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my student is really cute:) sometimes misunderstands what I say (e.g concept of 2 truths 1 lie) but she's very participative and tries her best to explain/elaborate on what she says. she also thought the video was very funny

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aditi talked about the shows she watches, like Molkki and Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah! We also talked about language and dialect, and she taught me some phrases in the Uttarakhand dialect Jaunpuri.

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What you can write about: (one or 2 sentences is ok too!)

Engagement: Was your student entertained throughout the session? What kept/can keep their attention?

Difficulty: Could your student understand the materials/answer the questions? What are his/her weaker/stronger areas?

Student Growth: Have you made any new discoveries about how your student learns/what they like? Have you made any progress with your student? (eg. bond, confidence, attitude)

What was the best part of the session? How can you improve in the next session?

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Student was very participative throughout the session. He could understand most of the lesson content and clarified when he couldn’t understand any words. It’s quite evident that he enjoys learning English. He even requested for two lessons per week instead of one.

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my student seemed very interested in talking to me as well as shows good potential in learning English. she was also very determined to do better and try her best. I can improve in the next session by starting with the class work first so that it can better ease us into the session

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Student was participative and tried his best to answer all the questions. However, we faced some technical difficulties and while his camera and audio were on at the start, he faced some technical difficulties and could not do so later. Due to his technical difficulties, he would sporadically leave the call so he ended up having to answer the questions through the chat function. Hopefully the technical difficulties can be resolved and we can have a more productive and better session next week!

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my buddy was very cooperative with all the activities we had in plan and showed interest when prompted with questions. He’s very keen on learning and makes it a fun and engaging session for both of us

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my student was very participative throughout the session and showed interest in getting to know me as well :) he was generally able to understand most of the words i used during the lesson and was proactive in clarifying his doubts :) he was very excited and asked me if we can have the next lesson soon! he also shared that he enjoys talking :)

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My buddy is very polite and seems interested during the call. She seems to understand my questions but I am not too sure as sometimes there is no response. However, some details get lost in translation as her responses tend to be short/ sometimes not answering the question? Overall, I attempted to prompt her to talk more but I have to find more ways to do so more next week.

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My  student  is an enthusiastic learner, moreover she is passionate about  English! Despite some internet issues she managed  to smile and cooperate throughout the lesson. Even though she doesn’t enjoy speaking, she tried her best to communicate and didn’t give up. Honestly, she inspired me to step out of my comfort zone too! I learnt a lot from her :)

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My student seemed enthusiastic about learning English. He understood most of the words I was using, though his grammar when responding was weak. We worked on this by speaking more and practicing repeating words and phrases with the right grammar and structure. We faced technical difficulties and I was unable to share my screen, but overall it went quite smoothly. My student seemed eager to learn and requested if we can have classes 2 times a week in the future! A good experience all in all.

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My student is really nice but is introverted. It is hard to get him to speak as much but I’m trying my best. We went through simple phrases together and even learnt some new words. He enjoyed the various games and videos scheduled but understanding them fully was a challenge.

I’m confident he will keep revising everything we discussed in today’s session and will improve further. I’ve also given him an entertaining homework of watching the JordIndian video which he will explain to me in Week 2

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Ayush is an amazing student and is certainly very very smart , he was able to guess words way before the clues were given and his English vocabulary at that level was absolutely astonishing, he will certainly be a pleasure to teach. He responds to all my questions immediately and also gets his family involved at times.

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My student seems enthusiastic and understands most of what I say. He does not seem to have too many grammar errors while speaking. However, he gives mainly one or two word answers and I'm forced to keep asking several questions which got a bit repetitive. He enjoyed and understood the games but did not seem to have any questions regarding the video, so I asked him to rewatch it and come back with questions for the next class. Overall, I need for him to speak for a longer duration so I can more clearly see his weaker areas and help him improve

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My student was somewhat interested in the lesson. I believe he tried to concentrate but I think he couldn’t as much because his network was very bad and the call cut multiple times. Overall the lesson was fun and I could see that he wanted to improve his English skills.

