TP #4 GHalty

    On a beautiful crisp Thursday afternoon, I met both of my tutees for our first joint tutoring session. I know that Risa and Vladimir are on different levels grammatically, so I didn't know what kind of grammar activity I could do that would help both of them. So I decided to work on homophones, words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things. I found an extensive list of these online, which made me realize just how many there are in the English language, and worked on just the first page with them. We would go through each set, such as bare and bear, and I would describe each one and when you would use it. Luckily I knew how to explain the difference for most of them, except for the dreaded affect and effect which native speakers, including myself, misuse all the time. They were amazed at how many homophones there are in English. I might have overwhelmed them with all the information, so I plan to review the list again with them the next time we meet.
     We then got on the subject of family trees and what you call your relatives because I was explaining the difference between aunt and ant. So I decided to draw out my own family tree on the back of the paper. Luckily my parents are still together and I don't have any step-siblings or half-siblings. However, my boyfriend's family is quite complicated because his parents are divorced, remarried, and have their own children. I told them that my boyfriend's situation is not uncommon in the United States, and Vladimir told me it is a similar situation in Kazakhstan. Risa, on the other hand, said that divorce is still quite rare in Japan. That doesn't surprise me since I usually see Japan as a very traditional society.
     I look forward to seeing them both next week for another joint session.