Session Two with PR

I don't know about such original titles. Today is 19 October and PR and I met again today at Memorial Library, which is where I think we will likely always meet. I use the ERC because it contains the Global Learning Lab and is where the Educational Resource Center is located, which keeps Jaida entertained. PR has already surprised me today - he had pronounced a word yesterday that contained a /z/ and it didn't come out like a /z/. He used the website I had shown him and had already been working on it. He said his pronunciation suffers more when he is in casual talk, but he is going to work on it. Today we worked on intonation issues a bit. I decided to use Laura Numeroff books for this (and guess who my inspiration was for this!) as they have a lot of variation in intonation. PR and Jaida seem to like each other as well, which is good for me. Anyway, I read the book, to model how it should sound. Then he read the book. As the book progressed, his intonation started out good and then dropped off. I realized what the problem was. We started again, and this time I would read a page and he would read the same page right after me. This worked much better. There was simply too much information at one time before. It feels kind of weird using children's books for an adult who is obviously reading farther in advance than that, but for intonation, I really like these books. He later e-mailed me to let me know how much fun he had and that he was also enjoying using the website I had given him. I am amazed at how grateful ELLs are for any amount of time that can be spared for them. He was feeling guilty, but I assured him that this was helping me too! I haven't had time to do the diagnostic analysis from the taping, but I am anxious to. I will also be looking for information on the Nepali language, as it is always helpful to have some basis on knowledge of the native language.