Sounds like you are keeping things in perspective. you may want to go to your school folks again with some of your concerns...to CYA. It sounds like you are a good teacher and she may not be a good student.
bizi

Waves,

Yes, most people studying foreign language have unrealistic notions going in. That is ok.

Some ideas:
Perhaps let the student do more review between now and the end. Let her become comfortable with the part that she has learned.
Let her feel that she has learned something.
Also, flat out tell her what she has learned --- you can type a list.
This can help her feel good about her progress.
Remember, you are not teaching the subject. You are teaching the student.

M

Maybe this helps: Think of teaching as a customer service. In this class you are not determining a grade and do not need to show results.
The product you are producing is how the student feels about her language training.

. . . .some thoughts.. . .in case they help.

M

Dear Mari

i get what you are saying, but really, i have never seen such a vast gap between ability and expectations.

i believe the big problem here could be that she is unaware how much her limitations impact her ability to learn a second language. and it isn't something i can tell her any more than i already have, gently suggesting that everyone has their own pace, .... bla bla bla bla.... i've tried and tried, but i can't say something that might insult her, much less clobber her with a mallet which i think is what it would take (dad's suggestion).

as for teaching the subject not the student or vice-versa.

i am doing the best that i can. that is all i can do.

i am exhausted and frustrated, and worried that this is somehow going to come back at me. In both of the previous classes she attempted ... and abandoned after a while, she attributed her inability to learn anything to some aspect of the classes. I talked to pdoc about this and he says that my ambivalence at this point is probably tied to a very realistic concern that this could happen here, as well. He thinks the stress is also why i dumped 4+ lbs so suddenly... he feels that is a physical manifestation.

oh. i just saw your last post.

i think maybe i misled you? i do not know whether or not i will be asked to show results. that is a concern at this juncture.

i appreciate all your advice and insight, and just your walking with me through what has become an increasingly difficult and exhausting process for me.

~ waves ~

i have exercises to do again.... i want to just go to sleep. i am sooo tired.

these ones are hard. meaning a lot, and have to think carefully how to produce gradual difficulty. my text does not do this. ack.

mom is making me a cup of tea. it will be a late night. it feels like 4 am already and it's only 11.30pm.

if i trusted myself to get up at 5, i'd do them then... but knowing me i'd kill the alarm and sleep till noon.

~ waves ~ yawwwnnning

Dear Waves,

Good luck with the exercises.
I hope you are rested well enough tomorrow.

M

hi everyone.

usually when i have any sort of difficulty with someone i try to talk to them directly. in certain situations this is impossible, but if it is possible i think it is the best solution. so after sorting myself out (it has helped to talk about things with you guysthanks, my parents, and pdoc) that's what i did.

Today i had a good ol' heart-to-heart with my student!

i told her that some of her questions had caused me great concern wrt her expectations and i didn't want her to end up disappointed sooner, later, or down the line. she explained where she was coming from and delucidated somewhat. She was largely preoccupied about overcoming her fear of speaking without making mistakes. i told her that the only way to overcome that, in my experience, was to accept that she was going to make mistakes because it was completely normal in a second language. i decided to make some clear and blunt statements about what "fluency" in a second language means and how long it takes. I gave examples of people i know, their abilities and limitations even after decades of use.

at that point i asked how she felt about her progress in our class in general - did she feel that she was gaining something from the course. she said she was very happy with the course because despite not studying or hitherto studying improperly she saw herself moving forward. she also said she was glad to have finally found a good teacher! ( well wow!!! ok...)

we also talked about whether she wanted to go on and the fact that i wanted to use a textbook... got her on board with that. let her know i would need a break in between she was good with that too.

-------------------

dealy with the school i figure is, as long as the paying client is happy, the school will be happy, independently of what we have covered. so i no longer have real concerns with how far i get her. i will try to get her as far as i can, obviously.

anyway. i feel much better about the whole situation, and my student is also on board with eventual "going forward" plans.

------------------

today we did not get through all of what i planned, but i am nixing a test and shifting the last test to session-before-last. we talked about that too. good news is she did her homework in the way that i had asked her too (even though she didn't really study the unit.) so i re-emphasized the necessity of studying, stating redundantly that it was not optional. i then instructed her on how to study the different types of material contained in the module.

~ waves ~

Way to go Waves Bravo !!!!

To me that is a good teacher. The way to do it.


Donna

that is great waves.!
happy for you, great to hear a compliment! We know you are a good teacher but it is nice to hear it isn't it?
((((HUGS))))
bizi

Dear Donna and Bizi

thank you

i appreciate your support.

it is nice to have everything settled. i do feel so much better. not so much for the compliment (but yes - always nice). the way things were starting to go was becoming quite scary to me, especially with the arrangement having a "commercial" component.

it would have shaken my confidence to its foundations, had i not already had plenty of positive feedback from prior teaching experiences. When i taught courses at a center, the feedback came through anonymous reviews - which tend to be more frank/reliable than what many adults might say to one's face. I also had direct feedback from many of my highschool kids when i left. If not for those experiences, this one would most likely have elicited a mood dive, and i would have started thinking i must be a horrible teacher.

I did ask myself constantly if there was something else i might do, or something i might do differently with this student. I did approach things differently with her in various ways. It still turned out I hadn't fully tuned in to her. Granted, it was pretty hard for me to imagine an adult was not studying when they said they were. (When i finally got around to "checking with her" what was being studied and how, it was enlightening.) With additional experience, surely that "leap" won't be so... ehhh "difficult" for me to make, hehe.

This experience is turning out to be instructive for me and an eye-opener in many ways, not just because of the new challenge of formal lesson design, but also in learning to relate to someone with difficulties of varied nature. still much work for me to do in that area i see, especially in terms of mental adjustments.

~ waves ~