Today I had a tutor meeting with my new tutee Abdullah. Unfortunately, my old tutees were not incredibly interested in meeting up, but Abdullah seemed really interested in getting a tutor!
We met in the CIES building at 12 pm. He is from Kuwait, and speaks and writes in English very well. His main issue is with spelling, which is completely understandable because I also struggle with spelling and I've been speaking English my entire life!
He had a listening log he had to complete, and it was about ordering a meal at Chipotle. He had went their for dinner yesterday, and had transcribed his experience for me. Although he had chosen the correct words to write down, there were some serious spelling errors. He had trouble spelling words like "chicken" and "tomato" and "rice." If he spoke them, I knew exactly what he was talking about, but we are definitely going to work on spelling (Which is what we did during this tutoring session.)
Also, when he described his trip to Chipotle, he mentioned that he had a "pull." I have been a frequent patron of chipotle since freshman year of college, and I could tell you right now I have never heard of a pull. He spent probably five minutes explaining the pull to me, and I was about to give up until I told him to draw it. OH! A BOWL! I finally got it after 5 minutes of explanation. But Abdullah is an Arabic speaker, and therefore has trouble with the P and B sounds, so next lesson I am going to prepare some minimal pairs exercises. I think a lot of spelling exercises and minimal pairs are going to help Abdullah learn English more effectively, and I hope he stays my partner long enough for me to help him!
Good! Maybe you can practice by doing some Chipotle role playing!
ReplyDelete