Greg - TP Adults # 3

I enjoyed my tutee's yesterday.  All three came to our session from 4 - 5 p.m.  Songji was sleepy, Jessica was a bit shy with her English, and Saif was his usual, animated self.  They took an active role in clearing the room of others who were studying, asking them to join other students in a different classroom.  This, I think, gave them some ownership of our session together. 

We followed the three topic approach to our sessions that I laid out last week:  Pronunciation Practice, Grammar, followed by Culture.

Pronunciation was spent on an video guiding us through the rules, rationale, and repetition (both of phrases and complete sentences) for the topic, "Connected Speech."  This concerns how we connect words that end in a consonant with a words that start with a vowel ( how "Stop it" becomes "Sto pit") or how words ending with a consonant connect to words beginning with a consonant that has the same sound (how "Not today" becomes "Notoday").  We paused the video during repetition so that, like our textbook says, they could hear both the video and me pronounce the connection a couple of times with them just listening, and then having them repeat as a group and as individuals.  I explained to them what our book said about them needing to learn to listen, remember the sound, and make self-corrections as they remember the correct sound as it compares to the sound coming out of their mouths.

We changed topics after the video to Grammar.  The topic was prepositions.  I had them dictate three sentences on the board that I read from an internet lesson for the topic.  I then briefly explained, using those sentences (after we corrected them together), how prepositions show the relationship between what comes before it and after it.  We looked at usages of prepositions (location, direction, placement) and lists of corresponding prepositions.  We practiced by moving objects (including ourselves) and having them describe the direction, placement or location of the object with a complete sentence using the correct preposition.  "In" and "on" were often confused.  "Beside" and "behind" were also confused.  The correct choice was made about 75 to 80 percent of the time.  Also, they were practicing the complicated process of speech and not simply making a choice of which preposition to use.  Therefore, other grammar had to be occasionally corrected (for example: missing verb and wrong verb tense). 

We concluded with Culture.  Using the computer again (modeling how they can find resources), we took about 4 minutes and ran through the pronunciation of the 50 states  of America (plus D.C.).   They were surprised by some states being pronounced differently from their spelling (Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois - with or without the "s").  One student thought that we had added some states recently.  Anybody out there know if we need some new stars on the flag?  I assured them all that we are still at 50.

I asked for their feedback, and they each said the lesson was very helpful.  For that, I am thankful.