Yesterday I met with Ayoub for a one hour tutoring session. Mubarak was unable to attend, which is getting to be a pretty frequent occurrence (this is where having two tutees is really helpful!) but luckily Ayoub has made all the meetings so the time has not been wasted. We met at the study rooms in Campus Circle which are an incredible resource to the students who live there. We were able to communicate in a quiet environment with relatively few people to distract us.
I had printed out the first ten pages of the Hunger Games for Ayoub to read last week, and we started our discussion with a brief synopsis of the plot and unfamiliar vocabulary words. Unfortunately, the English used in the novel proved to be a little bit too difficult for Ayoub's level. He had trouble understanding what was going on, but had made a list of unfamiliar vocabulary words that we were able to go over in great detail. I don't want Ayoub to feel discouraged, but I also don't want him to feel as though he's missing out on anything. I think I will keep exploring different literature options to aid his English in this regard.
Next, we did a brief writing exercise. I showed him an image of an octopus in a living room, and I then asked him to write seven sentences to describe what was occurring. Before the exercise took place, we had a brief brainstorming session where we came up with different nouns to describe the scene. "Octopus" was a new word for Ayoub, but he seemed really interested in learning the new words to describe the scene. After he was done writing the sentences, we went over them and to Ayoub's credit, there were very few mistakes (only one subject-verb agreement issue).
As time goes on, I am going to be more specific in correcting Ayoub's speech. If there are grammatical errors, I am going to take note of the specific problems and try and fuse these into a solid lesson plan. Also! On a logistic note, if you are going to meet with tutees at Atomic Coffee, make sure you are specific about the particular Atomic Coffee. I had some issues conveying that I wanted to meet at the Atomic Coffee on Tennessee St.
One thing you could do is go to the Goldstein library with Ayoub. This is a young adult and children's library at FSU. You can peruse the library to find materials that are interesting and level-appropriate.
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