Mental Acuity vs. Self-Esteem

I have recently been teaching SAT to various students in the Philippines of whom are from Korea. Their ability to learn English SAT is a struggle for them, but is also in the same sense, extremely inspiring for me.

I have a student who we will call “Calvin”. He is from Korea and is finding learning the SAT very draining. I have been noticing some emotional issues with him. He has not shown any aggression of any sorts, but I can tell from his body language that he feels “stupid”.

I have been “experimenting”with him (in a manner of speaking). Keep in mind the students do not know what “level” the drills are: 

I gave him a few Critical Reading exercises. The first one was a Level 3 drill with which he had to read 4 paragraphs and then answer seven (7) questions; he got all of the answers wrong.

The next passage was a Level 4 drill. When he was done, I verbally asked him what the answers were. Even though some of the answer choices were incorrect, I resounded with around 80% of them being correct. His attitude changed within a matter of minutes.

For the final passage, being a Level 5, I told him to underline the words in the paragraphs that he didn’t understand. After doing so, I asked him if those same words are in the answer choices. He responded with, “No”. After he had answered the questions, he actually got 75% of the answer choices correct.

After my research in neuroplasticity, most of what we learn has to do with our feeling of self-worth and “knowing” we are synaptically limitless.