担当講師のレッスンサマリー。こんなレッスンをしています。
中学1年生のケースです。先生の熱心さを感じて頂ければ幸いです！
April
I want to explain how we do the classes first. We decided to stay focused on pronunciation and the rhythmic of the language for the start. So we are using the book of Agatha Christie’s, as she likes suspense books, to read out loud and to learn new words. She is reading the book by herself, and then with me to check her understanding and her pronunciation. Then I teach the words she didn't understand. She’s giving me the list of the words and I make her word sheets for each lesson so she can keep them and organize them easily to practice later. From this week’s lesson, I asked her to check the words in an English Dictionary, so that her word capacity would go higher. Other than the book, we are practicing rhythm of English by songs; we used “The Circle of Life” and “Seasons in the Sun”. She writes what she hears as homework, so this also helps her casual listening. The last exercise we do is that she finds something to talk about to me every lesson.
She is really good at understanding English and she is good at using what she learnt in the class. Her English level is already higher than her age group which makes it easy to practice on pronunciation. And for the talking exercises, My student always finds something interesting to talk about which makes it really enjoyable to listen.
4月
まず、私たちがどのようにクラスを行うかを説明したいと思います。
担当する生徒さんと、レッスンの始めとして英語の発音とリズムに集中しようと決めました。彼女はサスペンス本が好きなので、アガサ・クリスティの本を使って、それを大きな声で音読し、新しい単語を学習します。彼女は自分で本を読み、その後に理解しているかどうかと発音をチェックするために私と一緒に読みます。そして、彼女が理解できなかった単語を私が教えます。彼女は、私に単語のリストを提出し、私は、彼女がそれを保持し、後で練習し、また簡単に整理できるように、各レッスンの単語シートを作っています。今週のレッスンから、私は、英語辞書の単語をチェックするよう彼女に頼みました。結果として彼女の単語能力はより上達すると思います。本以外にも、「The Circle of Life」や「Seasons in the Sun」を使って、歌による英語のリズムを練習し、宿題の聞きとりを書くので、これもちょっとしたリスニングの助けになっています。毎回レッスンの最後の練習は、彼女が何か私に話しかけるというものです。
彼女は、英語の理解が本当に上手で、レッスンで学習したことを上手く使いこなします。彼女の英語レベルは、同年代の子供たちより既に高くて発音練習も簡単にできます。また、話す練習については、彼女は、聞いて楽しくなる面白いことを常に見つけてくれます。
May
We continued to study with music material this month. She seems to enjoy it. It is also a pleasure to see her trying to write what she hears and to listen her singing. She started to get better in the rhythm of the language. We are also studying the script of the TV. Series Full House and I am hoping to use this script even more because it has different idioms in it that people use in daily life. We are reading the script together just like a play and she is getting better at reading smoothly. And I am trying to make her vowel sound better, she is a fast learner. I hope she will start enjoying these readings too in time. The material we used this month for the songs were “Nobody else but you” from Bette Midler and “I want to hold your hand” by Beatles.
5月
今月も音楽の教材で勉強を続けました。彼女は、それを楽しんでいるように見えます。私も、彼女の歌を聴いたり、彼女が聞いたことを書こうと努力しているのを見たりするのがうれしいです。彼女は言語のリズムがよくなり始めました。
さらに、私たちは、テレビの「フルハウス」シリーズのせりふも勉強していて、そこには人々が日常生活の中で使う異なるイディオムがあるので、このせりふをもっと使っていきたいと思っています。私たちは、まるで演じているように一緒にせりふを読んでいて、彼女はスムーズに読めるようになってきています。さらに私は、彼女の母音の発音をよりよくしようとしていますが、彼女は覚えが早いです。そのうちにこれらのリーディングも楽しんでくれればいいなと思っています。
私たちが今月、歌のために使った教材はBette Midlerの「Nobody else but you」とビートルズの「I want to hold your hand」でした。
June
This month we started doing a little bit of grammar through the material scripts of Full House 1 and 2. She watched 1 episode of the drama and she sounded like she likes it too. We did 2 more songs and I showed how to listen and write a song with guessing the grammar and the words. She learned past perfect and present perfect really fast!! It took only 5 minutes to teach her. Which is really wonderful because I think this is a record. We will continue doing Full house next month and learn some grammatical use of idioms and new words, especially phrasal verbs.
