Our first meeting was an interesting experience for both of us. While my student speaks English very well; our intrests and background vary significantly. He is from Mexico, enjoys playing soccer, and listens to what he described as “Mexican” music. He is a shy person, so we never really got to deep into any specific subject, but there were some he found more interesting than others. Particularly, soccer is a big part of his life right now. From playing afterschool pick up, to watching the pros on T.V.; the sport occupys a large portion of his free time.
It was clear from the conversation that he is probably an ELL more so because of his writing abilities than speaking. Since the regular classroom doesn’t allow him practice writing in Spanish, the language he more fully understands, his basic skills seemed underdeveloped for a student his age. His family speaks Spanish at home, so it is likely his parents aren’t able to help out much with English language homework. Vocabulary building should definately occupy a substantial portion of his learning time, although at his current stage the definitional approach would probably yield the most benefits. After hearing about the conversations others had with their ELL’s, it became clear we didn’t get into the detail others did; which probably has more to do with my own conversational abilities than the ELL. Nevertheless hopefully we can make further in roads about his interests and goals next meeting.
During the next meeting, I would like to focus more on the specific vocabulary he uses to express his ideas. Our first conversation consisted on short answers with a simple vocabulary; which I don’t if it’s because I didn’t give him the proper environment for expounding upon his ideas, or if he really just doesn’t have an adequate grasp of english grammer yet. The next meeting will hopefully shed some light into these areas.
