Erik TP3

When I met June Won, he was nothing but smiles. His entire demeanor was friendly. Throughout our conversation, he would often crack a joke, throwing his head back in jovial laughter. Speaking with June was very easy, even though his entire life has been devoted to sports management, and I have as much interest in sports as a deflated basket ball. When I asked what parts of English he needed help in, he teased that he was better than everyone else in his level. I made fun of him for being so proud, but he finally broke in and confessed that pronunciation was his biggest difficulty.

Since he was also from South Korea, I imagined that he may have some of the same difficulties as my other tutoree, Hyejin. And I was right, besides pronunciation, his use of prepositions and articles are a tough point, and his knowledge of cultural idioms is limited. But for the most part, he emphasized wanting to improve his pronunciation. So we walked through the sounds that were difficult for him: “th,” the hard “r,” “l” and “w.” So we spent the remainder of the session walking through some words with those sounds in them. We spent the last few minutes repeating “I’ll see you next THURSDAY at THREE,” but he already seemed to improve in his “TH,” sound. “It’s all muscle memory,” I pressed. The more practice, the more muscle memory.

There was a moment where he cracked. me. up. I asked how good his wife was at English, and he playfully lowered his head, “She’s very good.” Lifting his head to see my reaction, he continued: “I only speak to her in Korean, because she’s so much better at English. I’m no longer the man when we speak in English!” So the majority of practice is going to take place outside of the domestic setting, I’m guessing. We’ll see how much better his speech gets after a few weeks!