Greg - CP # 4

One good thing about our TEFL program is that we are exposed to all levels of CIES students.  In real life TEFL, that's what's coming!  And that's what I need to be aware of and prepared for.

Today my CP student was on the lower end of the foundation level.  Ah. came only two weeks ago.  I think it took 4 tries to finally get us together, and even then he had gone to the wrong place and was 15 minutes late.  Our session lasted longer than an hour and was rather unfocused.  It was difficult to lead Ah. in a logical progression from point A to its corresponding point B.  I lay a lot of that down to the language barrier, but I also put at least 30 percent of the problem on not being able to identify inner drive and motivation on his part.  Even at the end of the session, he was still trying to change the schedule around.  I like to help, but was a bit frustrated.

It was a good experience for me in that I had to help him find the meaning of almost everything we tried to discuss.  He wrote everything, because everything was new.  Then he wrote the translation or looked on his phone for the meaning.  It was very choppy.  I think I did succeed in helping him learn relationships of opposites concerning mother and father, husband and wife, son and daughter, boy and girl, brother and sister, running and walking, and sitting and standing.  We also practiced our colors (he knew those, except "clear" - Starbucks lid) and the names of common things around us - straw, cup, lid table, bush, tree, fountain.

What do you guys do when the barrier is so high?  Do you use worksheets like I am thinking about doing next week to help with scaffolding?