on. And, of course, it included the vocabulary and sounds we just did. There might be a sentence and after the students could repeat it fairly well, I'd give them words that they used to replace words in the sentence. This was a good way to see if they understood it or whether they were just parroting stuff they didn't understand.
We had a Level 3 English textbook at training that was used in Thai high schools. The readings in the chapters were about Thai history, US history, and British history. (I learned the basics of key Thai historic figures that way.)
When I arrived at my school, I found they were using the same book we had trained with. And the class was at a chapter that I had done a practice lesson on in training in DeKalb, Illinois. It felt like magic.
So, using what I learned then,I've started preparing my lesson plans, though now I can do that with Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint.). My student is highly motivated, already speaks fluent enough English, but grammar and vocabulary are limited and pronunciation could be improved as well. Lesson 3 is tomorrow morning (Saturday). So far he's put up with my very packed lessons with good humor. I think I will have to ease back a bit - I can't sustain that level of effort. But we've got lots of material to work with over the next month. I told him he's my boss and he has to tell me what he wants and then I'll do it. But, of course, his texts also alert me to sentences and grammar he needs to work on.
As I've been reading online to get foreign language teaching tips, I found one that both of us like: Learn the words to English songs you like. He's suggested the Beatles "Yesterday." So I'm going to see what sort of grammar and pronunciation lessons we develop using the lyrics as a starting point. (I used "Hello, Goodbye" once in Thailand. Very easy lyrics.)
I'll look at the grammar they use, and then try to substitute words to make a lot more useful sentences from the lyrics.
Learning to teach English as a Peace Corps volunteer meant we were learning Thai using the same method that we were preparing to teach our students with. That's a very humbling experience which gave me a much better understanding of what my students were struggling with. What looks so obvious to a native speaker seems impenetrable to a non-native speaker. Sounds they make in Thai, we simply couldn't distinguish at the beginning. So I had a lot more patience than I probably would have when my Thai students had the same problems I had and was still having trying to speak Thai. Thais only have eight final consonant sounds. Eight! B, D, K, N, NG, M, P. (I checked online and they include W and Y, but it seems to me that those really become vowel sounds.) But that means Thais have a LOT of trouble with all the consonants and consonant clusters (RD, ST, CH, NK, etc.)
So I've been looking at specific pronunciation issues that speakers of my students native language have.
That's been using a lot of my creativity.
I also learned in our first meeting that one of his sponsors is someone I've spent a fair amount of time with in the last couple of years.