6月
今月は「フルハウス」1と2のせりふを通して、少しだけ文法をやり始めました。彼女は、ドラマ1の放映分を見ましたが、それも好きだというような口ぶりでした。私たちはさらに2曲の歌をやって、単語や文法を考えながら歌を書いたり聴いたりする方法を教えました。彼女は過去完了と現在完了を本当に速く学習しました!! それを教えるのに、わずか5分しかかかりませんでした。これは最高記録だと思うので、本当に素晴らしいことです。
来月も「フルハウス」を行い続け、イディオムや新しい単語、特に句動詞の文法的な使いかたを学習するつもりです。
July
We continued on Full house’s script this month too. She made a list of the grammar she didn't know as homework, and we checked through this list. Also she wrote down some sentences on her own to both use vocabulary and grammar. Even though she lacks of knowledge on some phrasal verbs, she has a really creative writing, we is really fun to check together. She got better in grammar too. She started seeing her own mistakes when we are checking her homework afterwards.
We also continued using songs to improve her listening and also this month I tried to teach her how to write down the lyrics she hears. I think she is a little shy when it comes to guessing because she doesn't want to make mistakes. However she is really good at English comparing to her age.
At the end of the month she went to London, and she wrote a diary for a week. It was really good, actually better than I even hoped. She used different verbs and vocabulary even when she is not sure of it. And she didn't just use simple sentences but really complicated and good ones. We also started studying some fast English songs to make her feel easy with fast language speaking styles. I am thinking on continuing this exercise through summer, because we will have intensive classes and have more opportunity.
7月
私たちは、今月も「フルハウス」のせりふを続けました。彼女は、宿題として、知らなかった文法のリストを作り、一緒にこのリストをチェックしました。
さらに、彼女は、独力で文法と語彙の使い方の両方の文章も書きました。たとえ句動詞に関する知識に欠けていても、彼女は本当に創造的な文章力を持っていて、私たちは一緒にチェックするのがとても楽しいです。彼女はまた文法もよくなりました。私たちが彼女の宿題を後でチェックしている時、彼女は自分の誤りに気付き始めました。今月もリスニング向上のために歌を続け、さらに、聴いた歌詞を書きとめる方法を彼女に教えようとしましたが、彼女はミスをしたくないので、いざとなるとちょっと臆病だと思います。しかしながら、彼女は年齢にしては本当に英語が上手です。
月末に彼女はロンドンへ行き、一週間日記を書きました。それは実際私が期待したより、良いものでした。たとえ良く分からなくても、異なった動詞や語いを使ったのです。また、単文だけを使ったのではなく、それは本当に複雑でよいものでした。さらに、速い話し方を簡単に感じさせるため、いくつかの速い英語の歌を学習し始めました。
私たちには集中できる授業と多くの機会がありますから、夏中この練習を続けて行こうと考えています。
August
As we were able to have intensive course this month of 9 lessons in total. We started a book named “Bourne Supremacy” of level 5 in Penguin readers. And we will finish this book continuing with the vocabulary list, mainly because the most of the vocabulary are from conversations and would be useful. While we were reading this book she became better at guessing the meaning of the words, which is a really important skill in English.
We also did 4 new songs with fast lyrics. Even though at first she was having a little trouble, she got better really fast and especially her pronunciation of words like “really” became more natural. We did, Spice Girls’ Wannabe- as the Olympics were ending, Queen’s We Will Rock You, Abba’s Dancing Queen and Orbison’s Pretty Woman. She was really good in our last lesson when she sang all three songs, her accent got even better.
I also asked her to think what she wants to do with English and she wrote a little composition paper about it. She said she wants to be able to speak naturally while working or doing other things. However she also said that books and movies can be done with a dictionary or subtitles. But as she wants to be able to talk naturally I tried to explain why these kinds of materials are important when learning English. Because not being able to understand a movie or a book without help is almost same as not understanding what the person talking to you, because they will always use modified speech style when they will talk to you. So from next month she will be watching a movie and then make a little conversational presentation to me. Which I hope will improve her listening of casual talk and explanation skills in English.
