Tutor Resources

English Language Workbook

Basic Structure:

If tutoring a student during the academic year, you should be able to follow along with what they are learning in school for each session.
Every week, you will most likely be helping with homework, so be sure to ask in advance what topics they are studying so you can either prep worksheets or be able to have an idea of any homework questions that may pop up
Some students, instead of doing homework with you, will want to do reading, so make sure you use your first session to assess their reading level. Then choose a children’s book that you think matches their reading level.
- Use your sessions to go over pronunciation, vocab, and other elements of the book that surpass simply passive reading but also mental engagement so that they can improve substantially in English

What to keep in mind

Sometimes, the students are really hard to control, so please please be aware that you need to be extremely patient and try to reason with them and give them fun activities so that they have an easier time following along.
If you are struggling to find what the student is doing in school because they always answer you very evasively, then try to talk to the parents in advance of your weekly sessions, and if the parent doesn’t know, then have them contact the teacher or have them give you their contact info.

Best strategies

Try to split up your sessions if they have multiple subjects they need to go over, such as half the time for math and the other half for grammar
Try to ask about their homework like two to three days before your session so you can at least gather some idea or some resources
If you see little progress in their abilities after your sessions, try assigning them worksheets and tell the parents they have to have it done before the next session.
- This is especially a great strategy when you feel like you and the students are not doing a lot during your sessions!

Resources:

Jump Start
Math Resources
Worksheets galore: https://www.education.com/worksheets/first-grade/
If you want videos to show them - BrainPOP, Khan Academy
Funbrain has lots of games to help fortify knowledge - if you go to the top right, can change what type of games

Basic Structure:

Utilizing the Practice Makes Perfect: English Vocabulary For Beginning ESL Learners book to teach students weekly.

What to keep in mind:

Be very patient. Many of these students have come from Syria less than a month ago and are essentially only Arabic speakers.
A tip that helps is that when you are trying to teach them how to pronounce a word, write the phonetics using Arabic letters.
When you are struggling to find ways to describe a word to them, context is tremendous, imagine you trying to learn a brand new word without any clue as to when and why it is used.

Best strategies:

Make sure in the first week of meeting with your student, you use the time to assess their level of English. If English is very very weak, we would suggest going over things like the alphabet and pronunciation of letters first before diving into the book straight away.
The book tends to focus on basic words in every subject, such as nouns and verbs, but we recommend that you also look into words that are common in THEIR everyday usage, such as the grocery store, doctor’s office, secretary of state, etc.
We also suggest that if the students have progressed beyond basic grammar and English fundamentals, work on developing their vocabulary and reading comprehension by choosing simple English books that are at like 4th-grade level.

Resources:

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