David-tp8

6/16/2012

With Alena gone I decided to ramp up my meetings with Majdi because we were making progress and I felt as though our differences were working themselves out.  It was actually at this point that I began to not just tutor him but actually enjoy his company.  Which is something that perhaps came more naturally with Ladji and Alena (maybe because our cultures were different but not as different as Majdi's and mine were).  I had been preparing to help him with some questions he was had that he had mentioned beforehand but when I arrived at his house he another question that he wanted to address first.  (Side note explaining an concept which is what his question was about in English to him is very difficult because you cannot use a normal set of vocabulary of which he knows little.  This usually means you use exaggerations, tons of examples, and dictionary skills.)  Little did I know that he asked a question that was basically a lesson in itself and that happened to consume the entire tutoring session itself.  Not to mention a question that I had to ask myself how to explain...... What is the difference between: a,an, and the?

While the difference between a and an are pretty simple but what is the function of them?  Why do we use "the" instead of "a" and "an"???  Caught off guard I paused and asked for a few minutes to think on the subject.  There is no way that I could use terms like indefinite and definite with Majdi I had to use simpler language and or examples.  I quickly scanned around the room for objects to use at my disposal.  I found a few pens and laid them down in a row and said "Majdi, can you pass me a pen".  He picked up a pen at random and handed it to me, to this I said good and laid the pen back down. Then I said "Majdi can you hand me the pen" (pointing to a specific pen emphasizing the a and the the).  We repeated the task with various objects till he got the idea down pretty well.  However he noticed something as I hoped that he would.  "What about an??" he asked.  I had left this out on purpose so that we could get to heart of the difference between a and the.  Now I wrote the vowels down on a sheet of paper and asked Majdi what was on the paper.  He replied vowels in a difficult to understand pronunciation, quickly we corrected that so he was saying it correctly.  Then I wrote the consonants down and asked the same question.  He replied with the correct answer and again went over the pronunciation again because it was troublesome for him.  After that I explained the difference between the two.  While writing about this lesson this may seem like a short lesson but it was by no means.  After an 1 hour 15 minutes we were both pretty tired.  I walked outside and was going to call my wife to pick me up and she was already outside.  Majdi assumed that she was just sitting in the car the whole time with nothing to do and felt terrible.  I tried to tell him this wasn't the case but he just seemed so ashamed.  He said next time and every time your family is welcome in my house which was very kind. I tried to tell him not to feel bad but there was little that I could say that would change his mind.  With that we bid goodnight and left.