I have been tutoring for a whole year now and I have spent really amazing time with my pupils.
At first, as a non-native English speaker, I was worried that there would be lots of colloquialisms and slang that I wouldn’t understand and that I’d struggle with the tutoring. However, although there have been times when my pupil has used slang – often to do with football, which although I love, there seems to be a never-ending set of slang words – I have found that this hasn’t stopped me!
In fact, it has been a great way to win the trust of the pupils who I work with. They can teach me the football terminology and I can teach them about grammar (and
other topics). I have woven football into my lessons in more than one way; one week I used a football report as a piece of grammar practice material, another week they wrote their own report on an imaginary game.
I have found that the one-to-one nature of the tuition allows me to tailor the lesson to meet the interests of the pupil and that this helps engage them on topics that, to some, can be seen as a little dry. It is also great that I’ve worked with the same pupil each week, this means I’ve really seen the pupils progress which is so great to see and is the reason why I first signed up to volunteer.
They year has flown by and I have loved every moment. I am looking forward to continuing tutoring for the rest of this academic year and into the next one. Who knows, with the way Newcastle are improving, maybe next year my pupil will be able to write a factual match report about them winning the league…