Diego's Bristol adventure

This is my first attempt at blogging. I have been thinking about doing it for a while. Now that I am taking the ICT4ELT course, I am forced to do it finally.

I want to tell you about Diego. Diego contacted me last year. He is Italian but had grown up in Argentina. He lived in Milan, with his Argentinian wife. They had decided to relocate to Bristol and as part of the preparation, they decided that Diego should attend a full immersion, one-to-one English course for one month.

He arrived in September 2014, speaking no English. He told me, on his first day in Bristol, that it was like 'walking around in a foreign film, with no subtitles'.

During his course, we studied irregular verbs every day. I taught Diego the phonemic alphabet by asking him to collect 10 words of vocabulary every day. Every morning, he chose five words and wrote them on the board, showing the parts of speech, the stress, the translation (into Italian or Spanish) and an example sentence, with the word of vocabulary in a different colour. We also wrote the word in the phonemic alphabet. I gave Diego a key, showing the symbols and the sounds. By sounding out the word and asking Diego to give me the word which corresponded to the sound, he gradually learned the phonemic alphabet.

He also wrote a daily diary, which we used as a grammar clinic. It is an interesting exercise because you write sentences as you would in your own language, using the foreign words in the order of your own language. So this way, we could look at the grammar problems experienced while trying to express himself; past simple and present simple tenses and when it is appropriate to use the present perfect; the word order in English sentences; irregular verbs and vocabulary. When the diary was completed and corrected, we recorded it and in this way, it becomes a pronunciation activity. I usually send the audio file, so the student can listen again, send it to friends or post it on a social media site.

It's much more interesting for me to hear my students expressing their observations and feelings as most students arrive with similar language problems. Because of this, if I rely on English course books, I am always reading the same units!

I helped Diego with his CV in English and told him about our conventions with CVs. I arranged for him to do some voluntary work at Oxfam, so that he could show work experience in this country on his CV.

I also helped him to a flat. It's very difficult to know where to start, when you move to a new city. I accompanied him on his visits to the estate agents, when he started his search for a home. He was quite shocked at how expensive and how difficult it was to find a flat in Bristol. He arrived in September and wanted to move in October and I guess that since we have two universities in the city, he was competing with many university students.

I took Diego to listen to live jazz in pubs; we went to the Affordable Art Fair where I 'gave' him a budget of £1000 and asked him to choose art for his new flat. We went to meet my friends for coffee and dinner and invited them to join us for dinner. This way, he was able to meet and communicate with different people and make friends.

By the end of the month, he was able to converse comfortably and confidently in English. My friends who met him again at the end of his month with me were amazed at his progress! He left at the end of September and moved into his rented flat in an area near the train station which is quite fashionable and full of artists and musicians. His wife, Veronica, left her job in January 2015 and has now joined Diego. Good luck to both of them!

Here are some photos of his experience: Photos of Diego's experience