Today, October 22, I met with my tutoring
partners for the first time.
Alyce: Brazilian. Speaks Portuguese. Preparing
for the TOEFL. Looking to start her undergraduate upon completion of her TOEFL
exam. Lives with Brazilians and speaks 80-90% Portuguese. Alyce learns best
through kinesthetic learning, as do the other tutee.
Ben: Ivorian. Enlisting in the Army in a month
and a half. Wants to improve his fluency and accuracy before entering the
military. Has lived in Tallahassee and NYC. Ben has lived in the US for 2.5
years. By far the most advanced of my tutees.
Xiaoyan: Chinese. Looking to start her
undergraduate program in Arts and Humanities Direction. Speaks 40% English.
Lives with two Chinese roommates. Xiaoyan is looking to learn new phrases that
fluent speakers use to convey a complex idea.
As a group we discussed learning ideas and the
common theme of 'non-classroom' topics came up. I decided that our next formal
lesson would be about high frequency idioms and idiomatic expressions. All of
my tutees agreed that they would prefer to discuss direct situations and
explore the American culture first hand(I wholeheartedly agree with this
approach because a hands on/kinesthetic teaching environment is something that
is very difficult to recreate in a classroom setting.
I had spoken with Ben the day before after observing
Professor Kim’s class and I remember him talking about how he wanted to improve
his English to communicate with his soldiers. I used this information to
discuss a simple device that we use everyday. The clock. I explained and illustrated
(using pinecones) that your six o’clock was behind you and your three o’clock
was directly to your right, etc. I also had trouble communicating where to meet
so I discussed the concept of caddy-corner, again using pinecones to
illustrate.
Nice, good way to make use of what you had on hand with the pine cones to illustrate a point. My conversation partners wanted to learn more about what to say in real life situations too, so I definitely think that's a common thread and a good place to start.
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