Kari_CP5

This afternoon my tutee Minsuk and I practiced speaking with the SPEAK test because he is getting really nervous and apprehensive about the TOEFL exam, which he is taking this Saturday. Under normal circumstances, Minsuk is actually a very good speaker, but when I put the pressure on him and told him that each of his responses were timed, per the test's instructions, he found it really hard to concentrate and gather his ideas. I've been in his situation before from when I took Spanish so I understood how he felt. To help him practice, we would go through each question about 3 times, just so he could get a grasp of how to organize his thoughts and to get him comfortable with speaking in a certain amount of time. Towards the end, I did notice he was improving because he was giving me direct, short answers and even made his argument or opinion in the time allotted. Whereas at the beginning, he was having a hard time thinking of how to express his opinion and spent most of the time thinking of the words, rather than actually speaking, which meant that when he finally did speak, he only had 15 seconds or less left, which wasn't enough to really express himself.