I was reflecting on a great opportunity I have had to tutor an exchange student from Japan. Riki is a Junior in High School who has been in the United States for 5 months. He is teaching me so much about ESL and my own language ability. The other day was so rewarding as he and I sat at a computer together translating our way through the ISAT, the Idaho Standard Achievement Test which Riki must pass in order to graduate from high school under the No Child Left Behind Act. On his first attempt he scored below basic.
It is time and not sound critical thinking that mostly keeps Riki back. I tried to give him tools for identifying kinds of words and looking up the important words. Some words are less necessary and we together talked about what those were (repeated test instructions before questions, etc.). Riki on his own easily found every correct answer once a few vocabulary words were explained to him but in 30 minutes we only finished about 8 questions of a 24-question test.
Riki often compares himself to his peers as he sees them finishing quickly on either side of him. When I ask about what questions he has, he replies that everything, just everything is a question and he often puts his head on his desk and groans good naturedly. He confessed he feels like a bad student, holding people up and needing special attention. However, the other day, as we did these tests Riki and I rejoiced in his progress and joked often. Riki has become much more verbal and doesn't need as much coaxing. Much of this has come from his teachers and peers playing with language with him. Humor has set him at ease and he is able to play with language with the people in his life, too. Riki's social nature, more than his academic life and talk of how he needs to pass a test or understand a novel, has contributed to his intrinsic motivation.
I was reminded again of the main reason for language learning: communication with other people and a life filled with people.
No comments:
Post a Comment