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my buddy was very excited to be able to learn english! and he was very cute also 😬

i think the biggest problem was connection, he was unable to use zoom and took a long time before he could watch the youtube video, and throughout the whatsapp video call there were many poor connection instances and we often can’t hear each other

however he still remained very enthusiastic about the lesson! and was still good overall as i got to know about him and his friends and family. 👍🏻👍🏻 took a selfie with him too!

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My buddy is friendly and participative. He tried to respondto all my questions although sometimes he could not understand the questions. He showed cooperation in my instructions and responded well to my homework given. Looking forward to see his video about his school next week!

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Aryan is a very active student and always answers 'Yes' to all the qns that I ask. It is hard to get any other response beyond a "yes" and requires a lot of prompting. Also, he didn't understand the game so we played simplified Pictionary instead. But, I managed to learn quite a lot of things about him and his family :) Overall, the session was fun and engaging but Aryan had to leave early tonight as he had to sleep early for school tomorrow so we only watched half of the video. Moving forward, I will make sure to arrange the lesson in late evening instead of at night so that we have sufficient time to cover the syllabus for each week. It was really a new eye-opening experience for me!

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The lesson went well. My student was very engaged and focused throughout the lesson.Surprisingly, we managed to finish a lot! She enjoyed watching the movie trailer and this time she answered every question confidently! Moreover, she finished her previous homework so I was able to discuss a lot with her! In general it was a fun lesson.

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It was a good session. During the previous session, my buddy had some technical issue and he could not watch YouTube and we could not use Zoom to have our session. However, we managed to adapt to the situation and he suggested using Whatsapp video calls. It was smooth today and I was surprised when he sent me his homework of filming his school just after the day of our first session! We discussed about our school life and school environments. Also, we watched Wonder's movie trailer and he enjoyed it. Although his English is not very good yet and he answers "Yes" to most of my questions, but through some interactions I found out that he is able to understand my questions and that is quite good already!

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this week’s lesson went relatively well although there were more words he didn’t understand! he took the initiative to clarify the meaning of words he didn’t understand :) he had no problem understanding the contents of the video and enjoyed watching it :) we didn’t manage to complete the writing segment as there was no time but he said he’ll do it by the next lesson since he can’t interview his teacher bc he’s having school hols now :)

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We didn't manage to do the writing segment because we ran out of time. Instead, my buddy introduced me to her siblings. She couldn't hear my question sometimes, but it was probably because she was outside and her environment was noisy. For the next session, I'll make sure to arrange it at a time when she's at home.

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Ayush is very attentive and was able to memorise the meaning of all the vocabulary that I have taught him within a day. He was very engaged with the lesson and was constantly able to answer me when I asked the many questions required

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I think this session went a little smoother than the last, but again my student could not turn on his camera and voice, even through whatsapp video call. He couldnt watch the video either due to bad network, so he said he would watch it after the lesson. So far we have communicating through the chat function, and I wonder if there could be better ways to communicate with him. Hopefully the session could be improved next time.

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My student was participative and engaged during the lesson. This time, we used WhatsApp video call throughout and experienced no technical difficulties, which helped the lesson progress more smoothly. He understands most of what I am saying, which was good to see. However, he does sometimes get confused between similar sounding words. He seems excited to learn, which makes the lesson all the more impactful!

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There was a bit too much background noise, which resulted in her not being able to hear much. However, there was still enthusiasm to participate (e.g watching the video). The clip of the school that she sent was intriguing.

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my buddy was very participative despite the constant lag and connection issues, and he was opening up more as he shared about his favourite food and sports etc, but there were still a lot of background noise and connection issues

overall still a good session!

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good session! she shared a lot about her village Sainji (she was quite eager to talk about this!) and she proactively asked me questions about Singapore:)
Quite a few network issues but we just kept restarting the WhatsApp call and picking up where we left off

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It was almost the same at last time the network was really bad so we did the session on voice call. During this session I came to realise that my buddy was unfamiliar with a lot of the basics and was struggling to form his sentences and answer the questions. It was hard at times to explain him some of the slang from the movie trailer but overall it was a good session

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The lesson went well. We had a few network issues at the beginning but then it was okay. Aditiya seemed to enjoy playing scribblio and requested to play the same game during our next lesson. We managed to cover the entire syllabus.

