Sam - TP - 2

Today I had my first real tutoring session with Hayriye, my learner from Turkey. To prepare for our meeting, I went to Borders to look at some GED study guides. I had agreed to help Hayriye review for the Social Studies & Science portion of the test, which she is taking on November 9th, so I wanted to have an idea what the study guide format would be. In looking at the practice tests, I realized that most of the information one needs to answer the questions is right there in the reading passages. I was so relieved! Here, I had been imagining these horrific scenes of drilling Hayriye on the Presidents, dates of wars, and other boring things that even I can't remember, despite years of teachers drilling those facts into me. It seemed that I would be more useful in showing Hayriye some of the ways in which American tests are constructed to give us hints.

At the library, I ran into our own Claude Smith! It was neat to see a fellow TEFLer and have the chance to talk about our lessons. I really love that we have this little community of people with whom I can nerd out over teaching English! Lord know my other friends are sick of hearing about it!

When Hayriye arrived, we talked about our weekends briefly and I asked her how her studying was coming along. She showed me her guide; she'd done many of the practice tests and was marking all the words she didn't know with their Turkish equivalent. This lady knows how to study! I asked her if the format of Turkish tests was similar to American tests. "No," she said. "American tests are easier." Haha! We went over a few portions of the Social Studies and Science sections. She was able to figure out a few new words by guessing based on their parts (enumerated: numbers, judicial: judge). We went over the answers together and examined how in many cases, the wording of the answers is taken directly from the passages, so that could help her find the answers. I felt a little like maybe that's cheating or something, but the tests really don't require you to have much preexisting knowledge, just the ability to find answers. I tried to see it as someone who hasn't been taking American standardized tests for her whole life, and I found that we use a ridiculous amount of words for the same things. Like act, bill, and law. In a test question, these terms are used interchangeably, something that a foreigner wouldn't know. Even with the cultural bias against her, I think Hayriye is going to be able to get the score that she needs. She is doing really well on her practice tests. Everyone send her good vibes, if you believe in that hippie stuff! :)

We closed the lesson with an assignment I had given her last week. She had asked me how she might improve her ability to tell personal anecdotes. She shares the same preoccupation that I have in speaking Spanish-- something I brought up in class a few weeks ago-- how can I be myself in my second language? I asked her to write down a few sentences about something striking that happened to her that she would usually tell in a social setting. She brought in a few sentences (nearly perfect) about a time when she discovered her older sister, unconscious. We were able to talk about the event for a good five minutes and I shared my own scary-unconscious-sister story. I think we accomplished, in a small way, what she is after-- to connect on a personal level with someone from another culture, using a limited palette of language. I left the lesson feeling really good and looking forward to our next meeting, where we will start working on her reading comprehension skills for the final part of the test.