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.
TEFL_FALL_2
Monday, December 16, 2013
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.
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