Kerri TS #13

Abdullah and I focused on speaking, pronunciation, and culture today in our session. He just traveled to Tampa for an English exam, and he feels confident in every aspect of the test except for reading. He felt as though he was not given enough time to comprehend his reading passages, and there was a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary introduced within them followed by some fill-in-the-blank exercises. In our next session we are going to practice context clues with his vocabulary list because he forgot to bring it today. He decided we should focus on speaking and pronunciation, so we discussed various aspects of our cultures in order to practice. The subject of arranged marriages in Saudi Arabia was brought up, and Abdullah was happy to share his personal engagement story with me. Despite popular belief, marriages in the Middle East are not blindly arranged. Couples are able to meet each other before agreeing to become engaged, and they have the right to reject their potential spouse and even change their mind after accepting their engagement. However, the divorce rate in America is still much higher than in Saudi Arabia. Abdullah is doing a lot better with pronunciation, although he still needs to work on using gerunds and infinitives appropriately.