Diania Remy TS #3

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Date/Time: May 17 2020, 5pm-6:15pm

Location: In our homes

Topic/Skill: Word contractions, apostrophe, universities

Feedback provided to tutee:

Lesson(s) about tutoring and/or the tutee you learned: 

In this tutoring session, I started out by showing Rahim a video on apostrophes and contractions. My reasoning for this is that when he reads, he pronounces words as a contraction. For example, if in a passage, ' it is', was written he would pronounce it as 'its'. I also wanted to inform him of how informal using contractions in essay writing is especially in an academic journal. I gave him examples that required him to put an apostrophe to create a contraction, he was fine with the information and did well. I asked him to give me examples of contractions, he then showed that he had difficulties with putting apostrophes that inform possession. I then gave examples of possession and examples of plural possession.

If there is anything I learned is that I cannot assume that every student who wants to learn English will want to go to America. Rahim wants to go to a university in Saudi Arabia, so I have to use my resources carefully to not waste time. For example, I wanted to help write an essay for him to get into an American college so I had him read American medical school entrance essays. He clearly seemed annoyed and confused so when I asked him if he wanted to go to school in America he said no. He then explained that things such as essays and letters of recommendation do not matter in Saudi Arabia, but grades and test scores. It essentially taught me that colleges vary around the world and I must continue to ask questions to understand my tutee.