On Friday night when Ladji came over for dinner we had a tutoring session that was to be very distinctly separate from our conversation meeting set to occur later that night. Over all Ladji's placement in CIES is pretty good but he struggles with two things and they are listening (which seems to be most young language learners problem) and composition. Upon hearing this I thought that us talking through his tutoring lessons and our conversation partner meetings would help his listening, so I decided to take a look at his composition.
Before I was able to give him a topic that he could write on for a few minutes so that I could get a base line on his writing skills, he mentioned that he had just started to write an essay that was due Monday. He already had two paragraphs plus an outline already written. After taking a look at this plus a few more examples of his writing I noticed that he struggle with verb tenses and comprehending the prompt.
To help him gain a better understanding of the topic I asked him to read the prompt and then the first two paragraphs of his paper trying to get him to noticed that he was writing a paper that was completely opposite of the actual prompt. Even though I had him read it twice aloud he did not understand that he was backwards until we chatted about it. I chose not to focus on spelling and grammar problems based on the fact that the content of the essay were incorrect all together not just the spelling. Throughout the rest of the tutoring session I was able to give him some new inspiration about his new subject matter that was on topic. After we had an outline we concluded the tutor time and switched until conversation partners for the remainder of the evening.
This is a great example of how clarity of the prompt is fundamental to writing, and how reading/listening comprehension can effect production. I think you were right to take the time to focus on this before anything else. Glad that you could help him on his work!
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