TS #3 Abdulazziz September 14, 2020 2:30-3:30 pm

Abdulazziz and I spent the first part of class discussing his personal statement which he is preparing for his master’s program. We did a brainstorming session and I had him  discuss his background, college experience and research experience. We also discussed his career goals and research targets. I let Abdulazziz do most of the speaking while I guided the conversation with questions that related to the personal statement. All his comments and ideas were put into bullet point form. Next, I showed him several examples of personal statements people had prepared in the past. We discussed their structure and layout. I showed him how he should structure his in a similar way. The last part of class was spent preparing Abdulazziz for his TOEFL integrated speaking exam. We found several examples online and I served as the test administrator/grader. After each practice we discussed what was good and what needed to be improved on. We discussed a good strategy when approaching the integrated listening i.e. taking notes, circling/marking parts of the text and finally developing a broad understanding of what the topic is. Abdulazziz enjoyed the practice and said it helped his confidence going into the exam. We will continue to practice this going forward.