Miss Tortoise

October, 2011
       I was surprised when my student named Ella (unreal name)came to see me. She cried while sharing her problem. She said, "Mom, I hate my friends. Why they always call me "Miss Tortoise"?. Am I like that , mom?" They sometimes call me “Miss Donkey”. Am I as silly as donkey, mom? Mom, I want to be like you. You are a great teacher. My friends really appreciate and respect you. I want to be treated like that. “

       Hearing her words, I just smiled. Then I tried to make her calm. "You are not tortoise or donkey, dear. You are human. You are a sweet girl. I believe that you are not as silly as they think. 

Then I asked her, “Do you wanna be appreciated and respected by your friends?”

"Yes, I really want it, mom",  said the shy girl.

       I was silent for a while to find the solution of the problem. Then, I told her to do some steps below:

1. Be calm down when your friends insult you. Consider that your friends’ bad words become a spirit for your better life. Don’t show a little bit of anger. Face them by “smile” and say “thanks”. 

In this case, I also taught her how to reply their insult by using soft words meaning deep there that will make them speechless.

2. Prove that you are not silly in their eyes. Deepen and master something incredible that you believe your friends can’t do it.

In my mind at the time, most of my students got problem in mastering English. So, I asked her to make effort in mastering the subject.

       She felt that the steps were good ideas and she believed that she could do them all well. 

From her face, I could see her strong willingness to change herself.

       The following day, I asked her to do the first step . I observed what she did at school. At first, she felt doubtful to do it. She was only silent. No action was found  at all there. As the result of this, their friends kept insulting her that finally made her cry. I could see that they felt very satisfied with what they did to her. How naughty they were.

       Seeing this, I called her to see me in my room. I reminded her to do the first step I had offered her. I reminded her about her previous willingness. 

The following day, She did the step. How happy I was, seeing this. She finally could do it very well.

A week later, she told me with cheerful face that her friends did not insult her anymore. That was the good first step.

       To make the second step come true, l had her come to my house once a week for a private course. To my surprise, handling this girl was not as easy as ABC. She was forgetful. What I taught just came in and went out in a short time.  For a second grade of Senior High school, she should have had a lot of vocabularies so she could understand a reading text and finally could do the questions after the text. The fact I got, She was blind in vocabularies. I was so frustrated that forced me to think harder how to find the best method of teaching for her. 

  

Then  I made a schedule as follows:

No	Meeting	Target	Material	Teaching Activities	Further Actions
1	1 st – 4th Week	Analyzing her problems she had Mastering vocabulary Understanding short text	-Private approaching -New or difficult vocabularies with their meaning (English Indonesian) available on texts -Short narrative text -Short report text -short analytical exposition text	Sharing all the problems she had at the time	Offering a solution for the problems she had   Giving motivation by reminding her previous willingness
				Matching English words and their meaning in Indonesian	Recording the English words and their meaning in Indonesian gotten in a mobile phone
				Translating the English text into Indonesian with the vocabularies memorized	Listening to the recording result in spare time
				Doing questions based on the text	Asking her family to give her questions about the words
				Memorizing vocabularies gotten	Making wall notes stuck on the wall of her bedroom
				Asking questions about the words	Observing her progress by giving more attention via phone, message
2.	5th – 6th	Reviewing the previous meeting	Previous Vocabularies	Memorizing English words and their meaning in Indonesia	Doing the same to previous actions
				Making sentences by using the words
3.		Refreshing mind	New vocabularies	Taking her at the supermarket and talked everything coming out from her mind	Rewrite her experience on her diary
4.	............	.....................................	..........................	.......................	.....................
5.	etc	....................................	..........................	.......................	.....................

        I made the schedule and did all of plans slowly but steadily. It, of course, took a lot of time to make her master all of the materials. Finally, I could see a progress of hers. She could get 7, then increased to be 7,5 then 8 in her repetition / quiz at her school. As I knew, she always got 5 before. It was a great thing for me though she hadn’t had a perfect mark. I said to her,”I’m proud of you, Ella. You are great”. She was so happy to hear my words.

        In an occasion, she told me that her teacher asked her and her friends to retell a narrative story in front of class. I thought it was a great time to show her quality to her friends.

        For a week, I trained her to speak. She never gave up though she often made mistakes in pronunciation or forgot what she should say. I asked her to repeat...repeat..and repeat again to make the perfect one. I still remembered, I   spent 2 hours at home and it was continued at a restaurant for 2 hours too while having dinner. 

       Thanks God, the day of the moment came. Two students did it well. Then, the teacher asked the others in the class to do so. Nobody stood up. A few minutes later, The students were surprised by  “Miss Tortoise” coming forward and retold a narrative story perfectly. Since then, nobody underestimated her capability. 

“Yes, I could do it. Thanks mom.” She telephoned me after doing the second step I asked her, proving that she was not as silly as donkey.