Adam TP #3

Today I met with Bayasgalan, again in Room 409 of Eppes Hall. I helped him understand his grammar instructions from his CIES textbook, as he was struggling with the difference between pronouns and nouns, as well as different types of pronouns. However, in addition to explaining grammar rules from his book, I also got the opportunity to practice and model grammar in use. I also managed to give examples of grammar in context. He constructed several sample sentences, and when he made an error I would repeat the sentence in its grammatically correct form in order to model how the sentence would be spoken by a native English speaker. He would repeat after me, occasionally dropping "a" or "the," and sometimes conflating past and present tense. I attempted the technique mentioned in Snow's book in which the teacher repeats the sentence as a question, with an emphasis on a different word, but subtly points out the student's mistake in the process. While Bayasgalan is learning simple past and simple present tense in writing, he occasionally struggled with these concepts in speaking. Because of that we had a simple practice conversation. We discussed the differences between "I am going to the library," "I will go to the library," and "I went to the library." We also practiced a sample conversation about our countries' respective histories. I also taught him the colloquial expression "figure out," meaning to learn from observing (he was previously unfamiliar with this English language expression). He said that he was still having difficulty understanding a lot of English and that he still only understood about 20% of the English he heard. However, I let him know that he was learning very quickly and that his English was improving greatly. We parted and thanked each other for our time. We agreed to meet again on Monday afternoon.