8月
今月は、合計で9つの集中的なコースを持つことができたので、私たちは、ペンギンリーダーズの第5レベルの「Bourne Supremacy」という本を学習し始めました。主としてほとんどの語いが会話からのもので役に立ちますから、語いリストを継続しながら、この本を終了するつもりです。この本を読んでいる間、彼女はその言葉の意味をより推測できるようになりました。実際それは英語において大切なスキルです。
さらに、私たちは、速い歌詞の新しい歌を4曲学習しました。
初めは、少し問題がありましたが、彼女は本当に速く改善しました。特に、「really」のような発音が、より自然になりました。
オリンピックが終わろうとしていたので、スパイスガールズのそっくりさんや、クイーンの「We Will Rock You」、アバの「Dancing Queen」、オービソンの「Pretty Woman」をやりました。彼女はアクセントが一層よくなり、最後のレッスンで3曲をすべて歌った時、本当に気持ちよさそうでした。
さらに、私は、彼女が英語で何をしたいか考えるように頼んで、彼女はそれに関するちょっとした作文を書きました。彼女は、勉強や他のことをしている間も、自然に話せるようになりたいと言いました。しかしながら、彼女は、本や映画は、辞書や字幕でなんとかなると言いました。しかし、彼女は自然に英語を話すことができるようになりたいので、私は、英語を学習する場合なぜこれらの教材が重要なのか説明しました。
手助けなしでは映画や本を理解することができないというのは、誰かがあなたに話しかける時には、修正されたスピーチ・スタイルを常に使うので、話されていることが理解できないことと同じなのです。
したがって来月から、彼女に映画を見て、次に、私への会話のプレゼンテーションをしてもらうつもりです。それは、彼女にくだけた会話の聞き取りと英語で説明するスキルを上達させてくれると願っています。
September
First few classes of this month we continued with our reading schedule and vocabulary study from the novel. However as my student will be taking English Exam level pre-2, we started to study for the exam. Her grammar and listening levels are high; she even says it is really slow when she listen the CD for the listening test. And for grammar questions she sometimes makes mistakes but most of them are caused by the lack of her vocabulary. Still she became even better at guessing the words which make her answer most of the questions even though she is not totally sure. This is really important at this level especially because it is nearly impossible to just memorize all the vocabulary.
We will continue on concentrating on vocabulary until her exams finish. We already finished some phrasal-verbs and adverbs. My student really is a hardworking student when it comes to English. Even though we have to study so many words at once she does memorize most of them easily. I also think that after this vocabulary study and the exam she can even start a little bit more advanced reading passages and listening pieces.
9月
今月、初めの数回はリーディングのスケジュールと小説からの語いの勉強を続けました。しかしながら、私の生徒さんは英検準2級を受けるつもりなので、その試験のための勉強を始めました。
彼女の文法とリスニングのレベルは高く、彼女は、リスニングテスト用のCDは本当に遅いとさえ言います。また、文法質問については、彼女は時々誤りをしますが、ほとんどは彼女の語いの不足によって引き起こされるものです。
にもかかわらず、彼女は、たとえ確かでなくても、ほとんどの質問に答える単語の推測がさらによくなりました。これは、すべての語いを単に記憶することはほとんどできないので、このレベルの生徒にはとりわけ重要なことです。
私たちは彼女の試験が終わるまで、語いに専念するつもりです。すでにいくつかの句動詞と副詞を終了しました。
私の生徒さんは、英語となると本当に勉強家です。たとえとても多くの単語を一度に勉強しなければならなくても、彼女は、ほとんどを簡単に記憶します。
この語いの勉強と試験の後は、少しだけ上級のリーディング節とリスニング要素を始めることさえできると思っています。
October
At the start of this month we continued with vocabularies and finished most of them. Lately my student is really good at guessing by thinking what the particles of the words mean. And she got better at separating the words in themselves, such as cooperate as co-operate. This is an important skill to learn new words. And I am thinking on continuing the same word book after her English Proficiency exam.
Then we started to prepare for the speaking test. The first part of this test was the reading exercises we were already doing before. However the part I am worried is that she knows too many words. This sounds good at first but in every language there is a time when we don’t know how to put them in order easily and she is at that stage now. This is also a good thing because she will pass this stage at this early age and have a better control over the language.
Next month besides continuing to these exercises I want to try and make her speak easily and without thinking too much. As her accent is already way better, and she knows more words now, we are going to start more talking exercises while learning new words.
