Fawaz and I met at the downtown library. We first reviewed his reading homework, and I helped him to answer the five corresponding questions. He still has (as of 9/24) relatively poor understanding of what he is doing; he didn't understand the questions very well. I believe that this is partly cultural, in that it is possible that a certain kind of pride prevents him from believing that he doesn't understand something; humility might be an unacceptable sign of weakness. This is interesting to me, but an obstacle to him. However, the crucible of his efforts to learn English will likely cause him to overcome this impediment relatively quickly. He has a great desire to learn, so will adapt. Also, at 18-years-old, his age should be more of a help than not towards absorbing new material.
He next wanted to know the differences between the words 'Ms.', 'Mrs.', and 'Miss'. I am not certain that I was able to get across the distinctions to him, in particular, what 'Ms.' means. This was frustrating. It may have been a purely conceptual problem, rather than a linguistic problem. I may not have stayed on the topic long enough to ensure that he understands. I want our time to be used productively and so do not like to stress him excessively with certain finer cultural points, given the lowish level of his productive English skill; the resulting fatigue could make him resistant to learning other material covered in the lesson.
Of the topics covered in his thematic picture dictionary, Fawaz currently considers vegetables and clothes to be difficult. He finds fruits to be easy. We therefore studied the topic 'Clothes'. We then looked at a book on animals with photographs of each. I asked him to identify the group of animals that each animal in question belongs to: 'fish' instead of a specific type of fish, etc.. His skill again was relatively weak.
Last, we spoke about the concept of a topic paragraph. Again, I am not certain how well he understood me.
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