Charlene TS #3 Adult No. 2

As planned, I met with Ileana in the lab at CIES. She told me that she has been listening to the Voice of America promised every day. She said she is beginning to understand more, and has found more on that website besides we were listening to last time. I praised her for doing this. Unfortunately, she had not received the links I sent to the cooking programs. So I pulled these up and let her locate them online. She pulled up her own email and found that the email message a headset with the links, had gone to her trash folder. She retained the use for later viewing. She noted that she doesn't cook, but she might find this interesting to look at.

I have prepared a Story Corps viewing for her, with three voices. Two of the voices have American mid-western accents, but one of the voices has an Asian accent. However, the voice speaks, I assessed, rather slowly so I asked if she would listen to the Story Corps program and watch the animation for it. She agreed to do so. After listening to it the first time, she said that she believes she understood most of it but she was confused about the relationship among the people in it. I think that she likely had difficulty with this because the relationships were not clearly stated at the beginning, and were only explained more clearly near the end of the story. We listened to part of it again. We also discussed the story. She did seem to understand about three-fourths of what was being said and said that she would listen to this again on her own. I pointed out some other possible stories that she might want to check out on her own on this Story Corps website.

Ileana said that she would like to start reading out loud with me so I could check her pronunciation and that she could hear her own voice. This is a suggestion of a friend. She thought that this might be helpful because she, apparently, sees herself as possibly having a future in the tourism business as a guide when she returns to Colombia. I agreed to prepare something for next time.

We spent some time working through a needs assessment instrument aimed at discerning factors, other than the previously discussed diagnostic issues, that might affect Ileana's learning English. Since the lesson up to that point had taken an hour, and my tutee was very accommodating with answering the lengthy questionnaire, the session today lasted a little over 2 1/2 hours. However, I think I came away from it with a much better grasp of how to help Ileana with her English needs. She is highly motivated by future employment, but especially by her son's needs. She is independent, and has a distinct distaste for overly dramatic relationships "that keep people stuck." It is clear to me that speaking – listening/listening – speaking should continue to be the focus of her tutoring. Perhaps we will be able to work in some reading comprehension activities also by having her read aloud.