Raleigh TS #4

Date/Time: 5/31/17 (4pm)
Location: CIES
Topic/Skill: speaking
Feedback provided to tutee: We were just getting to know each other.

Today, I met with Soumaya for the first time. We really were just working on getting to know each other today, and I was trying figure out what she wanted to work on. She's from a country in West Africa called Burkina Faso. I had never heard of it before, and she said it's a French country. She said that there are a bunch of different ethnic groups in Burkina Faso that all have their own language. She said her first language was Moole. She said that the languages and ethnic groups aren't really split by region though. She said that her neighbor could have a different ethnic background than her and speak a different language, but they all have French in common. She said she wanted to learn English because her brother only speaks English, so she wants to be able to talk to him more. She also wants to learn English because she wants to be an architect, and there's not a school that offers that in Burkina Faso. She said that she wanted to go to France, but her visa doesn't start until September for France. She said she came to America to learn English because she wanted to be forced to speak the language. She's very motivated and said that she also wants to learn English in order to be the best architect because English is used almost universally. I can tell that she's really devoted to her studies, and she's really excited to learn English. She said that she wants to work on her speaking and listening because she does all of her other assignments at home, so we're just going to talk about different topics for each session. I can also tell that she makes a conscious effort to work on her pronunciation and to use a lot of different words. Overall, it went great, and she seems excited to keep practicing.