Mallory TS#14
Friday, February 23rd
12:30-1:30pm
I met for the last time with Marcia in the CIES student lounge. I was so upset that this was the last time we would be able to meet, because she told me her flight back to Brazil was the next day. She said she would fly out of Florida on Saturday, arrive in Brazil on Sunday, and then she would have class at her Universit on Monday. I couldn't belive she was doing all of that so fast! We started off our session talking about this a little bit, and discussing her plans when she gets back to Brazil. Since she was finished with the CIES program here, she didn't have any work that she wanted to go over or anything for me to help her with. Instead, she asked if again we could just focus on her listening and speaking skills. She said that since she is leaving the U.S., she wants to practice her English as much as possible and make sure it is propper so that when she goes back to Brazil she can continue to use English and not make too many mistakes. We had some conversation about school and about her plans for the TOEFL agian, and we also discussed sports and I talked about how I used to play soccer but I stopped playing because of knee injuries, and I've had six knee surgeries. She was fascinated by this, and asked a lot of questions about how I got the injury and how the surgery process was. I thought this was good, because she was obviously listening to the details of my story and paying close attention. If she didn't understand what I was explaining, she would ask a question to have me explain further or simplify what I was saying so that she could follow. As far as working on her speaking, as always she was a great speaker. She does struggle sometimes with her words, or she expects the listener to understand what she is trying to say without her actually using all the words to make a full sentence or explain herself, so we stopped and talked for a bit about this, and I told her to try to assume the listener never knows what she is saying, so to be very clear and speak using full sentences. Even though I always understand her and know what she means regardless of if she says it 100% correct, I wanted to emphasise that to just any native speaker, it isn't always going to be easy and they will be able to tell she is not a native speaker, and it might sometimes be hard to follow. Aside from that, she still has a few grammar errors in her speach, so whenever she made an error I would just stop her and ask her to repeat the sentence she was trying to say, and she would usually correct herself, but sometimes I could tell she honestly wasn't sure what the propper form was, and would need me to clarify for her. I think if Marcia continues to practice her English while in Brazil, she will be decently prepared for the TOEFL when she plans to take it. She said she does not plan to do great on it her first time, she just wants to take it once after this semester to get an idea of what it is like, and then will continue to study English and take it a second time for a higher score. I'll definitely miss tutoring Marcia, but I think we will keep in touch and I hope she'll reach out to me if she ever needs further help or practice with her English.
12:30-1:30pm
I met for the last time with Marcia in the CIES student lounge. I was so upset that this was the last time we would be able to meet, because she told me her flight back to Brazil was the next day. She said she would fly out of Florida on Saturday, arrive in Brazil on Sunday, and then she would have class at her Universit on Monday. I couldn't belive she was doing all of that so fast! We started off our session talking about this a little bit, and discussing her plans when she gets back to Brazil. Since she was finished with the CIES program here, she didn't have any work that she wanted to go over or anything for me to help her with. Instead, she asked if again we could just focus on her listening and speaking skills. She said that since she is leaving the U.S., she wants to practice her English as much as possible and make sure it is propper so that when she goes back to Brazil she can continue to use English and not make too many mistakes. We had some conversation about school and about her plans for the TOEFL agian, and we also discussed sports and I talked about how I used to play soccer but I stopped playing because of knee injuries, and I've had six knee surgeries. She was fascinated by this, and asked a lot of questions about how I got the injury and how the surgery process was. I thought this was good, because she was obviously listening to the details of my story and paying close attention. If she didn't understand what I was explaining, she would ask a question to have me explain further or simplify what I was saying so that she could follow. As far as working on her speaking, as always she was a great speaker. She does struggle sometimes with her words, or she expects the listener to understand what she is trying to say without her actually using all the words to make a full sentence or explain herself, so we stopped and talked for a bit about this, and I told her to try to assume the listener never knows what she is saying, so to be very clear and speak using full sentences. Even though I always understand her and know what she means regardless of if she says it 100% correct, I wanted to emphasise that to just any native speaker, it isn't always going to be easy and they will be able to tell she is not a native speaker, and it might sometimes be hard to follow. Aside from that, she still has a few grammar errors in her speach, so whenever she made an error I would just stop her and ask her to repeat the sentence she was trying to say, and she would usually correct herself, but sometimes I could tell she honestly wasn't sure what the propper form was, and would need me to clarify for her. I think if Marcia continues to practice her English while in Brazil, she will be decently prepared for the TOEFL when she plans to take it. She said she does not plan to do great on it her first time, she just wants to take it once after this semester to get an idea of what it is like, and then will continue to study English and take it a second time for a higher score. I'll definitely miss tutoring Marcia, but I think we will keep in touch and I hope she'll reach out to me if she ever needs further help or practice with her English.
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