Olumayowa TP-4

On Thursday, I was studying in the CIES lounge while some students were hanging out and one of them started complaining about wanting to get into contact with his TP but having lost his phone number, all he knew was that the TP has a weird name. Immediately everyone looked at me, turns out that I actually am Hamad's tutoring partner. He is a Level 2 student from Kuwait and a very good English speaker, I think the best out of all the CIES students that I have worked with so far. We went out to the veranda to talk about CIES and how he feels about his experience here; Hamad is pretty confident about all of his classes except Listening, in his class they listen to mostly BBC kids and VOA broadcasts while taking dictation and he really dislikes the videos. He's different from my other partners in that he is very honest about what he understands and does not because he knows that I'm here to help, rather than to evaluate him. We spent our meeting talking about his interests so that I could try to search out listening materials that he might enjoy listening to in his free time, I ended up e-mailing him a collection of documentaries, short stories and brochures in American and English accents; he says that in Kuwait he's more used to speaking with English people and feels more comfortable with them.


Here's a Storycorps story with animation:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1586105970

Here is an excerpt from "Big Cat Diary"I haven't received feedback on it from anyone yet but in this show there is a lot of exciting action and the narrators speak very clearly when they aren't whispering. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czoz2yLNHH4


Here is an excerpt from an NPR show called "Snap Judgement"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDdPC8nqwtI&list=UUuISPwQHo7Mxz_7xXXDoyuA&index=2&feature=plcp


This is an excerpt from TV show called "Top Gear" that is aired all over the world, most CIES students who watch television in their native countries are used to it with dubbed over speech. The hosts have very clear English but they use a lot of slang, and sometimes their voices are accompanied with the sound of screeching tires or an accelerating motor. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHcLP0wvENQ