Julia TP #1

Last Sunday, I met with my new tutee Charles for the first time. Charles is from Burkina Faso, from its capital Ouagadougou, but he had lived in several other countries before moved there, namely, in Ivory Coast, in Ghana and in Nigeria. He grew up bi-lingually, that is, he has always spoken Moorée with his mom, who only speaks that language, and French with the younger folks like his siblings and friends. Unlike his mother, his dad speaks both Moorée and French, so depending on the family gatherings or situation he would either speak French or the African language with his dad. I hope, that I understood him well enough, since his English is very basic. He told me, that he only moved to Tallahassee, that is, to the United States two months ago, and that he only started to study English here. He has always wanted to come to the US to study Architecture. He has an older brother, who lives in Morocco to study business and management.

Again, Charles’s English is very basic, however, he is aware that he first needs to study hard for the TOEFL test and eventually can start studying the subject he is really interested in. I asked him if it is really true that he only started with English in the US and only two months ago, since Ghana, where he lived before, is an English-speaking country but I guess what he tried to say was that he was either too young or that his time in Ghana was not long enough. What I thought was interesting is that, because I speak French, I recognized a typical preposition error that many French speakers make: “When I came in Tallahassee…” instead of “when I came to Tallahassee…”

He misses the three Fs, food, family and friends the most. However, he loves soccer, and he already has a group here that he plays soccer with every Monday evening.