Stephanie TS#7

I met up with Ahmed again to go over the writing portion of the IELTS exam. Because he wanted to have our sessions mimic the test, I put the prompt in front of him and didn’t plan on advising him until after he finished, however; he kept looking up to me very confused after reading the prompt and said he didn’t understand it. I then changed the objective of the day’s session to analyzing and understanding writing prompts. It was a pretty long prompt that put out a few different ideas and then asked whether you agree or disagree. He wasn’t sure what the question was asking and didn’t know what a few key terms in the prompt were referring to. We defined each element together and then I asked him to take a stance on the topic. Once he decided he disagreed with the statement, we began organizing his thoughts into a chart. We put his main stance in the middle in a circle and drew 3 lines from it to represent his supporting topic. Once we were done mapping it out, I had him start writing. I then went through to give him feedback on context and then on grammar. He had some excellent points, but he didn’t tie it back into the prompt which made it seem a bit off topic. The prompt was about how about old-fashioned traits like kindness and trust are no longer important in today's society which surrounds material possession and social status. I advised him instead of just saying “If you don’t have friends and family in your life, you won’t be happy,” to instead say “Those who only care about material possessions care less about the important things in life like friends and family.” This way, he would be addressing all aspects of the topic so it would directly answer the question. Next session we’re going to read the ideal sample response essay provided by the IELTS website so he knows exactly what they're looking for.