Lindsey TP #2

I met with my Korean TP, "Y," for the second time this morning. I picked her up and we went to Starbucks, a place she rarely visits here, but used to a lot in Korea. I tried to let Y order, even though she was very hesitant, but it wasn't very successful, because as soon as the barista looked at her, she began to stumble on her words, and very quickly both she and the barista looked at me to do the talking. I know she knows the correct words, but she isn't very confident yet and is easily flustered when put on the spot. I later explained to her that at Starbucks, one barista will take your order to start your drink, while a different one requires you to repeat your order to ring you up. I'm hoping that now that she understands the system, she'll feel more comfortable ordering herself next time.

Overall, Y was very chatty this week. Not sure if it was because we were in a casual, "real world" setting, or if she is more comfortable now that we've met more than once. In our first meeting last week, Y had asked if she could read aloud to practice her pronunciation. Based on a suggestion in our textbook, I brought along today's Tallahassee Democrat, and printed copies of 3 articles from today's paper. I had her read aloud first, while I read along and marked words or sounds she struggled with. Then I read aloud a bit and she read along. It went fine, but I think it won't be necessary every week.

Y says she reads about one Korean book per week. Since she's already a reader, I brought up the idea that we could choose an appropriate book for both of us to read and talk about. That way she can work on her English outside of our lessons. I'm also going to prompt her to talk more about her life in Korea, because she seemed very interested in explaining their system of government, for instance.