10月
今月の最初は、私たちは語いの練習を継続し、ほとんどを終了しました。
最近、私の学生は、その言葉の助詞が何を意味するのか推測することが本当に上手です。また、彼女は「cooperate」「co-operate」のように言葉自体の切り離しがよくなりました。これは新語を学習する上で重要な技術です。
また、私は、彼女の英語検定試験の後に同じ単語本を継続することについて考えています。その後、私たちは話すテストの準備をし始めました。このテストの最初の部分は私たちが既に以前に行っていた読書の練習でした。しかしながら、私が心配しているのは、彼女があまりにも多くの言葉を知っているということです。これは初めはよく思えます。しかし、すべての言語では、それらを楽に整理する方法を私たちが知らない時があり、彼女は今、その段階にあるということです。同時に、彼女がこの若さでこの段階を通りぬけ、言語に対するよりよいコントロール力を持つというのはよいことでもあります。
来月、これらの練習を継続することに加えて、私は、彼女をあまり深く考えることなく容易に話させることに努めたいと思います。彼女のアクセントが既によくなっていて、今は多くの言葉を知っているので、新語を学習する間により多くの会話練習を始めるつもりです。
November
The first week of this month was just before the interview exam of my student, so we continued the first three classes on speaking studies by using supportive material form a new text book. Because of her age she has lots of ideas that she doesn't know how to express in English yet, however in this week she learnt how to answer more simply and in a more fluent way then trying to find hard vocabulary to express what she thinks. This is a really important issue when it comes to exams. She passed the speaking exam with only minus 2 points which is really happy outcome of our studies and her natural intelligence.
After the first week we decided to improve her vocabulary more so that she can talk about harder issues and discuss more in English. Right now, we are doing a vocabulary book of Pre-2nd level English Test. It has 1500 words and we decided to go through with it. From next month, I am going to give her small quizzes so that she can memorize more words. And we will start some writing exercises like short stories.
11月
今月の最初の週は私の生徒さんの面接試験の直前でしたから、私たちは、新しい教科書でスピーキング練習を最初の3クラス継続しました。彼女はまだ若いので、英語での表現をまだを知らないという気がしています。しかしながら、今週で、彼女は、自分の考えをより簡単に、あるいはより流暢に表現することを学習し、難しい語いを見つけようと努力しました。これは試験となると実際重要なことです。
彼女は、2点の減点だけでスピーキングテストに合格し、これは、私たちの学習と彼女の天性の知力による本当に幸せな結果です。
最初の週の後、私たちは、彼女がより難しい問題について話すことができ、英語でもっと議論することができるように、彼女の語いをもっと改善することに決めました。
今は、私たちは英検準２級レベルテストの語い本をやっているところです。それは1500単語があり、それをやり通すことに決めました。
来月から、彼女がより多くの言葉を記憶することができるように、私は彼女に小さなクイズを与えるつもりです。また、短編小説のようないくつかのライティング練習も始めるつもりです。
December
This month we continued with the vocabulary book of pre-2nd level English Test. From next month on I will be checking her vocabulary by making some vocabulary quizzes to be sure re remembers the words we already finished. I really believe most of the worlds in this vocabulary book will be necessary to speak daily natural English.
This month we only had 4 hours in total so we continued with the vocabulary most of the time. From next month we will also going to start writing some short stories, and making simple conversations. In the vocabulary book we also have the chance to read and check the pronunciations. This also gave me the opportunity to check her English speaking at the same time. Her accent is already really good but she needs some practice of her intonations, ups and downs when reading which is what we are doing at the moment.
She decided to take the exam for 2nd level English Proficiency test. So from now on I will be scheduling our classing considering the exam style too. As she got really good on vocabulary, I want to challenge her on new speaking tasks in the year 2013.
2013 January
This month we started to get prepared for the English Proficiency Test level 2, especially the speaking test. She does not have problem with understanding and the basic questions. However, just like the last pre-2nd level she took, when she tries to express her feelings she sometimes forgets about the grammatical connections of the language. For this, I will put 30 minutes of grammar practices in each class. As her English vocabulary has risen and also her accent got better , I believe it is time to recheck her total grammar, thus, have the opportunity to teach her if needed. She is really good at test grammar so she does not have any basic problems, but she needs to be able to use them properly to develop her speaking skills.
This month we mostly did exercise from different studying books of level 2 proficiency test, concentrated on speaking test. Depending on the question I am sure she can answer anything, however there is always hardships because of her vocabulary is not business or university level which is natural. We usually finish half of the book in one day because she is a fast learner and practice is the important part of this exercise.
