Jules TP-3

I had my initial tutoring session with Jae Yeon on Wednesday evening. Wanting to get to know her a bit before delving into homework and lessons, I picked her up and we chatted over boba tea at What Café. She is a twenty year old student from South Korea who has studied English since grade school, but who has never really had the chance to use it. Thus, there were several times where she couldn't understand me and I had to resort to writing down phrases. She is really pretty good at reading and writing, as her school was mainly focused on grammar.

We talked about living in America, and her experiences in the dorms (this was inspired by Marilyn Sohan's discussion on dealing with roommate issues). She lives with an American girl who is gone most of the time, but they get along pretty well. Actually, Jae's aunt and uncle live in Tallahassee so she gets a taste of home when she visits them on the weekends... more on that in the next post. We also discussed some of the sounds she has the most trouble with in English-- not surprisingly, those L's and R's are indistinguishable to her. We had a fun time talking about the word "squirrel", which is particularly difficult for her. I explained that the word in French is also very challenging: ecureuil. She taught me the word in Korean, which I can't write here but it sounds like "tarumji". Jae seems like a very positive, enthusiastic girl, so I think we are going to have a great time teaching and learning from each other.