Since he doesn't have a cell phone, we arranged to meet at the lounge at CIES at 3pm, on which he successfully followed through. He then introduced me to Jia, another student from South Korea that I will be tutoring starting next week because she could not meet with me this past Monday.
When I met Dongsoek, he told me that his main difficulties in English is pronunciation, speaking, and listening when others speak English. Sometimes he has difficulty understanding what others say to him but what I noticed that he writes everything down on his notepad and asks for clarification on the spelling and pronunciation, which I think is a very good strategy at conquering colloquial speech.
During our tutoring session, I helped him with his essay in terms of organization and the use of articles. He seemed very confused on how to use them, since they are not used in Korean language. Since this was a difficult part for me when I started learning English (in Russian we do not use articles either), I wrote it down for him in a more visual diagram with explanations. As we went through his essay, he began to notice the pattern of when to use either definite or indefinite ones and by the very end, he began to correct them all on his own.
I think for my next lesson with him, I'll come up with a listening activity, such as a news article with a video that would be simple enough for him to understand but he can also start getting used to listening English speech and hear the way some words are pronounced.
It is great to see your second language learning coming in handy!
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