Anna TP #7

Anna Prorok

September 21, 2014

TEFL Tutor Session No. 7

Starbucks, West Tennessee Street

This was a wonderful tutoring session and really got into American culture. We started the session by catching up and doing a quick review of the last session's pronunciation activity. I wanted to review especially since Abdul wasn't able to make it to the last session. Both of them did an awesome job. Then, Abdul had a question from a worksheet from his grammar class that was on the conditional form. He was confused between the difference between the second and third conditional form (exhibited on the paper) and so I explained it to the best of my ability and eventually he understood the difference. He was confused mainly because the second form uses the past tense of the verb even though it is referring to the present and also refers to unlikely situations while the third is used for impossible situations (i.e., If Spain had not won the 2010 World Cup, the Netherlands would have won).

After that was clarified we  moved on to a listening activity that I had planned on the computer. Nina and Abdul both listened to voice clips and answered five questions that could be answered by listening. The first was dealing with a woman who was calling her friend to help her search for a new apartment. I played the clip two times and they answered the question, getting most of them correct the second time. We went over the answers to the questions together and I explained why the ones they got incorrect were in fact correct. 

Nina needed help with a project where she has to write about the process for going to college from high school in America. I decided to use this as an activity and have them take notes on my 'lecture'. This was great practice for both of them, but for Abdul especially because he really wants to improve his note-taking skills. I talked about maintaining a good GPA, taking the SAT and ACT exams, and then the application process. Abdul had a lot of questions about high school in general, mainly daily life, if there were a lot of drugs and violence in high schools, and if students were allowed to date each other. I think he was taken aback by a few of my answers. I proceeded to show them both pictures from my time in high school (i.e., homecoming, classes, friends, etc.) and how starkly my experience contrasted with his. He had a lot of great questions for me. 

This was a great session and we are planning to meet again this Tuesday evening.