During my first week at NALC, I tutored 2 different students. The first student was a woman from Hungary who lived in Nashville with her husband. She had been in the US for a few years but wanted to improve her English, so she decided to start coming to NALC. Her English speaking skills were surprisingly good, and she was anxious to improve her reading, which was the area she struggled in. One of the coolest moments was when she told me that she spoke a bit of German. I too have been learning German, and it gave us another way to communicate with each other, and even helped while I was trying to explain the differences between 'could,' 'should,' and 'would,' (using the german verbs können, sollen, and wollen).
The second woman was from China. She had moved to America many years ago and had learned to speak English fairly well, but had never learned how to read. We practiced reading a few new words, and she did very well. It was interesting to see how quickly a speaker can pick up reading without much encouragement.
I was a bit nervous about my first time tutoring, but both students made a point to thank me for being such a good teacher. I was taken aback. I think it wasn't so much that I was a skilled teacher, but that I was willing to help them, something which is probably fairly rare among people they encounter in their average day.
No comments:
Post a Comment