Matt TP #5

Monday Saif and I met for a second time. Once again there was no sign of Abdulrahman – I'll have to call him and make sure my texts are getting through. I had just come from a meeting with my CP Marcos that went over time, so I sort of had to rush to Saif's unprepared. Though I didn't have my materials, the lesson still went pretty smoothly. As determined in our first session, we worked mainly from Saif's IELTS prep book, focusing on reading comprehension. This time I chose a passage which I thought might be a little more abstract from his schema (science/biology) – a truly thrilling piece on Zulu beadworking.

Saif read the passage aloud while I followed along, correcting his errors and actively checking his comprehension along the way. When we came across something he didn't understand, I encouraged him to use context and other tools to guess the meaning rather than just flatly telling him. This approach met with mixed success. Most of the time Saif was unable to work these problem words/concepts out on his own – I think because he is reading at such a high level he is already naturally employing these strategies as he reads, so the sticking points were words he had already failed to deduce. Anyway he understood easily enough when I explained to him, and recalled the explained concepts well later when we reviewed. Because these this is an unfamiliar area for him, I attempted to build his schema by going in depth for a few of the explanations (eg colonization, monopoly, etc). When we did the comprehension questions, Saif did very well. He was hasty though and missed an easy question; I reminded him that tests like these prey on overconfidence and carelessness, and to make sure to go back and check the passage if he was at all unsure.

All in all it was a productive lesson. Next time we will focus on writing in preparation for his upcoming exam.