She told me that her listening got really good, that she understands some songs now easily. So after this exam, I am going to schedule her to do all different kinds of exercises, listening to songs, and writing some simple compositions, grammar quizzes to check her grammar more carefully and most importantly now that her vocabulary skills and listening skills got better we will increase speaking.
February
This month, we continued on studying for the interview exam of English Proficiency test. As she was doing more than great during our study hours I am almost sure she passed her exam. From this I can say that she absorbed all the lessons we did up till now very well.
From this month, we started to study intermediate grammar as a preparation for the advanced grammar skills I want to teach her. She is already at a great level in grammar, however, during talks she sometimes makes small mistakes. These mistakes most likely caused by her written studies, thus, by supporting her elementary grammar, I am hoping to lessen these mistakes.
This month we finished 2 interview exercise books for the proficiency tests and also finished the simple present, past and continuous tenses. We are using Cambridge’s grammar book for intermediate students which is a well-known high level book that teaches not only the basic grammar but some irregular usages also.
March
Unfortunately she could not pass the interview exam by 1 point. The reading was way low than I expected because she usually reads close to perfect when she is near me. However, this became a good push for both of us. From this month on we started to add readings to our schedule. She started to read “Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone” by herself as a daily exercise and we will be doing readings through this book, also learning new vocabulary, and maybe in the future we are going to use the audio books to support her accent.
We are continuing with our grammar exercises through Cambridge University’s grammar book for intermediate English. She is adding some new knowledge to her basic grammar knowledge. She only makes some careless mistakes which I am also trying to help her with so in the future she can be careful not only in English but in every type of exam.
We also finished two more songs this month, one was “True Colors” and the other was “All out of love”. She obviously got better at understanding lyrics. From next month on she also has movie watching as homework which she will do small presentations about. I am also searching for some material to use for daily language skills so we can do causal daily conversations.
She absorbs everything really well so it is really easy to go through many different studies of language at once which I believe is important for language skills. However, I want her to be able to talk in English without thinking too much about it. Therefore I will do my best to make her feel comfortable about her language and give her new contents to talk about.
April
We are still using the grammar book to practice her grammar usage. At first she was making some careless mistakes on the exercises I give her as homework but lately she is getting more careful about the questions. Even though we are mostly repeating the basic grammar, it makes me so happy when she said she did not know some of the usages I showed. I am happy to see she is learning some new information while redoing the old one.
She started to read Harry Potter’s first book as homework. She is reading a whole chapter out loud again and again and later she reads it to me. She is getting better at keeping the rhythm of the language however she struggles when it comes to long sentences I hope she will get used to that in no time too. We are also using these chapters to make a conversation about what was in the book. These conversations last for 30 minutes. I am so proud of how she developed her talking skills during these little dialogues. She now makes more grammatically correct sentences using more words. And she definitely looks more confident when she speaks. I hope this will help her to feel even more comfortable in front of other people when she is speaking. We are also continuing to study vocabulary based on these two exercises at the moment.
May
The first week we continued the same as last month by doing grammar for 30 minutes, reading, vocabulary and questions for the rest. And she also did some grammar homework and reading homework. However, from June we are focusing on speaking and reading. We are continuing on Harry Potter, and after each chapter we are having a question time where she answers and summarizes the chapter. This month we are also adding a casual talking for 30 min. at least each day so that her logical answers could get better. She got definitely better in hearing and understanding as she did not even ask me once to repeat during these classes.
And the planning is basically talking on different subjects, using different material from Harry Potter to other movies, and even some Toefl sample questions. As we are trying to prepare her for the interview for English Proficiency Test, the main will stay on talking exercises while later we will go back to our grammar practices.
June
This month we focused on speaking mainly because of the upcoming interview test she has. We continued reading Harry Potter and after that I have asked some questions about the chapters we went through. She got better at explaining the situations with her own words. We also did some interview exercising with some questions on subjects such as environment, public places like parks, animals and daily experiences. Yuri even made some research before we talked about these subjects so she can talk more and have more logical ideas about the subjects.
We also went through an article about the history of Halloween. Where it started and how it changed through years and I am thinking of bringing more articles like this one in the future to teach different subjects and talk about them.
The last class we practiced through an English proficiency level 2 - interview book to study for the interview. It was better than before so I am really hoping the results will be good this time.
