After Metab's routine smoke break, we continued our tutoring session with possessive pronouns. I knew this concept would be difficult for Metab to understand because in Arabic, possession attaches as a particle to whatever object is being possessed, so words like "my" and "mine" are expressed very differently. I wrote out a chart showing pronouns, possessive determiners, and possessive pronouns (I,Me/My/Mine, You/Your/Yours) to illustrate the relationship between these words. Then I wrote out a series of example sentences to show how each kind of pronoun is used: “I have a pen. It is my pen. It is mine.” After letting him work out the patterns, I gave him a short quiz where I had written out similar sentences with missing pronouns that had to be figured out by context (example: This is _____ house. It belongs to us. It’s ____.) to test his comprehension of the concepts.
It’s nice to have Adel come with him, because his English is much better, and he can translate important instructions and concepts to Metab when there is no other way to carry on the lesson with his very limited English. However, Metab always looks immediately to Adel when I finish speaking, and even though Adel won’t answer him (I have forbidden him from doing so), it’s frustrating that he is still clinging to his Arabic, rather than really forcing himself to practice his English. For the time being though, Adel is more help than hindrance, and is welcome to tag along.
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