Teaching help

[neta]

I posted my resume on My Sensei.com (a service through which Japanese who wish to study English find tutors). I only have basic level Japanese (I'm studying and immersed on a daily basis but I still have a limited vocab. So I wrote that I could only teach (practice conversation) with fairly experienced students. I really thought nothing would come of it. Today, however, I got a response from a woman wanting me to teach her "English tongue twisters, Nursery rhymes, cultures, etc...and if necessary, I folllow you. (I don't want to learn Eng just for Study). I dont know what I'll follow you means.

Anyway... I came to the sudden and terrible realization that I didnt really have any kind of plan as to how I should go about doing this. She wants a weekly 2hr lesson. Any suggestions/advice.

[JusenkyoGuide]

I posted my resume on My Sensei.com (a service through which Japanese who wish to study English find tutors). I only have basic level Japanese (I'm studying and immersed on a daily basis but I still have a limited vocab. So I wrote that I could only teach (practice conversation) with fairly experienced students. I really thought nothing would come of it. Today, however, I got a response from a woman wanting me to teach her "English tongue twisters, Nursery rhymes, cultures, etc...and if necessary, I folllow you. (I don't want to learn Eng just for Study). I dont know what I'll follow you means.

Anyway... I came to the sudden and terrible realization that I didnt really have any kind of plan as to how I should go about doing this. She wants a weekly 2hr lesson. Any suggestions/advice.
Best way I have found is to meet with the student, usually somewhere besides your or their house, and talk about what it is that they are looking for. I usually ask the question, why English, and what do you want to DO with the English you learn?

From there it's usually pretty easy to set up some rough lesson plans based upon the student's level and interests.

For tounge twisters, may I highly recomend the classic Fox in Sox by the immortal Dr Suess? It not only works well on junior high school kids, it charms the hell out of Japanese adults. And it works great for teaching rythem and intonation too. ;)

I don't know what follow means either, unless she's trying to say she plans to stalk you to get English lessons.

[Jess]

Jusenkyo's hit the nail on the head. Talk to them, and teach to their interests. When you notice a mistake, find a way to bring it up that's not too critical, and work on it (I would always assure them that they were MUCH better at English than I was at Japanese to encourage those that want to study - Japanese, by and large, seem to be much more nervous about making mistakes, so you want to be careful not to discourage when correcting a student). Good luck!

[decswxaqz]

I'm guessing the follow means she would follow your teaching method/lesson plan. I guess if it's an adult, they would prefer to work on one area of interest (technical, slang, everyday) rather than children who need to learn grammar.

Dr.Seuss is not a bad idea actually. The books are fun to read and they do introduce strange ryhmes. The Who is my favourite :).
I'm sure you know tongue twisters and nursery ryhmes... "She sells sea shells" would be good (r/l problem :P).

I'd imagine you have to see what sort of student she is. If shes a note taking type then maybe go for more book type exercises.

[Suneru]

well it seems like this person is looking for conversational English. Students say this like "english tongue twisters, nursery rhymes, culture, etc." because what they want is something that they haven`t already learned from a text book. But in truth they still need text books.
She wants a two hour class, that is extremely hard to do if you are teaching tongue twisters. Every week doing "Sally sells sea shells" you'll kill her.
Do an introduction trial class and make it free. Figure out her level Intro, Intermediate, Advanced. End the lesson and say you'll contact her. Go to a book store and read text books like "Side by Side." read through the different levels and choose a book that should be medium to easy for her. that is her level.

Once you have her level figured out, contact her and say 2 hours 8000 yen. She probably won't like this, especially because this is your first teaching job. Go as low as 6000 for 2 hours, but NO lower. It's not worth your time trust me. if she still balks at this, tell her to bring a friend and the two of them for 8000 yen for 2 hours(No lower)

Once she agrees buy the book for her level. (you'll make your money back don't worry) Then take your book, and by hand copy the lesson you're going to teach. Never bring out a text book with this kind of student. I normally copy the lesson on the train while I'm going to the meeting place. show her only hand written exercises so she thinks she's getting original lessons, and you do the least work possible. :)
In the end this is best for you and her. If you try to make original 2 hour lessons they will suck. You'll end up wasting her time and yours.

Good Luck

[Pierrot le Fou]

3,000 yen/hour?! Christ that's low!

And 'she sells seashells by the sea shore' is a tongue twister for Japanese because of the 'see' vs. 'shi' sound. The Japanese language doesn't have the former.

Dr. Seuss would be good, but the books are expensive. And quite frankly, buying a book every 4 lessons even would seriously cut into your profit margin.

As said, you need to ask her what she's looking for in a class. If it's conversation, get a conversational English textbook and go through it for half the class, and the other half work on nursery rhymes or somesuch.

If you want to combine the two, you could work on aesop's fables or somesuch with discussions of what the 'moral of the story' is.

But first things first -- talk to her about goals and money. And start off at LEAST at 10,000/session (with a floor of 8,000 yen/session). 3,000 yen/hour, Hell, even 4,000 yen/hour is really low for a private one on one lesson. If that doesn't bother you, then go for it.

[akitaka]

Last time I checked, 1,000 yen an hour was the rate that a Mcdonalds worker in Japan earned. I'm agreeing with Pierrot here; though as stated, if you feel generous do what feels right.

[Pierrot le Fou]

Let me put it this way. My friend is tutoring kids who are going to New Zealand. He earns 8,000 yen/hour doing that (for a group of about 10 high school students). Private lessons are even more, far far more, because the cost isn't defrayed over other individuals. Even 4,000 yen/hour seems ridiculous for 1 student. I personally wouldn't consider working for less than 5,000/hour or so (especially if things like transport and classroom expenses had to come out of my pocket).

[Henjin]

And 'she sells seashells by the sea shore' is a tongue twister for Japanese because of the 'see' vs. 'shi' sound. The Japanese language doesn't have the former.

Oy, I never woulda thought of that.

「シ　セルズ　シーシェルズ　バイ　ザ　シーショアー？」

[neta]

Thanks for the advice everybody, I like the Dr.Suess Idea. Oh, and just for the record, I think I may have undervalued myself. Seeing as how I don’t know Japanese beyond the basics and I am 17 and have never taught English in any capacity before AND I am in desperate need of some form of employment; I figured that I would start with my first few guinea pig students at 1000 yen an hour and work my way up as I learned Japanese and how to teach.

[neta]

Maybe I just got accustomed to the crappy, slightly over minimum wage, job I had in the States.