Ready for Mussad?
Alright. Mussad Alharbi is The Man. He is from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is the capital city of Saudi Arabia. Mussad is a professor of Education at King Saud University, a very prestigious, maybe the most prestigious, university in Saudi Arabia. He’s also a writer, and back in Saudi Arabia tried to make it a point to read one short (~100 pages) book a day. He has a wife and at least one kid (both here). He’s looking to learn English to write his phD. So, his main focus is writing.
Brilliant!
My mom is a retired teacher, National Board of Education grant writer, school principal, and ran for Wakulla County School Superintendent (unsuccessfully…Yeah, let’s not talk about it) in 2008. She received her phD in Education. Father-teacher (briefly), Brother-in-law- teacher, My great aunt- retired teacher, retired Education lobbyist, great uncle- teacher. I know teachers. May not be a great one myself, but I know teachers.
This in mind, I’ll be bringing education articles (our house is packed with Ed. magazines and materials) for Mussad to summarize in writing. I offered to look for articles about Saudi Arabian education, but he wants to know about education in the U.S…Perfection.
Mussad has difficulty picking out the ‘just right’ word to use in his English communication. For instance, educational methods or educational strategies? Oooh, toughie. I tried to explain that methods is just used more, and a lot of these ‘particular’ words will just come with hearing repeated phrasing. Nevertheless, any help anyone can suggest to practice identifying exact phrasing would be awesome.
At this session, we worked on a simple expository writing, and identifying errors. I allowed him to go back first and try to find his own errors before I interfered. Then we took a Tallahassee Woman magazine, (sitting nearby) and I read aloud a short introductory paragraph about women having trouble with bone health in their later years (pg. 9)… I read it aloud at a moderate pace with very clear enunciation, and Mussad took 2 minutes or so to summarize. He did a great job. I’m trying to think of the skills he’ll need for intensive academic study, and I know note-taking, making, whatever, will be one of them.
Mussad would like to have one session a week dedicated to his writing skills and English improvement (tutoring) and one session a week dedicated to speaking skills (conversation partner-ing). At this point, I don’t know. I just don’t want to mix the two. I’ve tried hard to keep things very separate with my foreign friends. Anyone need a good conversation partner or Arab friend? Mussad is the man. I mean really, The Man. He'll get that phD and he'll do it with those just-right words. The Man.
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