April 9, 2014
This was my most gratifying tutoring session yet with Ali. I used a lesson plan I had come up with to develop listening skills, with an integrated writing exercise. For this lesson I transcribed and paraphrased the story of a homeless poet in Brazil from a video (produced by Facebook's marketing team, but touching nonetheless), because the speech in the video was at times difficult even for me to understand due to a heavy accent and background muzak. I read the story to Ali once, answered his questions about vocabulary, and then read it aloud a second time. We discussed the content of the story together, both on the verge of tears. He wanted to know why the man had been homeless, and I told him I wasn't sure but that often homelessness is the result of mental illness.
Next, I had him write a summary of the story. When he had finished this, I read over his summary with him and we did some error correction. Then we discussed how technology had helped the man in the story, and I asked him to write about how technology has influenced his life. Once he had written a few paragraphs, we emailed his work to his teacher for feedback.
Sounds like the material was engaging, and helped to facilitate some real language learning. It also appears that you are getting the hang of selecting engaging and level-appropriate materials!
ReplyDelete