Julia TS #1- (Sofia)

Julia TS #1 (Sofia) 

Date/Time: Monday, January 26, 2026, 4-5 pm 


Location: Virtual (Zoom) 


Topic/Skill: Needs Assessment / Minimal Pairs


Feedback Provided to the Tutee: I first conducted a needs assessment of Sofia and asked her questions to gauge her academic and personal language-learning goals. Sofia is currently taking speaking, listening, and grammar classes but wants to focus on composition, reading, and speaking. She always wants specific emphasis on learning casual English speech and slang, as well as perfecting her pronunciation of specific words. To first practice both pronunciation and reading, I had her read a short passage about Taylor Swift and noted pronunciation errors that I heard. We then went over any errors I noted and corrected them. To further practice pronunciation, we went over common pronunciation mistakes native Spanish speakers make when they are learning English, such as "Th" sounds, such as "think" vs "sink" and short and long vowels, such as "ship" vs "sheep", "bit" vs "beat," and "full" vs "fool". Sofia also requested a review of the pronunciation of "thought, through, though, tough." I finally created a Google document with all the corrections and the words we went over so we can review the pronunciations later until she hears the difference in each word. 


Lesson(s) About Tutoring and/or the Tutee: I learned the importance of understanding your tutee's motivations in learning English and what their goals are, both long-term and short-term. Learned that Sofia's long-term goal is a good score on the TOEFL exam, and that she feels that her least strong section is the reading section. This understanding is important, and allows me to specifically tailor my lesson-planning so Sofia can tangibly achieve her goals.




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