July to August
This month we went back to our grammar, reading and talking schedule. In grammar lessons we are continuing to use the same book as before. We finished the units about auxiliary verbs, question tags and reported speech. We also continued to read Harry Potter. We also started writing exercises with the vocabulary from Harry Potter this month. She writes a story for each chapter by using the vocabularies of that chapter. She is very creative when it comes to writing.
As she passed her 2nd level proficiency with full points, we stopped doing exercises for the exam. However, we are continuing on reading articles. This month we read about the history of jeans and the Bermuda triangle. We also discuss about these articles after she learns the words and does research on the subject.
September
In grammar classes we continued through the grammar book, we now finished the first 60 units. However, after checking Yuri’s homework we realized that there were some subjects she was troubled with such as the difference between Wish and Hope, the word order of phrasal verbs etc. so I also made some print-outs for her explaining these subjects. Plus to these I gave her some extra working sheet on the subjects we already finished for her to see if there are any other subjects she needs to go through once more.
For reading we are continuing on Harry Potter’s first book. We are now doing chapter 8. She is both reading to me at class and also we are using each chapter to learn vocabulary. She is writing little stories by using the words in each chapter. She always writes funny stories which means she is also enjoying when she is writing. Then we are checking the stories together. She corrects them with some help. Lately she also started to use some really good structures in these stories.
We are also reading some other articles about history, fun facts or events. This month we finished the story of Merlin and Morgana the magicians in middle ages, and from the stories of King Arthur. And we are continuing with the mysteries of Bermuda Triangle. After reading these she does some further research on them and makes a little presentation. This then turns to a little conversation with some questions from me.
October
We are continuing to do grammar checks and exercises with her. This month we went through some auxiliary verbs and particles (a/an, the, to, from etc.) Even though these are really easy exercises, she was making some small but obvious mistakes so I want to make sure she understands how to separate them, especially a/an and the.
In reading we got to the chapter 10 now. After checking her vocabulary list by making a small oral quiz we check the story she writes using each list. She uses some good structure here, however, also there are some connection problems caused by the words in the list. So I bring the story in a clean paper written in computer and first let her check her own grammar. She usually realizes half of her careless misses by herself.
We also finished reading the Bermuda Triangle this month and started a new article about “Dreams”. She seems really interested in this kind of mystery articles. I also want to give her some serious articles from time to time so that she can use the knowledge later when she has an exam or so. So we are going to try doing some articles about environment, new technologies and maybe new media.
November
In grammar we continued with the book we were already doing and finished the units of relative clauses, preposition and some other particles which were easy so that she already knew, however, confusing.
For reading we are also continuing with the book we are reading, Harry Potter, she is definitely a faster reader when she has time to practice. And as she also realized that, she is now putting more effort to practice her reading by reading out loud. She is also listening to the audio books so her accent as always is not a problem. We are currently not doing listening exercises in class however she is listening to these audio books or some songs by herself.
We are also putting more effort on conversation. And she is definitely more relaxed and more concentrated when it comes to speaking. She sometimes even use really complicated sentences. We talked about her week and mostly about the book we are reading this month. And sometimes I didn't even realize how the time past because she was so eager to answer.
December
We continued to do our routine work of grammar, reading and questioning this month. In grammar she learnt more about adverbs and adjectives, and how to make both with the same root. Also we went through future past tense because she had some struggle during one of her writings for me. This was a good thing that we were able to catch this kind of mistakes early and correct them together.
We did a lot of reading this month finishing at least 3 chapters of Harry Potter. I also questioned and interviewed her about what happened in the book. She became really smooth when answering this questions and so confident in English. I can see how well her accent is getting month by month too. Even though sometimes when she does not have much time to practice reading by herself her speech kind of becomes more slow and Japanese-like, I can hear the parts she already absorbed and using even without realizing.
From next month we will also try listening with asking questions this time her being the interviewer. I hope this will give her a more focused listening of daily language. Also at the same time pushing her to think and create some questions.
2014 January
We are getting closer to ending our grammar book. However, these last subjects we are doing, which are mostly about particles, are obviously harder for her. So we are going to go through them again slowly this time in the following weeks. Because particles are really important to know good in order to have a strong basic grammar.
For reading as we did not have much time this month we just continued with the chapters we already finished. So we decided to concentrate on speaking this month. We started to do a new exercise that consists of me talking about a subject she is interested in, then she asking me questions she created at that moment and then we continue by asking each other questions about the subject. This is a good exercise to make her speak spontaneously. And she is getting better at making her own phrases since we started this exercise.
