Erfaan Mahmoodi TS #5

My fourth session with Yan was at her house because the buses weren’t running. This was on the same day I tutored Salem. Yan talked with me about how she wanted to shift the focus of our tutoring sessions to timed writing, as she was struggling in finishing writing pieces on time in class because of constantly stopping to check grammar and spelling. I gave an analogy to help guide the approach she should take for timed writing: whereas normal writing is a peaceful jog where you can stop to tie your shoelaces or take a breather, timed writing is an Olympic sprint and you must cover as much ground in as little time as possible. Going off of this, we did some practice on the proper use of ‘before’ within a sentence to describe whether the subject had a new experience altogether or had an experience in a new location. Interestingly, the core subject for this tutoring session was also infinitives and gerunds. It took a different turn from Salem’s in that Yan asked how to tell whether a certain verb is supposed to be followed by an infinitive or a gerund. This consumed much of our time, as we collectively agonized over finding a rule but to no avail. To me, it seemed that it was a matter of finding a chart of verbs to memorize, as I didn’t find particular criteria for what a verb should be followed by. After the conclusion of this session, I gave her an assignment to do timed writing before we meet again for our next tutoring session. We then had a rousing discussion on public transit versus cars, obstruction of history, politics, and culture. It reminded me why I want to go abroad, as the connection we made was fantastic and exciting, the sharing of knowledge and views.