Kelly TP-2

My tutoring partner has a very difficult time with English I made a point to observe a Foundations Class first to see how teachers conduct their lessons with these beginner students. As it happened, I was quite fortunate to work with Michelle in class before tutoring her right after class.

Michelle is very new to the United States from Cote d'Ivoire and seems to be much more proficient in reading and writing English rather than speaking and language comprehension. I want to help her as much as I can, but am having a hard time getting this across to her. I have repeatedly requested in several ways that she tell me or show me things that she is working on in class so I can help elaborate on them, but I don't think she quite understands and I have not been able to determine too much. I did manage to see her school binder to get an idea of what she has been doing. She seems to be a very good student on paper assignments. 

I began our meeting by sharing some things I learned about Cote d'Ivoire. Something that has been so interesting about meeting people from so many cultures is the role dance takes in different communities. There is a Mask Festival every year in a city called Man in Cote d'Ivoire which reminded me of iconic mask dances I grew up with in Panama. We watched some brief videos of examples of Ivorian and Panamanian dance and looked at pictures of masks from both cultures. Although they are different, it is touching to see how human the need is to dance and express ourselves. 

                                                        Cote d'ivoire- Fetes d'Masques

                                                          Corpus Christie- Panama

I worked with her on some of her homework that was essentially a vocabulary lesson- fill in the blank with the appropriate word. She was easily able to pick out which words to use, but had an extremely difficult time pronouncing the sentences. I attempted to help her with this, and suggested that she exaggerate the ends of words. In French I believe that the final syllables in words tend to be pronounced more subtly. I also noticed there are some English words that sound like something different in French, which add to her confusion. (Six vs. Sept). For our next session I intend to research difficulties French speakers have with pronunciation of English and work on some common themes. It is a bit of pity to try conform her accent to accommodate English- when she speaks French its is quite beautiful and melodic. 

Because we have such a large language barrier I use google translate now and again. I will type and say things to her at the same time (perhaps repeatedly speaking the sentence in English) and translating it into French for her to read. Likewise, she will type in French for it to be translated into English and we repeat the English translation. I am trying not to rely on this tool too often, but in cases of scheduling and trying to figure out exactly what her goals/needs are, I find it to be an invaluable help.