Tutoring: Day One

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I arrived at the Rechavia Gymnasia school on Tuesday, especially since I didn’t know who I was going to be working with or what we would be working on. When I met my first student, however, Rivka (pseudonym), my anxieties disappeared. Rivka is a 7th grade Ethiopian-Israeli girl who greeted me with a smile and almost immediately started asking me questions about myself. I could tell that she was fascinated from the moment that I told her I was from the United States, and that I went to school in New York. The Israeli kids have a fascination (as do kids around the world) with American pop culture—the celebrities, the music, the movies, etc, etc, etc. She basically tested my pop culture knowledge until she realized that I really don’t know much about it all…I am not a big fan of TV or movies (mostly because I just don’t have time to watch them), and most of the music that I like is definitely not what kids today consider “popular” music. However, even when she ran out of questions to ask me about pop culture, she continued to talk and ask other things as well, such as questions about my family and about learning languages. I told her I spoke Spanish and her eyes lit up—the other thing that Israeli kids are fascinated by here are “telenovelas”, the Spanish soap operas. I find that hilarious for a few reasons—for one, I’m surprised that they have telenovelas here, and secondly, that kids here watch them. I’m also surprised that they’re allowed to watch them! I’ve never seen these particular telenovelas, but I just know that American soap operas are not exactly kid-friendly, so I can’t imagine that these are much better, but I could be wrong.

I think Rivka could have talked all day if I hadn’t stopped her so that we could actually get to work. I hated that I had to stop her because I really think that talking is the best way to learn a language, but the reading and writing stuff is definitely important too, as is the grammar, so onto grammar we went. She was learning the future tense. We worked through her homework, getting sidetracked often due to her curious mind, and eventually finished. My next student was already ready when Rivka and I finished, so I quickly said goodbye to her and jumped right to student #2, hoping for as much success as I had seen in my first tutoring appointment.

My second student’s name was Sarah (pseudonym), and from the outset I could tell that she wasn’t nearly as comfortable with her English skills as Rivka was. I didn’t think it was going to be a problem, but soon I realized she didn’t even want to do as much as read outloud in English to me. I tried to convince her that the only way for her to improve was if she complied and read, but she just didn’t seem to want to do that. Thankfully, one of her friends had come over, and he spoke English almost perfectly, and for the next half an hour or so, he basically served as a translator for us. We got a bit of work done, but I was frustrated because I felt like even though her friend was helping, he was also distracting to her.

After her almost giving up twice, she finally gave in and decided to try complying rather than fighting against me. Once that happened, we got much more accomplished and she did really well! She and I worked quite a bit with the past tense, and I realized how ridiculous English really is—there are so many exceptions to the rule and so many words that just don’t read how they are written or don’t write how they sound. I felt really bad! It’s moments like those that I feel very grateful for having grown up with English as my first language, but at the same time, moments like those also reveal to me how little Hebrew I know (in trying to explain things like that to her) and how much I need to learn. Tutoring is a tough thing, especially when neither person has a firm grasp on the other’s language, but considering it was the first time, I think it went fairly well, and I’m looking forward to going back again next week!