Good Evening. Over the break I was able to get with one of my students on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We discussed what each other did for Thanksgiving for a few minutes and then got to business. We were still concerned with picking up accents, since most of classes were coming to an end at the CIES and there was a lack of homework to be assisted with. The student was extremely confident in his work and preparation for the finals. This was nice to see because a few weeks ago he was quite stressed out about not being of level.
I thought it would be a good idea to watch a segment of a movie that is difficult to understand. So, we watched a scene from Braveheart, via Youtube. This way the student could recognize the different dialect of English being spoken. I feel that showing all of the diffferent ways a native English speaker can sound has really allowed my studetns to grasp the English language more confidently. Instead of struggling when a word is not understood, I feel that they are slowly looking past individual words and utilizing the context of the sentences. I wish I had this understanding of learning when I was attempting to learn French because I often struggled with not knowing a single word and did not have this tool of "top-down" reading/listening.
Surprisingly, the student was quite effective in comprehending the English and marked most of the questions I gave him on a worksheet correct. He stated that for some reason, the British/Irish accent was easy to understand because "They do not make words longer". I think he was referring to the shortening of English words by this accent.
It was a fun and successful meeting and I told him that our last meeting on Monday would be of his choosing. Until next time,
Matthew
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