How To Teach English At Home? How I Taught English One To One At Home

My Home Tutor Experience
I used to be a home tutor. I taught British England. I began in England.

I was teaching primary school age, basic English.

Now I would ask my pupils to read Wikipedia articles in their own language - and then in English.

You can also get Wikibooks.



But when I first started, things were more basic.

I also taught English conversation to Japanese ladies. Their husband's company, when it sent a Japanese worker overseas, paid for the wife to have English lessons.

My first lesson was explaining the meaning of labels on tins and packets of food.

The big surprise for my pupil, was that pictures of animals were not of the products she expected. A picture of a cow meant not meat nor beef fat but butter. Other pictures of cows illustrated milk.
























But a picture of a dog was not dog meat to eat but pet food. Pet food is not for human consumption!

O and A level
Then I helped teach O level to pupils such as a little Japanese girl. Then my O level pupil went on to A level.


Then I taught Koreans.

Teaching Maths & French
My most challenging lessons were teaching Maths and French for the first time to Koreans. I tried to refuse, but the parents could not find other teachers. They turned up asking me to teach English in the first half of the lesson, half an hour, and 15 minutes helping with French and 15 minutes helping with maths.

I protested: "I don't teach maths or French. I teach English."

The mother told me: "It is English. He not understand instructions in English. I show you. What is multiplication? What is subtraction? Answers are back of book. But no understand questions!"

Sure enough, the answers were at the back of the book. But sometimes he got the answer wrong, and wanted to know why.

I looked. I asked him how he reached the answer. I saw why he got the wrong answer. He had added instead of multiplying. To my amazement, I found I could teach simple arithmetic. Providing I had the workbook and the answers at the back.

You can buy workbooks with the answers, in the UK from the stationery shops or online for all levels. You can correct the pupil's work. Or they can correct their own work.

For a teenager or adult, the children's work books, carefully graded, are a good way to start methodically.

Soon you will find that teaching is satisfying. Teaching is fun. So is learning.

The First English Lesson
When I was a home tutor, I gave the parent a list of items the pupil needed.

Stationery
A pen and pencil and ruler and notebook. Lined paper with a margin printed or drawn. The pupil's name, age, and date and page number on ten pages. A small notebook for vocabulary. A4 paper for an essay.

Books
A book of poetry. A novel or work of fiction.

Download from wikibooks.
Wind In the Willows. 1908. Out of Copyright.

A magazine or newspaper or factual book. Underline works they don't know.

Homework. The pupil came to the first lesson with two A4 sides written about their family. And/or why they were attending lessons and what they hoped to achieve.

The lesson was in three parts. We started with the pupil reading aloud their essay. I paid some compliments and corrected pronunciation and grammar. And structure.

We read from the work of fact.

We read from the fiction. We discussed style.

From the essay I found the writer's favourite subject, which could be a foreign country, or football or a sport or pets. We discussed the next essay subject, and what to tell the reader. The lesson was over, usually all too soon.

My best pupils were one of the Korean families. I spoke to the parents on the phone on the Friday evening about eight a clock at night. I told them what the pupils, their two twin boys, should bring the next day.

Next morning at 10 am they all arrived. To my amazement they had brand new folders and pristine paper sets of new pens and clean, new dictionaries.

They had got up early and driven to the shopping mall and parked outside, ready for when the shops opened. They had dashed inside, bought what was needed, then driven to my house.

Another pupil in England who had the right attitude was from a family of Indian origin. This girl gave me four A4 sides of an essay on her family. No grammar mistakes. No spelling mistakes. Everything had been checked with two dictionaries.

I asked her, "Why do you need an English teacher?"

She replied, "Because I came second in my class. I want to be top!"

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
duolingo.com

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages. See my other posts on destinations and languages. Please share links with your friends.

Hurricane and Disaster Packing and Preventing Damage

Problem
How do you prepare for a storm or hurricane.

Answer
At last, a comprehensive sensible plan in one place.

Much of it is common sense but it takes time and effort to organize and you need a list. A hurricane is not a holiday. It's bad enough on holiday to find you don't have enough money, food, or drinking water, sunglasses or underwear.

