Today, Makia and I discussed where each of us were from. We shared our goals, and our journey of our academic process at MSU. Makia is a 1st year student studying political science/business. She is taking Economics and Calculus. She says both of these courses are difficult, but she hopes to receive good grades so that she can get into the business school. She also has to taking Writing I & II, and was voicing to me some of her anxieties with taking a college level writing specific course. I assured her that it is not that difficult, but very manageable with the resources offered on campus.
We talked about family, and the differences of living in Pakistan from the US. When I asked her the primary difference of life in Pakistan from here, she said ‘security’. She feels much more secure here then in her native country. She explained the suicide bombing that takes place often. When talking about her family she describes her ‘informal’ relationship with her parents as she is extremely close to them. She is the oldest in the family of her siblings. She has 2 sisters, and 2 brothers. She will be visiting them this summer, and returning to Montclair in the Fall.
I learned something new when discussing ‘Dari’ her language spoken in Pakistan. Makia expressed how the writing system is similar to that of Arabic. Overall, she said that she does not have difficulty switching to her native language to speak with her parents, and then practicing and speaking her English at Montclair.
Together, we discussed and answered the ‘Need Assessment for the ESL Intermediate High A Course’. Throughout the process of answering the assessment we discussed topics of politics, healthcare, resources on campus, her job at the MSU library, and friends at school
It is clear Makia has many of the tools to succeed as a second language learner. I was amazed and inspired by her positive outlook towards acquiring a new language in addition to her ambitious future goals. She hopes to use the degree at Montclair as a stepping stone to either eventually get her masters. If granted the opportunity, she hopes to eventually go back to her native country, Pakistan to work for either Parliament, UN, or any other job involving politics.
When asking her what her main focus is for tutoring, she said improving her pronunciation. Before, she had trouble speaking too quickly however, after one session it is evident that she has worked tremendously hard on fixing this minor problem. She spoke slowly and really did a great job! I was amazed!
We talked about negative feedback, and she encouraged me to correct her as much as possible. This is one of my concerns as a future teacher of ESL as I want to learn the correct approach to correct my students yet not discourage them. I hope that when working with Makia, I will find this happy medium.
We started with the word native working on the /n/ sound. I showed her the place where your tongue meets the roof of your mouth by your two front teeth, and we did a few exercises until she pronounced ‘native’ correctly.
We will be meeting at 5:30 on Friday’s, we agreed to start with looking at her Political Science book reading it aloud together to point out pronunciation/articulation issues.
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