Tutoring Session #1
Abdulaziz Ajeeli
January 17, 2020 at 12:30PM
This past Friday, I met with Abdulaziz from 12:30-1:30PM for our first tutoring session. He had just finished class and the weather was nice so we agreed to convene in the courtyard behind the Hecht House. The introductory conversation flowed incredibly well as we chatted about his home country, his thoughts on Tallahassee, and some of his favorite hobbies and interests. I learned he's from Saudi Arabia, has only lived in Tallahassee for about 2 months, and really enjoys going to the movies and reading English media articles online. Though he was once a teaching assistant at a university in Saudi Arabia, he moved to the United States in the hopes of pursuing a masters or phD in chemical engineering. When asked about what he found most frustrating about the English language, he was upfront about his struggles with getting his point across in conversation as well as note taking during listening activities. Sine he is interested in obtaining a degree in higher education, we agreed that a focus on academic writing as well as note-taking techniques would be beneficial during the first several tutoring sessions. I'm thinking of showing him some TEDTalks to help improve his listening retention and writing skills. Abdulaziz was also incredibly interested in learning more American idioms, so we crafted an activity in which he notes all of the idioms he hears/ sees/ reads during the week and we break them down in our Friday tutoring sessions. I also conducted a brief writing diagnostic test, in which he wrote a letter to a loved one back home about his time in Tallahassee. We briefly corrected his beautiful mistakes and I now have a better understanding of his writing style and abilities. Overall, I really enjoyed our first session together and I am looking forward to tutoring him again next week.
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