I had my first tutoring session not too long ago with two
Chinese CIES students, Ariel and Ivy. They asked to work together, so after
sending out a couple emails to the both of them, and only receiving one
combined “…we will meet you...” email in return, we met up in the CIES lounge
on a Friday afternoon. Ariel’s mother was visiting during this particular week,
and she greeted me with a huge smile followed by a stream of Chinese that I
could not comprehend whatsoever.
“She
says that you are very beautiful!” exclaimed Ariel. I smiled and thanked her.
It was a great beginning.
Ivy, Ariel, and I began our session with your average
getting to know you discussion. I asked where they were from, how long they had
been in the United States, and if they liked it so far. This gave me a chance
to see and hear their exact levels of English. They answered each question
enthusiastically, interspersed with a number of giggles. Ariel’s English is a
bit more advanced than Ivy’s. She comprehends most of my questions as well as
uses some advanced vocabulary. Ivy understands me decently well, however she
asks me to repeat more often and speaks with less advanced vocabulary.
We went over the English subjects
they found to be the most important, which included speaking, and then writing,
followed by reading. Since they were eager to work on speaking and
pronunciation, I pulled out a few tongue twisters to work on. I also sifted
through their notebooks for the speaking section, played with a couple of
examples they hadn’t seen yet, and went over tongue positions, sounds, and
explained how specific sounds should feel. After this I asked to see a recently
graded paper from each of them and went over the corrections by using context
clue questions as a way to figure out what was wrong. Both Ariel and Ivy
quickly picked up on the reasons for their mistakes. At the end of the session
they graciously thanked me, and left me excited for our next meeting.
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