Anna TP #3

Anna Prorok

September 9, 2014

TEFL Tutor Session No. 3

Chick-fil-A,  Tennessee Street

This was my third tutoring session. Abdul could not make it today so it was just Nina and I. I constructed a few worksheets for this meeting; all of which involved pronunciation and listening because that is what she wants to work on the most. The words that we were pronouncing all had short vowel sounds. We also went over the differences between what happens to a vowel when an "e" is added to the end of the word (i.e., rat becomes rate with the addition of an e). We also reviewed ending sounds (/d/ and /t/) from the last tutoring session. The worksheets I made were inspired from ideas I received on the internet. One was just a hand-out type sheet that provided her with basic rules and information in regards to the pronunciation of short vowels in certain words. The other hand-out was a game that was intended for two to four players. I ended up improvising and reading the words off to Nina while she listened and marked off which words I said. Most of the words were similar in spelling and pronunciation (i.e., price, prize, tin, pin, watch, wash, etc.) so the activity required a good ear. 

After the activity I brought a few books that I picked up from the Goldstein Library on campus. She read two books, one about a bumble bee and the other about sea life. Both of them were a little above her reading level but she comprehended them well which I noticed during the post-read discussion. 

After the tutoring session, we chit chatted a little bit about her time in Tallahassee so far. She is really enjoying it because a large group of Brazilian students all live together in the same apartment complex. She also invited me over for traditional Brazilian cuisine so I am really looking forward to that. At one point, she had to stop me because my rate of speech was too fast (I suppose it's easy for that to happen when you start speaking more informally). It was funny though, because then she asked me to speak really quickly so she could try and pick out words. I did, and she just laughed, shook her head, and said, "It's impossible!". Her friend called her shortly thereafter and she quickly started conversing in Portuguese again, all of which I could not understand, which made me realize she and I weren't so different after all. 

Brazil was playing Columbia that evening so we said our goodbyes and decided to meet again this coming Tuesday, same place and same time.