Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Throw out the life-line
I had a baffling encounter with a foreign student this morning: I speak quickly and he speaks quietly, and together we managed to totally confuse one another. I stand in the front of the class and babble at a breakneck pace about news events and pop-culture icons of whom he is only vaguely aware; he sits in the back of the class and looks around as if hoping to pick clues out of the air, and then he approaches me after class and asks questions in a voice so soft I have to lean forward and ask for repetitions. I use a lot of humor, sometimes so subtle no one knows how to respond, but even the broadest laugh lines leave him baffled. Two weeks into the semester he's utterly at sea and I don't know what kind of rope I ought to toss, but I've got to do something. I can't just let the kid drown.
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2 comments:
Perhaps you could encourage him to use the wonder that is Google? Provide him with a written list of examples you used during class?
As for the humor, I got nuthin'. Translating humor is a most arduous task, if it is at all possible.
I suppose the best life-line would be ensuring him that he knows what material he must study to do well in the class.
Best of luck!
for cases like these, i suggest writing. make sure that you can provide clear notes for all students, and have this student in particular, write you in email with every question he or she has, then you can integrate your written response into more notes for the students. the thing with text, as compared to speech, is that it atemporalizes interpretation, and really you seem from you description to be having problems with 'time'.
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