Plan for application

This time I prepared some advices for Roa’a’s application to have a discussion with her. In our meeting, I started the conversation from an advice that she should go to observe classes that she is interested in or may take in the future after she is admitted. If she attends class and engages in discussion, asks questions and participates when appropriate, she will be standing out in a good way. This can also make her interest and commitment in success obvious, which may end up helping her if she needs to ask her professor for help with anything, or if she is interested in pursuing a master degree in his or her field. She agreed with me, but told me that she was afraid that if she showed up in a class one time, but then found it not interesting or she couldn’t go later because she was busy. That would give the professor a bad impression. I comforted her that at least she got the chance to make an impression on professors and let them know that she was interested. Besides, if she is interested in working with a specific professor for a thesis or graduate project, there is another good step she could take. Reading articles or papers the professor has published recently, or seeing work they've shown if they're in a creative discipline, can help her get a better idea of what their academic priorities are. Finally, I told her that sometimes, academic departments would have parties and other social events that professors, staffs and students would have an opportunity to interact in a more relaxed and fun environment. But here Roa’a was confused because she thought there was no channel for her to get this kind of information about the parties or events in educational leadership program. I suggested that just as we have mentioned before, going to observe classes is a good way to make friends with students and professors who are in that program, then she could get information from them.

Then our pronunciation project went well just as always, and this time Roa’a already recorded the one of the two passages in the Recorded Practice before we met, and she showed it to me. Now I feel my judgment about her English proficiency before was not completely right. Because I was always thinking that her English was good since she talked with me in a relatively fluent way. After listening her record this time, I felt she may be just good at daily life communications because she has been in US for years, but when it comes to academic readings, it seems her performance is not so good, especially her intonations, stress and pause of sentences. I have a feeling that she was like talking to someone in emotion when she was reading the passage about astronomy, so I should give her some guidance in how to read in a non-daily life way. This new finding will be my focus in our next meeting.

When we were going to say goodbye, she asked me if I was free tomorrow in the evening, because there would be an interesting activity at Hub about Turkish culture, and because her mom is from Turkey so she is also interested in Turkish culture. I told her I would definitely like to join her, but I had a shift at that time. Actually I am so excited that she asked me out. 

Pronunciation exercise

My language partner Roa’a was waiting for me when I got to the library, and we went to the group study room which I booked online. I realized I had difficulty differentiating my language partner’ pronunciation of /l/ and /r/, and I guess this is a common problem of  people from Middle East, since I have friends who are also from the same area with my language partner, their pronunciation sounds a little stiff, not as soft as native speakers. Thus I read some parts of the chapter Consonant System in our textbook Teaching Pronunciation again, and prepared some materials about the pronunciation of the two sounds for her.  I made her read a list of vocabularies with these sounds, such as laugh, lake, mall, palace, flight, milk, melt, rock, red, fries, correct, carrot, ferry, and several sentences with these words, such as “My plane arrived late.” “The taxi took the wrong road and we had to walk five long blocks carrying a heavy load.” She said she would notice the differences when she was reading this list, but she wouldn’t pay so much attention of these two sounds when she talks in daily life. And my reminding is a good way for her to have a standard pronunciation of /l/ and /r/.

Then we went on with our pronunciation program packet. I felt the dictation part of this meeting was not easy, because there were some scientific vocabularies which were not often seen in daily communication. She seemed to get them very well, with only a little confusion about a few words, and even if she couldn’t get the meaning of some words, she would take a guess and write the correct words by my pronunciation.

Later when we were doing the phrase level practice, she was a little confused about how to identify the thought group. I explained to her from my point of view, that just as the guidance said, prepositional phrases are one type of thought group, thus if we could recognize the preposition in a sentence, it would help us to identify the thought group in it. She got it and then completed this part smoothly.

When we came to the last part recorded practice, she realized that she hadn’t taken pictures as preparation, so she offered to take a picture of the group study room with me in the picture. As she described, I helped with some specific details. I felt this time she was more at ease and more willing to talk with me. Thus I thought it was a good chance to talk more with her and get to know more about her. When I told her that some of my classmates’ language partners’ oral English was poor, but I spoke highly of her English speaking, she told me that maybe it was because she had spent two years in Texas where her husband got his master degree. And she said they were sponsored by their government, but if she couldn’t pass TOEFL and get admitted by PSU, the government would stop the sponsorship of her, so she had lots of pressure. I encouraged her that she should take it easy because from what I see, her English is good especially her oral English, compared with other IECP students. Then I got a surprising message that there was no speaking part in TOEFL which she would take three months later. I responded that the most difficult part for me in TOEFL was speaking, and all of my friends who had also taken TOEFL had experienced the speaking part. So I was totally confused what kind of English examination she would take. She explained to me that there was TOEFL, TOEFL iBT, and what she would take is TOEFL in which the grammar part is most difficult for her. Then the reason why she didn’t seem care about the pronunciation project was clear now. We also talked a little about her husband and children, and I offered that we could hang out as a way to practice our oral English, then she asked me what kind of movies I liked and maybe we could go to watch movie together someday. 

First time meeting

Finally I could meet my language partner Roa’a.  I emailed her and suggested we meet in a group study room in library, because I think we need a quiet study environment to practice pronunciation.  However she asked if we could meet in Hub, I didn’t ask why but I agreed.

We met in front of Hub, and she recognized me with a hug. While we were looking for an appropriate place to begin our study, I suggested again that we go to library. She responded that she had never been to library before, and that is why she would like to meet in Hub.  I was surprised about it and offered to take her there. On our way to the library, we had a happy talk. She told me she is from Saudi Arabia. Her husband is a PhD student at Penn State, and they have two children, so she is busy with families.  From our talk, I feel her oral English is good, with proper vocabularies and sentences structures. The only problem is that she has a little accent, which sometimes made it a little confusing for me to understand her.  She is now taking English classes to make a preparation for TOEFL test, and after passing it she could further her study at Penn State.

We found seats in lobby of the library, and began to conduct the Pronunciation Project.  She asked me how long it would take to finish our meeting, because she had to go back home to cook for her children. For the dictation part, which I thought she may have some difficulties in, it turned out that she knew enough vocabularies to complete this part. When we were doing the recorded practice, she didn’t get what to do at first, and after given more time to read the directions, she still seemed not so interested in asking me questions. Thus I came up with some questions as examples.  I could tell that she didn’t look at the pronunciation project packet carefully or prepare so much for our meeting.

I feel we had a good time with each other. But because we are in different ages and different life stages, it seems she doesn’t care so much about this project, only treats it as homework.  I could understand her but am more willing to help her make a big progress in this project.  For our next meetings, I think I should behave more confident of my English and my teaching, thus establish my authority. And some motivating activities or effective strategies should be come up with to help her engage more in this project.