Jennifer_TP11

Last night I met up with Yuki, my tutoring partner from Japan! I ended up running late by thirty minutes for our tutoring session, but we ended up going later, so it was okay. We started off by correcting a timed writing he did at a previous session. I first praised his message, as it was very well organized and clear. Then I explained any spelling, word form, or preposition/article errors he had made. Overall he did a really great job! Next, I gave him a worksheet on prepositions. Prepositions are especially hard for Yuki, and it was sometimes difficult to explain why the correct preposition was the correct preposition. For the most part he did very well. Next, I decided to help him work on some pronunciation, vocabulary, and critical thinking using a simplified Bible story. Even though Yuki is from Japan he is a Christian, and before I even started tutoring him at CIES I first met him attending the International House of Prayer (IHOP) I go to! Hence, I thought it would be really cool to read a simplified Bible story from a read-aloud book I got at the library. Yuki was very excited by this because he only has the New Testament in Japanese, so he really wanted to read an Old Testament story. We ended up reading the creation story (since it had familiar words like sea, land, dark, light, animals, etc.) Yuki read a loud each paragraph to work on pronunciation. I encouraged him to aim for pronunciation and not to worry about reading aloud fast, and this helped him self-correct himself, which was great! After each paragraph, we would discuss what he thought it meant. For instance, one paragraph talked about God separating the light and the darkness, and he called the darkness night and the light day. Yuki would explain it back to me in his own words, and he did a great job of this.There was also some new vocabulary for him, such as "formless void" (talking about the Earth before it was formed), "bare" (talking about the bare Earth) and dome (dome=sky, in this case). It was interesting explaining what the word meant in this context, and what other definitions it could have (for instance, void could also mean to cancel a transaction at the grocery store). We used context clues to try to help him understand, and would turn to the dictionary if he really was having trouble, but he did very well! We got about halfway through the story, and then CIES was closing. Yuki was very hungry after our session, so we decided to go to Chick-fil-a, his favorite restaurant apparently! While we were eating he kept saying how Chick-fil-a was so delicious and had the best food ever - it was pretty entertaining and hilarious watching how happy he was eating. Then I took him to IHOP because he wanted to go and needed a ride, so we got to just hang out and be with all our other friends instead of a formal tutoring session, which was nice. Even though Yuki is my friend, we always are able to maintain the focused atmosphere when tutoring, and the friendly atmosphere when just seeing each other at IHOP. Overall, the session went well, and we also had a fun evening with friends afterwards!