Moses Tutoring #12

The second session of tutoring James went very well.  We reviewed the words from the first session and used them in very short conversations.  I worked with him on the past tense version of different verbs; want – wanted, need – needed, go – went, come – came, etc.  We also went around the room and I asked him what things he knew the name of.  The ones that he did not know, I gave him the names and we put up post-it notes on those items.  I also gave him a second vocabulary list of 20 words and we went through and discussed them.  After I explained what the words were, I let him put the meanings on the worksheet I created.  We talked about how to use these words, along with the items with the post-it notes and his first vocabulary list together.  Although the TEFL class is over, he and I plan to continue tutoring sessions for a while.  He is a very excited student and I really want to help him speak more fluently.

Moses Tutoring #11

The first tutoring session that I had with James was interesting for me because he was the first student that I had that was at a foundation level.  I don’t think that he even had enough English knowledge to hold a short conversation.  I tried to administer a few work sheet quizzes but I think that the level of the worksheets was too advanced.  What we decided to do was start with a short vocabulary list of 20 words each session, all of which were simple present tense that would allow him to hold conversations.  The first vocabulary list was groceries, bathroom, want, need, library, supermarket, convenience store, bus stop, direction, restaurant, building, clerk, program, theater, department store, bakery, pharmacy, repair (fix), direction, cost.  I gave him the list and Eric listed the French equivalents for James to study.  We also discussed (haltingly) how long he planned to be in the U.S. and his study plans.

Moses Tutoring #10

For the next session with Eric, I had to do quite a bit of prep work.  I put together a rather long list of common idioms and colloquialisms from several sources.  If anyone would like a copy of this, I would be happy to supply it.  I met him at his apartment and after exchanging pleasantries, we began to work on the list.  The first this I had him do was go through the list and write down what he though each one meant.  We then went through the list together and I corrected his mistakes with him.  He had done a really good job and was probably 60-75% correct on what each idiom meant.  I think that his day job had really helped him pick up many of these already.  After we corrected his work, I then asked him to use each of the idioms in a sentence.  His took a little more time, because although he had a good understanding of most of the meanings, usage and situational usage was a grayer area.  We talked about each one and proper usage, but also discussed which were usable in ordinary conversation, extremely casual conversation and formal or business conversation.  This was a much more difficult lesson than I expected and too a lot more effort on my part.  In the end, it was very rewarding to both of us.

Moses Tutor #9

On the final night of working on Eric’s paper, we went over it with a fine tooth comb.  We made sure his transitions were solid and that his tenses all matched and his spelling was perfect.  Again, we did a couple of read-throughs aloud.  By the time we finished, he felt comfortable that the paper was something he wanted to submit.  The final step was to go through the bibliography and make sure that each expert, quote and fact was from a listed source.  It took a while, but I am a real stickler for this and the bibliography covered everything by the time we finished and there were no unused sources listed.  After we finished, we discussed what we could cover in the next session and decided that he was excited and interested in a session devoted to colloquialisms and idioms.  He works at the Doubletree hotel as well as going to college and felt that having a better understanding of idioms would be of great benefit.

Moses Tutoring #8

In my fourth session with Eric, we read his second draft line by line.  He corrected many mistakes and I think he really benefitted from reading it out loud.  I have found that reading a paper out loud really makes many mistakes more glaring.  Although his English was advanced from Rafael, we found many of the same type of mistakes.  As we went through, he pointed out mistakes and I discussed the options with him on how to make the sentences more clear, concise and proper.  As we went on, he was able to make more and more of the suggestions on his own and choose a fitting result.  After we finished with the first run-through, we did a second run-through and a third.  By the time we finished, he was well on the way to a polished paper and we agreed that he would do another run-through on his own and we would go over it and work on the finished paper the next evening.  

Moses Tutoring #7

In my second session with Eric, we looked over the research that he had done and he opined to me his feelings about the issue.  We then set out to write an outline.  We chose 3 areas that were of controversy.  1) Is animal testing valid in its translation to human results; 2) Is animal testing necessary; and 3) Is animal testing humane and are there guidelines and safeguards.

The first paragraph talked about these three areas and he drew the hypothesis that animal testing was a necessary evil.  In the second paragraph, he compared the opinions of different experts from both sides of the issue and ended with the conclusion that if the right animal is chosen for the right category of disease, the results are very relevant to human anatomy. In the third paragraph, he came to the conclusion that results when animals were used, the efficacy rate of cures rose significantly over, say, modeling.  In the fourth paragraph, he could not way that the outlines were uniform in all labs and felt that they needed implovement.  In the final paragraph, he reiterated his position that, although not perfect, the benefits of animal test far outweighed its flaws.

We set up the next session for the next night.