Vie Miller TS#15

I saw down with Kubra in the smoking garden behind CIES for our next lesson. Kubra is probably my most eager student, and it was a delightful experience to work with her on today’s lesson: determiners. I began by explaining that--while most English speakers would understand her speech without determiners--their absence, or the incorrect use of determiners, would be seen by many as a sign that her English education still had a way to go. Kubra initially struggled, but she had a breakthrough when I adjusted her previous understanding (use ‘the’ when you mean something specific) with the correct version: use ‘the’ when you can reasonably expect that both you and the reader are familiar with the noun in question. I had to illustrate different examples of how someone might know whether to use “the” or “a,” but once she got it, choosing the right determiner was easy! It ended up being one of the most satisfying lessons that I had given to date.