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This weeks session was good! We experienced some technical difficulties but worked through it. My student seemed eager to tell me about his village and learn a bit about Singapore as well. I was surprised to see that he understood some more advanced vocabulary, and also had an idea about what conjunctions were. A good lesson all in all!

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Aryan is more open to speaking with me. Moving forward, I can help him with his vocab and writing. It was a fun session today!

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managed to have a good session without any technical difficulties. my buddy shared about some tourist attractions near him and was able to identify all the actions in the images (with only a few spelling errors). he was a little shy to speak, so he did not really speak much except at the start of the lesson. Hopefully I can get him to speak a bit more for the next session.

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we had already talked about our hobbies in the first few sessions so this time I asked her about her favourite movie and she managed to describe the whole plot to me! also chatted about skills like knitting, swimming and cycling. she had some basic understanding of conjunctions, and I think the fill in the blank exercises are really helpful.

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Aryan was quite responsive throughout the entire session and went beyond just giving a "yes" response. I think it was because he was becoming more comfortable with communicating with me. However, he still struggles in using gramatically correct sentences while speaking. This may be due to the fact that he speaks only in his native language with his family and friends and only speaks in english with his teachers at school. Also, he didn't complete the homework task from last week as he said he forgot about it. Moving forward, I will give him several reminders about his homework and also encourage him to continue to speak up. Overall, this lesson was a meaningful interaction between both of us!!

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Ayush has amazing handwriting and his letter was very good. His pronunciation is getting better and he is more open to me now .

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had a really nice session with aditi! she was very participative and friendly. She enjoyed sharing about Sainji, and could carry a conversation well with relative fluency. At times, there was difficulty understanding each other but it was all good overall! We talked about many things, like family, school, and our hobbies as well.

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Managed to go through the part on conjunctions with my buddy and he seemed to understand most of it. I think today's session was pretty productive and my buddy also gave feedback that we could try to include more games (like skribble.io which he found really fun) to make the sessions a little more interesting

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my buddy showed me his village/kampung and it looked v spacious and was bustling with activities! i tried to show him my surroundings but it was just trees and other houses😂

connection was slightly better (?) and could hear him speak more words! overall a good session!

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he shared that he likes volleyball/frisbee and other sports he plays in school! i think he is very much more comfortable speaking with me as well!

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it was a good lesson and dhruv was excited when it was his turn to share more about his hobbies and things he enjoys doing :-) he was also engaged during the lesson and wanted to find out more about me too! his comprehension skills have definitely improved and he is able to better understand what i say now :)

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It was a good lesson. My student was very excited to talk about how much he enjoys cricket and told me about some of his other interests as well. He was participative in the lesson and also asked questions!

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The session was fun and my student showed more initiative than last time. The internet was also better so we were lucky enough to have a more wholesome class.
With some spare time left we even talked to each other casually about what we study and what we want to do in the future. It was nice to hear him asking questions about me and singapore and actually showing that he wants to know more.

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the session went relatively well, and dhruv was enthusiastic when it came to sharing more about his dream job :-) he was able to understand the content shared during the lesson well and he is able to communicate his thoughts clearly :) he really enjoyed watching the video!!

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the session was fun and we both got to know each other’s country better! initially when i asked him the questions listed in the docs, he had a bit of difficulty understanding but after i broke them into sub-questions, he was able to easily share more about his village! he was very interested in getting to know more about what singapore is like and asked me many questions! he also asked if i cld send him pictures of singapore :-)

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I think it was a pretty chill session this week, my buddy shared a lot on his 2 dream jobs in the future. There was a little bit of echo on his end so we had to mute when each of us were talking, but I think we managed to communicate really well!

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My student is really interested and shows great potential. She is already quite good for her age and understands me well. She was able to understand the game and gave all the correct answers as well! However she had some difficulties in understanding the video so we wnet through it twice stopping several times along it to clarify doubts. Its quite evident that my student is keen on learning english and doing the best she can. The best part was when she introduced me to a festival of her culture and showed it to me from her house explaining it in extreme detail. It was a bit noisy during the session so next time I can schedule it around a time where there isnt much disturbances.

