Milton_CP_#4

Milton_CP_#4

Student Name: Mutaz Bakri                                                                                                                         Date: Friday, January, 29-2015       

Location: Starbucks next to CIES, 5:00pm.

Skill – Speaking and Vocabulary acquisition

Mutaz needs a lot of practice speaking. We talked about his culture in Saudi Arabia. He loves sports and he visits the FSU gym regularly. Several years ago he was a champion of judo on his school. Mutaz enjoys speaking English and he is expanding his vocabulary collection on a daily basis. I did teach him some new words and ask him to tell me the meaning. It is funny how he uses his cell phone dictionary or translator. Once he finds the meaning he develops a sentence and we keep on talking until a new word shows up and again we start the cycle.

He is a native of the city of Mecca, the capital of Makkah Province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located 70 km inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley not facing the ocean. Mecca is the prophet Mohammed's birthplace is Islam's spiritual center. According to Mutaz is very hard to find a hotel due to the large number of people visiting the place on a daily basis. Most of the visitors stay with family members. He has a wife. One interesting detail – I asked him if they have butterflies in Saudi Arabia, my speculation was negative due to deserted conditions in the region. To my surprise he said yes and in fact some people eat them, they even have the monarch butterfly.

Lesson Learned: At the beginners level speaking is a fun activity and I see why some people shy away from it. Mutaz is motivated and he is having fun, I will keep on sharing vocabulary and making corrections to the sentences that he is building for regular conversations. If we keep a positive attitude he will be fluent in English soon.