case study

Sunday, January 22, 2006


Everyone who see this post, please give suggestion on how i should teach.name used are not real to keep her identity a secret.

Mary is a average girl who don't do well in her studies. She's very bubbly, but she don't like to get serious. Since young, her result is not as good. She has a sister who is smarter and always did better than her. In her family, her mum would always called her stupid, and warn her of the importance of studying. And of course, she would always turn deaf ears to those advices.

Today, lesson with her was torturous. I tried my best to get her to concentrate. I simply just asked her to do those cloze passage with helping words like "of, even, because, although."

Method used by me to teach:Read the whole passage without filling in the blanks. Understand the passage and then start doing. And, she somehow understood, but filling in of blanks was still difficult. She would always anyhow guess the answer and refused to be serious. I explained all the words, and asked her to do, and she made the same mistakes. I kept a very serious mood around, and she gave me a boring, and i-hate-u face.

My thoughts: Maybe it's best to be stricter. I thought of.. talking to her, asking what her problem is, and wishing to get to know her and let her trust in my way of teaching. I wonder whether it's possible to use 30mins of e next tuition to have a heart to heart talk, but, i'm worried that she would not understand and would not find it beneficial. It seems like what she thinks bout is just to finish her homework, and no matter whether the answer is correct or not, at least she finished. Many of her grammar use are bad~! The way she pronounce they english words is as if she just started using them. She pronounced although as "altot". She knew her mistakes, but she refused to change. Urgh.

I won't give up on her. I wanted her to score. I wanted her to show result. I wished to try creative methods on her, but ... it would only take more time and we won't cover much. Argh... What should i do?

Research: While trying to research on my GE's project, i should try to apply the theories on her.

I hate being strict, but up till now, what i can think of is only that. Since she's p6 already, i cant really play around anymore. I think i made a very big mistakes with my first tutee, and i don't want that to happen again. Please give me some suggestions.

Giving tuition is a way to make money and also a way to feel good internally. To figure that i can contribute to the society as well. I wished to do my job well, and i don't wish to be a free rider. Really~! Vraiment~! Honto~!

1/22/2006 05:05:00 PM|