by crustpunker on Fri Apr 10, 2009 10:11 am
I agree with Paul. You have a very unique situation in that you really can give these kids a total immersive experience in English. Planning activities and all that may be required by the school, I have no idea but really I think Paul has it dead on. Talk with the kids, DO things with them. Take a walk, play cards, make up random games and the rules as you go along with it, read them books. Imagine you are just hanging out with native English speakers that are the same age. The best thing about this is that there is fairly mimimal lesson planning involved! I am by no means a specialist on this subject but I can tell you one anecdote that you may find interesting:
A friend of mine in Tokyo was once paid pornographic amounts of yen to do JUST this kind of thing privately with a brother and sister ages 6 and 7 respectivly. Once a week, all day he would basically just go and hang out with this family and accompany them around town, have breakfast, go to the park, eat lunch and sometimes dinner and even read the kids books before bed. Both parents were Japanese, both had a very good command of English but wanted to really give their kids this kind of experience in the hopes that it would pay off. Now, I am sure the results WOULD differ for everyone but holy crap... These kids after just 3 months of this were WAY WAY beyond the ability of kids there own age in terms of conversational ability ability and listening and in fact, if you didn't know it you would think that they were returnees from an English speaking country. I met them once myself and was just shocked.
This bastard friend of mine was pulling in OVER 100,000 for ONE DAY A WEEK OF THIS!!!!!!!!!
He had no special teaching certificates, had not been to Uni. to become an educator, and was just a friendly guy who got along well with kids and enjoyed working with these children and seeing these two improve.
He did this gig for about a year and change and then moved back to the states.
The family actually implored him to stay for another year but he had other things to do back home.
ain't life a bitch sometimes?