Out of Egypt: Session 2

Last night I met up with my Egyptian tutoring partners at the library. I decided to focus the lesson on prepositions: The book is on the table, the book is under the table. Where is my cell phone? The cell phone is in the bag. I also used a picture book. But I had some difficulties keeping my thoughts from showing on my face, because what I was thinking was this: "I've repeated the same sentence for you to say 25 times and you're still not getting it. Why?"

I was thinking back to the 7-time repetition rule, and asking them to repeat what they said was important to jog their memory. I just NEEDED them to respond to my questions in full sentences, but 9 times out of 10, that simply wasn't working. I would praise them when they responded correctly, clap my hands, and they'd smile.....but mostly they got it TOTALLY wrong. I think I had to keep myself from showing my disappointment when I asked them to describe the location of the toilet in a bathroom-picture: "Where is the toilet?" only to recieve "Ugh, toilet in next, in the sink?"

You have no idea how many times I told them both to repeat: "The toilet is next to the sink." They had some MAJOR difficulties saying "Next"....it sounded more like "nek-ist," which was good enough, but without the "to" right after it's incorrect.

Last night was a difficult session even though we were using a picture book. If only I could get this couple, though they have resided in America for 2.5 yrs, to know how to fully respond to a simple question: Where is the girl sitting?

"ugh, sitting?....the girl in nek-ist. No. The girl is in the sofa?"

You get what I'm saying, right?