Your First Language Learning Tutoring Session

by Reid Wilson

First appeared: Language Learning # 18

A letter I recently sent to a friend who was beginning his language study the next day:

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Hi!

I thought I would write down a couple thoughts to pass on to you about your first language learning tutoring session. Of course we can talk about these either face-to-face or over the phone, but by writing them down I also have something I can show and discuss with your tutor when I visit with him this afternoon.

Of course all of the following are suggestions. I'm basing them on Greg Thomson's language learning approach. I know you've read his articles, but hopefully the following will be helpful as a review before you get in high gear.

I'll number them to make them easier for us to talk about in the future...

1) I'd strongly recommend for the first month that you don't worry about speaking much. Waiting will lower your anxiety level, which will help the words you're learning "stick"; it will free up time for major vocabulary absorption; it will give your ears a great opportunity to process the language and get an idea of the sound of it, which will aid future pronunciation; it will allow you to concentrate on processing language as a means of the communication of meaning; and it will keep in focus the focus of the first month: massive vocabulary acquisition.

2) In view of #1, when your tutor says a new word, I'd suggest that you not repeat it back. If you do, your tutor is likely to correct your pronunciation, and then you'll say it again, and back and forth and next thing you know your anxiety level is building and you're off track on your main goal for the time being. Similarly, if you tutor encourages you to speak, remind him that for now you're only interested in listening and comprehending.

3) Concerning your tutor, you may find it helpful to continually remind yourself that Greg's method is based on "comprehension-led learner-directed language acquisition." Concerning the learner-directed part, that means your tutor is really a "language resource person" and not a language teacher. You are in charge. You plan and direct the sessions. Of course, if you like suggestions your tutor makes, use them. But if you don't, politely suggest that maybe you can do that some other time... I'm working on training your tutor so that he can effectively guide someone using Greg's approach, but right now you are more familiar with the total package than he is. (His English isn't up to reading the 200+ pages that Greg has written, and while we've talked about the approach, he really needs to experience it and see it work well with a total beginner for him to fully understand and appreciate it.)

4) For your first session, I would recommend two basic activities. One is called Total Physical Response (TPR) and one is called Total Physical Response with Objects. (If the picture book was ready that would be a third activity. I've also got a book called "Lexicarry" that you can use starting in a couple of weeks.) 

5) With Total Physical Response, your tutor gives you basic commands such as "stand up" and "sit down", which you then respond to. (He will demonstrate each command when he first says it.) To some extent it is inevitable, but don't worry about English translations for what he is telling you. If he says something and then he stands up, stand up when he says that word--the fact that you are thinking "stand up" in English isn't necessary or perhaps all that helpful. The trick is to learn to process and respond to the language in and of itself without having to translate everything back to English.

Once you get the hang of things, coming up with new words isn't difficult. The time to not do it is in the middle of a tutoring session. You and your tutor can decide who will make the list of new words, but it might be easier for you to. I can help too. Here's a sample list of words you can use the first day. Of course you can modify this: stand up, sit down, walk, stop, turn right, turn left, turn around, raise your hand, raise your leg, lower your hand, lower your leg, come here, go there, walk backwards, clap your hands, stomp your foot, touch your head, touch your eye, touch your nose, touch your mouth, cough, smile, laugh, and cry.

If you ever give a word in English that you tutor doesn't know, just demonstrate it for him!

6) For your first day of Total Physical Response with Objects, I'd recommend bringing out a pen, a book, a piece of paper, a book bag, a cassette tape, an empty cassette tape case, a magazine and a newspaper, and then sit on chairs at a table. That gives you ten objects to learn. With these nouns you can easily learn these ten actions: point to, touch, pick up, put down, give me, take, put, throw/toss, catch, and turn over (flip). Learn to respond to the question "Where is the _____?". Finally, learning to respond to the phrase "Put the pen _____ the book.", you can learn spatial relationships like in, on, under, to the right of, to the left of, beside, between, in front of, behind, close to (near), and far from.

7) The key is to encourage your tutor to give you enough repetition and review. Ideally he would give you two words and keep repeating them until you've got them down, and then add a third, and then repeat the three until you have them down, and so forth. It may be that by the time you are on the 15th and 16th words the tutor hasn't gone back and reviewed the previous ones enough. Remember, you are "in charge" and can teach him how to best teach you. Numerous small minor corrections along the way, politely delivered and reinforced, will best produce the results you desire. Likewise, if you feel the two of you are going too slow, you can ask that things be sped up a bit.

8) I'd most strongly recommend taping your sessions. That way you can go back and listen to the tapes after the session is over. You can act out the commands physically or in your mind's eye. This is especially helpful since you want to devote this month to full time language learning but will only be meeting your tutor three times a week. In addition to tape recording, feel free to take the very last part of the session to have your tutor write down the words that you learned that day. This will also help you in getting used to the new alphabet.

9) Since you'll be meeting with your tutor for two hours, I'd recommend breaking your time up into two chunks with a short break in the middle. You could do TPR for the first chunk and then TPRO for the second. It make help do TPR in the living room and then TPRO at the kitchen table, as different locations may give more opportunity for your brain to link words to their meanings. (E.g. I remember hearing that word in the kitchen, so that means it must be one of ...)

10) I'd recommend that you keep track of how much time you spend talking with your tutor in English. Of course any friendship you develop will be based on English for now, but I'm guessing you don't want to spend a good part of your lesson time speaking English! Some days you will be tempted to speak English for all of your time--only you can be the judge of how you should spend your time and money, but pressing on even on the hard, tiring days will one day be rewarded with true language ability.

11) Finally, I know that you know this, but always remember that your tutor is much more than a source of linguistic information. He's a person, both an individual and part of the language community you would like to participate in. In his mind are more language and cultural knowledge than you will ever have about the community you are now living in. See your tutor as a gatekeeper. Allow him to let you in to his point of view, allow him to show you how his people do things and how they think about things, give him some grace when he does things that seem weird to you as an American, be a friend, and, above all, always be a learner. If you do these things, you will find yourself becoming more a part of his community and of his culture, and through that your language learning will increase at a rate that many others only dream about. And you'll make a great friend, too.

Have fun, and let me know how things go,

Your linguist friend