Today was my last day of tutoring with the 8 year old girl at Gilchrist Elementary, Marcelle. We met in the Media Center at the school from 9:30-11 AM and Peiheng joined me for the session. Today was a half-day at the school with tomorrow being the last day for the school year. Marcelle had computer language training she needed to finish so this is what we worked on the whole tutoring meeting. This was good because Marcelle enjoys computer/digital learning more than traditional learning with paper. Activities included filling in missing letters to complete words like FAT, CAT, HAT and matching words/sounds to pictures. I was surprised that the language learning program included speech in both French and English. The school ESL teacher has apparently decided to teach Marcelle utilizing familiar French directions for the purpose of pivoting to English learning.
Marcelle has an intermediate grasp on understanding spoken English, but struggles with recognizing differences in individual letters in words. For the most part, it's clear Marcelle largely needs help in improving her motivation. In many cases she simply refuses to do work and says 'I don't know' until she decides to complete her activity. This was the primary challenge with tutoring this particular student, but it's not surprising when teaching children.
Marcelle was sad that it was my last time with her and I'll miss our sessions. Doing these sessions at Gilchrist has made me want to volunteer in the local schools back home in Pensacola to help young ESL learners. Perhaps I'll make a career of it!
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