Don_M_TP #3 (Child)

I met a level 3 tutee over lunch.  This is the only time he will allow to meet.  He speaks only Arabic and English.  His major will be Civil Engineering.  He has past the TOFEL, and he says that he wants to work on vocabulary and writing.  He speaks English fairly well having been introduced to English at age six.  But his reading is just a bit choppy, and he has gaps in his comprehension.  He is aware of the lose of meaning in translation.  For past time, he bowls, watches movies and goes to the club.  I suggested several movies to watch, because of the both the level of dialogue and English speaking foreign actors being in the cast.  I gave him a JFK speak, and I asked him to highlight the new words before our next session.  Although he says that he want to work on writing, he is nearing the end of his year here.  So he may not be open to any ambitious writing project.



Don_M_TP-#3_Child
I met my 8 year old child tutee and his Korean mother at the county library.  She desires that he works on comprehension.  I brought books for grade 1-3 with me, but he had already selected a grade 3 StarWars book to read.  He is familar with the sections in the library. 

I let him read a page or two before stopping him.  Because of the large print and illustrations, this is only 2-5 paragraphs.  He would sometimes say the article 'a' for 'the' or vice versa.  I gave him a pass on this, because this is a common begining reader mistake.  But, I pointed to the words that he mispronounced, and I asked him to repeat them.  For example, he would say 'tree-fighter' in stead of 'trifighter' I would then ask him to write the word and underline 'fighter'.  After checking his understanding of the base word, I would introduce him to the suffix.  Finally, I would then ask him to explain the paragraph.

He then read a grade 3 that I brought with me on tigers on other big cats.  As with the first book, he easy reading conceals the fact that he is missing a lot of the content.  For example, one paragraph read, "...picked up the scent of a dead animal.  He followed his nose and found a dead donkey chained to a tree."  He knew that 'scent' related to 'smell'.  But when I asked what body part do we use to smell, he said it was one of our 5 senses.  I explained that we use our noses to smell, and I asked him for an example of smelling his favorite food.  Then, I asked him to re-read the paragraph and explain what was happening.

We next used online interactive ESL/EFL.  These included 1) dragging the name to the correct picture and pronounce the word, 2) a timed HollowScream spell checker with increasing levels of complexity, 3) crosswords, 4) use the letters provided to make as many words a possible in 3 minutes, 5) and Hangman.  He showed enthusiasm in all games, and he would seek to test his limits.  Folks, even I got stumped on some of these.

For the next session, I will follow the same agenda, and I will include a listening portion.