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The student was engaging quite well with me and was quite excited to explore the various things we had to do. For the most part my student was well versed with the and could understand the literary meanings behind several symbols in the trailer. She didnt know some of the vocabulary for the writing task so we went through it word by word clarifying any doubts that came along the way. Unfortunately there was a lot of connectivity errors which posed as a problem as we had to reconnect and join back several times, thus we were unable to complete the written task, so she said she would complete it as homework and we can go through it at the beginning of the following session.

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my buddy aditi shared a lot about her dream jobs (being a doctor and being in the army), and shared the difficulties in being a girl and pursuing these aspirations!! she also talked a bit about what was going on in her life (her uncle was getting married and they were making wedding preparations) - overall a really enjoyable call!

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the session was good! after watching the CNY video, I got her to guess what my zodiac is and told her what hers is. we searched up our zodiac personality traits together and talked about whether they r accurate😆 she did the exercises on active and passive voice quite well (although she had a few small mistakes), and she found the practices very helpful!

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had a great sharing with my buddy on the different festivals we have, and some interesting things about his culture like traditional dance and wear. Went through briefly about active and passive voice with him but didnt go through in detail on it. I think I'll spend some time on it next session.

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i think dhruv really enjoyed today's lesson and had fun sharing more about the festivals he celebrates! he was also very interested in learning more about the festivals in singapore :-) he had fun guessing our zodiacs, and even asked me to search up the indian zodiac :) after learning more about the different races, he asked if i could teach him abit of chinese! after lesson he spent some time teaching me a bit of hindi and i taught him a bit of chinese as well :)

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my buddy shared that he wants to be a dancer when he grows up! he also shared a few indian dances but i cant really hear or tell what he’s saying but overally a good session!

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he shared that there are many festivals in india like diwali! i shared that we celebrate chinese new year and he seemed to have learnt something!

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the topic tied in really well with the fact that aditi's uncle just got married! i learnt a lot about Indian wedding traditions and got to see a lot of pictures and videos of her uncle's wedding :-) i also shared a bit about some chinese wedding customs!

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the session went well, but at one point we ran out of conversation topics because we already talked about many of the discussion questions before (her dream job and plans when she grows up etc.) I had to think on the spot for a new topic for the speaking segment. nishita's spoken english is quite strong, and I think moving forward we can focus on writing!

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The student is weak but can form sentences . There are grammatical errors but the student learns quickly. The student is extroverted and likes to talk about sports. I think speedy learning is possible with this student.

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This session was good. My student was participative and engaged well with the material. However, seeing as the topic (the future) was a little bit more challenging, we got the opportunity to venture with more difficult vocabulary and grammar structures. We also carried out the reading activities from the slides. My student was also interested in space and excited to talk about it! Though we experienced technical difficulties at times, it was good overall.

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My student is actually very eager to learn and finishes homework on the day that it is given. Considering the level of English of the student, I have decided to go off syllabus for the first few sessions to establish good conversational English . Using Hindi, I am also able to help the student properly structure English sentences. Concepts are easily grasped, but grammatical errors persist. The student has quick thinking skills.

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My student is still highly motivated. He also seems more comfortable talking about himself in English . His grammar is still an issue but he always has the right idea. He liked looking at pictures of Singapore and was fascinated at the different structures.

He also insisted on having class on Monday again which shows me that he’s liking them. I’ve given him the homework. I can’t wait !

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Held this session over 2 30minutes sessions, in the first session, my buddy shared a lot about his trip to Mumbai and in the second session, after I shared my experience travelling overseas, he showed me the fog in his village (with a really nice view), and we ended up playing skribble.io (which my buddy really enjoyed previously) with the travelling vocabulary after the activity. I think in the future, we can consider including more games like skribble.io to make sessions more interesting!

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caught up with my buddy and filled in each other on what we did during the holidays, the session was fun and engaging as my buddy was very participative and curious

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nishita hasn't gone overseas before, but she talked about a picnic her school had 2 years back and her trip to the mountains. she got half the Kahoot questions correct:D we didn't manage to cover the comprehension passage because her data ran out. for future sessions I may do the compre activities before conversation to ensure we finish covering the syllabus!

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Aryan was responsive today but seemed a bit tired after school. Yet, we managed to complete today's tasks well! In subsequent sessions, we have to focus more on writing gramatically correct sentences.

