The kids I babysit are now addicted to Temple Run

I may have mentioned in earlier posts, but to supplement my income as a teaching assistant I have taken several additional tutoring/babysitting jobs. Working for four different families as well as the 12-15 hours a week I do at my schools fills up my weeks pretty quickly, but I like it that way. Anyways, I love every family that I have worked with so far, though it is fascinating to me to see their differences and thus the different ways they want me to interact with or tutor their children.

The family that I work with most often has two children, boys aged 8 and 6. I babysit them three days a week after school. But aside from picking them up from school and watching them while their parents are at work, my main job is to speak to them in English. They do understand me pretty well, seeing as how they've been learning English in school since kindergarten, and they go to class at the British Council on weekends. So it works out pretty well, and they always surprise me with how quickly they advance even from day to day. They're speaking isn't that great yet, so mostly I just speak to them in English and they speak to me in French (which often leaves me tongue tied, as my brain continually tries to respond to them in French also). Though I am not explicitly teaching them English, this approach seems to coincide with all the research I have read and studied regarding acquisition of a second language at a young age. And I really do see results; it is evident to me that each and every day they improve.

However, their parents insist that I do exercises with them in their workbooks, and make them write out sentences, and basically assign them homework in addition to their full week of school, the homework they do for about 30 minutes after school, and the hours they spend on Saturdays at the British Council.  I must remind myself that I am in no place to argue with the parents on how to raise their children, yet it is hard for me to force myself let alone to force them to do this much structured work. Especially when even in my training sessions we are taught to avoid teaching writing to the youngest learners (6-7 years old, who barely even know how to read and write in French) and we are taught to rely on games or more "dynamic" learning strategies. And thus, after an hour of excruciatingly slow and dull French homework and then English lessons, I somewhat reluctantly gave my iPhone to the youngest to fool around with while the oldest finished his homework... and lo and behold, he discovered Temple Run. Now they can hardly talk about anything else. They keep saying that my game is "trop bien", which is similar to "très bien" but instead of being "very good" it means "too good".  I justify it by saying that I only let them do it after they've finished their homework, and that I have been teaching them the phrases "turn left", "turn right", "jump over that", "slide under that", and "quick get those coins!". That's legitimate vocabulary, right?

This general philosophy seems more espoused in my interactions with another family I work with, a family with four kids (ages 3-9) with whom I work once or twice a week for two hours. The parents are still in the house, so I am not babysitting, my job is purely to expose them to a native english speaker. We play games, we read books, I tell them stories, we play dress up, basically anything as long as it involves speaking english. These children do have an advantage, because their mother spoke to them in English so we communicate almost seamlessly. As opposed to the other boys, the only writing or spelling involved in their play is hangman; I use monopoly to teach them about money; I am reading them Roald Dahl to help expand their vocabulary. These approaches couldn't be more different, and while one is definitely more fun for me (even after all of my education I'm still basically an 8 year old inside) I must make them both work. I guess we won't know which is better until the end of the year...