Today I used short scripts for the tutoring session, and concluded with a reading comprehension exercise. I told my student to read the scripts first so that she could understand the story, and after she went over them, we acted them out.
Since you need to understand the meaning of the story in order to be able to read it with feeling (which is what I wanted her to do), we had to try it a number of times. Every time she found a word that she did not know the meaning to, I would first explain it to her and then give her the dictionary definition.
I saw that she enjoyed reading the script once she understood what was going on in the story, and that made me feel good about teaching. It is nice when you help someone understand something that they did not know before, because its like creating bridges between you and that person. Suddenly, you have one more thing in common with each other.
And that is another reason why I like learning other languages. My student also enjoys it very much when I try to say something in her native tongue. She quickly helps me with pronunciation, making a student out of the teacher.
Soon I will be in Japan, and this blog will be a part of my memories past. After I get my TEFL certificate, I hope to help other people learn English just as I learned more than 14 years ago. Perhaps the next blog will be in Japanese...
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