Miles TS#16

Tuesday June 23, 2015 - For today's tutoring session, Nedal came over to my house, and we set up the study area in the living room again. He was very tired from fasting all day because of Ramadan. As a schema building exercise, I had Nedal explain to me what Ramadan is and how it is celebrated. Over the time that I have been tutoring him, I've noticed that he makes many present progressive verb tense errors. This is because, in Arabic, there is no present progressive verb tense. I spent the first half of the session explaining to him what present progressive tense is and when it is used. I explained to him that instead of saying, "I celebrate Ramadan," he should say "I am celebrating Ramadan." He had been introduced to present progressive tense in the past, but it was clear that he would benefit from more practice. I continued to explain that he should use present progressive tense when talking about something that he has been doing, is doing, and will be doing for a while longer. He seemed to understand, so I let him try a few quizzes online dealing with choosing correctly between the simple present and present progressive tenses. We reviewed the answers to the online quizzes together, and I congratulated him when he chose the correct tense and explained further any of the questions that he missed. Nedal would benefit from further instruction on using present progressive tense in the future. I feel like this concept may prove more difficult than others for him to learn, but he is determined to improve his English.