Thursday, April 22, 2010

Tutoring 10 with Yongheon by Rita SChwab

Yesterday I saw Yongheon at the library again as usual on Wednesdays. He is feeling better. He has been dealing with a bad cough and was sent to a specialist. This got us talking about the health care system in the US compared to South Korean health care. We spoke in detail about health insurance, a very acute issue and Yongheons direct coverage for himself and his family. This conversation was good practise for Yongheon's pronunciation as his goal is improvement in speaking and pronouncing and sentence intonation. I therefore always encourage conversations and will pause to correct mistakes and repeat words to practise better pronunciation.

The focus of the class however was Tallahassee, the city, its history, its government and politics, its climate, its demographics down to urban planning and expansion ( see attached file). Special attention was given to the Leon County Sustainable Community Summit to be held May 6th and 7th at the newly rebuilt Turnbull Conference Center. As Yongheon is employed by the south Korean government and is working on his Master's degree in political science with focus on urban planning, I thought this summit be of primary interest to Yongheon.

I had Yongheon read the entire summit information, practicing sentence intonation, focus on syllabus and pronunciation and repeating sentences with 'proper' language flow. The "f" and the "th" is always difficult to pronounce and needs extra practice.

I hope Yongheon will attend the summit as there are many speakers and the focus is on sustainability and planning for future living. Yongheon felt that Korea is more progressed in this subject matter as well as in technology and computer knowledge.

Our time for tutoring is almost over as I am leaving north the beginning of May. Yongheon gave me a going away present, which I thought was so sweet and he suggested dinner the next time we meet.

Tutoring this student has been a good and educational experience. Thank you.

1 comment:

  1. Yongheon is certainly fortunate to have a teacher like you Rita.

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