February and March
In grammar we are almost end of the grammar book we started. Right now, we are doing the prepositions, particles and phrasal verbs. We finished a total of 15 lessons at this month. As prepositions are especially hard to learn in an advanced level we are continuing these rules really slowly.
For reading, we finished Harry Potter’s first book, however we still have some vocabulary to cover and some written exercises to make, at the start of next month I will be giving her a quiz for the vocabulary she learnt through the class. We are also continuing to read some new material. I added some reading comprehension exercises to our reading time to see how well she understand when she reads a new material at once, at first she was not answering as fast as needed, however, she is getting better at guessing the meaning and the overall summary of the text that are new to her.
We also started writing this month. I give her some easy tasks and some information on how to do creative writing and then she continues with writing a small essay in 30 minutes while I am there. This is an important exercise for future writing tasks she will have such as a TOEFL exam.
April
We finished the grammar book “Basic English Grammar in use” of Cambridge this month. From now on, I will be giving some exercises to her to do by her, and later check the parts she still needs help with. We took extra time about phrasal verbs though, because especially prepositions and the positioning of some phrasal structures are still a little problem for her.
In reading we finished Harry Potter’s first book, I will also be doing the vocabulary quizzes, and from next month or so we decided to start the next Harry Potter book. To learn some different vocabulary, we are also doing some reading comprehension exercises too.
May
We did 3 reading comprehension about people from history such as Lincoln and Edison. And also started the listening to songs again. This month we did the song called “Can’t fight the moonlight”. We also finished phrasal verbs chapters of our grammar book. As phrasal verbs are a complicated subject, we are going to revise it in the future too.
We also started exercising writing. She got a little better than before at making her writings more logical, thinking and putting her paragraphs in order. We are going to continue practicing creative writing more from now on.
We also started the next book of Harry Potter. We decided it is better to have different short readings every week plus to the book we will continue to read.
June
We mainly focused on writing and reading this month. In writing, I am making her write short stories with the vocabulary she learned through Harry Potter, so we checked through one of those stories and we discussed how to write a good story in English. We discussed some techniques she may use in the future for TOEFL or such exams. She is also continuing to learn about creative writing as an exercise for future exams, too. She wrote about the sports she likes, and the animals she likes for this months writing exercises. I am also making her self-check before I show her mistakes to make her think about it by herself once, so that she can understand better about the structure of her writing.
We started the second book of Harry Potter for reading; we are doing the same pattern by doing the vocabulary and story writing. Also she is reading the material out loud, both by herself and to me and we are doing some accent and pronunciation checks when necessary. After each chapter I am asking her questions to both see what she understood and if it is correct and also to make her speak against some instant questions. We are also adding some talking about how her life is or about what she wants to do in the future to have more talking in the classes.
July
In reading we read some new articles about “Colors” and “Astrology”, again, reading and then discussing about those subjects. We also started to read American History, as reading material we are using the history book for elementary students in USA uses in school. We are also discussing about the subjects that appear in the book, such as native Americans and Pocahontas, for example. While doing these different types of topics in reading we have also finished two episodes of Harry Potter, both reading and vocabulary.
In writing she wrote about her favorite animal and her favorite manga this month. Her writing is definitely getting better, but I also want her to be less dependent of grammar while writing so these creative writing exercises will continue for a while. Other than these she is writing short stories using the vocabulary from Harry Potter every week.
We are also talking more lately as we have more subjects she likes to talk about. Both her school and her out-of-school activities are more interesting now that she became high school student. She is getting better at talking without thinking too much and I want her to achieve a more easy stance about talking in the future. So in the next few months I will be giving more time to talking, mostly chatting with her.
September
In reading we are continuing with chapter 3 and 4 in Harry Potter book 2, and she wrote two stories on each chapter’s vocabulary. Her writing skills are improving as I checked her speech she made at school I realized her expressions in writing are also getting better. She also wrote two compositions about her favorite book and her favorite colors. We will be continuing on these writing exercises with more hard subjects such as schools in Japan or teenager’s life in Japan as these are the subjects she’s familiar with.
For speaking we are discussing on a history book, which is for elementary school students in America. She is learning some different words from it that she did not know before, but as these are necessary words we are also practicing on using them in discussions. This month we also starting on playing Taboo a game that the player has to explain a chosen word without using the taboo words the cards give. This exercise is to make her more open and fast in everyday topics. She also got the best score in her high school’s English exam.
