Patrick TS#9

Date/Time: September 19, 2018, 3:00-4:00 p.m.

Location: CIES Classroom #315

Topic Discussed:  Role Play: A Recruiter for Portugal

To encourage practice of English speaking to achieve fluency and spontaneity, I created a role playing activity for my Tutee. This general speaking activity is one suggested by Snow & Campbell. Because my Tutee knows Portugal well, I wanted him to pretend he was a recruiter who would try to persuade me to move to Portugal and become part of the culture there. I prepared in advance a typed copy of points he might make during his “persuasive speech”. While he has command of many vocabulary words, I thought these general prompts (scaffolding), might help him focus more on delivering his persuasive speech/presentation than on grammar or other concerns.

Scenario: Pretend that you are a recruiter for either Angola or Portugal. Your task is to try and persuade me (or your customers) to move to Angola or Portugal and seek employment in one of those countries.

When you speak to customers, be sure to discuss the following things (simplified for this blog):

The country

The climate

Cost of Living

 Job Opportunities

After he reviewed the outline and confirmed his understanding of his role in this conversation, I asked if any words in the outline were unfamiliar. We discussed "highlight" and "recruiter". His responses demonstrated that he understood these words and how they would play out in context of his role.

While he spoke, I continued to listen intently, but quietly made brief notes to help me formulate follow-up questions and discuss "beautiful mistakes" later. Specifically, I jotted down key points he made while speaking. These brief notes helped me ask specific follow-up questions which facilitated further focused discussion (speaking practice!). My notes also helped me invite him to think about word usage, for example. I noted at three different points that he recognized his “beautiful mistakes” and corrected those errors independent of me. Good!