My second meeting with Nimah was
great and we spent the majority of time going over a friends TOEFL writing
sample. Her anonymous friend was in a higher level than her at CIES and she
wanted to emulate the positive aspects of her essay and also learn from her
friends mistakes. Much like Nimah, her writing was at an advanced level
(Although based upon what I had seen, I felt that Nimah was the better writer).
The subject of the paper dealt with outdoor activities like hiking versus
man-made attractions such as Disneyworld . The
author had to discuss which type of activity she felt was best.
I first went through the paper and
made note of errors. I then had had Nimah go over the paper out loud to see if
she caught the same errors. Right off the bat she noticed the biggest
problem…run on sentences. “This is not very clear and I don’t think TOEFL would
like this style.” She was correct. We spent the next several minutes discussing
what exactly a run on sentence was and how to avoid it. I emphasized the importance
of clear and concise sentences within her essays. I told her it was tempting to
write with a poetic flair but that she shouldn’t be worried about that right
now. I remembered my lessons from French class when the students (including me)
would try to write in a more advanced flowing style than we were able to.
Unless you have a complete mastery of a foreign language, clear and concise sentences
are the way to go, it will reduce the amount of errors you make and help your
reader understand the main points. She agreed with me and suggested that
increased vocabulary was a more useful topic to focus upon at this stage.
Nimah was confused about how and
when to use then, they, their, there and than. She said that all the “th” words
seemed the same to her so I gave a brief lesson on each one. She diligently
took notes during the entire lesson which was fulfilling to see, it is always
nice when a student appreciates your time and truly makes and effort to correct
his/her mistakes.
Allyce, I can see that you have come a long way as a teacher. Your activity, explanations and confidence all point to this. Keep it up!
ReplyDelete