Shanti TS#1

Yesterday I tutored DJ through Skype. We began with him telling me about his previous English education. Dj told me he wanted to focus on speaking because he thought he was bad at speaking and making complete sentences. He said that he had a lot of words in his head but he could not figure out how to vocalize them. So I gave DJ a few topics and had him talk about each one. For example, he told me about the Korean marriage ceremony. While he was telling me about the topic I wrote down his biggest grammar mistakes and after I went over them and tried to explain why he had to use the grammar in that way. I found it very difficult to explain why his sentences sounded odd or were wrong. For example, he would use at, on, is, and the wrong or wouldn't use them at all. For our next session I plan to look into these mistakes so I can further explain them to him. I also tried to be encouraging by telling him what he was doing well but every time I would praise him he would tell me "no you are lying. I am bad at English." Despite this I kept praising him in hopes of building up his self-esteem about his English. At the end when I did a review of his biggest mistakes so that he could work on them he told me he was ashamed of his English and embarrassed to speak. I told him there was no need to be ashamed or embarrassed, that this was a safe zone, and that he did not have to be embarrassed to speak with me in English. I told him about my experience learning Japanese and that I understood how hard it is to learn another language. Then we ended with him asking me a question so he could practice listening comprehension. After he told me I was very nice, helpful and that he hopes to learn to speak English better. I hope to boost his confidence and help him speak better.