Evan-TS#2 (Bruce)

     Immediately following my first tutoring session with Aziz, I climbed the Hecht House stairs to meet my second tutee, Bruce. Having done what I felt to be an effective first tutoring session with Aziz, I felt rather confident heading into my second session. Bruce, as I had anticipated, was less proficient at English in comparison to Aziz. Nonetheless I did my best to accommodate, and begin the needs assessment. Like Aziz, he is learning English to pursue schooling in America. Additionally, his wife is a U.S citizen living here in Tallahassee. Bruce did seem very capable despite his limited skill, and very motivated to learn. He pointed quickly to grammar, as well as listening as some of his lackluster skills. I found however, that while his grammar was in need of improvement, he needed additional help with speaking, though he did not comment on this. It required a good amount of listener effort on my part to effectively communicate, and he struggled to find the words he wanted. However, with this first necessity out of the way, I asked him the same thing I asked Aziz, what did he want help with right this moment? He too, was quick to point out some abstract concept of English language that I had no idea existed yet used frequently. This only reinforced my already budding thoughts about my re-exploration of English. He asked after "adjective clauses", citing significant difficulty in selecting the correct relative pronoun. This was a real challenge, as I could tell which word was often correct, but would struggle articulating why it was the correct one. Some were easier. For example, "who" or "whose" will always refer to a person. Some were obviously more difficult, like the difference between "that" and "which". The best way I could describe this to him was that "which" often picked a singular out of a multiple. It also typically contains superfluous information, otherwise known as a "non-essential" clause. I told him "that" would typically describe a physical object or thing in more direct detail, often containing important contextual information. Bruce seemed to latch on rather well, and had a few "Oooh" moments, so I hope I helped more than I harmed. Our meeting was cut short by next class, starting in only five minutes after our lesson concluded.

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