TS - SANGHUN - October 6, 2020

 Sanghun started the lesson by telling me about his hometown in Korea. I asked him to elaborate on museums, amusement parks, stadiums, famous buildings, history...etc. My goal was to get him thinking about things in the moment and not to have him just read off what he had prepared. I could tell this through him off for the first part but with a few questions he was able to find his feet again and continue the dialogue well. Sanghun recommended several things for me to do in Korea. He told me about his trip to Hawaii with his wife and about his wedding. We discussed the similarities and differences between South Korean weddings and weddings in the States. Today our conversation topics were weather, climate, technology and holidays. I used prepared questions (about 15 per topic) to help guide conversations with Sanghun. I would ask a basic question, he would answer, I would ask him to elaborate and we would build from there. I would only stop to correct his pronunciation if it distorted the meaning of the word. This happened rarely. I asked Sanghun to please ask for clarification from me regarding any questions he had. Again, this back and forth dialogue which starts with the teacher guiding with questions seems to be a great method to get the student out of his or her shell. As I have mentioned in my posts, every week Sanghun seems more and more at ease and uses more low-frequency vocabulary that we have discussed. It's a nice feeling to see that he is truly enjoying and using the things we are discussing in our sessions together.