Ben - TP #4

Today I had an amazingly encouraging tutoring session with Fumie. It's very rewarding to see and hear the progress that she has already made, and it's only our fourth meeting! The session started out how it always does, with me going over her reports for her program back in Hiroshima. Except today I had Fumie go over the report herself and point out any sentences or words that she thought were grammatically incorrect. I'm happy to report that she found almost every single error herself, and there were only a few instances when I had to show her the correct way of saying something.
After that great start to the session we moved right into a review of our speaking about film. I had asked Fumie to polish up her speech on the films that she liked, and to be prepared to speak to me about the films with little to no assistance from me or the worksheets we have been working on. I had also asked her to incorporate some new vocabulary concerning films that I had given her. The results were fantastic. Fumie showed great improvement in her grammar, and her ability to present her thoughts and opinions in a cohesive manner was quite impressive. Not only that, she used many of the vocabulary terms I had given her from our last session. She spoke comfortably about her opinions of the script, plot, dialogue, character, and acting in the movies. At the end of her speaking I asked her a few questions that we had not gone over together to see if she could work her way around them and come up with some good answers (like would she suggest the film to a friend and why). She handled these questions very well and only needed some minor help from me.
With our discussion of film concluded we moved on to our next speaking unit: food. Because we were running out of time, I gave Fumie some vocabulary related to food and talking about food for her to look over and have a solid grasp of for our next session. We just had barely enough time at the end for her to talk briefly about one of her favorite foods from back in Hiroshima: Japanese savory pancakes. Those sound ridiculously delicious and I am very excited to here more about them during our next session. Overall, this was the most encouraging tutoring session I have had to date because Fumie showed great growth and progress. I told her she should be very proud.