Jessica TP2

My second tutoring partner, Tugba, and I met up on Saturday to have our introductory session. We met at the CIES building and then drove over to Black Dog Cafe, my favorite study spot. She and I hit it off right away, I have been having great luck with partners through CIES! She's from Turkey and recently graduated with a degree in Art History as well as Turkish Folklore. I told her that I too studied art (Graphic Design major) and that we would definitely have some common ground as far as interests! She also let me know that she's taking the TOEFL exam this coming Saturday for the second time. Her goal is to pass that so that she can study with FSU's Art History graduate program. She's already been accepted, just with the condition that she pass this exam. She's been in Tallahassee for 8 months and didn't study that much English beforehand. For such a short time here I was amazed by her fluency. We spoke about art and agriculture, shopping and classes, and there were only maybe two times that I had to clarify what she meant by something. She explained that she's fairly confident speaking, but that she struggles with writing more than anything. This is definitely going to be a focus for our lessons with the amount of papers she'll be looking forward too in grad school! I told her not to worry that we could definitely work on that and that having taken art history courses myself I could focus on some interesting articles/ art pieces and try to structure lessons around them so that she learns the necessary vocabulary for her major as well as improving upon her writing skills. We ended the meeting with plans to meet up and celebrate post-exam on Saturday afternoon over Turkish tea.