Which tips do I like the most? What do I remember.

Clothes:
Hats
Boots - waterproof boots for wading.
Socks - Quick dry synthetic fabrics. Spare socks.
Gloves - heavy duty gardening gloves for removing debris without getting hands scratched.
Clothes - layers for all weathers.

Bags
Folding carry bag in pocket. Bags for food.
Sealed boxes like Tupperware.
Insulated bags for hot or cold food or to keep food from insects and bears.
Drinking bottle.

Securing Your Property:
The fact that people die from drowning and flying objects. One of the first tips is:
1 Bring in objects such as children's toys from the garden.

Another is to:
2 Secure windows. Keep away from windows during storms to avoid flying glass.
3 Pull curtains. (So looters can't see tempting objects and flying glass is contained.

Prepare a
1 Go bag.
2 Sufficient water and food for three days for every member of the family including babies and pets.
3 Any family medicines, prescriptions and a first aid kit.
4 Torch (Americans say flashlight)
5 Originals or copies of ID, passports, credit cards, bank account numbers, birth certificate, driving license, and marriage certificate, and
6 INSURANCE DOCUMENTS - car, health, household, life, whatever.
7 Prescription for replacement varifocal glasses.
8 Binoculars. (Or use camera to take photos of distant objects and increase size.)

On a holiday you might leave documents and valuables behind. When evacuating a building which could be looted or destroyed you are more likely to need documents and valuables.

Just like a day or weekend trip:
Travel and Accommodation
1 Plan your route out.
2 Book your night's accommodation.
3 Have a backup plan if the accommodation is full. (Know the local evacuation centre.)

Communication
1 Have a family member out of state for everybody to call.
2 Have a radio.
3 Don't use landlines with wires during lightning strikes.
4 Keep pets nearby so you don't have to chase around hunting for them.
5 Fully charged phone. Adapters and plugs, and adapter plugging into car cigarette lighter to charge phone.
6 When email and phone won't work, a text message may be quicker and easier to get through.

6 Car -
1 Near house
2 Covered - in garage. So it won't get damaged, blocked in, float off, hurl itself against the house or people.
3 Garage key and car key handy. Maybe in your jacket pocket, either jacket pocket you are wearing or on hook beside front door and everybody else in house knows where.

In case you are trapped in the house:
1 Mobile phone in your pocket.
2 Ski jacket with built in wearer locator device used in avalanches.
3 Cereal bar in pocket or hiker's energy bars.
4 Phone alarm in pocket set to ring hourly or old fashioned alarm clock to ring hourly to tell dogs and searchers where you are if you are too weak to keep shouting or are unconscious.
5 Army dog tag or necklace with your name - you may have an old one in your jewellery box.

You might want to invest in:
1 Ski jacket with wearer finder.
2 Phone with printer attached. (Use it to take a selfie and print a photo for a new identity document.)
3 Window in roof to escape or wave flag to signal you need help during flooding.

Train Children
How to phone for help. Information to give: Your name. Condition of adults. Location of house. Location of your place inside house. Nearest outside door. Dangers. Help needed. Advice needed while waiting for help.
Place notices on help lines and evacuation centres by phone and front and back doors and beds.
Lock guard dogs away to prevent them from attacking or deterring rescuers entering house.

Medicines
Divide medicines into two.
You may need medicine boxes to show the hospital pharmacy which medicines you take.
On the other hand, some of my local hospitals throw away all medicines brought in by patients. Why? Costs you money. Sounds outrageous. means you have no pills when you get home. Why do they do it? Because they have previously had trouble with patients bringing in pills.
To prevent:
Patients forgetfully taking double doses by taking hospital pills plus their own.
taking pills whose contents increase the dose or counteract other ingredients in the hospital given pills
suicidal patients in pain taking the whole bottle of pills
visiting children thinking pills are sweets and eating them
pills taken at times not recorded by staff
patients with Alzheimers saying they just took the pill when they didn't.

Tips
https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-prepare-stay-safe-tropical-storm-or-hurricane-ncna796676

Author
Angela Lansbury