I had my first tutoring session today with Abdullah, who also happens to be one of my conversation partners. I made it abundantly clear to him that our tutoring sessions were to be the business side of our relationship, and the CP sessions the fun side. He agreed, and proposed a couple of areas that he'd like to see improvement in: speaking and composition.
Abdullah's ultimate goal here is to be accepted into the FSU engineering program, for which he must pass the TOEFL test and take the ACT. As I understood, the TOEFL has an essay portion, which Abdullah is concerned about. He showed me a 500 word essay he is working on-it has already been marked up by a teacher-and I was able to make some quick observations concerning his writing skills. He could use a wide range of vocabulary, but not necessarily in the appropriate context. Perhaps a vocabulary session will be in store. I also suggested we could come up with topics to both write about, so that he may see my writing.
Abdullah asked me to correct him whenever he made a mistake speaking. I found myself correcting his tenses quite often (i.e. 'I go to restaurant yesterday), so I should dedicate a session to verb tenses. He also tends to rush his speech which makes him difficult to understand. Some recital lesson could help there methinks, perhaps a role playing dialogue or have him read a speech slowly and carefully, enunciating properly (MLK's 'I Have a Dream' would add a cultural element, being one of the greatest speeches in American history-it has some difficult vocab but pronunciation is the goal here).
Abdullah asked me to correct him whenever he made a mistake speaking. I found myself correcting his tenses quite often (i.e. 'I go to restaurant yesterday), so I should dedicate a session to verb tenses. He also tends to rush his speech which makes him difficult to understand. Some recital lesson could help there methinks, perhaps a role playing dialogue or have him read a speech slowly and carefully, enunciating properly (MLK's 'I Have a Dream' would add a cultural element, being one of the greatest speeches in American history-it has some difficult vocab but pronunciation is the goal here).
I like how you are thinking, Dhugal. Reading aloud can help focus on pronunciation, as well as slow down speech. You can also try to have him slow down his rate of speech, and interrupt him with an "Excuse me? I didn't understand" to bring attention to the error and have him repeat what he wants to say more accurately. Great work!
ReplyDeleteHey Dhugal, Have you ever seen The Kings Speech? Perhaps you could try a few techniques from the movie. What occurs to me immediately is to bring a tape recorder to your sessions so that he hears how he sounds, his speed and pronunciation. Verb tenses seem to be a killer for nearly everyone...I wish him the best of luck!
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