Today I met with Talal during his break. During our last meeting, I told Talal that if he heard something or saw something that he did not understand to note it and we could go over it the next time we met. He had some confusion with indefinite articles and plural nouns. He also had some confusion on when to and not to use “the.” I explained that you cannot use an indefinite article with a plural noun. Talal quickly understood that and we moved on after writing a few examples.
For the definite articles, I found a really good blog online explaining when you do not use “the.” We went through all 5 parts of the blog writing down examples from each section. Talal understood most sections, including the absence of “the” from languages (German, French, Arabic) and sport verbs. Also, he did not have any trouble with the general statements and geography. He was a little confused when we went over the non-count nouns. For example, “I love listening to music” or “She doesn’t eat meat.” I explained these non-count nouns a little more thoroughly and we both wrote down some examples together.
We finished these exercises by Talal creating a few sentences with non-count nouns and places. Talal seemed to understand when to and when not to use the definite article a lot better after our session.
Before leaving, Talal and I talked about his weekend. Talal told me that he and some of the other students went to the beach and it was a lot of fun. He said that there is not much in the area that they went to, just a beach really. I noticed that Talal was using the past tense very well. He then asked me about my weekend and then we were out of time.
That blog is a great resource! One of my tutees has a hard time using "the", I think this resource will help!
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