Jodie CP #2

I met with Serap for conversation.  Serap is in Group 1.  She is from Turkey and has a 2 year old son.  Serap has been in the U.S. for 4 years.  Her husband has been in America for 10 years and is the principal of a local school.  She speaks very little English, but is able to drive and get around.  She has no prior foreign language experience.  It was difficult to speak with her.  It could be that she is more reserved, and I am a stranger.  She also had a cold the day we met.

Although it was a conversation session, I had to help her as if we were in a tutoring session.  I asked her what she would like to learn, and she told me that she needed to work more on listening comprehension.  Sometimes, even after a few tries, she understood me only if I wrote certain words down on paper.  We worked on asking and answering questions using complete sentences, such as “Has your husband been here long?  Yes, he has been in America for 10 years.” Serap had real difficulty pronouncing any word that begins with a “w”.  They all came out like a “v” sound.

She shared with me about her family and the jobs that her siblings have.  When she described her father, she stumbled over the word “retired”.  I explained to her that it is an adjective.  There were words that she didn’t understand, even after I explained them to her.  She would finally have to pull out her phone to find the definition in Turkish.

Serap really wants to learn English.  She is motivated to learn.  I believe our next session will be much better when she does not have a cold.  I would like to help her to move forward with her goal.