Learning English is a Bit Like...Ummmm...Knitting?!

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Here in Israel, before being a staying at home mum I taught EFL. Yes, I was a teacher. But after Maya was born I gave up teaching because I didn't want my school problems to interfere with my job as a mum. And (mainly)because I hated being a teacher in Israel. The system is a pile of crap, the students are wild etc, etc. Anyhow, I have here and there a few private pupils, which I teach mainly because I don't want to loose my hand at teaching. One never knows...
So I have this one high school student, a very nice girl whose knowledge of English is somewhere near...zero. Nothing. Nada. Ziltch. She has no talent for it, she's also dyslectic, she doesn't really want to study, only to chat and send SMS's. I've been teaching her for an year and a half now and her mother insist that I continue. Yesterday evening I was at their place, preparing to start the lesson. Dialog:
She: What are we going to do today?"
Me: Well, we'll continue to work at your reading comprehension skills and then we'll check blah, blah...
She: But I don't want to (whiney voice) !!!It's booooring....
Me: I know honey, I know...
(Whay I wanted to say instead was: "I am your English teacher! I am here to teach you English! If you wanted an entertainer, why didn't you ask your mother for a clown???")
Me: (patting her hand): I know it is hard for you now, but it'll get better, I promise. Look,me, for example. I took up knitting. And it is very difficult for me, and frustrating and boring, because I don't knit well and I can knit only a scarf at this stage. But if I practice, I'll get better and I'll knit socks and hats and dolls for my daughter, and it'll be fun...
She: (unconvinced and with a smug smile on her face, directed to my incapability to knit):O.K., O.K., but could we do writing instead."
And so "we"ended by writing writing letters, she wrote them in Hebrew and I, for two bloody hours, I translated and explained and exemplified (meanwhile, she kept cheking her mobile phone for SMSs every couple of minutes).