English Tutoring Class

 

Many parents who choose international education may have such concerns. On the one hand, they recognize the education of international schools because it gives their children a broader perspective on the world. On the other hand, they worry about whether their English ability can quickly adapt to such a fully immersed English learning environment. Objectively speaking, this is indeed a big challenge for students who have never experienced an all-English class.

We received a lot of feedback from students. When they first entered the school, they had some language barriers as such, "I dare not speak English for fear of making mistakes", "I can understand the general meaning of the words in class", "I know what the meaning of the words is, but I don't know what the whole sentence means", and "I really want to express myself and participate in the discussion, but I don't know how to say it" and so on. First, it is quite normal for students to experience these situations, as they are going through huge changes in language and learning patterns and are being pushed out of their comfort zones. But these changes can be treated as invisible external forces that prompt students to reflect and take action to adapt to the change. Therefore, English Tutoring Class came into being. This article will introduce you to the English tutoring program of Sias IS from the following four aspects.

 

I. The Objectives of the Course 

Generally speaking, the purpose of English tutoring class is to help students improve their English. Of course, "improving English" is a very abstract term. Language ability can be divided into 5 major aspects: listening, speaking, reading, writing and vocabulary. So, the goal of our course is that students can:

1- Grasp the main information,and understand the class instruction;

2-Correctly, clearly and fluently express one's own views to carry out effective communication and interaction;

3- Be confident and proactive to express;

4-Master certain reading skills and improve reading speed;

5- Use correct grammar, tense and punctuation to complete the writing task;

6-Expand vocabulary, especially academic vocabulary related to class.

Sias IS focuses on student-centered education, so the learning objectives of this course are formulated by us based on the research of students' needs and the suggestions of the English teachers (especially the homeroom teachers). This ensures that those goals can better meet the learning needs of students.

 

 II. Selection of Class Materials   

The course material of choice is a systematic English for academics published by National Geographic named Pathways. The first reason for choosing this set of textbooks is that its content focuses on improving students' Academic English ability. Academic English refers to content related to classroom learning, not daily life communication. That is to say, the course content is are inforcement, supplement and support of the students' usual class content;Secondly, the ability modules of the textbook are clearly classified, that is,the combination of listening, speaking and reading and writing, and the combination of reading and writing can enable teachers to teach more carefully and give students more targeted guidance. Thirdly, the text materials in the textbook are all stories, cultures and facts from all over the world, which can fully mobilize students' interest in learning and broaden their horizons. In general, as an auxiliary means of the course, the whole set of textbooks can not only well meet students' learning needs in listening, speaking, reading,writing and vocabulary, but also meet Sias IS’ purpose of cultivating students with an international vision.
 

Overall, we hope that through the course, we can better help our students build confidence, lay a solid foundation for learning English language, so as to help them better adapt to the classroom, improve the efficiency of English class, and really gain something from the international education.