Marissa_TP#5

Marissa M.
Tutoring Blog #5
9/19/14

My first tutoring session with Ibrahim was this evening.  We met at Atomic Cafe.  This was my first time there and it was very nice.  He is such a sweet man - he even bought my coffee as a thank you for meeting with him!

Since it was our session we primarily talked about what he wanted to learn.  He specifically said that he was interested in improving his business vocabulary, associated grammar, and speaking skills.  Overall, he is a fairly good speaker.  I let him speak a little and tried not to correct too much at first and only threw in a few corrections by restating information in the form of a question.  Shortly after he did ask that I correct him when I heard mistakes.  We talked about our culture and how we did not like to do that often unless asked.  He was good with me doing so!

A few skills we are planning to work on in upcoming meetings are interviewing and the structure of business organizations.  Ibrahim is not attending CIES through his job, however, he is trying to get a better grasp of the English language to help him in his career and future opportunities.  I started trying to think of fun ways to incorporate interviews into our sessions and possibly considered using a PowerPoint as an example to show what presentations look like here with formal English.  The other thought I had was to focus on business letter writing.  Through my job I've found that few people these days know how to format and write a true letter.  They leave out parts that I was taught are important in a high school business class. 

Ibrahim is also interested in places around Tallahassee to visit and things to do.  He told me his family had been in the United States with him, but returned to Turkey.  He gave me the name of a neat sounding restaurant there - Kizkulesi - that is located on an island.  I listed a few places for him to go and watch a game (Parlay or 4th Quarter) or just go for a beer (Brass Tap).  I found out he does have a car here, which gives him a little more freedom to explore the city and surrounding areas than most of the other students I have met in CIES.