Danielle TS#13

On 10/7, I met with Maritza again for our next tutoring session. This time, we focused on independent speaking in order to prepare her for the TOEFL exam, as she will be taking it in just a few weeks. She speaks really well, and most of her issues that she has are relatively minor things such as forgetting to pronounce the S at the end of words. Also, she has a little bit of trouble when it comes to pronunciation of sounds that are not commonly used in the English language. So most of our time was spent by practicing independent speaking questions and answers and me critiquing her pronunciation when necessary.  Usually, any pronunciation errors she has are very minor and do not affect the listener's comprehension of her speech. However, one instance of her mispronouncing a word was when she said "mull" instead of "mall," and I did not know what she meant until later in her answer when she said it again, but a little more clearly. I stressed to her the importance of getting pronunciation right, as I'm sure the TOEFL graders will not hesitate to take points off for pronunciation that affects comprehension and/or meaning. Overall, she did very well. However, she is very stressed about the TOEFL test, but I truly believe that she is over-thinking it and that she will pass it the first time. She is well prepared and her English skills are fantastic overall, and so I reassured her that she will do just fine.