imabi Wrote:She's in 10th. I'm in 12th. She's a 留学生. I see her every other day. She wanted to come to America to get better at English. 玖実と一週間に四回も話します。
休日?
I imagine that means she is a high school first year or second year in Japan time (they don't do grades in numbers 1-12). First year would be the exact equivalent, but they didn't necessarily put her in the exact same grade.
I'm guessing that she's pretty advanced compared to the average first or second year high school student in Japan (which is surprisingly low). I've helped prepare students who were going abroad from Japan before, and usually the students who are interested in doing so are motivated to learn English so they are generally already at a higher level than the average Japanese student.
I think one of the best things you can do for her is talk to her a lot. She probably has been made to memorize a lot of vocabulary and grammar rules in English. She probably has had very few chances to practice output and trying to get her point across. If she's still not very good at production she'll probably get tired or frustrated quickly if she's pushed too hard for too long. Try to keep the conversation at a level that will challenge her but keep her comfortable.
Also, although she has learned a lot a lot of vocab, her listening ability probably is not up to speed with the way native speakers talk. Slow the way you talk down, and talk clearly.
Another thing she is probably bad at is colloquial language. Japanese textbooks are very formal and usually don't include a lot of informal English. Try to introduce aspects of slang and informal English to her. Maybe just explain a piece of slang or an idiom every once in a while when it comes up.
Once you have explained a piece of slang to her, make sure to use it when talking to her. Avoid using lots of slang that she doesn't know.
That'll help a lot.
One activity you could easily help her with is reading and writing. Give her a book appropriate for her level but challenging (maybe Harry Potter or something). Tell her to read a chapter or a small number of pages. Beforehand, read through it yourself and make long answer questions about the chapter. Why did such and such a character do this? What happened after blah-blah-blah?
Tell her to write the answers to the questions. Also, tell her to highlight (or clearly underline) any time there are words or grammar that she does not understand despite trying to look them up in a dictionary.
Once she gets to the end of the chapter do three things:
1)Look at her answers, correct them, and talk about them.
2)Go over all the highlighted words and phrases that she did not understand.
3)Talk casually a little bit about what happened in the chapter (This will let her try to use and reinforce some of the vocabulary she used in the chapter).
Then move onto the next chapter.
Anyway, that's just a couple of things I thought of.
Edited: 2012-03-11, 9:39 pm
