Alexandra TP 1

TUTORING PARTNER 1 – Dongsoek, Meeting 1

My first tutee is Dongseok , mid-twenty-something young man from South Korea. Dongseok is quite hilariously enthusiastic, showing extraordinary commitment to taking charge of his learning. Coming from a town a few hours outside of Seoul, Dongseok has been studying English since high school. Though his grammar is fairly accurate and his ability to sustain a conversation is strong, he does struggle with fluidity every so often, mostly just in needing to stop and take time to think. Whenever I supply him with a word during any such pause, he assiduously writes it down phonetically, and then I often have to correct his spelling. He scrawls reflexively as he speaks to reinforce his train of thought, and if he doesn’t have pen or paper on hand, he “air-writes” on his palm. He is a kinesthetic learner if I have ever seen one.

I hope to eventually ease him away from this safety blanket, but for now it gives me good insight into his though process and helps us find words on the rare occasions where there is a breakdown in communication. Given his all-around strength in English, especially his listening skills, I asked him what he would prefer to work on. He emphatically answered that given that he has ample grammar practice from the CIES, what he would really like to work on is his pronunciation. This excites me greatly since it is one of my favorite areas to teach. I look forward to trying out a variety of techniques to see what works best.

Fortunately, while getting to know each other, Dongseok had made his zeal for American sitcoms crystal clear (particularly "Modern Family"), and I think this presents an excellent opportunity to develop speaking-based exercises around his passion. Since he already transcribes things he doesn’t understand from Everyday English onto a notebook, I asked him to transcribe a few minutes from his favorite sitcom in script format. When he comes in next time, he will be bringing the segment of the sitcom for me to watch as well as the transcription which I will then evaluate for accuracy. Once we read it aloud several times, I hope to begin using his lines to start honing his pronunciation, particularly his difficulty with consonants. We will also be using tongue twisters since his consonants tend to be weak. We’ll see how this well this strategy works or not next time I see him, but it should be a fun exercise nonetheless.