Greg - CP # 9

Today I met with one of my tutees (but as a CP) and her brother.  They are from Korea.  We found a room at CIES where we could just sit and converse.  Other than a small vocabulary notebook, no notes or grammar agenda were presented. We just went for fluency and some correction.

Sangyi and Sangwook are very pleasant and friendly.  They are soft-spoken and polite.  It made me miss my two years in Korea.  My springboard topic for our time together was simply, "So, tell me what's been going on in your lives."  The topic was ripe fruit in Sangwook's opinion, and he picked it immediately.  School work is snowballing for him, and he expressed that he had no solution for how to face it nor how to reduce the resulting stress.  He identified how the situation has arisen due to both time management problems and a personality that includes slowness and  perfectionism. We discussed this further, with his sister chiming in with her insights and suggestions. It was a nice, informal three-way conversation that included brother/sister dynamics expressed in English.  I was able to offer a strategy for forward progress that would  increase confidence and begin pulling him out of what he called his "slump."  He seemed to like the illustrated strategy I presented to him, and said he was going to try following it.

Both of the siblings talked about other things the are planning to do as a family (their parents are here on sabbatical) over the next few months to a year.  We discussed plans for a cruise to the Caribbean, spending Thanksgiving and Black Friday in Orlando, and the fact that their mother is eagerly studying English somewhere else. We also talked about their past experiences of an internship in business (sister) and about a summer college program that gave a taste of graduate student research (brother).  Both are no longer considering graduate school for now.  We also discussed their personal plans after this session.  Both were actively involved in the conversation.

Both Sangwook and Sangyi are willing to speak, ask questions, and listen attentively to whoever is speaking. Neither is able to produce sentences without multiple grammar and pronunciation errors.  They are very aware of grammar rules, but are relatively inexperienced in productive speech due to limited prior opportunities.  I could understand what they said 90 percent of the time.  There was a time or two where I or one of them had to basically ask, "What are you trying to say?"

I enjoyed our family chat very much!