TP # 6 Caitlin

Yesterday, I met Amanda for tutoring. After my meeting with Rachida, I didn’t worry too much about figuring out a lesson plan because Amanda didn’t really know what she wanted to study before we met. She’s from Brazil like my conversation partner, Renan, and is at a similar English-speaking level. We introduced ourselves and chatted for a bit and then I asked if she had something in mind for the tutoring or if we could just read together for the first meeting. We read a story by an author I love in a book of short stories. Judy Budnitz is an interesting writer with a unique style and her stories are great but usually a little strange. It was way above Amanda’s vocabulary level but I think the book was still a good choice. The writing style is a lot like melodic spoken English and it was good for Amanda to speak the words and to hear me speak the words.

We summarized the book throughout and she really liked the story. We talked about how it is similar to surrealism (fantasma) is the word in Portuguese and how some of her confusion was because it wasn’t supposed to make sense. For example, one of the main characters in the story was a man who dressed in a dog suit and acted like a dog. I let Amanda borrow my book so she could read more short stories and I think we will go to the public library next week so Amanda can try to get a library card to check out books after tutoring. This book worked better than the article that Rachida and I read but it was still a tough book. All in all, this is my favorite first time meeting activity for tutoring. Perhaps it is because I really love to read, but also because it’s an excellent way to assess each other’s speaking patterns and hone listening skills.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/25/reviews/980125.25biersdt.html

Here's a link that describes why Judy Budnitz is such an interesting author with an imbedded link to the first chapter of the book we read from (the story that we read). Enjoy!