DJ TP #7

Yesterday I met with Abdullah again. He wanted to work more on essays so I had him create an outline to see if he could remember the basic format. He had taken my notes with him the time we first started the essay, and I think he studied them, because he now knows the 5 paragraph format perfectly. He even understands the nuances of "5 paragraphs, 5 sentences each", which is to say, he knows that the "hook" sentence can sometimes be two sentences(for instance, if the hook is a question that you go on to answer). After that, had him dictate. He had good listening skills, but we still need to work on spelling. I think this will be one of the hardest things to learn, because it seems that for every English rule, there is an exception. Since he didn't get to come to the movie with the others on Saturday, I told him about the movie for our dictation. He asked me to explain what a "persuasive" essay is. He understood the point of it and I explained that it had essentially the same format as an expository essay, 5 paragraphs, 5 sentences each. I told him the difference was that a persuasive essay can have more opinions in it and in general a different voice(one that is trying to convince as opposed to explain). Then, of course, religion came up again. All three of my Kuwaiti students are very interested in my religion, and even moreso in my understanding of their religion. Each one of them have asked me at some point "what do you think of Islam?" All of them think that I consider Islam a religion "of terrorists", but I explained to them that in an odd way that is a reverse stereotype(double stereotype?), because they expect me to have expectations.