Zola 8-3 Afternoon Tutoring

     Yesterday afternoon I met with Moussa in the basement of the Hecht House. The lesson was focused mostly on receptive language skills of reading and listening, but there was also some speaking practice.

    I began by using a lesson plan I had initially made for the Reading unit of the TEFL course. It was an intensive reading exercise about the history of immigration at Ellis Island.

    We began by looking at a virtual tour of Ellis Island, with lots of photographs of what it looked like in the past, and what it looks like today, in its new occupation as a museum.

    After that initial schema building exercise, I had Moussa read aloud a passage on Ellis Island, and then answer intensive reading questions I had created for it.

    I was happy with how this lesson went. It was challenging enough that he had to reread some sections to find the answers, but not so difficult as to be discouraging or frustrating.

    I followed that up with some speech practice, asking him about how his country handles immigrants, and if they have any facilities for housing them.

    The lesson concluded with a pre-made reading exercise I found on lingua.com.