This was my last tutoring session. Chinese student Yan and I met in the CIES breakroom from 4-5:20 pm. She wanted help with composition. I was able to use an article about Starbucks changing its bathroom policy to further Yan's education. I read her the article and then she provided a written summary based on her notes and I asked her to summarize the article verbally. I then helped her correct and organize the summary to standard English form.
It's difficult to switch from a writing style where the thesis is so up-front as compared to China where the thesis is in the concluding paragraph. We discussed these differences and the difficulties she has been having with composition. We determined that her structure is actually sufficient, but getting the details like prepositions correctly in place and tense agreement is where she needs to focus for writing fluency.
For the last 20 minutes Yan wanted to discuss Chinese versus US parental expectations and Chinese government. I was happy to have this discussion and we decided that there are both some similarities and differences in these areas between our two countries.
I enjoyed tutoring Yan and wished her well in her future in China as an English teacher. She also wished me well in Mexico and we parted ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment