If your student is not performing in foreign languages at school, you are probably thinking of hiring a tutor. What are your expectations? Most likely, you want them to be back on track, so that their overall GPA won't be affected. Correct, this is the main goal we tutors also aim for.
But what if you and your student could get so much more out of it?
The main cause of frustration in the foreign language class at school is the fact that in the USA, little attention is given to grammar in GRAMMAR SCHOOL (or elementary school). By grammar, we teachers mean the actual MATH related to the sentence construction, with all the fancy names attached the the different parts of speech: articles, conjugation, pronouns, possessive adjectives or pronouns, participles, infinitives, auxiliary and so on and so forth. If this sounds terrible to you, I have proven my point.
In order to learn a foreign language, students must navigate all of the above, and often the teacher doesn't point out the parallelism with their native language (English), so that students struggle understanding what we are talking about, and making the connection with what their already use, every day, when they speak.
Other causes of confusion are:
Grammar points often remain isolated => students don't use them enough to fully understand and retain.
Students have close to no conversation time in class
Tests or quizzes are, for the most, a "fill the blank" exercise => students are guided to focus to the specific grammar point, and not at the language as a whole. Can you imagine teaching your toddler to speak using this system?
A good tutor will not only help the student to go over school work and repeat what he has done in class (or worst, only do school assignments with them); a good tutor will HELP THE STUDENTS CONNECT THE POINTS, understand what he is doing when speaking, and why he is doing so.
Learning a language comes through speaking it, for the most, and possibly reading it and writing it. All these exercises will:
guide students into creating the language, not filling the blank
Make the learning fun, not frustrating
Create a sense of purpose: learning TO SPEAK, USE the language for their future.
If the school cannot change the system quite yet, we tutors, or private teachers, can. I my years of experience I have met several students that went from disliking Spanish or French classes at school, to wanting to keep learning over the summer, when they can finally focus on the learning without the stress of tests and grades.
Let's not forget that learning a language is a life skill. We want our students to be able to carry this learning in their future career, to be a step ahead of their peers and to have something more to offer. This is only one of the numerous benefits of language learning (read the blog "Why learning a language" for more on this topic).
In conclusion, Foreign Language tutoring is not only indicated for those students that struggle and need to raise their GPA, but for all students that have a real interest in linguistics. All students can grow to love another language, or more than one, and become more conscious individuals, with better life opportunities.
Commentaires