On Thursday, January 31st at 7:00, I met with my
conversation partner, Ali. He invited me over his house for dinner and I got to
meet with wife, Badrisa, and his newborn daughter, Mila, who is only three
weeks old. I learned that his wife used
to take classes from CIES and I helped both her and Ali with their English
speaking skills. I told Badrisa that I used to take Arabic classes but that I
forgot a majority of what I learned with the exception of the alphabet. She
then helped me remember how to write words in Arabic and gave me tips on how to
remember certain letters and sounds that I used to struggle with when I was
studying the language. Throughout my
time there, we all talked about a variety of different things, including
American history. Specifically, we talked about topics regarding Native
Americans and the Civil Rights Movement.
Then we talked about religion and Ali was kind enough to explain exactly
how Muslims pray and what each part of each prayer is called, which I was very
interested in learning about. I really enjoyed meeting up with him and meeting
his family and we agreed to have a BBQ in about a week or two.
My next tutoring session was with Turki. We met at the Starbucks on Tennessee Street, the usual spot, and started the session with a causal conversation about life and his short term English goals. Turki decided he didn't want to continue with the second session of CIES classes, and that he wanted to rather focus solely on passing the IELTS exam. He said he found the CIES classes to be helpful, but also distracting. He said he thinks he's gotten the most out of his classes and that it would be more productive for him to study on his own. Where I don't completely agree with his logic, it is his life and I trust his decision making. For this session he brought his own material that he wanted to focus on. This time it was a reading passage that I even found to be quite difficult, and I was once again impressed by his far reach in practice and ability. The reading passage was accompanied by a set of numerous comprehension questions that we reviewed and answered together. The qu...
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