Tutoring (Secret of Nim)

So, my Dad recently asked about my tutoring experience so far. For the record, I welcome any questions about my experience that will help me clarify things and improve my blog! I've been tutoring for a few weeks now and I should describe how it's going so far, and it's going quite well. It was tough to figure out what to do at first because I was unfamiliar with tutoring 1 on 1, especially with 8th and 2nd graders. I started tutoring two brothers separately; the 8th grader by himself and the 2nd grader with a friend. Then their mother informed me that both of her sons would be accompanied by a friend during the sessions. So now I tutor two P2 (grade/primary 2) on Tues/Thurs and two M2 (grade 8) on Wednesdays. The sessions take place in the early evening after school at a small restaurant a few steps outside the gate of the school. 
  It's been really challenging; finding worksheets for both levels and planning hour-long lessons, but it is definitely worth the money. When I tutor two kids at once I get paid 800 baht (about $26 USD) but that money goes a long way here. That's more than enough for a week of going out to lunch. The mother is extremely nice and grateful, and her sons are very nice, but shy (especially the P2). Her M2 son seems to understand everything I say, but he has difficulty speaking English in complete sentences because he gets hung up on certain words. So I realized that his vocabulary is obviously something to work on. His friend seems to have a better understanding of the language, so he's my translator sometimes. I had them read a children's book about the 'Mummy' movie with Brendan Frasier and summarize it as they read to make sure they understood it. They've seen the movie, but reading it was tough for them. I also typed up simple questions about the reading so they could write their answers and work on their handwriting. I also took a summary of Aladdin from the internet and replaced Aladdin's name to see if they could recognize the story without any names. About halfway through they figured it out haha. In the Aladdin reading I removed some of the verbs so they could fill it in themselves with the correct tense of the verb. It seemed to work pretty well. They got the hang of it after a few sentences. 

  For P2 I've been teaching simple worksheets about parts of speech; nouns, adverbs, adjectives. They don't talk much, so I make them read simple sentences and pick out the parts of speech in the exercise. I'm slowly getting them to describe things so we can eventually start writing about something. It's hard to get them to focus. After school they always snack while I'm tutoring so they get food all over the place, spill their drinks and rarely sit still. But today I only taught the P2 student's friend because the mother (Nim) had to pick up her older son from military camp. I learned her sons names, but I can never remember which one is which. Their names are very similar (Job and Jhom) and when Nim says their names I can't tell the difference because of her accent. So I slur their names so I could be saying either one. Job and Bahm are the M2 students, Jhom and Neothan are the P2 students. 

Some of the other Loyola tutors have already gone out to dinner with the parents that hired them, so I'm hoping that happens soon so I can learn more about Nim and her family. 

Song of the Day:

 I've been struggling to find new music lately. I should go through my thousands (yes, thousands) of emails from radio promoters and see what's worthy of a listen. But that seems arduous and exhausting. I keep listening to the same songs and I'm tired of my Itunes, so I need to figure out something fast. I should probably just post more Pogo songs because he has been on a spree right now releasing songs. This is quite a treat because in the past I had to wait months for new material. These songs are fantastic and you know I can't stop listening to them! I can never have enough Pogo!

Pogo - 'Bloom'

Pogo - 'Mellow Brick Road'