October
In reading we finished 2 more chapters from the book this month, and also continued with the history book we are currently reading. We discussed the chapters and she wrote 2 stories about chapter 3 and 4. As Yuri said that she has a problem with the conclusion parts of her writings, I am now teaching how to end an essay or a composition. In history we finished the American Independence war. She seems interested in this area and I also find this type of knowledge and vocabulary good for her future studies so we decided to continue this book as well as Harry Potters.
In writing, she finished two essays on weather and seasons. I want to finish the basic writing exercises before the end of this year so we will be doing more writing in this month.
We are also playing taboo for at least 15 minutes every class. This exercise is going better and better every week. She is getting both faster and smarter at her answers. So I am thinking on continuing to play this game for a while.
November
In reading we finished chapter 5 this weeks. And we also finished 2 stories about Amish people in America and about Ghosts. We started to add 15 to 30 minutes of taboo game in each class. She is getting better and choosing words to explain and we also started to keep time now to make her thinking process faster.
We are continuing with some grammar exercises other than reading and speaking. She has some problems about how to differentiate present perfect and past perfect tenses. But I hope with our last class we got a little bit further and she at least now separates simple past and past continues.
December
This month we only had 2 classes. In these classes we mainly continued reading and talking. We are playing the game taboo for 15 to 30 minutes each class, to let Yuri think and talk faster in English, she has some good vocabulary and because words in Taboo are from different types of academics or daily life, she started to use some words she had never used before.
In reading we finish the second chapter of the American History book we were reading. And also I brought an article about Amish people in America for some social reading. She found it really interesting to know a community she didn't know that existed. We also finished chapter 4-5 and started to read chapter 6 of Harry Potter’s second book.
January
She finished her grammar exercises this month, so we went through them to decide what we need to review in order to finish English Grammar in Use. We decided to go through the rest of the exercises according to her weak points in grammar, mostly consisting of perfect tenses and particles.
She also wrote an essay on karaoke, comparing the companies according to price, to explain which one she thinks is the best choice. This essay was her idea when I told her to write a serious comparison essay, which was really fruitful. Because she really wanted to explain the subject, she put a lot of effort in it. We later reviewed it together and decided which parts need a rewrite and she finished a four-page essay on this. She still feels a little unconfident in writing the conclusion. But I believe for her age she is far ahead of her level. I will try to make her more confident in this area. Even with some grammatical errors and some vocabulary problem, she is getting better on writing every time.
We also continued on reading, by reading American history and Harry Potter, we finished a chapter in both. I am thinking on continuing this reading exercises till the end, because firstly this gives her the ability to read out loud, which is something she does not do unless she has this kind of opportunity. Secondly, this gives us topics to talk about.
February
We are continuing on reading Harry Potter and discussing through the book as we want to finish as much as we can. Yuri wrote 3 stories this month with the vocabulary from the book. Especially one of those writings was really good. With some grammatical mistakes and loose vocabulary, she finally understood how to write in English and I believe those mistakes will become even less if she continues to read more.
We had a 1.5-hour speaking class, which was more fruitful then I thought it would be. She definitely became more confident on talking in these three years we worked together. She did not only talk about daily life but her emotions and what she wants to do her conflicts. These are really hard conversations to make in another language.
Her biggest problem in speaking is that she knows too many words, which is really important and good for reading and writing, however, when it comes to talking as she wants to use advanced vocabulary, it sometimes take a little more time to find her words. I believe she will get easier with her words with more speaking concentrated classes. As we finished all the grammar even with her mistakes she knows all the structures and she needs practice. I think she needs to keep practicing especially speaking.
March
It was our last month with Yuri. I really wanted to go through everything we did till now; I especially wanted to check her talking and writing abilities.
We had two big writing exercises this month, one was about baroque music and the other was about what she is thinking about learning English and what she wants to use it for. Even though she wrote it twice, she really did well in both of those writings. Especially the one about baroque music was really hard considering she needed some terminology of music. However, she really started to research well when it comes to vocabulary. Her grammar was definitely better too in these writing exercises. And she got really good conclusions in both of her writings.
We also had longer talking hours in this month. We even talked non-stop for almost 2 hours in one of the courses. She got really good at opening herself and talk about what she wants to do and how she feels. We also talked about what she wrote, and discussed what she wants to do in the future using her English She was to the point and even with a little struggle about vocabulary and grammar she was clear.