Pam TS #3 Adult

As I mentioned in the last blog, Manal had taken a practice TOEFL exam last weekend and had come to our tutoring session the next day ready to settle down and work.  She realized how complex and intense the exam is and is ready to focus on her English skills. Classmate, Jennifer gave me a practice TOEFL exam and when offered the choice to read aloud and practice the exam or play a Scrabble game to work on her vocabulary from White Fang, Manal immediately said " Let's practice on the exam this week." 

The reading was definitely intensive ( bottom up) line by line word by word work.  We made it through 2 paragraphs and 6 questions in the hour but Manal was so pleased with her work and excited about the pronunciation practice.  She read a line- I read it to her again- and she repeated words that were difficult.  The experience was good for me too as I realized the difficulty of the topics.  This short essay was about craters and 4 billion year old water flows on Mars. The vocabulary was obscure even for an English speaker, with multiple syllables, and with nuances that could be confusing.  But patiently Manal read and re-read until she could understand the text.  Then the quizzes came with multiple choice answers many which could be correct. (I was glad I had the answers to be sure I did not mislead because these were tricky). 

My homework:  I'm writing up a vocabulary sheet of the new words.  We will use those words in our postponed Scrabble game during Wednesday's session.