Catherine_TP_#7

I saw Dalal yesterday morning when I observed Ryan's class, which is funny because she has been in both classes I have observed so far. We met later in the day for tutoring. We talked a lot in the beginning again, but mostly about her upcoming project for her speaking class. Her topic is something along the lines of what did she think America was going to be like, and what does she think about America now. She explained to me how she was nervous coming to America because of the way she looked and dressed (wearing her hijab). She thought Americans would discriminate against her not want to speak to her or become her friend because of it. But she now knows that this was not true and has made many American friends as well as friends from many different countries. I asked her why she thought no one would want to talk to her, and she explained how she went on a trip to France and they were incredibly rude to her and her family and she has heard stories from friends about French police harassing women wearing hijabs and burkas and demanding they remove them. She said the french people all ignored her and treated her badly and assumed Americans would be the same. I was shocked to hear about this. She was having a difficult time expressing all of this in her paper, mostly because she didn't know the words for it. I explained the words prejudice and discrimination, and we looked them up on google so she could see some other synonyms that she could use in her paper. I helped her with her spelling mistakes a little bit because her content all made sense and was in order and I knew she knew what she wanted to add to it later. She explained how she will eventually have to present this all out loud, so I helped her with pronunciation of some of the more difficult words to help her prepare. Next time we meet she should have finished her rough draft and I can help her perfect it along with the pronunciation of the whole thing so she can speak it perfectly in class!