Lindsey TP#5

          Today I met with Fatema for the second time.We met in the CIES lounge and went over some TOEFL readings, like we had agreed to do last time. I had found an old TOEFL practice book that very conveniently separated the writing questions into type (factual, author's purpose, main idea, etc). Since Fatema was concerned with her performance on factual questions (which is odd since most students have more trouble with the other types - authors intent, main idea, etc), I had copied several passages and question sets that dealt exclusively with those. There was a good explanation of factual question techniques at the beginning of the chapter (things like: scan for not only words the question uses but also synonyms of the words it uses). We went over these and I think she found it helpful. Next she read one of the passages (on some event in American History), and tried to answer the questions. While she clearly understood the points of the passage, she was unable to answer some simple questions about when and where things happened. I helped her by telling her what words and phrases to scan for (since one question was where the event happened, she should look for "at __" rather than "from __" or "near __"). I also helped her pronounce several words (she read aloud quietly). We didn't make plans to meet again, since her classes were ending that week and I'm moving soon.