Jessica TS #14 (Sandra)

Date/time: July 21st, 10-11am

Location: Online

Topic/Skill: We went over pronunciation regarding "th", "h", and words that start with "st". Some Spanish speakers will add e to the beginning of words like "strange" (estrange) and th can be a difficult sound to replicate, but she's been practicing and is doing really well! We also reviewed voiced and unvoiced th, and how to best guess when to use them. I think the focus on pronunciation will make her more confident with speaking. We also did a listening practice using audio from the British council site. She said the pace was fine but the accents made it very difficult to understand. All the same, she was able to answer the comprehension questions and after we listened a 4th time with the script, at all made sense. We had about 10 mins of extra time after that, so we just had free discussion about her week and hobbies/movie genres we like.

What I learned: I feel like Sandra is doing really well and seems a lot more confident when speaking with me compared to when we started. She has high intrinsic motivation and I know she works very hard. I think every students needs a different learning environment and while I'm still figuring out how to approach sessions with everyone, it's gotten much easier over the last few weeks for me as well.