Disengaged student
Disengaged student
I used to be a secondary English teacher and now I tutor students. I am tutoring a year 9 home educated student who says he hates English.
We've been working together since September and I thought we had built a good rapport. However, for the last few months he was become completely disengaged. He gives one words answers and tells me that English is completely pointless. One big issue is that he claims AI will do English for him so he doesn't need to study it. He has little future ambition so the argument that AI cannot sit his exams doesn't get through to him.
I've tried lots of different ways to engage him and get him interested (I'll list some below), but I'm wondering if anyone has some fun ideas? I have a lot of scope as the parents are very happy for us to play games, etc if he is engaging with English a little bit. I feel like a lot of my other ideas only really work in a group setting.
It seems that when he's not challenged, he is bored, but if I offer challenge, he says it's too much effort and he cannot do it.
Things I've tried so far:
Various games and board games
Active lessons getting up and moving around
Escape rooms and other challenges
Texts related to his interests (war, the army, gaming, etc)
Teaching topics that he actually requested (such as looking at a specific Shakespeare play, but he showed no interest when it came to it)
All kinds of worksheets, matching activities, writing activities etc
Storyboards
There is neurodivergence present here so I know that might be playing a role and I will speak to the parents about whether they have ideas for getting him engaged, but if anyone has some fun activities to try I would be so grateful! I'm a bit stuck because I've never had a student resist enjoying English for so long, I am usually really good at turning that around!
TL;DR: 1-to-1 English student is completely disengaged and I'm hoping for some fun activity ideas to reduce his hatred of English!