Miguel Derett - CP #6

December 5th, 2018. 

For my sixth conversation partner meeting, I meet with my tutees and their friends. My tutees’ names were Santiago Pineda and Paula Truyol Ortiz. This conversation meeting occurred immediately after a tutoring session. However, Santiago and Paula’s friends did not join the conversation until after our session. Thus, the dynamics were different as we transitioned away from the more so rigid tutoring structure to a more relaxed conversation structure. I had just finished showing Santiago and Paula a video on the controversy surrounding football players and kneeling for the National Anthem. I showed them this video so that they could practice their listening skills, and also so that they could learn a bit about US culture. This discussion carried onto our conversation meeting. Santiago mentioned that he does not necessarily understand why the U.S. cares so much about the military. He mentioned that in his country of Colombia, the military is not something that is entirely respected. Paula, agreed with him. She also added that in Colombia, race is not as important as it is here in the U.S. She used herself as an example as she believed herself to be a mixture of races and ethnicities. She claimed that her tan skin made her seem racially ambiguous, and more importantly, it did not matter. The two other friends in the room seemed to agree. They added that race was not something they ever thought about. If anything, it was nationalities that mattered more to them. A Colombian and a Venezuelan may look alike, but they are different to one another. Ultimately, it was not something that I was previously oblivious to, for I understood and had heard these sentiments before. Yet it was insightful nonetheless to hear these opinions once more. In terms of conversation and speaking, I was personally surprised as I believe Santiago, Paula, and their friends were very close to native level speakers. At the very least, they had little to no problem conveying their thoughts. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFkalhEGA-w

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TS #10

For my 10th tutoring session I met with Mauricio at his apartment complex on Tuesday, December 11, 2018. Mauricio and a few of the other Colombian students asked for assistance with listening in preparation for the ITEP examination. I returned to the same website I visited in our previous session; though this time I read the passages aloud to Mauricio. I read the passage at a steady pace slightly slower than my normal speech pattern. I read the passages only once, and then asked Mauricio to answer the comprehension questions and explain his rationale. This time around he had no problems, aside from a few words he didn't hear well. He exhibited ambiguity tolerance in still deciphering the information of the passages despite this.
Read more

TS #13

For my 13th Tutoring Session I met with Natalia on Wednesday, December 12th, 2018. Natalia was referred to me by Paula and was also interested in working on listening. Mauricio, Santiago, and Paula gave me positive feedback about the strategy I'd been using for practicing listening so I continued as such. Natalia asked me to start slowly so I began with a mid-intermediate level passage, continued with a few upper-intermediate passages, and eventually worked into advanced passages. I think this was a good strategy as she did not seem confident at first, but easily worked her way up to comprehending the advanced passages. Through the entire 75 minutes she was only mistaken on 3 questions, and each were ones that were worded poorly in my opinion. We focused on the questions that were well done, and her logic on each. Twice she got the correct answer, but misunderstood the information leading her to the answer. The beautiful mistakes were explained and she left the session feeling that...
Read more

TS #11

For my 11th Tutoring Session, I met with Santiago on December 11, 2018. Santiago was preparing for the ITEP examination, and asked if I could tutor him after speaking with Mauricio about our session. Santiago was also having the most difficulty with the listening section preparation, so I approached with a similar structure. I visited the same website I'd used with Mauricio. I first read Santiago two upper-intermediate level passages, once each, before asking him to explain his answers for the reading comprehension section. He easily deciphered the passages and selected the correct responses. I then read him two advanced level passages. The first section he answered all questions correctly, though he did need one paragraph repeated. The second passage gave him a bit of trouble, but to be fair it was confusing to me too. It was a passage styled in the form of a news report containing several names, and the questions were worded poorly. I explained to Santiago that this should not di...
Read more