Erfaan Mahmoodi CP #4


In my fourth conversation session with Alex, we talked about holidays and religion. My interest in asking about holidays was to find out about any existing family traditions. I shared with Alex the holidays and traditions of Nowruz (Persian New Year), Charshanbeh Suri (Fireworks Wednesday), and Yalda (Persian Winter Solstice). All of these holidays have roots dating back to Zoroastrian or earlier times. Alex talked about his family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, namely in how they served as the events of the year where the whole family would get together. I chimed in with talking about Canadian Thanksgiving (which is on the second Monday of October) and how this was an event that my aunts, uncles, and their families got together around. We proceeded then into talking about our religion, namely our own struggles with our backgrounds. I went in-depth into the theology of my Baha’i roots, my own questions and challenges with it, and the situation of growing up as a small religious minority in a highly religious area.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sara Young TS #11

Date/Time: 07/17/19 Location: CIES Lounge Topic discussed: George Lopez and Other American Sitcoms Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Andres and I decided to watch part of an episode of the George Lopez sitcom during our tutoring session, in which Andres was asked to pick up vocabulary or idioms he's never heard before, in which the list was extensive due to the fact that the show is in native English and uses everyday phrases heard in America. Andres also lacked some cultural knowledge on idioms and phrases that were explained to him, to which he enjoyed learning about. At the end of the session, he was given a list of vocabulary words and phrases to cover on his own.
Read more

Sara Young TS #16

Date/Time: 07/26/19 Location: CIES Lounge Topic discussed: Final Review Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Seungjae and I met for our second and final tutoring session, in which I set up a review with example sentences and worksheets to allow him to practice grammar tenses he did not understand. This tutoring session took over an hour, as with many of the questions on the practice he had concerns, to which I helped him clarify with detailed explanations and reasons to grammar. He luckily showed much more understanding at the end of the tutoring session, to which I encouraged him to continue his studies and provided him additional information that would help explain these grammar tenses he struggled with. 
Read more

Sara Young TS #12

Date/Time: 07/17/19 Location: CIES Lounge Topic discussed: Review Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned: Marcia came in after I met with Andres and we hosted a review of all of the concerns she previously had during her first two tutoring sessions, both of which were answered and clarified. Marcia was able to successfully show understanding of the material during our review on present perfect and present perfect continuous tenses, as well as prepositions, all of which were her only real concerns. With this, Marcia and I concluded our third and final tutoring session, after which I provided her with additional links in the case she doesn't understand or remember grammar we covered in the future before wishing her the best of luck in her future English studies.
Read more