Barbara TS#1

My first tutoring session with Dojun Kim from South Korea was so much fun.  He is an experienced tutee who participates frequently with CIES.  A flight despatcher with a low cost carrier (could not understand the name), Dojun is interested in all areas of speaking, listening and vocabulary in English.  He wants to participate in normal conversation and does not particularly care about topics or special areas. Like many students, he learned English in middle school and high school with the emphasis on grammar.

 He had some interesting ways in which he learns English routinely.  One is by listening to English speaking radio on his 30 minute drive into work. He also likes going to English speaking movies.  Although they have Korean subtitles, it is helpful to hear the English spoken within this context. In particular, we discussed Beauty and the Beast, the new edition with Emma Watson.  According to Dojun these activities reinforce his ability to listen but he still needs to speak.  I would rate his speaking level (based on what little I know about ratings) as intermediate to high intermediate.  We also discussed activities that he likes to do after work and he said that he frequently meets friends at a bar for drinks and billiards.  This conversation led to an explanation of Korean billiards which is very different from American.  I had trouble understanding because he kept using the word “cushion.”  Later I read about how this game works and it is very different from what we see in the US. When I asked him if he could use English on his job, he replied that frequently he had to speak English when working with Japanese carriers because it was the common language.  My observation about myself, just as with my Conversation partner, is I need to slow down, listen and give him time to form his thoughts and speak before I anticipate what he is saying and interrupt him.