I started to coach an adult who wanted to acquire basic English in two months, so she could change jobs. She was highly motivated (she wanted to leave her job badly and language competence was a must in the other position) but she had serious difficulties with focusing and learning new things. Never before have I encountered such severe problems with the comprehension of basic things, so in the first couple of classes we were struggling. At one point, just when I saw her eyes were getting watery, I instinctively changed strategies and gave her the small, colorful cards I noticed next to me, which I use with my kid learners. Her face brightened up and in this creative process she forgot about worrying about the deadline and her disbelief in herself. Next class I made her a creative colorful task about pronouns: she had to put them in the right order, column, and color, then she was asked to indicate each pronoun she finds in the example sentences with the appropriate color. Slowly she started to see the point and by the third class she climbed the mountain that had seemed out of reach: she learned the pronouns.
We still have a long way to go but we are on the right track. At the end of the day, some of us only seem to have grown up; we are but children.
No comments:
Post a Comment