Anna TP # 1

Anna Prorok

August 31, 2014

TEFL Tutor Session No. 1

Atomic Coffee,  W Call Street

This was my first tutoring session with Abdul Alzahrani. Abdul is attending CIES in order to succeed in his Master’s program at Jacksonville University. He passed the GRE and was admitted to the university on the terms of his completion of the CIES course. He will attend Jacksonville University starting in the spring. Nina Trolley did not attend because she could not make it.

We worked together for a little over an hour at Atomic Coffee. Today was mainly an introductive day where we talked about ourselves and got to know one another. He is from Saudi Arabia and has two sons and a wife here with him in Tallahassee. He is very eager to learn English and wants to practice on his speaking and listening skills the most. He says he is good at grammar, but struggles with things such as listening to other people speak. He especially wants to practice taking notes from listening for when he starts attending university. He struggles with academic English more than anything. He really wants to engage with other people in conversation and be immersed in an American household to really get a good experience learning English and be forced to speak the language. I asked him a lot of questions about himself and what he likes doing. Questions I asked ranged from when he moved to Tallahassee to what is his favorite food. He showed me pictures of the different Arabic cuisine he enjoys cooking and how it is done. He talked to me a little bit about Arabic culture. He asked questions about me as well, and I showed him photographs of the house I grew up in as well as some of my family members. His speaking skills are adequate and mainly needs help with pronunciation. I can understand most things he says through context, but he wanted me to correct him when he made a mistake. I made sure he told me if I was speaking too quickly or if phrases I said were too difficult for him to understand. It is always interesting speaking with a non-native speaker. I had to catch myself on multiple occasions from using idioms that I realized wouldn’t make sense. When I was talking about my major I said, “We touched on Central Asian history” and Abdul’s face was incredibly puzzled and I corrected myself with a statement that made more sense to him. I really enjoy this tutoring because it forces me to be more conscious of my speaking and how to make it more understanding for someone else.

We are planning on meeting at least one day a week but he seemed eager to meet more than once. I am hoping to have a one-on-one session with him on Sundays and then meet with Nina and Abdul as well on Tuesday evenings. The next time we meet I am going to bring picture books from the library with elementary text for him to read. I am also going to give him an English diagnostic exam to be able to gauge where he is at in regards to learning the English language. Altogether it was a really great meeting and I look forward to meeting with him again. I wanted today to have more of an introductory approach, and I think I executed that well. He seems very eager to learn and I am excited to introduce him to some local, Tallahassee/American places around town and work on hands-on tutoring in areas that Abdul needs help in the most.