Allyce_TP9

I took on another tutee the last couple weeks of class, a girl named Nimah who specifically requested a female instructor. Ahmad and Hussam had already left and I was out 2 tutoring partners! Eventually we met up and I was impressed by her knowledge and serious attitude. Its not that the guys didn’t take school seriously, but Nimah was on a mission. She had graduated with her bachelors not too long ago in Saudi Arabia and hoped to pass the TOEFL by the end of summer and earn her MBA at FSU. With any other student I would have questioned their ability to complete such a lofty goal within a couple months, but I’m sure Nimah will have no problem. She was already in a level 5 English course and asking difficult questions about grammar which even I had trouble answering.

            For our first meeting she gave me some of her writing samples including an impressive paper on the Mona Lisa. I noted down her frequent problems, most were small; plurals, some subject verb agreements, articles and spelling. Overall, she was very advanced and I knew this tutee would be a challenge. I’m very glad that I wasn’t assigned her until the end of my TEFL class, I feel that had I tutored her at the beginning of my course I would have been overwhelmed and unable to efficiently help her but, armed with my knowledge from class and previous experience I was ready to tackle the situation. We decided to focus on writing for the TOEFL expand vocabulary. Since her grammar was already very advanced we decided to treat that as a secondary issue, we would cover grammar mistakes as we encountered them.

            We got along great and she told me a little bit about herself. She said that she never wanted to return to Saudi Arabia and planned to remain in the U.S. She said that the opportunities for her here were far more expansive than back home. Honestly, I felt quite inspired and I think that our future session will be a great chance for me to apply everything that I’ve learned so far and truly help someone who wants to help themselves.