Tom TP # 1
Since this was my first meeting with my tutee, I will describe him and some of his background. At the end of this entry, I will relate my teaching experience.
I met with Abdul Alzahrani at the downtown library Saturday afternoon. Abdul is from Mecca in Saudi Arabia. He is here with his wife and two children, ages 12 and 6. He was a teacher of Arabic in his home country.
His wife is studying for a PhD in Biostatistics at FSU. His two sons teach him English, while he teaches them Arabic.
Abdul was born in Al Baha in the southeastern part of the country, near the Red Sea. When he was 18, he moved to Mecca, the most important center of muslim culture in Saudi Arabia, where he lived for two years. From Mecca, he moved to Jiddah on the Red Sea, and lived there for 10 years. Juddah is the primary center of business in the country. From Jiddah, he and his family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where his wife went to study at Ohio State University. They were there about eight months before moving to Tallahassee.
Abdul is 33 years old, and after his command of English is sufficient, he wants to study business in the United States, later returning to Saudi Arabia to be active in business.
His family is wealthy, owning buildings in Mecca, I believe. He describes his country as somewhat awash in wealth.
My primary difficulty was that I did not have at my disposal diagnostic tools to determine the level of Abdul's English language skill. His self-analysis is that he knows grammar well, but that his vocabulary is lacking. My initial impression is that the opposite is the case with his spoken skill; he is generally able to make simple descriptions and observations, but struggles with stringing together coherent sentences.
When I asked him what specific weaknesses he would like to correct, he responded that he wanted to learn to ask questions better, and that he would like to learn some rules for the existence of silent consonants in certain consonant pairs (e.g., 'h' in ghost, and 'k' in knight).
