Carlton TP #14

Tutee session with TZ and YY, Wednesday April 8, 3:00-5:00 pm

We meet at CIES lounge. YY has returned after a couple of weeks in China where she had to take an exam, check in at work, and had the opportunity to visit family. Before she left we had talked about her husband and young daughter coming to visit America and visiting Disney World. I had a guidebook to the theme parks with lots of tips and planning advice and I had brought that to our meeting to give her and use as a topic. I had already marked some key pages for her situation so she would not have to wade through the entire book. We took some time to read and discuss a few. One recommendation is to reserve an on-site hotel room when taking several days and traveling with small children. For a little extra cost, you gain many conveniences that are very valuable for families. Since she was actively planning this trip and it was important, I could see her motivated to use her English to question me in more detail. Since I had experience with my own children when they were small, I could speak directly and did not need to look anything up or regulate my speech much on this subject.

I was very curious about YY's job that would send her to America to learn English. I asked a lot of questions to understand eventually that she is a recruiter of college students who want to attend foreign universities. She represents specific exchange programs for her province (Hubei) in Singapore and Thailand now and has been very successful recruiting top students. Her boss now wants her to prepare to represent programs in America. This shows a lot of confidence in her marketing ability, but she will need to communicate with the colleges in the future and visit them. So the government (or company) is investing in her English training and exposure to American culture. She will counsel and encourage many more Chinese students in the future to prepare to study in America. At least, that is how I understood her with a little translation help from TZ.

This was our most active 3 way conversation in English since starting and both students were very helpful to each other and to my understanding of jobs and student life in China. I think we introduced a lot of travel vocabulary: "jet lag", "time zone", "customs", "vacation", "terminal", "layover", etc. We also reviewed and added to the directions words. YY takes notes on her phone, TZ has a laptop. We visited a few websites related to planning a trip and talked about the process of making reservations and buying bus tickets online. We talked about the kinds of thinks to bring for a young child like where to find a basic stroller (Wal-mart $15). I want YY to try to read the marked pages in the tour guide and talk about her trip planning next time.