Kari_TP8

This afternoon I met up with my tutee Jaewoo and practiced speaking exercises mostly. Even though he is a level 3 speaker and just took the TOEFL test, he still needs practice, especially since he plans on continuing his English learning skills. So I practiced the SPEAK test with him. Normally the SPEAK test is timed with each section, but from the very start of practicing this test with him, I quickly discovered it would not be a good idea to time him. Jaewoo had to think about the question I had asked him for several minutes and asked me to repeat the question multiple times before he could answer. When he did answer the questions, he was very good at correcting his mistakes, especially with the past and present tenses of a word. However, there is a section in the SPEAK test that asks the test takers to give directions on a simple scale map. Jaewoo had a lot of trouble with this part and even after explaining five times to him that he needed to tell me how to get from point A to point B, he had no idea what I was asking him to do. The idea was for him to tell me street names and directions to turn, but literally all he could do was stare at the map and scratch his head. I finally had to take him through the map step by step and explain that this was giving directions, and only then did he understand. He said that in Korea they do not give directions by street names and instead use landmarks. On the rest of the test he did well, especially with the short comic that displayed a short story, where he had to tell me what was going on block by block.