Written by Loretta Liu
Edited and posted by Matthew Yang
On 2/6/21, I held the English teacher Voov session. For this session, I had two students, Allison and Jingyi. The meeting started at 8 pm and ended at 9 pm.
For this session, I wasn’t aware there were going to be two students so I was trying something new. I decided to continue with reading on the Uniteforliteracy website. The lesson was very simple. We would read books on the website and they would read after me. Allison would read first and I would help her with pronouncing words and/or fixing her pronunciation. As usual, I would correct their pronunciation while they read. After reading a page, I would ask if they have any questions regarding vocabulary or what happened on that page. Sometimes, I would explain some words that I think they should know even if they didn’t ask questions regarding it.
Since this session had two students, I felt like I wasn’t prepared. For this class, we the students would take turns reading a sentence on the page. Since there were two people, I felt the reading aspect and the balance between vocabulary and difficulty for the books were more difficult. Based on my observations, the students’ understanding and level of English were also different. Allison didn’t need a lot of explaining or had a lot of questions with vocabulary while Jingyi had more questions and a harder time understanding some parts. Due to the differences in their English level, it was also harder to find books that were suitable for both. I also had trouble focusing and helping them because there were more people and it was hard to find a place to help with one. I think an activity that involved reading wasn’t very fitting for this situation and a game may have been more interesting and engaging for both of them.
Overall, this session allowed both teacher and student to learn from each other, and to better prepare for their next class together!