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Aryan was very focussed and attentive during class today. He completed his hw task from last week! It was an enjoyable session today :)

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We shared a lot about each other's cultures today. I realised that he is also a Hindu (same religion as me) and we went on to discuss about some common norms and traditions in the Hindu culture. All in all, it was a new experience for me to discuss about my religion with someone!

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Aryan hasn't travelled overseas before but he has an extended family (very large family) who live in other neighbouring villages. Hence, he often goes to other villages (by train) during the holidays to play with his cousins. He says he enjoys travelling by train as it is a very comfortable and fast way to travel. I shared some of my experiences on travelling overseas to countries like India, Indonesia etc. I hope to have more sessions like this one in the future!!

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I think that the personality test was a super good way to end this programme. While I correctly predicted some of the answers, I also found out personality traits I never knew about my buddy. As I am aware that the test is a rather long and daunting one, I decided to screen share and helped him along. He got kind of bored and tired after a while, but I tried to encourage him and explain to him difficult words. I guess that helped him pull through a little more :D Overall, we had so much fun in the past 11 weeks and he was shocked that our lessons are coming to an end. Nonetheless, we promised each other to keep in contact via Whatsapp! It was exceptionally heartening to hear how he viewed English as a very important language to master and will continue to work hard to improve his English. Lastly, I also reminded him to encourage his friends to learn English as well!

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Did this lesson a while back, but it was fun introducing our favourite music, movie and even youtube videos to each other, I think we both learnt about each other in this session.

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nishita described the plot of a book she read and I had a conversation with her brother about Netflix movies. she also showed me the view in the village and I learnt that they had cows

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Did this session over 2 30 minutes sessions again, first session we discussed more on the upsides of technology and the second more on the downsides of technology. I think it was really interesting talking about some of the assistive tech in the slides with my buddy

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one of the best sessions! nishita learnt about the existence of 3d printers and she liked the assistive technology slides! she also shared about her science experiments in school and talked about her sports day. it was really a productive and enjoyable session🥰

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My student really enjoyed learning about different cultures. I even went beyond the slides and showed him pictures of different cultures of the world. He’s also become much more confident at speaking. Furthermore, he completes the homework before the deadlines as well.

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My buddy shared about her favourite book and the hindi movie she had mentioned as her favourite was something that I had watched as well and so I was able to help her describe more about it.

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My buddy mentioned that she wishes to go to USA to study but does not want to work there. She also mentioned that she has interacted with tourists before and while asking her these questions and hearing her answers, I was able to describe the meaning of words such as "interact" and "scenery" , which I hope she will use from now on :)

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This was one of my favourite sessions! Aryan and I shared about our favourite Hindi movies. I love Hindi movies too! We soon began talking about the plot of the movies, our favourite actors/actresses and favourite songs etc. We both had so much fun in this session :)

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Ended the session with each of us showing around our houses and a throwback to the very first session with a game of skribbl.io! My buddy shared that he felt like his English had improved and he really enjoyed the sessions! Personally, I really enjoyed all the sessions (even while having to deal with all the technical issues) and I felt it really gave me a better perspective of my buddy's life.

Some things other volunteers could consider attempting in the future could be:
1) If facing some technical issues, using the chat function to communicate, sending videos/materials directly to your buddy to watch (beforehand or set it as a hw of sorts) and just being flexible with the materials in general
2) When coming to arranging sessions, make sure to clearly communicate the timings and dates (what time and how long the session is going to be)
3) Making sessions more engaging by playing something interesting e.g. my buddy really liked skribbl.io and we would play that at the end of some sessions using some of the words related to the topic

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This session was quite good. We talked about Singapore's multicultural society and I showed him a video of the lion dance, which he surprisingly recognised. He told me about his favourite festival, diwali, and what he likes about it. He grasped Active and Passive voice quite well, though some terms needed clarification.

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In this week's session, I learnt more about my buddy and his past travel experiences. He told me about a school trip he took to Dehli before covid, and how enjoyable it had been. We talked about the benefits of travelling, like learning about new people and different cultures. He also told me about how he wishes to visit New Zealand one day. I also addressed some repeated errors in sentence structure, which i hope he will carry forward!